I will attempt to answer your questions, please keep in mind that I am just an average person, not a legal expert in voting.
Postal votes - I was very surprised and angered by this. I had no idea until that particular Gore / Bush election when the system was scrutinized a bit more. The response from the local county registrar of voters was essentially "we assume that the votes cast by mail statistically follow the ones cast at the polls, so there is no need to open them".
I am not sure if I believe that or not, but I really don't think it matters. If I took the time to vote, they should at least pretend that my vote matters.
The ratio of mail in votes vs cast at the polls has increased dramatically over the past 10 years, so now they claim that they do in fact count them.
Voting in multiple locations
There are a couple of steps to voting:
- The very first time that you want to vote, or move and want to vote at a new address, you have to register. This is either on-line or more commonly by sending in a post card available for free at any local post office.
- The registration is done at the county level, so you can in theory register to vote in every county of every state if you chose to. (doing this is a misdemeanor, so not legal, but it can be done)
- Once you have voted in an election, more or less your name is on the list for that address forever, even if you move away or die. There is no system to remove names, and any attempt to do this is highly criticized.
Over the past 40 years, I have lived in 6 locations in 4 states. There is a very good chance that my name is still on the voter registration for those locations and I would have no difficulty voting in at least 5 of them. The small town I grew up in would be risky because everyone knows each other.
In many states, there is a time delay of 2 -4 weeks between registration and the election. This gives them time to put your name on the list "officially". In some states, (I think CA, but not sure) you can register and vote on the same day. (I am pretty sure that no ID of any kind is required)
When you arrive at the designated polling place for your neighborhood, there are two books that cross check your name and address, and you have to sign it. No ID is needed, and I can't help but notice that two of my children who have not lived with us for 10 years still have their names in the book, but actually are registered and vote in other cities.
It would be very simple for them (or someone pretending to be them) to vote under their name and the chance of being caught is nearly zero.
I am not really sure how you would separate the concepts of voting for President vs a state senator / congressman or state governor. It would be as if one election is "real" and the other is "not quite as real". Usually the way that these state level aspects become standardized is by using grant funding that is handed out in exchange for adopting certain "desirable guidelines".
In spite of many people's objections, Trump actually is trying to work on standardizing the voting procedures across the country and I think on average that it will be an improvement over what we have now. It might take a few years (or presidential cycles) to get the bugs worked out, but it does need improvement and some method of verification.
In the US, at 18, in theory you are a full adult citizen with legal responsibility. If you sign a contract before 18, it isn't valid, so associating voting to the age of 18 is reasonable.
In the US, at 16, most likely you have never had a job of any kind and are overly influenced by teachers vs the real world in your voting. I would be more likely to give a 16 year old the right to buy beer than to vote, in fact I think we really should dramatically reduce the drinking age.
As far as voting and prison / felony related, I am very hesitant to take away full citizenship rights from anyone, no matter what they have done. As an example, if you strip away the right to vote, people loose the little respect they already have for government institutions, and the rest of society becomes completely unimportant to them. Voting gives people a way to at least pretend that the politicians care about them.
There is nothing gained for society by creating second tier citizens, it is really just beating a person when they are already down.
Personally, I would promote the idea of actively helping prisoners vote in every election, no matter what they have done. What is the worst that could happen - they vote against a local politician?
You might be surprised at how much gerrymandering is a factor, perhaps not so much nationally, but at the local vote and local issue level, it is a big deal.
The noise the world hears is our national news and presidential level vs media vs sore loosers, but the real action is a the local and state level. The position of President is important, but it is somewhat of a ham strung position due to the political battles.
No matter who was elected president, they would have faced exactly the same protesting, news media bs, calls for impeachment, etc. that is happening with Trump. It is a pretty thankless job and it isn't as if anyone who ran was all that well loved.
Trump had an interesting comment to potential voters, aimed particularly at black voters in MI - something like "You have had a black President for 8 years, how are you doing compared to before? If you vote for me, what have you got to loose?". I think you are right when you say that many of the people that voted for Trump didn't particularly like him, but felt like they had little to loose.
