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Remind HN: Vote

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Re: Remind HN: Vote

#131

Post by tjr »

I once heard a story. It may be a cliche, it may be an old, tired, worn-out tale, but it marked my thinking.

A village was planning a feast. All of the residents were asked to bring a bottle of wine, each of which would be mixed together in a large vat for everyone to partake of. One of the residents reasoned that a single bottle wouldn't make a difference, and so brought a bottle of water instead. When it came time to distribute from the vat of wine at the feast, it turned out the vat was entirely full of water, as all of the residents had come to the same conclusion.

For nearly every practical purpose in our United States general elections, a single vote does indeed not make a difference. But a thousand votes might make a difference, and if those thousand people were all persuaded that their single vote wouldn't make a difference, and then didn't vote, then the difference would not be made.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#132

Post by michaelkeenan »

ugh wrote: post #89
axod wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I would prefer a monarchy, or some merit based voting system - eg You get a vote if you can demonstrate you have the understanding to make informed decisions.

Monarchy?! Sure, you might be lucky and get a good monarch – but their son could be a total douchebag (like Wilhelm II, the gaffe-emperor who led Germany into World War I). I think that on the whole, elections are less random and more merit based than monarchies.

But when monarchies work, they work so well! The richest (per capita) country in the world, Liechtenstein, is a monarchy. I think Qatar, also a monarchy, is second-richest, though that doesn't really count because it has so much oil.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#133

Post by kgosser »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #127

Please, do vote if you understand the issues, and where the candidates stand. But otherwise, please DO NOT VOTE. Just because an idea makes you feel warm and fuzzy doesn't make it right. There are plenty of things in this world that are counter-intuitive, and if you're relying only on your beliefs , there's a good chance you'll get it wrong. If you've never taken a class or read a book on economics, please don't vote…

Seth Godin disagrees with you: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/11/voting-misun...

Additionally, "if you understand the issues" is a vague, relative parameter. I know in the state of wisconsin I don't know 100% of the issues (and probably not even 50%, sadly. Been a busy year), but I know enough of what I like and dislike about the Governor and Senate battles to vote with confidence.

I think your argument is a mute point. It's either damned if we do, damned if we don't.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#134

Post by Retric »

mast wrote: post #125
mbreese wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Option B would be pretty interesting, and might provide a decent incentive for people to vote. However, if people aren't likely to vote anyway, why would they care how much representation they have in Congress? We effectively do have a "none of the above" option: don't select anyone and still cast the ballot. However, it would be better if there was an explicit "No vote" option. The biggest problem with voting not be…

The biggest problem with voting not being mandatory is that a lot of people don't have the opportunity because they can't get off work. If you made voting mandatory (or at least made election day a paid holiday), this impediment might be alleviated. That just sounds like a lazy excuse to me. I don't know how long it takes to vote in the US, but where I live in Canada, we just finished our municiple elections. It was…

I have spent 4-5 hours on more than one occasion.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#135

Post by jonpaul »

jswinghammer wrote: post #111
cabalamat wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. No it won't, they'll just say people who didn't vote were apathetic.

I'm hoping that if enough people refuse to pay attention they'll just go away on their own.

Way to have a defeatist attitude. Keep hoping.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#137

Post by shasta »

rsbrown wrote: post #69
paradoja wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No action removes your right to complain. Many people may have their own legitimate reasons not to vote. That said, those who don't must understand the implications of their actions (like the example you give).

David Foster Wallace said better than I: "If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible psychological reason to stay at home doing one-hitters a…

Eloquent and wrong. Voting for anything other than one of the two entrenched parties is usually a waste of time and gasoline. There is no cabal of evil masterminds responsible for cynicism and apathy - it's an emergent property of the rules of the game.

If you can join forces with like-minded citizens in support an idea that you believe in, as part of a movement that could change national policies for the better, then please do so. If you believe doing so has a reasonable chance of making the world a better place, then maybe you even have a moral obligation to do so. But just voting out of some misplaced sense of civic duty is stupid.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#138

Post by davidw »

mbreese wrote: post #48
michaelkeenan wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bryan Caplan argues that in his field (economics), uninformed votes don't cancel each other out. The average opinions of the uninformed (non-economist laymen) differ consistently from the average opinions of the informed (professional economists): http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/11/06/bryan-caplan/the-myth... I wouldn't be surprised if the same were true of other skills useful to high-quality voting, such as militar…

I'm curious as to how an economics field alters perception (I know votes are scarce, economists study individual choice, etc... But votes technically hold no value). I'd be more interested in a polisci / pollster / statistician perspective. I'm also a little leery of anything coming out of the Cato Institute. If this was a published study, that would be different. Given that the author is a professor, I'm willing to…

FWIW, Bryan Caplan is a very libertarian economist.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#139

Post by brudgers »

michaelkeenan wrote: post #6

If you have an obligation to vote, then it's an obligation to make an informed vote. If you haven't attempted to evaluate your decision carefully and can't make an informed vote, please don't vote. Informed voting > not voting > uninformed voting Greg Mankiw has a column on this: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/11/election-day-approach...

>"Informed voting > not voting > uninformed voting"

The idea that "the uninformed" should not vote is contrary to universal suffrage and has a long history of use for disenfranchisement. "Uninformed voting" is in the eye of the beholder (working definition: uninformed voters are those who both disagree with me and are outside my social group).

One person's criteria for being informed may be awareness of specific proposals for complex policies, while another's might be the candidate's up or down stance on a single issue, and for another it might be party affiliation (noted on the ballot in most US jurisdictions).

Conversely, a person can be highly informed and vote in a way which damages the community at large, e.g. a person may vote to reduce educational funding thereby lowering their taxes with the intent of using the savings to fund the production of child pornography.

Today, vote as well as you are able.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#140

Post by jonpaul »

rrc wrote: post #42

In 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…

A direct democracy is like two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. You can't trust the masses to make decisions like this.
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