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Remind HN: Vote
101–110 of 391 posts
Re: Remind HN: Vote
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am Yank, Arab and Somali (I hold three passports) and I will soon be an Aussie, via marriage. I have spent a year in Australia. My feeling is that Aussies are not really as political as Americans. American voting is under-informed and has low turn out, but at least the few percentage of electorate that vote actually care . Aussies .. I am not sure if they don't care, or if they're just good at hiding their politica…
Australian's by and large are not very ideological. With the exception of the Green's movement, there isn't really another "issues" political group that gets much attention -- or members. Politicians are a bunch of wankers. They wouldn't be politicians if they weren't. I don't mean that in a really bad way, I just mean, being a successful politician takes a certain personality type. If you aren't rough as guts, a bit…
There are ideological divides but we don't seem to have the hot button issues (eg abortion) that the US does. This is I believe because religion does not pay a big part in the Australian political system and our religious institutions don't tend to be hugely politically active.
The ALP (Australian Labor Party) are out "Democrats" (in the US sense; we had a Democrats party here that was something else and basically imploded 5+ years ago anyway). It has its roots in the union movement. The majority of ALP MPs (Members of Parliament, the House of Representatives, often called the Lower House) earned their stripes in the union movement, even now.
ALP support bears some correlation with being "working class" and lower socioeconomic position. Traditional supporters are deeply suspicious of anything that (allegedly) erodes "worker's rights" and of any conservative government.
On the right we have the Coalition, which is two parties: the Australian Liberal Party (don't mistake this with the US meaning of "liberal", they're conservative) and the National Party, which is much like the Liberals but only field candidates in rural seats and have a very rural focus.
Calling this a blue and white collar divide is largely accurate.
The Greens are very much on the left and, like the environmental movements in all developed nations, is largely supported by a young, discontent middle and upper classes. I say this not as a judgement but rather environmentalism is a luxury, meaning you see it in rich not poor countries.
The Greens are basically the "ALP in waiting" and deeply entrenched in university politics (meaning the kind of people who run in or care about student elections).
Re: Remind HN: Vote
#103For those of you looking to do some last minute research before voting today, my web app provides candidate information along with information on the positions each candidate supports or opposes: http://elect.io
Re: Remind HN: Vote
#104In a perfect system, I would like to see voting require a license. People require a driver's license because uneducated drivers can harm others. Uneducated voters can cause similar harm to others. Taken to the extreme, you could have a direct democracy where individuals vote directly for proposed bills, bypassing the (usually vested) middleman. Voters would have to pass some competency exam on the subject of the bill…
we had this system in the past; it was incredibly racist. read some history, chap.
But, rrc has a point about voters requiring something to identify them, even if the reason for the license was problematic. The current system allows fraud which could affect close elections. I don't like the idea of a national ID, nor mark on the head or hand, but maybe just a picture of a registered voter and a date of the picture taken.
Re: Remind HN: Vote
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How will voting change the system if no candidate is willing to change it? You make the assumption enough people want to change it. They don't. At least, not yet. Candidates aren't some otherworldly beast, they are citizens. If people really wanted to enact change, they could. You can't make a change alone. If enough people want to make the change, they can vote to make it happen. It's a really simple concept.
I'm not making that assumption. I think most people are fine with the system. The only thing we're lacking in is voter education (both fundamentally and on issues). Fix that, and the system works perfectly. The populace is so poorly educated that researching candidates and issues is an enormous strain on them, and most people can't make themselves do it. Asking someone who got a poor education to read through a bill…
> I'm not making that assumption.
Yes, you are (at least for the question), here:
> How will voting change the system if no candidate is willing to change it?
You have to make the assumption that people are willing to make the change for that question to be valid, otherwise, it reads like thsi:
"How will voting change the system if no candidate is willing to change it and voters aren't willing to change it?"
So yes, you do assume, for the question, that the voters want change. And if the majority of voters want that change, it can be made to happen. They simply vote for it.
