It is my understanding that the repubs are refusing to let anything happen with early voting.

Did the repubs shorten the time and won't change or something else?

They are refusing to do anything that will make voting easier. What they are trying to get passed is "no excuse" absentee voting, which is pretty much just early voting. As it is now, you have to provide a reason for having to vote absentee, such as age (being over age 60) being out of town, work hours, health issues, etc. Yea, anyone can lie, I guess.

Here's a snip from a Michigan Radio article, with a link at the bottom:

State Senator Dave Robertson, a former insurance salesman from Grand Blanc, was, if anything, worse. Robertson is the chair of the Elections and Government Reforms Committee, and he made it clear that he will do everything he can to sabotage Lyons’ bill if it makes it to the senate.

Not only did he say he would oppose it, he said he wouldn’t even allow hearings to consider this, hearings in which he and his fellow senators could hear testimony about how open absentee balloting has worked in other states.

Why does he feel this way?

Well, Robertson was at first largely incoherent, called Election Day a “focal point” he didn’t want to diminish, but then gave a fantastically incredible reason. He said no-fault absentee voting would unfairly handicap candidates because they wouldn’t have enough time to reach those voting early.

http://michiganradio.org/post/michigan-backward-when-it-comes-helping-citizens-participate-democracy#stream/0

He is an unbelievably vile individual with a really bad habit of banging his head into things, when he gets frustrated. No kidding. He termed out as a state rep, ran for state senate, and won that. He's not in my district (thank gawd) so I'm fuzzy on whether he is in his first or second term in the state senate. If it's the second, he will be terming out.

I have ZERO doubt that this guy will make a run for the Governor's office.

I don't know why the worst of the worst always want to run.

Vote by mail only.

They mail you the ballot here. The ballot, once completed, then it goes into a special envelope that you sign and date and then there are these special white boxes, distributed across the state, that you place that envelope in up till 8 pm on Election Day to be counted.

so easy in WA. No lines to intimidate voters. No poll watchers.

We had to go to polling place there. Easier in WA but being a Democratic Poll Observer was fun.

But so much of the conspiracy bs with rigging an election with voting machines, etc would be eliminated if everyone just got a ballot in the mail and then dropped it off on or before election day. And, I agree, voter intimidation would be non existent if everyone could just complete their paper ballot at home and drop it off or mail it back.

we have early voting starting tomorrow, absentee ballots, voting on site. We have paper ballots...no voting machines which I love because we have a paper trail. I am so excited....I am working the election days.....great way to get this old body out of the house and to meet new people. New Mexico heavily favored to support Hillary.

I know people who prefer to vote *on* election day despite early voting. I asked them why they don't go early in case of a bad storm or to avoid lines or even if they get sick.

They say they like the energy and excitement of voting on election day. Now, I have to say, most live in small towns so probably don't have to wait in a line, but boy, if early voting was allowed anywhere, that would be my first choice. I'm going to get my ballot done and drop it off Monday.

At least my county (Atlanta/Fulton) has it for 2 weeks. Very convenient hours and locations.
Took me five minutes on Wednesday.

No matter which method is selected by the voter, in my county every registered voter gets a sample ballot and can also download a sample from the website of the county Supervisor of Elections .

Since I prefer to vote in person during early voting, I go through the sample ballot, make my choices, then make a cheat sheet to carry with me - the sample ballot which includes all sorts of information about voting is a little too big to stick in my pocket. My husband and I talk about choices but we each make our own.For the primary, my husband had his cheat sheet and gave it to some friends who he had driven to the polls.

to the voting booth if that is the way I had to vote.

Some ballots are manageable, but this one this year is YUGE!

They have all issues and candidates listed with information or links to help voters make choices.

Here: http://lwvcolorado.org/lwv/
They even have a box on that page to fill out so you can "Find personalized voting, ballot and polling place information."

and I have to say, I much prefer it this way. I get to take my time, look up information on the different amendments and other local proposals and judges, etc.

early voting time, which is great. This year we had all of the usual plus, I think 10 potential amendments, referred laws,, ballot initiatives, and so on. I always print out a sample ballot ahead of time and go to several websites to study the issues and create a small sheet to take with me when I go to vote early.

Absentee voting is incredibly complicated.
My precinct uses paper ballots, machine read and tallied.

