Re:Voting in France: Paper ballots, cast in person; no machines
by xyzzyz on Friday April 08, 2022 @04:48PM
(#30962332)
None of your comment addresses my actual question. Your first is a failed attempt at a gotcha, which I expected and specifically preempted by asking whether it was possible, not whether US actually had a democracy. Second is a piece of historical trivia, which is irrelevant to my question.
So, how is it? Is democracy only possible in heavily urbanized countries, so that the citizens never are in more than walking distance from a polling place? Or, hopefully, it is a more general political systems that can apply to more varied range of human societies?
Re:Voting in France: Paper ballots, cast in person; no machines
by tptacek on Friday April 08, 2022 @08:06PM
(#30963960)
I'm sorry. I didn't make this clear enough. I thought "voter registration was an innovation of the Progressive Era" spelled this out, and that it was sort of also implied by the fact that for much of the 19th century, we didn't even have widespread photography, and certainly not photographic ID, but, to be clear: my point was that in the 19th century nobody had to go to the DMV to vote, because voter identification wasn't a thing.
Before I responded to your original comment, I did some poking around about 19th century voting practices. It's an interesting question. If you want to keep talking about it, can I ask first if you've taken the time to do the same thing? This is one of those discussions where we don't have to derive everything axiomatically.
Re:Voting in France: Paper ballots, cast in person; no machines
by pvg on Friday April 08, 2022 @07:27PM
(#30963725)
None of your comment addresses my actual question. Your first is a failed attempt at a gotcha
That's a curious characterization given your original question is a gotcha question, someone just replied to it as if it wasn't.
That aside, though: voting in the 19th century looked nothing like it does today. Most of what we think of as modern Democratic voting (the secret ballot, registration, etc) are Progressive Era reforms.