What L.A. County Is Doing to Make Voting Suck Less

While there is no shortage of laws in the U.S. designed to protect the right to vote, facts tell us that Americans are pretty wack about exercising those rights. This is especially true in urban areas, where average voter turnout in large U.S. metros lately teeters around the low 20s. As essential as voting is to democracy, Americans seem to find the act itself a mostly boring, perhaps even annoying endeavor.

This is especially true when voters have to wait in long lines, the result of election administration being a nil-to-low-budget priority in too many cities, towns, and states. Americans will wait in long lines for a rollercoaster at Six Flags or to get into a nightclub, because the rewards justify the inconvenience. There is little in the way of an immediate reward, though, for inching through lines to vote, especially if your candidate ends up losing. And then there’s the fact that so many things we used to wait in line for, we now don’t—we can skip the grocery lines with Instacart, skip cab lines to Uber, and carry plane tickets on our smartphones.