- To Sherril Huff, With Love
Right now in the The Stranger newsroom (imagine Land of the Lotus Eaters meets Blue’s Clues), we’re having the perennial debate/discussion/whine-a-thon over whether ballots should require a stamp or if mailing them should be free. Tomorrow is the deadline to vote in the primary election so today we’re trying to find a damn stamp. It’s not difficult to leave a ballot at one of the drop boxes (which don’t require a stamp) and a stamp is, well, pretty cheap. But it’s potentially a barrier to voting. So the debate… rages… yawn. And there’s no better way to settle this by voting some more.
PS — Voting on Slog polls now costs 42 cents.
@45, 46, 49
A stamp is not a poll tax, any more than requiring people to show up and pull the lever is a poll tax. Did any of the constitutional scholars that circle this board ever find a case where the cost of gasoline and wear and tear on their car to get to the polling stations was found to be a poll tax? What about the ink that came out of the end of my pen that filled in the circles on my ballot? Poll tax?
We have got to stop identifying life’s inconveniences as opportunities for government to swoop in with a solution. If you’re personally worried about the poor and destitute’s ability to submit their ballot, go around and offer to drop their ballots off for them (and in this I am not being facetious; I used to volunteer for an organization that arranged transportation for the elderly to get to their polling stations – and it didn’t even occur to anyone to think that this should be taxpayer funded). If you perceive a problem, go be a part of the solution instead of whining about the unfairness of it all.
stamps should be optional .. if you want to save the county $ use one and if you don’t or can’t then one should be able to vote w/o a stamp
You don’t pay to vote in these here United States.
The Constitution says so.
Case fucking closed.
They continue to try and deny me my right to vote with this. I have to waste more time out of my day with this system then any other. I demand to be counted.
@51: “We have got to stop identifying life’s inconveniences as opportunities for government to swoop in with a solution.”
Ah, so you’re a privileged libertarian. That explains your actual interest in equality, the “equality of the free market solves all”.
Rot in Randoid hell.
@51 What you say almost makes sense…until you realize it doesn’t.
No, seriously. Who pays the government? We do. If we want to pay the government to give people a convenience like not having to buy a stamp, how is that different than actually buying the stamp ourselves? No, I’m serious here. Especially since, the government can probably get it at bulk rate, thus saving everybody a couple of cents.
@56: And smarmy-jerk statements like ” I used to volunteer for an organization that arranged transportation for the elderly to get to their polling stations – and it didn’t even occur to anyone to think that this should be taxpayer funded).”
SO FUND THEM WITH TAXPAYER MONEY. Don’t get all conservasmug about your charity, embed it in funding, or would that just “lessen” your hour’s worth of volunteering? If it matters, change the system. Your personal “contribution” is good, but not as good as actually fixing a problem.