<story><title>Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/widely-used-election-systems-are-vulnerable-to-attack-report-finds-1538020802</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ntsplnkv2</author><text>Seems simple enough to just make it a national holiday.</text></item><item><author>BatFastard</author><text>Elections are held on Tuesday as a way of restricting who can vote PERIOD. 
Poorer voters have a harder time getting off work, and getting transportation to voting site, which is usually close to their home, but not their work.</text></item><item><author>seren</author><text>Why are elections not held on Sundays ? I assume that on average there are less people working that day that Monday - Friday, so less people would have to take time off from their job.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Found this&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; In 1845, the United States Congress chose a single date for all national elections in all states. The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November was chosen so that there would never be more than 34 days between Election Day and the first Wednesday in December. Election Day is held on a Tuesday so that voters will not have to vote or travel on Sunday. This was an important consideration at the time when the laws were written and is still so in some Christian communities in the United States.&lt;p&gt;This seems a pretty dated reason. Why no one is proposing to change it ?</text></item><item><author>jniedrauer</author><text>&amp;gt; It’s a little taxing, but everyone involved enjoy the process&lt;p&gt;This is part of the problem in the United States. Voting is a chore, and you&amp;#x27;re often going to lose money (unpaid time off) to do it. If elections were national holidays and voting was treated as a privilege instead of a chore, we would be much better off.</text></item><item><author>return-value</author><text>I work for the municipality of Skanderborg, Denmark. We have what we call digital elections, but what’s digitized is the registration process. Basically every adult gets a voting card with their information + a barcode, we scan those barcodes when they turn up to receive their ballot(is that the right word for voting list?), and then they are registered.&lt;p&gt;The actual voting takes place on paper, and while it takes time to prepare the ballots and count the votes, the process of voting doesn’t take very longer than a few minutes for the individual citizen. From they enter the voting place till they are done.&lt;p&gt;I think that’s the way to digitize elections, you make them speedy for the citizens, but safe for democracy.&lt;p&gt;I can’t for the life of me understand why you would ever do a digital vote. It’s just so risky. I guess you save money by adding effectiveness to the process surrounding an election, preparing ballots and counting votes, but those parts of the process are owned by the public sector and I don’t think the government should ever value the safety of our democracy as less important than money. We count votes by enlisting employees of the municipality, members of political parties and paid help from local NGOs, and everything is monitored and counted a few times. It’s a little taxing, but everyone involved enjoy the process, and financially it’s not that expensive compared to paying a license for voting machines.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jrockway</author><text>People work on national holidays, though.&lt;p&gt;I assume there is some correlation between people who are unlikely to receive paid time off for voting and people that have to work on unusual days, so I&amp;#x27;m not sure changing what day Election Day falls on will fix anything.&lt;p&gt;The solution is to mandate that employers give you a couple of paid hours off on Election Day.  I would be surprised if this was not already the case in several states.&lt;p&gt;States can also help out by keeping the polls open for longer hours, so that someone who has to work an 8 hour shift has plenty of time on either side of their workday to go vote.  (Last primary, I forgot in the morning, then worked late... and still had plenty of time to vote after work.  The same is not true in every state.)</text></comment>
<story><title>Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/widely-used-election-systems-are-vulnerable-to-attack-report-finds-1538020802</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ntsplnkv2</author><text>Seems simple enough to just make it a national holiday.</text></item><item><author>BatFastard</author><text>Elections are held on Tuesday as a way of restricting who can vote PERIOD. 
Poorer voters have a harder time getting off work, and getting transportation to voting site, which is usually close to their home, but not their work.</text></item><item><author>seren</author><text>Why are elections not held on Sundays ? I assume that on average there are less people working that day that Monday - Friday, so less people would have to take time off from their job.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Found this&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; In 1845, the United States Congress chose a single date for all national elections in all states. The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November was chosen so that there would never be more than 34 days between Election Day and the first Wednesday in December. Election Day is held on a Tuesday so that voters will not have to vote or travel on Sunday. This was an important consideration at the time when the laws were written and is still so in some Christian communities in the United States.&lt;p&gt;This seems a pretty dated reason. Why no one is proposing to change it ?</text></item><item><author>jniedrauer</author><text>&amp;gt; It’s a little taxing, but everyone involved enjoy the process&lt;p&gt;This is part of the problem in the United States. Voting is a chore, and you&amp;#x27;re often going to lose money (unpaid time off) to do it. If elections were national holidays and voting was treated as a privilege instead of a chore, we would be much better off.</text></item><item><author>return-value</author><text>I work for the municipality of Skanderborg, Denmark. We have what we call digital elections, but what’s digitized is the registration process. Basically every adult gets a voting card with their information + a barcode, we scan those barcodes when they turn up to receive their ballot(is that the right word for voting list?), and then they are registered.&lt;p&gt;The actual voting takes place on paper, and while it takes time to prepare the ballots and count the votes, the process of voting doesn’t take very longer than a few minutes for the individual citizen. From they enter the voting place till they are done.&lt;p&gt;I think that’s the way to digitize elections, you make them speedy for the citizens, but safe for democracy.&lt;p&gt;I can’t for the life of me understand why you would ever do a digital vote. It’s just so risky. I guess you save money by adding effectiveness to the process surrounding an election, preparing ballots and counting votes, but those parts of the process are owned by the public sector and I don’t think the government should ever value the safety of our democracy as less important than money. We count votes by enlisting employees of the municipality, members of political parties and paid help from local NGOs, and everything is monitored and counted a few times. It’s a little taxing, but everyone involved enjoy the process, and financially it’s not that expensive compared to paying a license for voting machines.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>subpixel</author><text>&amp;quot;Seems simple enough&amp;quot; is to politics what &amp;quot;this should be a quick fix&amp;quot; is to engineering.</text></comment>