I'm Elise Hugh, it's Ted Talks Daily.

Every election, we've seen images of people waiting in line for hours and hours to vote.

Democracy entrepreneur Amber McReynolds says those images may seem hopeful, but they're actually a reminder of how broken our system is.

Why do people have to wait in line or wade through hassles to

vote at all? In her talk from TEDx Mile High in 2020, she presses her case for how to make

voting easier, which would make democracy more inclusive and, as a result, more democratic.

Voting can be hard. It's hard sometimes painful sometimes impossible since the very beginning of our democracy

this year and years prior we've seen voters wait in line for five six and seven hours and the issue hasn't been fixed.

How impressive that someone would wait in line for seven hours just to vote.

But to me, it's not impressive at all.

It's disrespectful to these voters.

Making voting difficult goes against the very core of our democracy.

If we could redesign the system to make it more convenient, more accessible and easier for voters,

why wouldn't we?

Now, the short answer is political will.

Many established politicians would not actually benefit personally

from a reformed voting process that's inclusive for all voters.

Politicians are the players in the game,

but yet they set the rules for the game.

Election policy must be about who votes, not who wins.

And the more complicated answer is that our voting system and election system in the United States

is highly decentralized and inconsistent. Over 10,000 different local election officials

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