Provincial and city elections are on their own timetables, and even if some district were insane enough to try to hold them on the same day, Elections Canada would laugh out of the room any province or municipality that asked for special ballots to be printed, different polling stations in the same federal riding to get different ones depending on which provincial ridings they fall into, or even for the some federal polling volunteers to get special training to cover two different elections they’d be managing.

I have a choice of ballots in something like 6 languages.  If there’s any difference in how long it takes, it’s because nobody’s asked for the Cambodian one in an hour or so and the poll workers have to look through their stash to find a blank.  And some times there are Old People who need some help because they want to use the large-screen voting machine instead of paper ballots.  But it’s just not a problem.  (And of course, since this is California, even the gringos at the polling place can speak as much Spanish as @ElBloombito, which is enough.)

In some states, employers are required to give workers time off to vote. I’ve seen it at my company that workers drive to the polls on election day simply because they won’t get the time off if they vote absentee.

But if the voters in Washington and Colorado make the right choices on their marijuana initiatives today, it won’t suck to be them either!

You forgot to mention that, by law, voters in Canada must have four uninterupted hours away from work, while the polls are open, to go vote. 

For example: if the polls open at 8AM and close at 7PM, and your work day is from 9 to 5, your employer must either let you come in at 12 or leave at 3PM – or give you four hours off in the middle somewhere. With no reduction in pay.

(The only peope who kinda get screwed are people working evening or night shifts.)

It would be more accurate to say that slaves and indentured servants built this country.

Well, they certainly built the White House and the Capitol.

I watched this occur all over Miami since early voting began and it’s appalling. It is blatant voter suppression by the GOP. All these states experiencing these problems have GOP legislators elected in 2010 and are all members of the united States of ALEC. Open your eyes, people. 

If I saw DEMS do this, my feelings would be the same. Any party who takes steps to stop people from voting is making a mockery of the US and the world is watching. If you’re such a die hard Republican, perhaps you could care about the US standing in the world even if you don’t care about your fellow Americans.

Here in california, we can vote by mail for the price of a stamp.

Two stamps here. I dread to think of the postage on a San Francisco ballot.

But, I agree – instead of their silly and unenforceable publication bans, they should just hold off on counting the ballots on the East coast until the polls close in the West.

Ten times as many people voting at ten times as many polling stations, also have ten times as many scrutineers counting their votes – the polling stations still count their ballots in parallel.  You might need a little extra time to tally the results from those polling stations.

Understand though – I’m not saying you’re doing it wrong, just that I don’t understand why it’s so hard.

Electronic voting with a dedicated kiosk system at a dedicated polling place has some but not all of the issues.

EDIT: At least in San Francisco. I figured such a thing would be statewide.

It could be so quick.  Beep – Verify name and address – hand over a ballot and say “next”.  Sure only like 1/4 of the people bring their registration cards, but for those that do, they should make the process super quick and painless.  Maybe a specific line for people who brought in the registration card?