“A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming • Hacker News Board

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#361

Post by masonic » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 3:06 AM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #337

CWuestefeld wrote: post #3

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…

> Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. I'm not usually one to say this, but this is a very high-and-mighty way of looking at your society. In Australia, voting is mandatory for every citizen. We have just as many misinformed people, but voting is seen as a civic duty in the same way that jury duty is. If you don't show up, you get fined (though skipping jury duty has a much…

  voting is mandatory for every citizen

Is voting mandatory, or is simply showing up at the polls mandatory?

If the former, are you required to vote on every issue and office?

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#362

Post by masonic » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 3:10 AM UTC

jfk13 wrote: post #55

mtgx wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree this is far from the primary thing Americans should be focusing on, even forgetting about all the horrific and completely impossible to fix security issues that this will bring. What the US needs to be focusing on is changing the voting system. It's absolutely insane and undemocratic for this to keep happening almost every election: https://preview.redd.it/lyvqks420vw11.jpg?width=949&auto=web... If this isn't…

> It's absolutely insane and undemocratic for this to keep happening almost every election: > https://preview.redd.it/lyvqks420vw11.jpg?width=949&auto=web... . > If this isn't a broken system, I don't know what is. This is not the "voice of the people" being heard. If that graphic were for the House rather than the Senate, it would be more persuasive. The Senate is (by design) not about representation directly in pro…

Beyond that, the data is unsourced, and given that it thinks there are 92 (rather than 100) Senators, is suspect.

Also, raw vote counts are meaningless because the most populous states are dual-Democrat states, excluding Texas.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#363

Post by masonic » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 3:14 AM UTC

49531 wrote: post #258

partiallypro wrote: post #165

Democracy only works with a well informed voting base, and while you may disagree with the current state of politics, it has always been my belief that people that do not know the candidates or issues should abstain from voting. I will often vote in some races but abstain from others, simply because I don't know the issue or candidate well enough. I wish more people would do that. Making voting easier for the highly…

This sentiment is a part of what drove literacy tests as part of voter law. Making voting harder tends to benefit one political party over another; it doesn't across the board lower turnout evenly. Sometimes it's enough to understand the macro issues of the party. You can't really know how an elected official will vote on your behalf, so it's all guesswork. But making voting harder is just going make our government l…

  his sentiment is a part of what drove literacy tests

No, racism is what originally drove literacy tests as a result of manumission. Whites were generally exempt. See the origins of "Grandfather Clause".

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#364

Post by partiallypro » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 4:23 AM UTC

49531 wrote: post #258

partiallypro wrote: post #165

Democracy only works with a well informed voting base, and while you may disagree with the current state of politics, it has always been my belief that people that do not know the candidates or issues should abstain from voting. I will often vote in some races but abstain from others, simply because I don't know the issue or candidate well enough. I wish more people would do that. Making voting easier for the highly…

This sentiment is a part of what drove literacy tests as part of voter law. Making voting harder tends to benefit one political party over another; it doesn't across the board lower turnout evenly. Sometimes it's enough to understand the macro issues of the party. You can't really know how an elected official will vote on your behalf, so it's all guesswork. But making voting harder is just going make our government l…

No one is saying to make voting "harder," the question is when does it become so easy that you no longer take your civic duty seriously. Mob and cult mentality are incredibly common in online and reality TV voting, do you honestly think people don't devolve into that in national politics? I think that is a naive world view.

Also, that sentiment was driven by racism, not by actual intelligence. If you look up those old tests, there were some questions with no right answer, etc.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#365

Post by partiallypro » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 4:26 AM UTC

coryfklein wrote: post #249

partiallypro wrote: post #165

Democracy only works with a well informed voting base, and while you may disagree with the current state of politics, it has always been my belief that people that do not know the candidates or issues should abstain from voting. I will often vote in some races but abstain from others, simply because I don't know the issue or candidate well enough. I wish more people would do that. Making voting easier for the highly…

The "highly ignorant" are showing up at the polls just as much as the highly informed. Making voting easier doesn't exacerbate that problem.

Can you prove that? Just logically, if you could vote from your smartphone at 7PM on election night from your couch, do you think that would make people who are more informed vote or that it would attract people who are less informed? I know it sounds insane, but sometimes making people have some sort of motivation to physically move, can be a good thing.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#366

Post by lenkite » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 6:34 AM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #307

toyg wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your line of thinking is exemplary of what I was talking about: “violence first, democracy later”, “democracy comes from fighting”, and soon enough thousands of people are sent to die for nothing in a Middle-Eastern desert.