Re: Remind HN: Vote
#106In Australia voting is mandatory. If you're registered to vote and you don't you can get fined. If no one is registered to vote at your address you'll tend to get lots of mail about it (but ultimately, staying off the electoral roll isn't difficult). I used to think this was a bad idea as it forced people to vote who didn't really care. In recent years I've come around to the opposite point of view based pretty much…
I'm not against compulsory voting, but I'd just like to add that I don't think it's necessary in order to get a good voter turnout. We have voluntary voting in Sweden, and yet we get about 86% turnout. In the US, there are a number of problems with the voting procedure, too many to count really, I think facing and addressing those issues would be far better than making voting compulsory.
A few days ago there was a post on HN about how economists solved the problem of having prisoners live that were shipped from the UK to Australia 200 years ago: by giving the right incentive (paying for live prisoners at the other end and not just how many you load on in England).
When voting is voluntary, certain groups are incentivized to encourage or discourage other groups from voting. This manifests itself as bribery, legitimate "get out the vote" efforts, making the process of voting difficult and so on.
Basically you've created an incentive for such practices by making voting voluntary. All of that goes away when voting is compulsory.
I'm reminded of the Spce Shuttle Challenger disaster in 2003. I saw a TV show about the investigation into that. After launch there was concern about the visible debris coming off the shuttle. The investigation afterwards showed that there was significant resistance within NASA to investigating that prior to re-entry. Certain people wanted to use satellite imagery to see if there was any damage to the shuttle. Other groups resisted.
The reason this was contentious was that such practices weren't required. The solution? The investigation resulted in NASA instituting a policy requiring such imagery be taken of all shuttle flights.
Once something is mandatory, all sorts of incentives (and the problems they create) simply go away.
Re: Remind HN: Vote
#107Starship Troopers: "No. Something given has no basis in value. When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force my friends is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived."
Voting is so badass.
Re: Remind HN: Vote
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your vote rarely matter from an individual perspective, but there are still reasons for voting. 1. You vote out of solidarity to the people in a similar situation as you are and to represent that perspective on issues. If you feel strongly about something you would want others with the same perspective to also take part. 2. You vote as a role model for your friends and family and to give them a fair chance to cast th…
1. You vote out of solidarity to the group of people who share your situation, faith, occupation etc. If you felt strongly about something you would want others who agreed to also take part. Please don't do that. If you're going to vote, do it about things you care about after having considered all sides, and without first checking whether it's the way everybody around you is voting.
I clarified a bit what I meant in my post before I realized you had replied. I'm not talking about asking your friends what they want, but representing your perspective based on your situation, education, background etc. As an example, most people here have a unique perspective on technology based on those factors. I'm not very familiar with how elections work in the US, but if possible I would rather people here voted for someone technology friendly than not at all.
Re: Remind HN: Vote
#109I won't be voting. I am a libertarian so my vote doesn't matter anyway. Plus I feel that not voting sends a stronger signal about how I feel about our system of government. If more people don't vote it will be harder for them to pretend they have a mandate to raise taxes, give money to the banks, and start wars. The government is long beyond saving. If you vote you take some responsibility for the next war, the next…
If you are a Libertarian, you should find and write-in your candidates, not stay home. If there is no known candidate, you should write in "Libertarian", if there is a space to do so. And if there is no Libertarian on the ballot, you should learn as much as you can about the candidates and vote for the ones that best match your set of values. Odds are that you lean either more towards the liberal social values side o…
I consider what you're describing to the equivalent of not voting anyway. There isn't a candidate in my state who I could feel good about voting for. I consider not voting to be a louder act of protest than voting for someone I half or quarter like.
Re: Remind HN: Vote
#110Is there anything particularly worth voting for in this election? I tend to not bother voting for issues that don't concern me. And frankly, the vast majority of issues that people get all excited about don't bother me one way or another. I'm happy to pay a little more or a little less tax on various things, see schools built in one area and prisons not built in another. Go nuts with it all, and if it really effects…
So you claim that there is nothing of interest in the topics that are voted on. How do you know that if you don't concern yourself with them? You can either be ignorant or informed. Not both at the same time. Claiming that everything is boring by way of being ignorant of everything is dishonest. I am not saying that current affairs are interesting, but I would prefer people to be honestly ignorant to simply being arr…
How about this: Of the topics being voted on that people have gone out of their way to promote, or that the media have covered, none of them struck my curiosity to the point where I feel compelled to dig further into them.
I asked here, on the off chance that somebody has one that they think the HN audience might care about.