Why Voters Might Find it Difficult to Vote in the US Elections

There are problems that have come to light that might be factors that will make it difficult for US citizens to vote in the US elections which are being assessed closely in order to make this year’s election as fair as possible.

Written By Rufaro Ndoro 

Voting from abroad

Many Americans currently do not live in the US and could have difficulty voting from overseas.

However, people who are eligible to vote abroad are being told to do so early.

Two American astronauts managed cast their votes early from the International Space Station (ISS).

Astronaut Shane Kimborough voted a few days ago form the space station while Kate Rubins voted before leaving for Earth a week ago.

More than 2.6 million potential voters live abroad with the highest populations of voters in Canada (661,000), (306,000) in Britain and (159,000) in France.

An Oxford study revealed that those who vote from abroad could have an impact on the outcome of the votes.

In previous elections, however, there has always been a low turnout among overseas voters.

US citizens located in Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands will not be allowed to vote unless they are in one of the 50 states.

Early Voting Challenges

There have been long queues,long waiting times that at early voting in California, Nevada, Ohio and North Carolina.

People have reportedly fainted from heat exhaustion while standing in line in Georgia.

Failures to provide adequate resources and poor oversight of the day has been deemed neglectful as it could affect the Americans’ abilities to vote.

North Carolina reportedly reduced early votes and a court deemed this as an attempt to suppress the black vote.

Arizona passed a law disallowing third party ballot collection, meaning those who cannot make it to the polling station will not be able to vote in that state.

Dangers of Intimidation

Donald Trump gave warnings over a ‘rigged’ election so his campaign sent poll watchers to hunt for vote fraud.

Democrats in turn filed lawsuits against this believing it as an attempt to get Republican supporters to intimidate minority voters.

However, the courts refused to impose any restrictions.