It just so happens that in the real world independence can only be defended by force. In a civilized society, this force is normally only exerted by specially designated people, the police force, and, more rarely, by citizens defending themselves against assault. But any society that wants to preserve itself has to have an army, or some other kind of a self-defense force, else the first invader to come by will overru…

“If your role in life is that of peacemaker, you must resign yourself to the fact that sometimes, peace can only be made through force. Peace is a condition that exists only when those who hate to fight are better prepared to do so than those who love to. It is very simple and very easy to kill. If you would learn to neutralize an opponent while doing them the minimum possible amount of harm, you must master the art of attack; master it more thoroughly than any killer ever needs to"

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#367

Post by cyphar » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 7:56 AM UTC

masonic wrote: post #361

cyphar wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Getting ignorant people to cast poorly-informed votes does not help our society. I'm not usually one to say this, but this is a very high-and-mighty way of looking at your society. In Australia, voting is mandatory for every citizen. We have just as many misinformed people, but voting is seen as a civic duty in the same way that jury duty is. If you don't show up, you get fined (though skipping jury duty has a much…

voting is mandatory for every citizen Is voting mandatory, or is simply showing up at the polls mandatory? If the former, are you required to vote on every issue and office?

We have a secret ballot[+], so there is no requirement to actually write anything on the paper. Spoiling your ballot is not illegal (otherwise you couldn't have a secret ballot). But it is mandatory for you to show up, receive a ballot, and put it in the provided ballot boxes.

In Australian elections there are no votes on issues, it's purely deciding your representative in the Senate or House of Representatives (which are voted on separate pieces of paper so you can spoil one and not the other if you wish). Votes on issues aren't really a thing we do outside of referendums (and there hasn't been one of those for a while).

[+] Interestingly the American secret ballot system is called the "Australian ballot".

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#368

Post by cyphar » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 8:06 AM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #219

dragonwriter wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mandatory voting? How would you propose enforcing it? With a financial penalty if you don't submit a ballot. The simplest method would probably be a per-election tax credit. > I'm not necessarily against mandatory voting, but it would be very hard to convince the American public that mandatory voting is a good idea when a huge part of the population would see that as an attack on their freedom to not vote. Most man…

How would you deal with unregistered voters? How would you deal with malicious voters, who now surely would be so pissed they would vote for a bad candidate, or put in ballots wrapped in dog shit?

Mandatory voting exists in many countries, including Australia (since 1918). As an Australian, I've never heard of anyone submitting a ballot wrapped in dog shit. Culturally, voting is seen as just something that you go and do every couple of years, and so most people aren't really as pissed off as you assume people might be.

Unregistered voters exist obviously, but current statistics estimate that only a very small percentage of the population is actually unregistered (and unregistered voters aren't fined as far as I know).

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#369

Post by cyphar » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 8:07 AM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #312

sbov wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's way more unpleasant things than voting the populace is forced to deal with and yet the government still manages to deal with their ire. Like filing tax returns. Or jury duty. You may as well ask them how they deal with dog shit filled envelopes.

Jury duty, which is so routinely avoided/worked around that it is a joke? Tax returns, which are only done at the threat of prison? And mostly in the US because other countries have figured out a way to do it directly as long as you have a job? I have voted in every election that I was elegible to, but this time I have lost every faith in the system and just want to some way to say to say enough is enough, you have l…

> Where in your system do I vote in farvour of that?

Submit an empty ballot, or write "burn in hell" on it. It won't make a difference to how your vote is counted, but sitting at home and not voting will make just as little of a difference.

Re: “A Horrifically Bad Idea”: Smartphone Voting Is Coming

#370

Post by cyphar » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 8:09 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #119

knieveltech wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want people to vote make it mandatory like Australia. Anything short of that seems incoherent.

> If you want people to vote make it mandatory like Australia. Empirically, a more proportional election system not only improves satisfaction with government, but also participation in voting. People not voting should be a signal that there is something wrong with the voting system’s fitness for purpose. Mandatory voting may treat the symptom, but ignores the underlying problem.

Mandatory voting solves the problem that "party X won because they convinced more people to leave their house and vote". It also immediately solves all of the voting discrimination problems you see in the US, as well as making it practically necessary for voting to occur on days that people actually have time to vote (as well as provide more tools to make early voting easier).

So while I agree that apathy and lack of satisfaction are some of the reasons why people are not voting (and are serious problems that need to be addressed), there are other problems that mandatory voting can help resolve. And ultimately the friction to convincing people of your argument is much smaller -- because now it is just a political problem of convincing the public, rather than a practical problem of getting some folks to take time off work to vote.