231–240 of 308 posts
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I've never met someone that wanted to vote but couldn't for some reason. Does this actually happen to anyone in reality? This may be a case of preemptive optimization.
Maybe your friends and family aren't the ones being targeted?
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Very unlikely. Even large corporate employers don't give time off for most federal holidays. I have a cushy tech job and still have to work on MLK day, President's Day, Veteran's Day, Columbus Day.
Apple has Juneteenth off now, and did so before this announcement.
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> "Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders." This is the reason why we have to file tax papers. State & federal can calculate taxes for majority of the people but don't because a group "" want people to suffer and revolt against income tax. All politicians wants to cut spending but just not f…
The biggest reason we don't have automatic tax filing in the U.S. is the Intuit & H&R Block lobbyists fighting against it. According to this ProPublica report, that is. https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...
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It's largely because increased voting overwhelmingly (and almost exclusively) benefits one side in the US. While it's obviously good to have increased participation in democracy, the side that's going to more or less cease to exist if we ever get even 80% citizen participation obviously has an incentive to make voting harder.
"More people voting always hurts , and helps their opponents" has always seemed to me like an admission that is innately anti-democratic, and I don't know how people ever spin it otherwise.
But democracy's approval rating has been dropping for a while, so that's probably not the death blow it would have been. Democracy doesn't seem to be sacred anymore.
The number of people saying it's essential (rating a 10/10 on importance) to live in a democracy seems to have peaked for people born in the 50s in Europe and has been dropping for birth cohorts since the 30s. [Figure 1 in the source]
Source: https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/0...
Additionally, about 15-20% of people in the US (depending on age) seem to think democracy is a bad way to run a country [Figure 2 in previous source]
Even this pew article, which is relatively rosy on democracy, finds that ~40% of the US would be fine with leaving policy making to experts. The question specifically mentions excluding elected officials. [4th chart in next source]. We could probably debate on the merits of technocracy, but it's a very different thing than democracy.
Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2017/10/16/democracy-wide...
This is a good symbolic gesture, but making election day a federal holiday equivalent in standing with Christmas would have real and positive impact. But the latter never draws the votes in congress, so that should tell us how meaningless this vote truly was.
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Make it a 1/2 day public holiday starting at 12pm. This way employees will be less likely to take Monday off and have a 4 day weekend. Make serving as as working the polls equivalent to jury duty. All employers must give the days off if employee wants to work the polls.
Or, just… spend more money on it. Here, polls are from 7am to 10pm, you don’t generally have to queue to vote for more than a few minutes, and unless you’re in an extremely rural area you can walk to your polling place. Now, presumably American elections are cheaper per capita, but it’s not like the money isn’t available. Cut down on the f35 habit a bit and have some proper elections.
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Well, check my prediction 1-2 years from now. Your company will give you a day off on both MLK and Juneteenth. On Juneteenth 2023 you'll have a day off (this and next year it falls on the weekend) The only exception to this would be companies (and schools) that will use Juneteenth as an education day instead of giving the day off. (I hope companies don't do that. If I want to get educated I have books and the Interne…
My company decided to give Juneteenth off this year as a change to the calendar effective from January. Its treated exactly the same as every other federal holiday, if it falls on a Saturday we get Friday off and if it falls on a Sunday we get Monday.
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Also Australian here. Unironically the whole family looks forward to voting day for the snags. I've seen kids ask why voting day so far away. Is that sort of environment all the US is missing that makes this controversial?
In some states in the USA recently there's been legislation passed that makes it illegal to provide even water to people waiting to vote. For us Australians, I suspect that invites a huge range of questions, including how long are people normally waiting that they need water, and why would a nominally capitalist society legislate against selling libations and comestibles under these very specific conditions.
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Also Australian here. Unironically the whole family looks forward to voting day for the snags. I've seen kids ask why voting day so far away. Is that sort of environment all the US is missing that makes this controversial?
In some states in the USA recently there's been legislation passed that makes it illegal to provide even water to people waiting to vote. For us Australians, I suspect that invites a huge range of questions, including how long are people normally waiting that they need water, and why would a nominally capitalist society legislate against selling libations and comestibles under these very specific conditions.
Nothing is stopping voters from drinking their own water and eating their own snacks in line.
I applaud laws that limit "gift giving" at the polls. The polls should not be a place where your vote is swayed by a gift.
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What is your point then? What you are trying to say? Your words give the impression that you believe when a person cannot afford a house, that is discrimination.
I don't get what's so difficult to understand here. It used to be straight-up illegal for certain people to live certain places. The system shifted to covert discrimination once that overt discrimination was outlawed. Housing became an investment so the people with equity would never want to dismantle the system, and all the accessible jobs went away. Now the people who used to be overtly discriminated against have n…
What you wrote in this post is entirely different from what you wrote in your prior post.