Probably similar to the Brexit vote.
I think that no matter who is the President, that they would be subject to a media intent on destroying them, for a combination of personal pleasure and professional gain.
You can look at the relationship of the white house and the media as far back as I can remember, certainly back to Johnson / Nixon / Carter ,,, up to Obama, and pretty much all of them were under constant media attack.
I really doubt that Hillary would be in any better position (turmoil wise) than Trump is right now, and perhaps she would have been in worse shape.
The same divisiveness that is now so built into our system during elections is the same divisiveness that is used to keep the President (no matter who it is or what party) from being effective. This is not just between the two main parties, but also within the same party. As an example, both Romney and Jeb Bush were hell bent that they deserved to be President and their "crown" was taken away by Trump. They were and remain firmly against anyone that blocks this, even someone with similar political opinions.
It doesn't actually matter if I agree with the US President or not, because my vote in CA is nearly irrelevant, no matter my political views.
What I do think is important is that we try to work within the system in a positive way and to make whoever is holding the Office of the President "comfortable", because when they aren't, the typical result has been that someone starts a war. Wars have a very powerful effect on pulling the country together behind a common cause, and I would like to see this avoided.
Just slightly more directly answering your question - Trump ran on a "I am going to make some serious changes" kind of agenda. If you have ever worked in a company with a new CEO with a similar agenda, life can be unsettling, to say the least.
Some of his positions, particularly on our trade deficit problem with China, I completely agree with. As a practical matter, I don't think he is being tough enough on them, and if he doesn't get tougher, he will be a one term president.
Pulling out of the pan pacific trade pact - I am very happy that this pact failed as it just gave away the store.
US tax laws on business are a complete mess, it is hard to really know if they will get better or worse. Certainly the current tax system on businesses is driving companies to leave, and is unfair to small and medium business owners who follow US tax laws vs very large companies that can do multi national tax haven games.
No matter who won the election, both Clinton and Trump have son-in-laws that are prominent business people with exceptional ties to Israel and very anti - Iran. I am not completely comfortable with this situation, but it would not have been different no matter who won. I am hoping that this is more of a staging for negotiations than a real problem.
NATO - Yes, I think it is obsolete and don't really understand why it still exists other than to annoy people and spend money. The EU is a large enough critical mass that they can and should pull their own defense together instead of just beating up indebted countries.
Russia - potential influence on elections. I don't doubt that they did have some influence, but so did a bunch of other countries including the UK, the bulk of the EU, most of the middle east, Japan, etc.
Can you imagine if someone actually started to investigate if the UK, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Germany and Canada had any influence on our elections? Not a single politician at any level would be spared.
As a practical matter, we are all better off figuring out how to work with Russia than constantly against it, because they are a substantial, international influence.
Certainly there are areas where I don't agree with the positions of Mr. Trump, but then again, my wife tells me that I don't usually agree with most anyone.
I am very much trying to be cooperative in getting our country working again, because the divisiveness we have is not helpful for anyone.
Stop right there. POTUS is not even remotely like a "CEO", and a nation cannot be run like a for-profit business. This fundamental misunderstanding is a major source of Trump's woes -- and by many accounts, he was a lousy businessman.
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You can register to vote and vote if you are:
Print Versions in ten languages
You can register to vote and vote if you are:
I will go back and look at this some more, because you point out some important distinctions.
Keep in mind that it isn't unusual for CA prisons to release prisoners early and put them on both parole and probation, so they still cannot vote.
If the terms of probation are not met (which can be very simple violations, like having a beer) then you are once again blocked.
Interestingly, voting is not a constitutional "right" AFAIK, but there are fundamental rights that are taken away permanently. Personally, I don't think that someone who has committed a felony should be blocked from receiving a scholarship to attend college for instance, nor have their "fundamental rights" taken away permanently.