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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

#301

Post by Apofis »

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'…

Absolutely, honestly, I would turn out to vote for Bernie Sanders, but that is seeming to be less likely as time progresses. So, I won't be voting at all, since I could care less if either Clinton or Trump get elected. Clinton gets elected and the status quo doesn't change very much, Trump gets elected, and maybe---just maybe some people will begin to sit up and take action.

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

#302

Post by pixelatedindex »

st3v3r wrote: post #244
pixelatedindex wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am inclined to agree. During election days, I struggled to get time off from my retail job to go vote. If young people are encouraged to vote, they should not be financially penalized for doing so. Also, you have to go to a polling place next to your neighborhood. Most of the time work is not anywhere close to just take off during lunch and get the vote out. It almost ends up being a hassle. Sundays would be better…

"Additionally, the "closed" primaries vs "open" primaries are bullshit. As a citizen I should be able to go to a polling place, choose a candidate and get out." Depending on the state, though, it's the party choosing who the candidate they want to put forward is. So it should be that party's right to decide who gets to partake in that decision. I mean, would it make sense for a whole bunch of Republicans to come and…

>So it should be that party's right to decide who gets to partake in that decision. I mean, would it make sense for a whole bunch of Republicans to come and vote in the Democratic primary?

It shouldn't matter if a Democrat is voting Republican or the other way around. People can change their minds, and should not be disallowed to vote if they find that the other party is doing a better job in making the country a better place.

If a whole bunch of Republicans vote Democrat, it means that the Republicans have failed to do their job! Saying you can't vote because of that is like a childish loser saying you can't play for the opposing team.

My point is that such a decision should not be made and it segregates our democracy and makes it an "us vs them" fight, when in reality we're all in this together.

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

#303

Post by hackuser »

debracleaver wrote: post #106
jimrandomh wrote: post #63

There's a very important reason to do this which no one has brought up. US elections have a lot of vote-suppression shenanigans; in some noteworthy cases (including the 2000 Presidential election), fraudulently removing voter registrations, understaffing and obstructing poll locations changed the outcome. This sort of thing becomes much more difficult to execute and much more difficult to get away with if there's an…

Jim, shenanigans is the word that comes to mind for me as well. I've yet to meet this mythical "apathetic American" that people talk about, but I've met tons of people who were prevented from voting by administrative incompetence (at best) and what appeared to be deliberate attempts to prevent citizens from casting ballots. Here's an fun example: 7 out of 9 of the states that were prohibited from changing their votin…

> 7 out of 9 of the states that were prohibited from changing their voting laws under the VRA of 1965 immediately passed restrictive laws once the VRA was gutted.

Here's a question that I'm not sure you can answer publicly: Ideally, support for voting should be non-partisan, and everyone seems to want to operate on that principle (including Vote.org).

But what if it is a partisan issue? What if the most important problem is that one party truly opposes voter turnout? Personally, I think that's the case, and I think our failure to address the real problem, for whatever idealistic reasons, is the primary reason we make so little progress.

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

#304

Post by rjbwork »

mordocai wrote: post #256
rjbwork wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I work at a startup and nobody went to vote, everyone has work to do. Indeed, everyone has work to do. It does not absolve us of our civic responsibility. I don't live in California, but would be surprised for anyone at a startup here in Atlanta to have significant problems taking a couple hours out of their day to go vote were they to want to. Apathy is a definite problem however.

The main problem is people who aren't allowed to take a couple hours off without being threatened with firing. Even if they are able to, they may get paid less which for someone in/near poverty can be unacceptable. Most retail and fast food workers are in this situation, for instance. Many of them will be working/commuting the entire time the polls are open.

Definitely agreed. Tech work/office work in general tend to be a bit more flexible.

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

#305

Post by davekinkead »

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…

To address your first question, the actual quote is:

> Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

So it's not a claim that democracy is the least worst simpliciter, but an empiric claim of history (and compared to 20th century alternatives like national socialism, fascism etc, is backed by evidence). None of that however, justifies the claim that democracy is the best form of government compared when compared possible alternatives.

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

#306

Post by seomis »

icebraining wrote: post #289
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?

Only if such proponents also advocate maintaining the status quo of using our criminal justice system as a means of disenfranchisement.

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

#307

Post by danenania »

Apofis wrote: post #301
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'…

Absolutely, honestly, I would turn out to vote for Bernie Sanders, but that is seeming to be less likely as time progresses. So, I won't be voting at all, since I could care less if either Clinton or Trump get elected. Clinton gets elected and the status quo doesn't change very much, Trump gets elected, and maybe---just maybe some people will begin to sit up and take action.

In the case of Trump getting elected, you're assuming that we'd still have anything that resembles a democracy four years later and that the people who'd supposedly be ready to take action wouldn't be thrown in jail or disappeared or suppressed via collective violence.

Resigning oneself to naked fascism with the idea that it could somehow lead to more progress down the line is quite the gamble. Perhaps it could work out, but you're playing with some serious fire.

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

#308

Post by some-guy »

hackuser wrote: post #243
antisthenes wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not democrats, but liberal fiscal policy. Although seeing as how there's no party in the US that would cater to social conservatives and fiscal liberals (and vice versa), your statement is mostly correct.

> Not democrats I'm pretty sure it favors Democrats.The GOP long has tried to suppress votes; what other motive would they have?

I think that it hurts the GOP more than it directly helps Democrats. In my mind a sudden large increase in voter turnout may give sway to candidates running as Democrats that may not be totally in line with the DNC as a whole. You're seeing a huge leftward push by Democratic voters in the presidential election, and while I don't believe it's as fragmented as the GOP currently is, I don't see any reason why this split won't continue.

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

#309

Post by _asummers »

danieltillett wrote: post #193
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'…

Countries with compulsory voting [1] mange to get this even higher without having proportional representation. 1. At least in Australia we have compulsory registration and compulsory visiting the polling station on the Election Day - if you don't want to vote you don't really have to.

Voting has to be a federal holiday before we can make it compulsory, I feel. Or we just mail everyone ballots like Oregon does.

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

#310

Post by Frondo »

vanattab wrote: post #170
Twirrim wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife absolutely loves the mailed ballot approach in Washington (I'm not eligible to vote). Particularly because Washington appears to have votes of some description every quarter. The information booklet that comes with it has been great for kickstarting investigation into the candidates and their policies, and the various other proposals that are up for the vote (booklet has both for and against arguments from di…

Am I understanding you correctly? Is the washington state GOVERMENT mailing out ballots with a "pro/con" booklet or are they being sent out by some poltical nonprofit that is just printing off the standard ballot. It would disgust me if it was the election board compiling an "unbiased" pros/cons booklet that is included with every ballot.

Former Oregonian here--they do that too, and it's extremely handy to have all that stuff laid out in one place. Many an afternoon I sat down with my ballot (everything is done by mail there) and the booklet and read up on the issues and voted.
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