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Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

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Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#231

Post by debracleaver »

pjc50 wrote: post #109
debracleaver wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh sure. there are a wealth of studies out there. it's hard to say why any particular person doesn't vote, but there are some trends that show when voting is easier, more people vote. Colorado, Washington and Oregon all moved toward vote-by-mail systems, in which a ballot is automatically mailed to a voter's house, and saw an immediate increase in voter turnout. Honestly, I'm waited to see the outcome of Oregon's aut…

The UK increased postal voting, and found greatly increased fraud: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26520836 I'd be concerned that some of the increased turnout aren't real voters...

it's hard to draw conclusions cross-country. right now i would say that we are very much in a position of denying actual citizens the right to vote, and we need to address that stat. postal mail is one way we can do that. making voting easy in general is the goal here.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#232

Post by DrScump »

baron816 wrote: post #156

The biggest reason people in the US don't vote is because they don't have enough options so they never get to choose people they really care about. Plus, no individual vote matters. This all has to do with our winner-take-all elections. Countries with proportional representation have much higher voter turnout rates (often in the 80-90% range). That's because you get to vote for the person or party you want, and they'…

Even if an individual doesn't see distinctions between prominent candidates, there are usually "downballot" offices, local measures, and local tax measures to vote on.

A ballot isn't an exam -- you don't get penalized for not filling out every element. Voters should be encouraged to vote only on the elements they understand.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#233

Post by debracleaver »

dexterdog wrote: post #71
PeCaN wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me know when we go a week without a security breach, and I'll let you know when online voting can be secure.

How has the track record on old fashioned voting been? Do we require a perfect replacement or a better one?

i would go for better over perfect.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#234

Post by st3v3r »

valvar wrote: post #161
burkaman wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>wouldn't every candidate attempt to win their elections by appealing to the lowest common denominator? I think that's sort of how democracy is supposed to work. Politicians win when they can convince more people than anyone else. It's like that famous quote: “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others”. Yes, everything would be better if countries were run by benevolent geniuses who always…

Why exactly is democracy the best, or shall we say "least bad", option? Have you, or has Churchill, evaluated all of the alternatives? And how does the belief that you air in your last sentence, that government should reflect all the people it serves, rhyme with your belief that the ideal (but admittedly in your opinion impossible) form of government would be one run by benevolent geniuses who always implement the ri…

"Why exactly is democracy the best, or shall we say "least bad", option?"

Because it does allow for choice. It makes the leaders accountable to the electorate, as they can always vote them out next election. Most other forms of government do not allow for the government to be changed easily.

If you have a better form of government in mind, I'm sure we'd like to hear it.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#235

Post by samstave »

JacobJans wrote: post #173
baron816 wrote: post #156

The biggest reason people in the US don't vote is because they don't have enough options so they never get to choose people they really care about. Plus, no individual vote matters. This all has to do with our winner-take-all elections. Countries with proportional representation have much higher voter turnout rates (often in the 80-90% range). That's because you get to vote for the person or party you want, and they'…

One of the worst lies perpetuated by the media is that the presidential election is the only one that really matters. There are so many elections that have a direct impact on your life that you can participate in – state, city, and county election. These are not generally very partisan. Sadly, local elections often don't have enough options simply because there aren't enough politicians standing for election.

We need a TV channel/website that simply states the facts of the positions each politician holds, where they are from, when their elections are coming up and their voting record based on their supposed stance.

There are SO many things that we can do.

We invest supposedly in physical and technical infra, but never in political....

THAT is the revolution I want to see.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#236

Post by baron816 »

hackuser wrote: post #207
baron816 wrote: post #156

The biggest reason people in the US don't vote is because they don't have enough options so they never get to choose people they really care about. Plus, no individual vote matters. This all has to do with our winner-take-all elections. Countries with proportional representation have much higher voter turnout rates (often in the 80-90% range). That's because you get to vote for the person or party you want, and they'…

> The biggest reason people in the US don't vote ... It seems plausible, but is there some data to back up this theory?

