this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 274 points 4 weeks ago (12 children)
[–] [email protected] 54 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

If people actually voted, they might vote for people the oligarchy doesn't like. Bet you didn't think about that, huh? Checkmate libruls!

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 weeks ago
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[–] [email protected] 121 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

Because they don't want the workers voting.

If you "can't go to the ballot because you need to work" you are a plebeian, and so they have a way of excluding you while technically not excluding you.

A lot of modern oligarchy is powered by these technicalities. Technically everyone has a "right to" participate in the system, but the whole apparatus is rigged in such a way that in material reality only the same nobility caste that has called the shots since the bronze fucking age gets to call the shots.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

By law employers are required to allow their workers an opportunity to vote. The problem is other stuff like taking their kids to school and having to go to work right after and by the time you make it to the poll through rush hour traffic, the line is out the door and they shut it down and don’t let you vote even though you waited for an hour.

[–] tquid 27 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

My roommate asked for time off to vote; her employer literally laughed at her. Now, there is legal recourse there, and she would have likely won and even gotten awarded a money judgment.

But she needed that job without interruption. This was in Canada, by the way.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

This is why you don’t ask.

Also, you don’t really need a whole day. I’m also Canadian. Employers are required to allow you time to do it, not an entire day.

I would phrase the question like this: “I need to take time to go vote. Would you prefer I take the morning or afternoon off?”

If they so no to both, you say “you know it’s illegal not to allow me time off to vote, right?”

I’ve changed careers since the last election, but as a driver I’d just say “I’m going to swing by the polling place in my way to or back from wherever” and it was never a problem.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

It really depends on how much you need that job to like

Not be homeless

And how hard it was to get the job in the first place.

You can make your legal rights count if you have options.

If you don't, you let your boss walk all over you and thank them for it.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

So the bare minimum that even my little Eastern European hellhole could do was that a polling place closing means that those in line can still vote.

A poll worker gets in line exactly at closing time, and those in front get to vote however long that takes. It's not hard to organize.

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[–] ayyy 13 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

The law also doesn’t require employers to pay for that time, so many can’t afford to take the time off even if their employer is chill about it.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

The thing is

"The law says it has to happen" doesn't mean it happens.

And the weaker labour protections are in your country, the more bosses can walk all over their employees.

In the US, with their so-called "at-will" employment system, you can be fired at any time for any reason, and if you need the job to like, live, you won't even bring up your legal rights.

Mind you even on countries where polling happens exclusively on Sunday (like mine!) there are other subtle ways The Poors ^tm^ are kept from enfranchisement. "Voting happens on a work day" is just one of the ways it happens in one of our world's oligarchies.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 weeks ago

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."

[–] [email protected] 80 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Cuz America is a backwards ass country

[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 weeks ago

A third world country in a Prada belt.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 4 weeks ago (7 children)

Wait, you guys are getting President's Day off work??

[–] [email protected] 52 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Yeah, making election day a national holiday doesn't help those of us who don't get most holidays off.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Right. Congress would need to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to mandate that employers give national holidays off to employees for this to apply to everyone.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 weeks ago

This was my thought as well. Too many years of retail has left me with an instinctual hatred for holidays. Like how Labor Day is a holiday for the rich to "celebrate" the working poor who have to work that day.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Sure, here you go: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7329

One of many such bills.

Take a look at the sponsors. I'll give you 1 guess at which party would vote it down, because it would hurt them in elections.

It's the same reason Puerto Rico will never be a state.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Because only people who are able to afford a day off are supposed to vote. That's also why republicans agitate against postal voting and why early vote ballot drop-offs are burning.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 weeks ago (7 children)

In most civilized countries, voting takes place on weekends and your employer is legally obligated to let you leave work to go vote

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 weeks ago (9 children)

Even if you made it a federal holiday, the wage slaves would still have to work.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

We should just have elections on presidents day.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

And that way presidents day finally has an actual purpose.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 weeks ago

Because easy and accessible voting is extremely bad for one party.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Like 95% of the US get neither off

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

In France elections are held on a Sunday so most people don't work, the others are allowed time off to vote of course

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Well in the US, no one was originally intended to vote but the male landed gentry, who clearly could afford to travel for several days to their polling place, get plastered on local liquor, and just shout who they were voting for at whomever was supposed to jot that down. Them that person would go off and vote for whoever they wanted, in case the peasants had gotten any silly ideas and voted for the wrong guy.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 weeks ago

The poor and desperate will vote less under the current conditions. It is all baked into the US cake. Wait until you realize that the US never passed the Equal Rights Amendment. Still waiting on those bastard laggard states to ratify it for nearly 50 years.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 weeks ago

Dudes working at most hourly lower end type jobs still wouldn't get election day off, unless you mandated like octuple pay for anyone working that day (They should)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

Why is it election day anyway, why not election month. California and Oregon have vote by mail; every state should

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Meanwhile all the schools in my area are polling places so kids don't have school.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks ago

It gives employers the ability to suppress votes.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago

Because President's Day is for buying stuff. Clearly what we need is to allow stores to set up in polling places to get it to be a holiday. /s

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago

"We"? Who are "we"? Star fleet?

People have to remember that this is the Internet, this thing is global.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago

You are getting President's Day off?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
  • pancakes
  • adamantium
  • squirrels

(I'm bad at guessing)

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

You got 2 out of 3 correct.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

We don't get the day off to vote in MN but you are legally allowed to take time off to go vote (with pay). So when I was in the office, I always voted in the middle of the day right after my lunch hour.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Because Republicans don’t want you to vote if you have the kind of job that you can’t just take whatever time you want off.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

why the fuck is election day not on a Sunday like any normal fucking country?

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