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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

#281

Post by baron816 »

xtreme wrote: post #253
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'…

Coming from a country like India, I have a different opinion. We have FPTP but the voter turnout is somewhat higher (60-85% depending on the state) compared to the US. There are a large number of political parties but only three or four of them can be considered national (have representatives in more than one states). Most of the parties are local to a state or a relatively small community (often a caste) and tries t…

Congress is as deadlocked as can be. We have a system in which the President, the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader in the Senate, the Supreme Court, the Majority in the House, the Majority in the Senate, the Majority of the Majority in the House, the Majority of the Majority in the Senate, and 41% of the Senate can stop a bill from becoming law or nullify it.

Add that the districts are drawn by elected officials and easily and regularly manipulated to give parties disproportionate power and we end up with a situation where very few people in a very big country are able to completely disrupt the political system and hold the sovereign debt (and the economic stability of the world for that matter) hostage in order to try to take health care away from poor people.

I can't speak much about the political system of India, but I think it's quite evident that with the rise of politicians like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, people are very dissatisfied with the politicians we've been electing. And by virtue of that, the way we've been electing them.

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

#282

Post by cauterized »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #191
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'…

Relatively newly-minted American here. A unified election calendar and ballot database would be helpful. The number of local (especially community budgeting, judicial and special district) elections I've missed out of ignorance, despite checking New York City's Board of Elections website, is nuts. Furthermore, there seems to be an expectation that voters blindly vote along party lines. Almost every election there wil…

NYC elections are the worst. In congressional, state representative, or city council election years, there are so many candidates running in so many districts within the single media market that a TV station could cover nothing else 24/7 and still only spend a few minutes on each candidate per week. You could have an entire edition of one of the tabloids devoted to nothing but a couple paragraphs about each candidate for each race. And that's for a general election, let alone a primary.

That is, if the races were contested. Which they aren't because nobody pays attention to them. Which is in part because there's no information to be had on them even if you look for it. Stupid vicious cycle. So people vote for those offices along party lines or leave the ballots blank.

I've been thinking about trying to build something that would help solve the problem, but it's really a social problem more than a technical problem, and who has the time to go chasing down bios and position statements from hundreds of candidates every spring and fall?

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

#283

Post by luizlopes »

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.

I couldn't agree more. Local elections matter a lot. Especially when local elections in places like Seattle, WA are generating insane amounts of campaign money.

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

#284

Post by __s »

Aloha wrote: post #123
Retric wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the more interesting ideas I have rarely seen in fiction is an actual benevolent and wise AI taking over. Closest is probably the Culture novels which shows up as a very odd society.

a wise and benevolent AI would likely do things unwise for the long term survival of humanity

But that'd contradict the 0th law of robotics

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

#285

Post by r00fus »

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.

Presidential elections have what are called coattails [1], ie, the act like major marketing campaigns that drag voters into the booths so smaller-electorate candidates get votes due to that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coattail_effect

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

#286

Post by justinlardinois »

dragonwriter wrote: post #216
hueving wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that were true, why wouldn't the government try to push mandatory voting laws when it had leadership from the Democrat party?

> If that were true, why wouldn't the government try to push mandatory voting laws when it had leadership from the Democrat party? Because the Democratic Party prefers to expand voting by expanding access (making it easier to register, and easier to vote by expanding times, methods, etc.) rather than by personal mandates and threats of punishment.

Never mind that at the end of the day, the federal government has very little control over elections.

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

#287

Post by Thrymr »

beambot wrote: post #242
e40 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 poo…

Abstaining is a form of voting, regardless of whether you consider it "some BS idea."

A representative present for a roll call and explicitly abstaining is a form of voting. A citizen staying home on election day is indistinguishable from apathy.

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

#288

Post by hackuser »

debracleaver wrote: post #78
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.

how do i vote this up roughly 1,000,000 times? does that happen here or is that only a reddit thing (please excuse my ignorance -- i try to spend very little time in online comment threads and a lot of time working on vote.org)

> does that happen here or is that only a reddit thing

Each registered user can upvote each comment once; with a little accumulated track record, they alternatively can downvote once. Soliciting upvotes, etc. is against guidelines and generally not done. Talking about voting, rather than the subject at hand, is generally frowned upon.

So, more importantly, why do you support this comment so strongly?

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

#289

Post by icebraining »

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.

Since white people are disproportionately less likely to be convicted of a felony (even when committing the same crime), aren't proponents of the idea that every eligible voter must vote also insisting that voters in the US be disproportionately white?

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

#290

Post by dragonwriter »

justinlardinois wrote: post #286
dragonwriter wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that were true, why wouldn't the government try to push mandatory voting laws when it had leadership from the Democrat party? Because the Democratic Party prefers to expand voting by expanding access (making it easier to register, and easier to vote by expanding times, methods, etc.) rather than by personal mandates and threats of punishment.

Never mind that at the end of the day, the federal government has very little control over elections.

The Democratic Party doesn't just exist in federal government, so I'm not sure how that's relevant, whether or not its true.
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