Drew Eckhardt 

Many states allow either everyone or "absentee voters" to cast ballots by mail.

Take a look at the rules where you live; you may be able to save yourself a trip and long wait in line.

I've ridden to vote, although dropping off a completed ballot and handling the entire process by mail are both better options.

Tundra_Man 

Yes. My polling place is about 1/2 mile from my house. I'll usually take a slight detour on my way home and swing in to vote.

DiabloScott

Darth Lefty 

I should look into whether it's worthwhile for me to vote again.

Nationally, candidates are usually decided before our primaries in June, which made 2008 more interesting than usual. My state has gone blue for President and senators in recent decades, and my district was gerrymandered deep red. But since Prop 11, my district is purple.

Locally, before 2012, I lived in the city of Folsom which has a city council system that makes incumbents impossible to oust, and was fully controlled by developers. Now I live in unincorporated Sacramento County. I've yet to learn how it works politically.

alan s 

My polling place is over 4 miles from my home, so walking there is not really an option. I'm envious of those who can walk around the corner to vote. I actually drive past two closer polling places to get to mine. Something very strange going on in Maryland. The US Supreme Court recently ruled on gerrymandering in Maryland, but the case is far from over.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...198_story.html

no motor?

That's a pretty nice video, is your commute that nice too?

BobbyG

I've got three main routes...plus more stuff at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...5TfAHK4EOymjDg

CliffordK

We've got vote by mail, and I've frequently ridden my bike to the official ballot box to drop off the filled out ballot rather than using mail.

The one problem is that the best dropoff spot requires about 1/2 mile of freeway riding

Viich

I did last election (Canada). Nice fence outside the community centre, almost perfect to lock to.
And I know the advance poll votes are counted here, I believe they're counted before or during the election day. As soon as the election coverage starts when the polls close, they immediately release a number of polls.

PatrickGSR94

If it can get more people to actually cast a vote, it can only be a good thing.

Steely Dan

our polling place is in the church at the end of our block, about 100 steps from our front door, so i'd feel a little silly riding a bike such a short distance.

and in all my times voting there, i've never had to wait in a line, so i guess i'm double lucky.

lostarchitect 

Yeah, there is no reason why voting should be difficult.

tarwheel 

My polling station is an elementary school directly behind my house, with a path leading to it from my neighborhood. Thus, I just walk to the poll on election days. It takes me less than 5 minutes to walk there, less time and trouble than it would take to ride my bike. I never drive to vote.

RubeRad

I'm actually conflicted about that concept. I think most people today (including myself) are uninformed, or at least underinformed, about the issues. I do vote, and when I do, the best part is reading in the voter guide the independent assessment of the propositions, and the two pages of pro/con/rebuttal each side is allowed to provide. Then I have some basis for a decision. But when it gets down to candidates for small local offices, it's a crapshoot.

For national office, ever since the advent of TV made it easy for JFK to beat a sweaty, ugly Nixon, it's just turned into a popularity contest. People vote for whoever gives them better feels.

If people are not interested in the process enough to vote, they're also probably not interested enough to inform themselves; do we really want disinterested/uninformed people making decisions? What criteria will they use to choose who to vote for? How will that shape politicians that pander to those critiera in order to get votes?

(Similarly for jury selection, I'm not convinced the average joe off the street is really qualified to make an objective decision, and able to see through the bluster and showmanship of an expensive criminal defense attorney, or a smooth-talking ambulance-chaser.)

Phil_gretz

I've ridden my bike to vote for the last 4 or 5 years or so. With our new neighborhood, the polling station is about a 300 yard walk. My wife and I walked over together for a local ballot issue this summer.

AlTheKiller

I have ridden the past few years. I've never had to wait in line either, is that more common in big cities? My polling places usually have dozens of booths, with few people around voting. Though I do often go late morning/early afternoon. I guess after work is probably the busy time.

Well, the more local issues often don't have a face attached to them, but are still confusing to figure out what's "right", but don't always have quite the bias that an elephant or donkey have.

Voting for people definitely has its weird quirks though. The GOP who has been foaming at the mouth about hispanic immigrants, or thinking our current president is "foreign born" (which he isn't), and that he's just an ivy leaguer out of touch with average America. And then this week they give the most votes to a guy born in Canada with the name "Rafael Cruz", who went to princeton then harvard law, and is married to a head of Goldman Sachs.... I mean, you can't make this stuff up. (Many Democrats liking Hillary is equally confusing to me)

alan s 

Trump's grandparents anglicized their name from Drumpf.

caloso

I don't agree with a single thing Cruz says or does, but I have no beef with him going by Ted. My mom and her siblings are first-generation; they all went by (and in some cases legally changed their names to) Anglicized versions of their birth names.

Tundra_Man 

My ancestors about five generations back had a split in the family, where one side changed the spelling of our last name to match its pronunciation, and the other side changed the pronunciation to match the spelling. So I have some distant cousins with a different last name.

lostarchitect 

Most people have always been uninformed, though. There never was a golden age of American democracy. I'd actually say that voting for the guy who give you "better feels" might be an improvement! A hundred years ago you probably never even saw the guy you voted for, you (maybe) read something about him in the (probably very biased) newspaper, saw a few leaflets for and against him (probably filled with libel), and that was what you had to go on. At least now you can actually see the candidates speak and debate on TV and decide if you agree with them and think they're trustworthy. I'm not saying people shouldn't be more informed--they should--but today they have a lot more sources of information than they used to, and those sources are probably not any worse than they were years ago.

Personally I think it should be very easy to vote. I'm all for early voting, voting by mail, etc. If candidates are against making voting easy, I immediately wonder why. What do they have to hide?

RubeRad

You're probably right. There's nothing new under the sun.

Being against making voting easy seems to be (at least recently) typically a republican/conservative, I guess because people that find voting not easy are more likely to vote democrat? (i.e. are more likely non-white, more likely lower-income, more likely unable to take time off work, or travel to a polling place, etc)

lostarchitect 

Yeah, that seems to be the gist of it. I'm an independent but I am against making it harder to vote, which I consider to be against the ideals of this country.

Darth Lefty 

That's just the way the coalitions are worked out today. It's a matter of who's got power and feels like they're losing it; who doesn't have power and feels like they should.

A similar example would be the constant drive in every state to split up the electoral college votes rather than voting in a block. This is a strategy to break the power of the state in the electoral college, and it's always pursued by the party that's out, appealing directly to the voters to evade the hostile legislature.

gregjones

The last time I voted I showed my ID to the attendant at the desk. He looked at it an asked why I was riding a bike when I have CDL's. To simplify things I told him that the truck wouldn't fit in the parking lot.

blackieoneshot 

Always.