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$1M VotePlz Sweepstakes

blog.samaltman.com

21–30 of 112 posts

Re: $1M VotePlz Sweepstakes

#21
This is a terrific initiative. Especially the part where you can take a picture of your driver's license and get everything taken care of. Everybody with a little bit of startup experience knows that removing signup friction makes a huge difference and yet voting in the US is way more complicated than it needs to be. This isn't an accident: legislators know low turnout doesn't affect all demographics equally. So I support projects like these that get people to vote.

Re: $1M VotePlz Sweepstakes

#24

I'm definitely registered to vote (at the correct address), but this website claims I am not. I voted (by mail) in the Democratic Primary.

Same here. This clearly won't work if a decent percentage of people are already registered and it doesn't know that.

Just register in several places. Not like fraud is a real problem.

Re: $1M VotePlz Sweepstakes

#26
post #25

With the incentive being student loan payoff, shouldn't we be concerned that this is targeting voters that skew Democrat?

Yes, this is undeniably a partisan endeavour.

I'm sorry are you saying that there are no student republicans? that's a very misinformed opinion if you believe that.

Re: $1M VotePlz Sweepstakes

#27
"The 2016 US Presidential election feels like the most important one so far in my lifetime." -sama

I'm the same age as Sam. But I must confess I don't see why he sees this one as the most important. Both candidates are terrible (for different reasons). It's quite damning of the entire political establishment.

I just want to get through the next 4 years and hope that either party can finally find one good candidate.

Re: $1M VotePlz Sweepstakes

#29

With the incentive being student loan payoff, shouldn't we be concerned that this is targeting voters that skew Democrat?

The Democratic party targeting university students, and the Republican party trying voter-suppression efforts aimed at students (forbidding voting at the university where one lives, requiring photo IDs & banning college IDs as photo IDs) are nothing new.

Re: $1M VotePlz Sweepstakes

#30

> No one able to vote in the US should be sitting this one out I disagree. People who haven't taken the time to thoroughly research the candidates should not be encouraged to blindly push a button, especially this year. Most of them will probably be persuaded by fear mongering or partisan mud-slinging. That's not democracy, it's just mob rule.

It doesn't take a lot of research to choose when one candidate is comically unqualified.

The people voting is the entire point of democracy. Smart people and dumb people. Policy wonks and random button pushers. It doesn't matter, everybody gets one vote. That way whatever the outcome is, it reflects the will of the people. To oppose this is to oppose democracy itself.

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