They got even better this year. Used to be, you couldn't vote early or by absentee unless you gave a reason why you wouldn't be able to get to your polling station on election day. Now you just go online, and they mail you a ballot. Or you can go to any number of government offices and do it in person for weeks prior.

I just voted today!

The newspapers (in my case, the Columbus Dispatch) usually put out a voters' guide the Sunday or two before the election, explaining both sides of amendments/issues. You can get sample ballots on-line (the county BOE websites are good about this) and we post a sample ballot at the polls so you can see what you're voting on before you actually cast your vote. the major political parties also send out "vote for us!" mailers and their websites show the preferred candidates and positions.
The ballot language is vetted by the Secretary of State's office so it's no more confusing than it has to be (supposedly), but...yeah, you need to do some work ahead of time.

That said, I voted absentee and only had to spend a few minutes on-line to see which judges I wanted to vote for, since they are technically "non-partisan" (so it's not labeled on the ballot) but get typically support from one party or the other.

honestly I've never had any complaints about my voting experiences in Texas - they make it very easy indeed

even when I had to vote in a church, some elderly gals had a table full of home-made cookies

Otherwise, it's go to the local polling place on Nov. 8.

All they ask for there is your name and address, which get checked off on paper printouts.

We have paper ballots that get fed into a scanner.

It's all as easy as pie. I've only waited in line for 5 or 10 minutes.

The state also sends out a booklet explaining the questions on the ballot, with explanations both pro and con about them.

on numerous judges, minor elective offices I'm not so familiar with, ballot questions, etc. The sample ballot for us is available by going to the Board of Elections website and putting in your address: your name and voter registration, polling place location, and available sample ballots will pop up then (since there are 50 wards in my city, and many hundreds of precincts, each ballot can be different). I make out a cheat sheet at home, after extensive research, and then take it to my polling place and just ding, ding, ding.

We have either mail-in absentee voting, early voting at selected polling sites (it's begun already: you saw Obama voting at his old place), or Election Day voting. I still like to go to the polls on election day, but I voted early during the primaries because I was scheduled to be out of town. Haven't yet used absentee mail-in: I'm saving that for my old age!

Early voting is fine, but for me, it has two drawbacks here. My polling place is a block's walk from my house; the early voting site involves getting in a car or taxi, or taking public transit. Also, election day voting gives you your choice of paper-ballot optical-scan voting or electronic voting. Almost everyone picks the optical scan paper ballots. Because they can't have 50 different printed ballots at the centralized early voting places, you have to vote on the computer screens if you early vote (which makes sense). It's okay, but I prefer filling in those broken arrows.

They key for any kind of voting, however, is doing the research before you ever start filling out that ballot. Then it's easy.

ON EDIT: I've voted in four different states in my lifetime, and I've never encountered lines of more than 5 minutes or so, at worst. And this has been almost exclusively in densely populated cities. Perhaps it's because these were all blue states (NYS, MN, MA, IL). But still, given that I've been voting for some 45 years, it always perplexes me that people have to wait. Long ballots are an issue, but interference by authorities to slow the process down seems a bigger part of the problem.

plus election day voting. The theft of this state in 2004 was so blatant and so clumsy that we got 100% paper ballots in 2005.

NM makes it reasonably easy to vote against Trump.

As soon as the AG certified the ballot, you could get an absentee ballot. You can even fill it out in person and hand it right in (I did it last week).

But formal machine driven voting starts 10/24.

We do get sample ballots (very often in the local papers). I miss the big booths with the levers and that satisfying sound when you open the curtain back up.

BUT.
Cook county (Chicago) now has electronic voting machines that show you the contemporaneous PAPER trail it creates. Being a voting judge, I KNOW how cook county's voting is simply not hacks or, and not able to be stolen.

They are superb at being fair and honest, despite, or perhaps, because of our unique past.

I got my ballot yesterday; I'll fill it out over coffee in the morning and mail it when I head into town to do errands.

filled out and sealed, ready to drop off at the ballot box on Monday. I don't know if its less people here (the high desert east of the mountains) interested in public service, but once past the presidency and congress, a very many positions running without opposition, and many positions with no one running - only space for a write-in.

on edit - we do run above 70% voter participation typically, and no accounts or worries about voter fraud in this state that I have ever heard.