Good morning John! As it is getting closer to election time here in the US, expect to hear more about campaigns and candidates and finances and issues and voting, of course, and I want to talk about that last thing today.
Here in the US we are, of course, 50 different united states plus some confusing things. That is not just some symbolic thing- most government happens at the state and local levels and that includes election laws here.
There are some weaknesses to that system- it increases the chances that some things might get done poorly or even in bad faith to intentionally manipulate the outcome and it makes it impossible to make one video saying how to get registered and vote in every state, which is why some friends and I made dozens of videos about that, so that you can look at your state and figure out exactly how it works where you are. But there is also a strength to this system. It allows us to try 50 different systems in 50 different states. And when one of those systems works well, other states can adopt those systems and when a state tries something that doesn't work, nobody else tries it. And while going through and making out YouTube series, How To Vote In Every State I did discover some strangenesses. So here are some of the weirdest election laws in the US.

One, in the state of Vermont which a historical preservation society has declared in its entirety an endangered place, there is a suitably quaint law: You must be administered a voter's oath in order to be registered to vote. And it used to be that you had to have a notary listen to you say the oath. Now, you can administer yourself the oath. You still have to do it, but you can do it alone. Quietly, just whisper, whisper the oath to yourself and then sign the little form. It makes me suspect that a number of people don't actually self-administer the oath, but to all of the people who do: I just wanna say I love you. That's great.

In three of the United States, there are no polling places anymore. In Colorado, Washington, and Oregon, everybody votes by mail which decreases the cost of elections and increases the number of people who participate in elections. Interestingly, and maybe coincidentally, all three of those states have legalized marijuana. Some people maybe don't wanna go out.
 
Number three, in North Dakota, you don't have to register to vote. If you live in North Dakota, you just vote. One assumes, that this is because there is only a few dozen North Dakotans.

Number four, in Nevada, there are pop up early voting locations. So instead of going to a polling place on polling day,  if you happen to be at like, Hot Topic, you might wander out and find a pop up early voting location right there in the mall. This is wonderful and one of the reasons why over 60% of Nevadans vote early.

Number five, online voting registration has exploded recently. Now, over half of the states allow you to register to vote on the internet as long as you have a driver's license usually. But in 2015, no states automatically registered you to vote when you got a driver's license or updated your driver's license. Now, just three years later, 13 different states automatically register you to vote because why not? There are some people who think that if you don't register you don't get jury duty and that's not true.

And finally, number six, there is one place where you can't register online, you don't get automatically registered, and you don't even get to register by mail. In New Hampshire, you have to take your physical body to your town clerk's office to register in person. Thank you New Hampshire for reminding us how bad it used to be for everyone.

I think it's an important thing to note that over the years, it has gotten easier to register to vote and to vote. In some places, people are trying to push that back and they have succeeded some. Having the right to vote and having the ability to vote in the elections that matter most to our local communities and also to the world is a wonderful thing that we are able to do. And if you want to learn more about how to best get it done in your place, you can go to youtube.com/howtovoteineverystate. It's time to get it together in this exceptional if peculiar country of ours. John, I'll see you on Tuesday.