Voting lines should never be as long as a Supreme drop
Welcome to Minority Report, a weekly newsletter from the LEVEL team that packs an entire week into a single email. From the lessons in long early voting lines to the week in racism, from pop-culture picks to a must-read LEVEL story, it’s everything you need and nothing you don’t. If you’re loving what you’re reading, tell a friend to tell a friend.
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A lot of people are voting. Like, a lot a lot. We have seven days until the election, and more Americans have already participated in early voting than they did in 2016. This is an objectively good thing for democracy! Let’s celebrate that. However, part of that celebration has manifested in the form of internet videos celebrating lines wrapped around entire city blocks as a sign of democracy working. Exhibit A: Social media posts like this one.
This, friends, is the opposite of democracy.
As of today, America has gotten rid of 21,000 polling locations. Lines in minority and Democrat-dense communities are exponentially longer than those in more affluent areas. On the first day of early voting in Georgia, wait times to vote were upwards of eight hours. So, contrary to those inspirational tweets and flag-waving about the…