Elections Data Point to Bear In Mind Re Turnout

[bellatrys]

Tuesday night I went back to my voting location to see how turnout was, an hour before closing (a lot heavier), and chatted with the poll workers briefly about things. They mentioned to me that the registration was very high, for a midterm - out of about 2000 people voting in our little ward, they had registered about 200 that day

Comments

[stardragonca]

How complicated is registering on Election Day?
In Canada,it's fairly straightforward.(The penalties for hugger mugger are immense.)

Depends on the state (and ward!)

[bellatrys]

In my area, it's painfully easy, they have same-day registration and at the polls the last two times (as the ones where I've both voted and been paying attention, see icon) they had tables set up to expedite the process. (We also have color-in-the-dots paper ballots printed up in big clear print.) I thought that was the way it was in every state, until after the 2000 election, and the words "butterfly ballots", people being struck off the rolls illicitly, people being challenged for ID (here in Manchester NH you show up, if you're already registered, and give them your name, and they go down the printout with a ruler until they find you, you make sure they're crossing you and not a relative off, they scratch you out & wave you on to the booth) and so on came to my consciousness, and the growing awareness that despite the laws of the Civil Rights era, lots of things hadnt really changed, and not all down South either (q.v. Cleveland, Chicago, etc.) In MA, I heard from someone who tried to register that they don't have same day, *and*