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“A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

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Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#341

Post by burfog »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #43
athenot wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving voting day from a Tuesday to a Sunday would also make a big difference. There are many people who have have informed opinions but can't afford to take off work (write-up for being late to work/take off early, lost income, transport issues). Also that would avoid removing a school day since most public schools are used for polling. Another option would be to switch to make mail-in ballots only.

They won't do that. The people a certain party doesn't want voting will get bussed to voting stations by local churches, etc. Tuesday is a day that certain people have to be at work, working. And politicians like that.

Note which party has more voters who work, and which party have more voters who do not. The motivation would be opposite to what you suggest.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#342

Post by burfog »

devdas wrote: post #206
CWuestefeld wrote: post #3

If we think that not enough people are voting, the way to solve this is NOT through get-out-the-vote efforts, voter registration drives, and tools like this to make it easier to cast a vote. These are not the bottleneck. Voting may be a duty, but it's one that carries a lot of responsibility. Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. And I think that people realize this. So when…

There's also the huge problem of vote suppression in the US, either via gerrymandering or by demanding IDs which most minorities don't have and are inconvinient for them to get.

FYI, "IDs which most minorities don't have" is incorrect and it looks sort of racist.

Here, the first third interviewing people at UC Berkeley with that idea and the remainder interviewing actual minorities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrBxZGWCdgs

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#343

Post by antpls »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #3

If we think that not enough people are voting, the way to solve this is NOT through get-out-the-vote efforts, voter registration drives, and tools like this to make it easier to cast a vote. These are not the bottleneck. Voting may be a duty, but it's one that carries a lot of responsibility. Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. And I think that people realize this. So when…

Making information transparent is only one step. The next step is the simplification needed to make the system understandable by people who work all day long, have kids, entertainment, etc. All the administrative forms, the accounting rules, the history of debt of a country, the geopolitical situation are all difficult to fully grasp if you don't spend full time on it. How could anyone make "informed" decision ?

I agree the first step is to make the system more transparent, maybe it will surface the almost insane complexity to more people.

Also, more transparency, but not at the expense of sacrificing fairness and privacy

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#344

Post by ckastner »

toyg wrote: post #306
ckastner wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is democracy the opposite concept to the military? Or was that just poorly phrased?

Try voting out your sergeant. Try having a political leader jailing people who don’t do what he tells them to do.

Ah, so you're comparing them on basis of formation of will.

That's not the point that was made, however. The post you replied to connected the military to democracies as protectors of their physical integrity.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#345

Post by retsibsi »

pwg wrote: post #200
leetbulb wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I attempted to vote in the wrong county. My buddy attempted to vote in the wrong district within his county. Luckily I am a telecommute worker with relaxed hours. He on the other hand was debating whether he should return to work or risk being late. The reasoning for such extremely strict geographic restrictions, I am unsure of, but surely it would also argue against mail-in ballots (and I would assume smartphone vot…

> The reasoning for such extremely strict geographic restrictions, I am unsure of, but surely it would also argue against mail-in ballots (and I would assume smartphone voting). One reason is a holdover from the days when the eligible voter roles were physically printed on reams of paper to be lined through in pen as each eligible voter 'checked in' to be given a ballot. If your system for preventing double voting is…

> If your system for preventing double voting is by a line drawn in pen across a voters entry in a paper printout, then you have to allocate voters to one, and only one, voting location (because you can't 'line through' in pen multiple geographically disperse paper printouts containing the same name quickly enough to avoid double voting risks).

In Australia we still use printed rolls, but we can vote at any polling place in our home state.

For some details on how we manage the risk, see 'What is a Declaration Vote at a polling place?' on this page: https://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/polling.htm

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#346

Post by Tsubasachan »

acdha wrote: post #267
pwg wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This suggestion is not likely to go very far. The reason Nov. 11 is Veteran's Day is that it is in honor of the armistice with Germany that formally ended World War I: "major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, when the Armistice with Germany went into effect." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Day So any attempt to 'move' Veteran's Day will…

I would argue that the number of people who know this is a tiny fraction of the population and, unsettling as it is to contemplate, in the subsequent century we’ve had major wars which are equally important to commemorate so it’s not like a single date can cover all of them.

I doubt America WANTS to remember every war. Only the popular ones that it won. WW1 they were on the winning side and WW2 they were the good guys.

The Korean war is more murky. Almost nobody knows it now but South Korea was a military dictatorship, not a paragon of democracy and freedom.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#347

Post by robben1234 »

toyg wrote: post #68
acdha wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My $.10 proposal: change Veterans Day to be the 2nd Tuesday in November. Almost no cost, there's a strong “they served so you would have this right” angle, and it'd pair naturally with other civic events.

With all due respect, ideologically linking the military and democracy is a horrifically bad idea. The two systems embody completely opposite concepts.

Well if it wasn't linked US soldiers would still be denied of voting despite being drafted at 18 in WWII.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#348

Post by toyg »

ckastner wrote: post #344
toyg wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try voting out your sergeant. Try having a political leader jailing people who don’t do what he tells them to do.

Ah, so you're comparing them on basis of formation of will. That's not the point that was made, however. The post you replied to connected the military to democracies as protectors of their physical integrity.

The distinction is subtle and lost on most people. By liniking the military to elections, you can bet good money that every politician in the country would jump on acritical "support the troops" propaganda lines that result in de-facto fascism, like the US experienced under G.W. Bush.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#349

Post by toyg »

nine_k wrote: post #307
toyg wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your line of thinking is exemplary of what I was talking about: “violence first, democracy later”, “democracy comes from fighting”, and soon enough thousands of people are sent to die for nothing in a Middle-Eastern desert.

It just so happens that in the real world independence can only be defended by force. In a civilized society, this force is normally only exerted by specially designated people, the police force, and, more rarely, by citizens defending themselves against assault. But any society that wants to preserve itself has to have an army, or some other kind of a self-defense force, else the first invader to come by will overru…

Even if you assume that violence is a necessary evil, there is no need to exhalt it or link it to the democratic expression of will. By doing so, you end up favouring a reverence to military structures, which are completely anti-democratic in nature and prone to be twisted towards external aggression. That is my point.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#350

Post by mcv »

athenot wrote: post #12
CWuestefeld wrote: post #3

If we think that not enough people are voting, the way to solve this is NOT through get-out-the-vote efforts, voter registration drives, and tools like this to make it easier to cast a vote. These are not the bottleneck. Voting may be a duty, but it's one that carries a lot of responsibility. Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. And I think that people realize this. So when…

Moving voting day from a Tuesday to a Sunday would also make a big difference. There are many people who have have informed opinions but can't afford to take off work (write-up for being late to work/take off early, lost income, transport issues). Also that would avoid removing a school day since most public schools are used for polling. Another option would be to switch to make mail-in ballots only.

Other options include making it a national holiday, or making it easy to vote close to home or work, and keep voting stations open for a very generous period.

Basically, you should be able to vote quickly before or after work without it cost more than 15 minutes.

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