171–180 of 377 posts
If we think that not enough people are voting, the way to solve this is NOT through get-out-the-vote efforts, voter registration drives, and tools like this to make it easier to cast a vote. These are not the bottleneck. Voting may be a duty, but it's one that carries a lot of responsibility. Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. And I think that people realize this. So when…
This particular idea seems bad from a security standpoint. But we do need to make some major changes to level the playing field so that people who have small children, move often, work odd hours- in other words, everyone except for propertied old people- are able to vote. I can see a few ways to make this happen: 1) make voting day a national holiday 2) automate voter registration when you file a tax return and make…
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move the polling station then?
It's already a struggle to find enough polling stations that are large enough in some places.
A lot of polling stations in Europe are schools for that reason.
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Moving voting day from a Tuesday to a Sunday would also make a big difference. There are many people who have have informed opinions but can't afford to take off work (write-up for being late to work/take off early, lost income, transport issues). Also that would avoid removing a school day since most public schools are used for polling. Another option would be to switch to make mail-in ballots only.
Why do I even need to elect a Congressman/woman to make decisions for me? Just let me do it directly now that the technology is here. We should vote on issues in real time, or within a week or month-long window. It would incentivize people with time and interest to be more involved, and get rid of that pesky agency problem. At the very least we can marginalize the role of politicians and perhaps be less disappointed…
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My $.10 proposal: change Veterans Day to be the 2nd Tuesday in November. Almost no cost, there's a strong “they served so you would have this right” angle, and it'd pair naturally with other civic events.
With all due respect, ideologically linking the military and democracy is a horrifically bad idea. The two systems embody completely opposite concepts.
I know how to solve this problem. Upload a speech by each candidate to YouTube on election day. At the end of the day whomever gets the least downvotes wins. Google's CAPTCHA and profiling will protect us from election tampering and make sure only the people who are allowed to vote will vote. Might need CAPTCHA 4, though. The one where you go through a DNA test to verify your uniqueness, then get an RFID implant for…
You can early vote one weekend here in Texas, and that doesn't seem to radically increase turnout. This year i believe turnout was lower on Saturday/Sunday than during the week.
If we think that not enough people are voting, the way to solve this is NOT through get-out-the-vote efforts, voter registration drives, and tools like this to make it easier to cast a vote. These are not the bottleneck. Voting may be a duty, but it's one that carries a lot of responsibility. Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. And I think that people realize this. So when…
Moving voting day from a Tuesday to a Sunday would also make a big difference. There are many people who have have informed opinions but can't afford to take off work (write-up for being late to work/take off early, lost income, transport issues). Also that would avoid removing a school day since most public schools are used for polling. Another option would be to switch to make mail-in ballots only.
The reasoning for such extremely strict geographic restrictions, I am unsure of, but surely it would also argue against mail-in ballots (and I would assume smartphone voting).
Side question: How are people temporarily living in distant areas from their registered county (working, attending school, etc) able to vote? I'm sure there's a large handful of people in this situation unable to cast their vote.
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> It’s why I believe early votes should be allowed to be overwritten by in-person votes. It's an interesting idea, though how would you maintain the secret ballot? If you ask them to make a "negative vote" they can suddenly vote three times without any chance of being caught.
You could keep the ballot sealed but tied to the voter's ID. Once the polling center closes for every mailed-in ballot they check if they have an in-person vote. If so, they discard it, otherwise they add it in the urn before it's opened for counting.
Agree on keeping votes sealed until live polling closes. But there is no need to check every mailed-in ballot against in-person votes.
Instead, when a mailed-in ballot arrives one marks the voter rolls. When a voter checks into a polling place, the rolls are anyway consulted. At that time, if a live voter shows as having already voted: that ballot is found and destroyed, and the voter given a fresh ballot to cast.
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> Wow. What if someone is informed but disagrees with you? OP didn't say anything about agreeing with their positions. I honestly don't see what your "wow" is about - do you believe that it would be helpful to society to have poorly-informed people casting votes?
No - I believe everyone should try to educate themselves as much as possible about what they are voting on. What I "heard" in the original statement is something implied - something deeper (my hearing may be wrong) To say "we don't need more ignorant uninformed votes" when the only thing you know about a voter is who / what they voted for (not the _why_), while also saying there is a way to vote that will "help our s…
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I've never once worked a job where we got Columbus day off.
Every company I've worked for in NY/NJ has had the day off... except my current gig for an Italian company. Go figure.