The strange thing is,
1, there was no significant voter fraud in 2020
2, USA is behind most other developed nations in terms of voter turn out.
3, Voting in USA is already difficult for many, especially minorities
Rather than trying to fix this and make voting easier, the Republican party are going out of their way to make voting more difficult. Citing a desire to reduce voter fraud. (which isn't a problem of any significance)
In their own words: Why some people find voting difficult
There are age and racial differences in views of whether voting will be difficult. About one-in-five adults under 30 who plan to vote (22%) say it will be difficult, compared with 13% of those 50 and older. Among those who plan to vote,
blacks are more than twice as likely as whites to say it will be difficult (29% vs. 13%).
Concerns about logistical hurdles are mentioned by more than a fifth of these voters (22%). These include
long wait times and large crowds at the polls (6%), not having enough time to research the candidates and ballot propositions in each race (6%),
personal scheduling conflicts (4%),
lack of polling places or difficulty in accessing voting stations (3%) and uncertainty about how to vote in general (3%).
US election 2020: Why it can be hard to vote in the US
Queues, restrictive voting laws and limited access to polling stations all keep people from participating in the democratic process, says Andrea Hailey, the CEO of Vote.org, a non-partisan non-profit that aims to use technology to help people register to vote.
There are currently over 300 lawsuits in 44 states concerning how absentee votes are counted, who is allowed to vote early and how mail-in ballots are collected.
Republican-run states say restrictions are necessary to clamp down on voter fraud, while Democrats say these are attempts to keep people from exercising their civic rights.
In Georgia, thousands of voters waited hours just to cast their ballot during early voting. Many attribute the long wait to voter enthusiasm, but other factors - like a limited number of polls, understaffing or computer glitches - have also been blamed.
It's not known how many people are put off from voting because of the queues. But it's clear who it inconveniences more.
A survey conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that
black voters waited, on average, 16 minutes in line during the 2016 election, while white voters only waited 10 minutes. Other studies backed that up.
And long queues disproportionately affect wage workers, who don't get paid time off to vote.
Policies like requiring voters to print out a form can dissuade
younger or poorer voters, who are less likely to own a printer, from voting, says Ms Hailey.
In rural parts of America,
voters may have to drive for hours to reach an in-person polling station.
Four Directions, a Native American voting rights advocacy group, says that
many Native Americans living on reservations have limited access to voting.
In Nevada, for instance, members of the Pyramid Lake Paiutes
must drive almost 100 miles (160km) round trip to get to the closest early voting location.
In Arizona, a lawsuit filed by members of the Navajo Nation asked for extra time to get postal votes in, because there is
just one post office every 707 square miles.
Voter ID laws have emerged in the last decade as part of a wider push by Republican legislatures, ostensibly with the aim of curbing voter fraud, says University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Kenneth Mayer.
But he says the laws' real aim is to keep voters who are more likely to vote Democrat - like the young, poor or African-Americans - at home.
"It's a common trope that everybody has an ID. You need an ID to get on an airplane… to open a bank account. But there are people who don't have bank accounts, who don't fly," he says.
In the US, no evidence of widespread voter fraud has emerged. A commission launched by the Trump administration to look into the 2016 election was disbanded without publishing a report.
