For me it is the concept of registering to vote. I am citizen so I have the right to vote automatically and only thing I need to provide is some accepted ID.

  • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 months ago

    Electoral college is fucking weird

    That you disallow prisoners to vote, but a felon can run as a candidate

    That you end up in situation where there are hours long lines and you don’t have one station per, say, 1000 people at most

    Registering to vote is weird, but that is i understand mostly a consequence of not having countrywide ID standard. In my country you’re automatically registered where you live, and IDs are free of charge and mandatory to have (not driving license or passport. there are fees for these)

    Election isn’t on weekend, there’s zero reason why it couldn’t be or it could be made national holiday. There was even free public transit for election day in my city, but that one was paid by the city

    That some of people (republicans) seem to be into politics in the same way ultras seem to be into football, it’s still fucked up but i’ve seen it in other places so it’s not that weird by now

    • figjam
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      2 months ago

      That you end up in situation where there are hours long lines and you don’t have one station per, say, 1000 people at most

      If you make it hard for the people you don’t like to vote, then they won’t vote. You never hear about rich white districts running low on election machines do you. Since the machines are provided by the state I wonder why that would be. 🤔

    • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months ago

      I am not American, but I believe the reason a felon can run is that the founding fathers didn’t want peoples political rivals to be able to bring charges to stop someone being president.

        • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Eugene Debs, the must successful American socialist candidate for president, was at one point running for office while in prison. Of course he lost so I can’t imagine it helped

          • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            I imagine if such a candidate won, the would forfeit their win by not attending the inauguration and not getting sworn in.

            • Mirshe@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Nothing states WHERE the President has to be sworn in. LBJ was sworn in on Air Force One. I believe Andrew Johnson was sworn in at the house where Lincoln lay dying.

            • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Well I don’t really expect someone in prison to win, but I don’t believe there’s any law about the location where the president gets sworn in. If a majority of voters chose that person, they could get sworn in in jail, immediately pardon themselves and off they go.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      but a felon can run as a candidate

      No no this one is one of the good ideas in the American system. In dictatorships this sort of restriction can be and is used as a way to prevent political rivers from running for office.

    • Etterra@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Well to be honest we don’t have a justice system - we have a punishment system pretending to be a justice system.