Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Remind HN: Vote

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 391 posts

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#311

Post by Semiapies »

mseebach wrote: post #149
cletus wrote: post #7

In 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…

Voting is to democracy as telescope is to astronomy.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#312

Post by protomyth »

dkl wrote: post #268
protomyth wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your source? If you count defense spending (CA didn't want the ICBM silos), 2 air force bases, and interstate highway, yeah. We are on the border, have a low population, and are a truck route (I94 and Hwy2). Having 600,000 people will skew a lot of stats. Counting the reservations in that number might be a little deceptive. Also, do we count the ongoing flooding? If the gov would clear an outlet or just let us move a…

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html shows it to not be #2 but close to the top. And I think the point is still valid that CA could balance their budget if we had that nice ratio.

That source doesn't have figures after 2005 and doesn't break it down by area. The skew is the population figure versus infrastructure and defense. I would imagine that the continued flooding will change the figure also.

California needs to get ahold of its pensions, no one can fix that but themselves.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#313

Post by Semiapies »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #278
tibbon wrote: post #84

To say that most elections aren't decided by a single vote, and thus your vote doesn't matter; is like saying that no one goes bankrupt over a single dollar, so single dollars don't matter. If you agree that single dollars don't matter, send your extra ones to me please....

Anyone who could possibly trot out the "a single vote doesn't matter, so whatevs" argument is either ignorant or hasn't been paying attention to the numerous high-profile extremely close elections in the last several years (2000 presidential election, 2008 Minnesota Senate race).

In reality, those are considered remarkable because elections that are so close are extremely rare.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#314

Post by sigstoat »

moxiemk1 wrote: post #248
hnal943 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming the Republicans doesn't make any sense. Democrats have the votes to do whatever they want to do, which is why it's so easy this year to hold incumbents accountable.

No, they don't? The Republicans have used filibuster as a threat at an unprecedented level. The Senate has only nominally been in the Democrats' control. EDIT: Punctuation

i've never felt politicians were particularly courageous if they were afraid of the possibility that someone might talk for awhile. if something is so important, at least give it a shot. worst case you have to listen to somebody read his grocery list to you. (and he ends up looking like an idiot on national tv. the news will ensure that.)

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#315

Post by MikeCapone »

Semiapies wrote: post #304
RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for those who complain about not having the right to abstain, you can get the same effect by turning up and spoiling your ballot paper. You can even make a show of doing it so that everyone can see you're deliberately not casting a valid vote. That makes more of a point that staying home and being invisible.

"You can even make a show of doing it" Why should I be forced to show up for your voting-day entertainment?

Good point, but of ALL the things we are forced to do in Western societies, compulsory voting would probably be pretty low on the list of things I'd want to see go away.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#317

Post by Semiapies »

tjr wrote: post #131

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…

Find an election for a significant, contested office that gets no votes, and we can worry about this parable.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#318

Post by Semiapies »

MikeCapone wrote: post #315
Semiapies wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can even make a show of doing it" Why should I be forced to show up for your voting-day entertainment?

Good point, but of ALL the things we are forced to do in Western societies, compulsory voting would probably be pretty low on the list of things I'd want to see go away.

Thank you, but you respond with no point. You're saying that I should be forced to do something, or else fined or possibly even put in jail for not doing so...but you don't even justify why you're willing to do that to me.

If you support my right to write-in Mickey Mouse or select "None of the Above" or void my vote, then you're saying nothing more than that you like people being punished for not filling out what you acknowledge to be meaningless paperwork.

(Also, last I checked, there's more than one "Western society" that doesn't have compulsory voting.)

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#319

Post by hnal943 »

moxiemk1 wrote: post #248
hnal943 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming the Republicans doesn't make any sense. Democrats have the votes to do whatever they want to do, which is why it's so easy this year to hold incumbents accountable.

No, they don't? The Republicans have used filibuster as a threat at an unprecedented level. The Senate has only nominally been in the Democrats' control. EDIT: Punctuation

Until Scott Brown's election last year, the Democrats could have ended any filibuster attempt immediately. Democrats had a free run for a year. For the a year and a half now, the public has been screaming for them to stop. Brown's election was the first shot across the bow, but the Democrats paid no heed.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#320

Post by mindslight »

pbw wrote: post #82

Of 16,000 congressional elections over the last 100 years only one was decided by a single vote. So in some sense your vote doesn't matter, in that if you didn't vote the result would likely be the same. But one way every vote contributes is increasing voter turnout. Although your contribution is small, it always counts, no matter who you vote for. Mid-term elections have been averaging 37% voter turnout. As turnout…

> High voter turnout is really really important to making the the election a legitimate process.

This is exactly why I am not voting; I'd rather not contribute to the illusion of legitimacy.

Post reply on HN