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Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

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Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#181

Post by mason240 »

logfromblammo wrote: post #85
seomis wrote: post #42

To those commenting with some variation of "only informed citizens should vote," pause and consider how much overlap there is with your idea of what an "informed" voter is with race/class lines. You may be unwittingly (or wittingly in some cases?) insisting that voters in the US should be, disproportionately, wealthier whites.

Studies on statistical aggregations often show that a crowd can make a better guess collectively than any individual member. If you ask a crowd to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar, the people who are the worst overestimaters and underestimaters tend to cancel one another out, and the mean and median of all responses will be shockingly close to the actual numeric value. Therefore, my hypothesis is that reaching…

Ask 1000 6th graders the value of Euler's constant, or what the best fiscal policy is, and see how good the results.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#182

Post by judah »

debracleaver wrote: post #108
koolba wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How'd you get such an awesome domain?

Ok, don't laugh: I did a whois search, got the owner's contact info and sent an email. We spent the better part of a year discussing the sale. Both political parties had tried to buy it from him in years past. Ultimately he sold it to me because we are fiercely nonpartisan.

FWIW, I appreciate the non-partisan stance.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#183

Post by Riseed »

seomis wrote: post #42

To those commenting with some variation of "only informed citizens should vote," pause and consider how much overlap there is with your idea of what an "informed" voter is with race/class lines. You may be unwittingly (or wittingly in some cases?) insisting that voters in the US should be, disproportionately, wealthier whites.

I didn't (and wouldn't) make such a comment. However, based on my personal experience, if wealth or race were a predictor at all, my "informed voter" group would likely be comprised of disproportionately few wealthier individuals.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#184

Post by wildmusings »

I don't agree with the stated goal of 100% turnout. As many people should turn out to vote as their are citizens who want to vote. If you're not self-motivated to vote one way or the other, with so much being on the line these days, then maybe it's better that you don't.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#185

Post by WalterBright »

baron816 wrote: post #156

The biggest reason people in the US don't vote is because they don't have enough options so they never get to choose people they really care about. Plus, no individual vote matters. This all has to do with our winner-take-all elections. Countries with proportional representation have much higher voter turnout rates (often in the 80-90% range). That's because you get to vote for the person or party you want, and they'…

Elections where the polls indicate the race is close, and the candidates have starkly different patterns, have high voter turnout. Where one candidate has a big lead, or the platforms are more or less indistinguishable, there's low turnout.

Voters are doing a simple cost/benefit analysis weighing the cost of taking the time to vote vs the impact their vote will have.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#186

Post by partiallypro »

ssmoot wrote: post #178
partiallypro wrote: post #165

Not everyone should vote. This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but democracy only works with informed citizens. If you have a bunch of people that are not informed on the issue voting you're probably going to have an outcome that is awful. If you think politicians are bad now, just wait until the populists have the uninformed voting in high numbers (hey, that sounds familiar this year.) To me, if you don't care…

> To me, if you don't care enough to take time to vote as it is, you probably don't know the issues, and you probably shouldn't vote. Or maybe you live in a state where your vote doesn't matter because it's not a swing state. Or maybe neither two-party candidate is on the right side of the issues you care most about. Don't want to go to war? Do you pick Hillary or Trump? Who knows? Want to see Criminal Justice reform…

Oh, I agree with all of that. I amended my post to mention that too. Usually I've vote for a 3rd party though, but I agree that choosing to not vote is just as legitimate as voting. I don't agree with the sentiment of "you can't complain if you didn't vote." That's total nonsense.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#188

Post by danieltillett »

laxatives wrote: post #61
debracleaver wrote: post #2

Hey everyone. Debra Cleaver here, founder of Vote.org. I am ready to answer all of your questions about voting in the US, as long as they are non-partisan. Partisan questions should be directed to your local political party. I'm especially keen to talk about ways we can use technology to modernize the election process. My current focus is how we can use electronic signatures to roll out online voter registration in s…

Maybe this is or isn't non-partisan, but here's a shot: I'm 25 years old. I've never voted and never will vote as long as there is a two party system. There has never been a situation where I can agree with either party or individual enough to support them in an election. How do you intend to get people like me to vote? Also, if you did you get everyone to vote, wouldn't every vote turn in to a popularity contest? In…

Stop voting for someone and start voting against someone. Pick the least worst candidate and give them your vote.

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#189

Post by hueving »

hnamazon123 wrote: post #59
nickff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Debra, Why do you want to increase turnout? Have you read some of the work on voter ignorance, which shows that voters have very little political knowledge, and are deeply influenced by various biases? This work shows that non-voters are have even worse prejudices and are less knowledgable than voters; how would getting these people to the polls help?[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_V…

I strongly, strongly suspect that the primary motivation for this comes from the fact that higher voter turnout tends to favor democrats. http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/3/progressives-ne...

If that were true, why wouldn't the government try to push mandatory voting laws when it had leadership from the Democrat party?

Re: Vote.org is a non-profit that wants to get the U.S. to 100% voter turnout

#190

Post by hackuser »

izacus wrote: post #117
igorgue wrote: post #114

I have a theory that since that the USA doesn't make election day a federal holiday is one of the major factors the working class of america is not voting, usually it takes too long to vote, and it's not paid for employees, especially blue collar ones. I wonder what are your thoughts about it, and how can it happen in America? I've seen every single proposal be rejected in congress.

Hmm, here the elections are on sundays because of that. USA votes on workdays?

Tuesdays
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