Why can't we standardize voting for the country? Or at least for the state?

[sohcrates]

As i waited 2.5 hours to vote today, and watched as a 75 year old grandmother thumbed through reams of paper to find my name on a list, and then used a voting machine that is different than the last 3 voting machines i have used (and is a different machine than my buddy used, who lives less than 10 miles away)...

I wondered why they can't standardize voting? If we're the "leading" democracy in the world, and everything we do is based off our ability to vote our leaders into power, why oh why is the voting system run so poorly and so seemingly disorganized?

I mean, at my polling place there were no signs as far as which line to get into until you got almost to the check in booth, there was no one telling people how long the wait was, and there were a whopping

FIVE voting machines. There are easily over 5 thousand people within a couple blocks of this voting location (i'm in a city).

Anyway, it just seems that because we only go through this "every 4 years", no one cares enough to improve it maybe?

 

[rh71]

because 75 year old grandmothers still need to understand the machines. Lowest common denominator... we do it the old people's way. Things will change 10 elections down the road, don't worry.

 

[FoBoT]

it is up to the states, voting is NOT a federal responsibility


then by state, most break it out to a county function, so each county, depending on the Sec. of State , can then do their own thing, or follow some standards set by the state


each county/state needs to decide if something needs to be changed/fixed


p.s. the United States is a republic, not a democracy. read what the constitution says about voting for president, you might be surprised

 

[KC5AV]

It would cost money to standardize. That would probably equate to higher taxes, because the money has to come from somewhere. Some districts are poorer than others, so your rich district would have to pay for my poor district to have the same technology. I heard a radio talk show host today calling for a national identification to be used for voting (among other things). He said that we have the technology to make it, and people wouldn't be able to fake them. I'm sure that anything technology can create, technology can duplicate.