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Remind HN: Vote

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Re: Remind HN: Vote

#331

Post by Semiapies »

tjr wrote: post #326
Semiapies wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It doesn't have to be an election with no votes. Just an election whose outcome could be changed by the votes of people who believe their votes don't matter. An election with 5500 votes for A and 5000 for B could be turned with 1000 more votes for B.

waves goodbye to the goalposts as they fly off

Why would those 1000 votes all be for B? They could be for A. They could be evenly split between them. Most likely, they'd be proportionally split similarly to the original vote.

You're looking at partisans' rhetoric used to motivate their supporters and mistaking it for logic.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#332

Post by CWuestefeld »

Jun8 wrote: post #275
RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Voting is a right given to a citizen who meets > certain definitions (i.e. inmates cannot vote). The European Union has declared that preventing inmates from voting is an infringment of their human rights. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11671164

This is an interesting link, thanks. Although I think the ruling was a against a "blanket ban" on inmate voting and doesn't say that all inmates can vote. Need to have a better look, though. I got curious, so rather than going lunch, did some Wikipedia reading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_Sta... . Turns out the right to vote cannot be denied based on : * Religion (in Constitution is…

fourteen states, eleven of them in the South, ban anyone with a felony conviction from voting for life

I agree that this is heinous. Through this means, the political process can hijack the judicial system to eliminate dissent. This means, for example that anyone who had been convicted of sodomy (back when that was still a crime, and if it had been a felony) would be barred from participating in the democratic process, e.g., for pursuing gay marriage.

When someone servers their term, they should be given their citizenship rights back.

But: are you willing to also return to them their 2nd Amendment right to keep & bear arms? (for the record, I am)

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#333

Post by Semiapies »

tjr wrote: post #327
Semiapies wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you are a Libertarian, you should find and write-in your candidates, not stay home" Actually, the LP is very good at getting on ballots, so write-ins are usually unnecessary for those who want to vote for them. However, can you put together a cogent argument why he should go to all that trouble just so you can skim over the section in the results showing that the Libertarian Party candidate for Congress got a han…

http://www.coopersmallergovernment.com/why-should-i-vote-for...

With 2% of the vote, you can get out of some of Iowa's arcane ballot access-restrictions. Fair enough - that's cogent.

Then you're left with the 98% of the public who wants nothing to do with your ideas. Hmm.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#334

Post by Stevenup7002 »

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…

I hate to say it, but mandatory voting == The majority of the voters are clueless and don't really care

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#335

Post by afterburner »

randallsquared wrote: post #297
afterburner wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From bad correlation to a false conclusion and a straw man argument. You're a pro. There is plenty of room in the setup of US elections for one party to have an advantage when turnout is low but still have varied results from year to year and region to region even when voting is mandated. But more importantly, even when you can get 60% of the popular vote in a 100% turnout election, lower turnout can still increase t…

if the low turnout meant proportionally more of the winning party voters turned out But you did say "people in general", not "people likely to vote for party X", so your statement only makes sense if you think people in general vote for party X, which is the same as saying that party X would certainly win if everyone voted. Maybe you misstated what you really meant to say, but I think the inference from what you actu…

Blanket discouragements against voting will not have the same effect on different groups, especially if the favoured group received more directed encouragement separately.

The whole bit you wrote about Bush and fraud and hanging only with your own was the straw man. I can see how maybe my initial statement was incomplete, but this stuff is not exactly news in US politics.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#336

Post by Semiapies »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #323
Semiapies wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Many local elections can be very close. Regardless, if you don't want to vote, that's fine. That just gives my vote more weight.

So, the national elections you cited were not honest examples, gotcha.

But yes, that it does give you "more weight". You can vote for Team Red or Team Blue and convince yourself either that the centrists who get elected are awesome and terribly supportive of the things you want - or that the remarkably similar centrists who got elected are crazy extremists who will destroy America.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#338

Post by btilly »

rue wrote: post #308
SkyMarshal wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why not Saturday? That article doesn't mention it. Neither sabbath nor market day, yet still a weekend day. Or did people back then consider Saturday a regular work/week day too?

Not Saturday because it would, presumably, take that same whole day to get back.

And note that market day tended to be in the same town where you voted, so arriving a day early was much of a hardship.

Re: Remind HN: Vote

#340

Post by tjr »

Semiapies wrote: post #331
tjr wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be an election with no votes. Just an election whose outcome could be changed by the votes of people who believe their votes don't matter. An election with 5500 votes for A and 5000 for B could be turned with 1000 more votes for B.

waves goodbye to the goalposts as they fly off Why would those 1000 votes all be for B? They could be for A. They could be evenly split between them. Most likely, they'd be proportionally split similarly to the original vote. You're looking at partisans' rhetoric used to motivate their supporters and mistaking it for logic.

If they are all for A, or split evenly between them, or proportionally split similar to the original vote, then these additional votes would change nothing. If they all (or enough of them) are for B, then they could change the outcome.

Knowing nothing else, there's really no way to say for sure what would happen, but if they don't vote, then they certainly will not change the outcome.

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