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...

There have been a number of studies on the relationship and they all seem to point to a positive correlation between PR and voter turnout.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#237

Post by manachar »

slavik81 wrote: post #226
manachar wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voter turnout is higher in our presidential elections when a person's vote is generally worth less. People SHOULD be voting at the local level where their votes still matter quite a bit, but generally don't through an interesting combination of apathy and ignorance (e.g. few people actually know who their rep on the city council is and what their basic platform is).

Unfortunately, limited information is an inherent consequence of scale. There's much better media coverage of national issues. If I read The Economist, they may provide insight into the presidential candidates. They do not have news about my candidates for city council.

Which is really odd to think about. Super local newspapers used to be the norm, but as the conglomerates got bigger the number of papers fell so they no longer had the space to cover the truly local news.

A variety of web sites have tried to fill the need, but the money needed for local news far exceeds the revenue they're able to generate.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#238

Post by debracleaver »

atria wrote: post #130
ck2 wrote: post #47

Wouldn't insisting on motor-voter take it to near 90% ? Most states refusing motor-voter are controlled by the hard right. Sure hope there is a plan to fund 100% more voting locations and booths. Because Republicans have figured out a great way to kill voting when they simply just have to give in and let people vote is to defund voting locations. Unless the plan is to just have everyone vote absentee but that allows…

Perhaps that has something to do with people who aren't supposed to vote, who's demographics skew to the left side of the political spectrum: - Foreign citizens with drivers licenses - Permanent residents with drivers licenses - Felons with drivers licenses - Drivers under the voting age of majority - Non-naturalized immigrants with drivers licenses.

ok, let's keep this simple: until having a drivers license is a requirement to vote in this country, let's not rely on driver's licenses as a requirement for voting. the DMV was not built to administer elections. that's what local election offices are for

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#239

Post by e40 »

baron816 wrote: post #156

The biggest reason people in the US don't vote is because they don't have enough options so they never get to choose people they really care about. Plus, no individual vote matters. This all has to do with our winner-take-all elections. Countries with proportional representation have much higher voter turnout rates (often in the 80-90% range). That's because you get to vote for the person or party you want, and they'…

The biggest reason people in the US don't vote is because they don't have enough options so they never get to choose people they really care about.

Sorry, this is complete malarky. The calculus of voting is: vote for the least of two evils. If we had 100% voting and everyone did this, the politicians would get better over time, because they would learn that being a certain way would result in failure. The general pool of would-be politicians would learn that maybe it would be OK to run since more normal people are winning.

It's that damn simple. Everything else is an excuse to service some BS idea.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#240

Post by notahacker »

logfromblammo wrote: post #85
seomis wrote: post #42

To those commenting with some variation of "only informed citizens should vote," pause and consider how much overlap there is with your idea of what an "informed" voter is with race/class lines. You may be unwittingly (or wittingly in some cases?) insisting that voters in the US should be, disproportionately, wealthier whites.

Studies on statistical aggregations often show that a crowd can make a better guess collectively than any individual member. If you ask a crowd to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar, the people who are the worst overestimaters and underestimaters tend to cancel one another out, and the mean and median of all responses will be shockingly close to the actual numeric value. Therefore, my hypothesis is that reaching…

As you point out, being "uninformed" seldom means total ignorance and a random vote, so throwing relatively uninformed non voters into the mix is unlikely to be neutral

So the question is what factors people who are largely indifferent to and ignorant of politics will incorporating into the statistical aggregate to a greater extent than voters that do care.

I'd suggest that the little pieces that people who don't know or care very much about politics tend to be aware of are [i] the recognised status quo (incumbent, major parties) [ii] the status quo ante (incumbents actually picking up votes based on old campaign promises they didn't deliver! and "the party of Lincoln") and [iii] the most simplistic elements of campaign advertising and media coverage.

Are these likely to be signals of who will be the more competent and popular government which the more motivated and generally more informed voters have tended to unfairly overlook, or just noise?

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