You should wake up on election day, knowing exactly when and where you'll be voting -- or better yet, have been able to vote early in the two months leading up to it. That should be the norm, dammit.
The students who came to…
The students who came to my class were talking afterwards, asking me how late the voting places were open (one isn't free until 8 p.m., between school and work), and where they were (of course, they can only vote in their home precincts, so if they live in a suburb an hour or more away, as so many do, they can't just duck out around the corner to Halsted Street to vote). We HAVE to do better at making voting accessible, and getting people registered early and aware of where they should go.
In Washington (or maybe it’s just King County), there are virtually no polling places but all registered voters receive mail-in ballots. I have to say, I really like the mail-in ballot. You get the ballot about a month early, along with the voter information packs and can take the time to be thoughtful.
The downsides are it takes forever to count our votes (they’re guessing they’ll have 90% counted on Friday) and they don’t have enough public polling places for the last minute people (this is obviously solvable).