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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

#351

Post by foldr »

throwawaylolx wrote: post #157
foldr wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you care so little about voting that you can't be bothered to go out of your house to do it, why are you even interested in increasing participation? Either voting is important, in which case you should be willing to make a small effort, or it isn't, in which case who cares if people vote or not?

Higher participation means voting is more likely to represent the population. As it is, vote results only reflect the opinions of those who considered that the benefit they gain from voting exceeds the costs, which is a biased sample and negatively affects democratic principles. Costs need to be made as negligible as possible in order to be inclusive.

If higher participation is important, then why not make the effort and go out of your house and vote? I just don't follow your line of thought.

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

#352

Post by CWuestefeld »

king07828 wrote: post #340
CWuestefeld wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why a man and a woman? How about a tall person and a short person, or a religious person and an atheist, or a white person and a black person (but what about other races?), and so forth? What is sacred about men versus women, especially since we're told that there's no actual difference between men and women?

Gender provides close to a 50-50 split, which is not provided by all demographics. But if you want to use height or any other demographic to analyze the proposal of two seats per political office, then please go ahead and analyze it that way instead of getting stuck on gender politics.

So why not just say "two seats per office", and let the chips fall where they will?

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

#353

Post by camgunz »

lolsal wrote: post #259
camgunz wrote: post #169

VBM and compulsory voting is basically the only way to get turnout > 90%. You can try to get people fired up about elections, but we're well past diminishing returns on that front. You can try to lower barriers to voting, but even in states like Oregon with auto-registration and VBM it's still lower than 70%. If you look at any place with > 90% turnout, they have compulsory voting. And once you have that you have a s…

Your comment was interesting until the very last two sentences. Please don't make low-quality generalizations like that, punctuated with dismissal.

I get where you're coming from, but it's a matter of fact that Republicans at all levels of government are consistently against expanding voting access. Take some time and look at what happens to those bills. It's 100% a partisan issue. It shouldn't be, but it is.

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

#354

Post by camgunz »

onychomys wrote: post #196
camgunz wrote: post #169

VBM and compulsory voting is basically the only way to get turnout > 90%. You can try to get people fired up about elections, but we're well past diminishing returns on that front. You can try to lower barriers to voting, but even in states like Oregon with auto-registration and VBM it's still lower than 70%. If you look at any place with > 90% turnout, they have compulsory voting. And once you have that you have a s…

Minnesota had 78% turnout this year (for votes cast in our governor race, anyway). We have VBM but you have to request an absentee ballot specifically, and we have some early voting in person but it's not super widespread yet. Instead, what we have up here is civic pride. We've been the top turnout state for years, and we're darn proud of that.

Yeah Minnesota is unexplainable (although same day registration goes a long way), and yeah it is something to be proud of. But it's still no Australia, who in their lowest turnout year since adopting compulsory voting still broke 90% (I think it was like 92%?)

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

#355

Post by camgunz »

tomjen3 wrote: post #223
camgunz wrote: post #169

VBM and compulsory voting is basically the only way to get turnout > 90%. You can try to get people fired up about elections, but we're well past diminishing returns on that front. You can try to lower barriers to voting, but even in states like Oregon with auto-registration and VBM it's still lower than 70%. If you look at any place with > 90% turnout, they have compulsory voting. And once you have that you have a s…

Denmark has 85+ without compulsery voting, because we have more than one party. The US only issue is that you have fpp. Solving that will solve the rest, compulsery voting will just hide it and make sure it is never sold.

Yeah I do think there is definitely disillusionment in US politics that drives down turnout. If we did something like ranked choice voting that might help a lot, and if you think about compulsory voting without a robust set of political parties, it starts to feel a little corrupt.

But Denmark is a lot different than the US. I don't mean to come off like a "USA #1" asshole here but there's maybe 6 million people there. It's a lot harder to set up an election system for some 200 million voters spread across thousands of miles of wildly different environments.

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

#356

Post by lordlimecat »

cafard wrote: post #66
Shivetya wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how do you validate mail in ballots? I am more worried about votes where we have to verify an absent voter simply because the chance of fraud increases. Fraud not only in not knowing if it is the actual voter but also because we cannot insure their vote was not forced. my state had early voting for weeks so there really isn't a "voting day" issue here. (Georgia). Now I have not looked but how many other states offer…

Oregon already has vote by mail exclusively, and absentee voting has been around for years. As for verifying an absent voter, back about 1980 when I voted absentee, I had to have the form notarized.

How do they measure fraud rates? Is it even possible to determine if it is occurring, and if so to what degree?

Saying "rates are low" without any actual metric is never convincing.

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

#358

Post by philwelch »

slededit wrote: post #335
philwelch wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of US history, the World Wars transformed the United States from a parochial, isolationist regional power into a powerful superpower. The Korean War transformed the United States from a country that occupied half of Korea with the permission of a local, democratically elected government to a country that occupies half of Korea with the permission of a local, democratically elected government. Vietnam t…

I never argued about the relative importance of the wars, just that your bar for "major" is extremely high. You also forget about Korea as the start of the communist domino theory that directly led to the Vietnam intervention. And vastly understate the cultural changes that happened as a result of the Vietnam war protests.

Korea and Vietnam simply weren’t as significant as the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the First World War, or the Second World War. They weren’t completely insignificant historical events, but they also just aren’t comparable to the half dozen biggest wars in US history, and that’s what I call “major wars” because the marginal difference between WWII and Korea is so much bigger than the marginal difference between Korea and, say, Grenada.

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

#359

Post by calvinbhai »

justinpombrio wrote: post #142
calvinbhai wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not rename Columbus day into something like "we seek forgiveness" day? how does it make sense to have November 6th as a holiday in a country where more than 50% people don't/can't vote?

> how does it make sense to have November 6th as a holiday in a country where more than 50% people don't/can't vote? The point of making it a holiday is so that people wouldn't have to work that day, to increase the percentage of people who will/can vote. I agree that <50% is too low: let's get that number up, yeah?

I meant, more than 50% include those who are ineligible to vote due to being under age,imprisonment or being an immigrant (legal and illegal).

Giving a holiday is just an easy way for people to plan an extra long weekend.

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

#360

Post by hcg »

maxerickson wrote: post #333
hcg wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing people ot wait hours for voting is a tactic used to discourage voters and more effectively disenfranchise groups you don't want voting. White majority area has 15 minute lines, black majority has 2 hours.

Yeah, I get that. But wealthy New York City, where Democrats run the election commission, was a notable shit show in the recent election. Dealing with the unequal provision of resources is a big deal, I don't mean to dismiss it, it just isn't the only issue.

New York is also really bad about registering people.

It's absolutely about a failure to install proper checks on entrenched power.

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