251–260 of 458 posts
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Hmm, here the elections are on sundays because of that. USA votes on workdays?
No one works on Sundays where you are?
I recently realised that one big advantage of compulsory voting is that it completely kills attempts to suppress voter registration or differential turnout. How do you plan on dealing with voter suppression and gerrymandering?
If you make voting compulsory for registered voters, you end up further suppressing voter registration (specifically suppressing registration of those in situations which leave them disproportionately unlikely to be able to get to vote and poor enough to see the fines as an issue) If you ensure all voters are registered, then making the voting compulsory is redundant. There is no advantage to compulsory voting, unles…
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'…
This system definitely allows smaller communities to be heard on the national stage, but it also frequently leads to situations where no single party or pre-election coalitions have enough representatives to form a government (they need at least 50% seats). As a result, coalitions are often formed between unlikely partners who are ideologically worlds apart. Parties forming a coalition at a state level while disparaging their partner at the federal level is quite common, and the number of hoops the politicians jumps through to justify their positions is hilariously sad.
Due to this coalition politics, often important legislation can't be passed as it is difficult to make any progress while satisfying all the partners. The government is also prone to "blackmail" from coalition partners who often threaten to withdraw support unless their demands are met. In a two-party system, at least things move. In a multi-party scenario, there is always a risk of a complete deadlock.
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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…
If you are interested in political participation one place to start would be state and local races - you are more likely to find unconventional candidates at those levels that don't fit neatly with either party. I also find it much more plausible that a third party would make inroads at the state and local level and build momentum from there, rather than a third party candidate emerging out of nowhere and taking the…
For example, and independent in Vermont could become a mayor, then Governor, then Senator, and then have a shot at the White House.
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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…
Voting for 3rd party's often has a larger impact than voting for the top 2 party's. Remember in a 2 party system each side wants to minimize the perceived differences. But, if a 3rd party gains support one of the major party's will generally add those ideas to the platform. Most recently is probably Libertarian > Tea Party. Not that they really had much impact, but people paid lip-service to the ideas.
I don't know that I agree. In practice, it's hardly happening (look at the Republicans and Democrats; at Trump and Clinton), and I don't see why it would happen.
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That's EXACTLY my point, I'm from the "third world" and our election is on a Sunday and Monday is off for everyone, elections are a celebration, it should be a very important moment to everyone, enough to get so drunk the day after :-). It's so confusing living in the USA and looking at so much justified apathy for the political environment. What people here would never understand (and this is due being mostly white…
>I work at a startup and nobody went to vote, everyone has work to do. Indeed, everyone has work to do. It does not absolve us of our civic responsibility. I don't live in California, but would be surprised for anyone at a startup here in Atlanta to have significant problems taking a couple hours out of their day to go vote were they to want to. Apathy is a definite problem however.
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…
The real reason not everyone should vote is that it's not a good thing for people don't feel strongly enough about something to vote to deprive those that do of relative political influence.
[1]a corollary of this is that variable turnout is probably a good thing (easier to discriminate against a demographic if you know that 100% will vote for the other guy regardless of how they act)
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My wife absolutely loves the mailed ballot approach in Washington (I'm not eligible to vote). Particularly because Washington appears to have votes of some description every quarter. The information booklet that comes with it has been great for kickstarting investigation into the candidates and their policies, and the various other proposals that are up for the vote (booklet has both for and against arguments from di…
Am I understanding you correctly? Is the washington state GOVERMENT mailing out ballots with a "pro/con" booklet or are they being sent out by some poltical nonprofit that is just printing off the standard ballot. It would disgust me if it was the election board compiling an "unbiased" pros/cons booklet that is included with every ballot.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you make voting compulsory for registered voters, you end up further suppressing voter registration (specifically suppressing registration of those in situations which leave them disproportionately unlikely to be able to get to vote and poor enough to see the fines as an issue) If you ensure all voters are registered, then making the voting compulsory is redundant. There is no advantage to compulsory voting, unles…
Compulsory voting's advantage is giving people an excuse to vote. If you are legally obligated to show up at the voting booth, even if you elect to spoil your ballot at that point, your employer can't fire you for taking off work to do so.
And frankly, if people are at risk of being fired for taking time out to vote, the problem is that employment law allows people to be fired for voting, not that electoral law doesn't compel them to choose between the risk of being fired or the certainty of being fined.