Today is Election Day in the United States. Those of you reading this on Team Liquid who are of voting age and are eligible to vote should do so.
You might ask why this is so important. Here’s why:
In the last 30 years, turnout rates for American presidential elections have been horrendous. Remember those happy feelings about the elections of 2008, how they were the biggest turnout on record for a while? Only 61% of the eligible voting population in the country turned out to vote that year. That percentage of people represents a fraction of the total voting-age population.
Click the image above for a clearer view of the data.
In essence, the popular vote in American elections is decided by a much smaller number of people than you might expect, given the size of the country and its population density. An average of around 80 million eligible Americans regularly sit out elections, and fail to vote. That number is roughly equivalent to just about every person living in the states of California and Texas failing to vote.
The number of voters who failed to vote in each election year manages to outstrip, by a large margin, the voting totals of the two party’s contenders each time. Depending on the preferences of each individual voter in this huge pool, the change in election results if they chose either candidate (or all voted for a different candidate from a different party entirely) would be quite significant.
A lot of fuss is made about the Electoral College and the problem of the two-party consensus in the United States political and electoral system, but the simple fact of the matter is without the engagement of those 80 million or so people who fail to vote and express their preferences in elections, not much can change in the short-, medium-, and long-term scheme of things.
Actively failing to vote, while admittedly an expression of political preference, doesn’t actually get anything done in the real world. It functions as your tacit acceptance of the status quo.
Go out and vote.
The subject of this post is not about discussing the merits of any candidate or position except that people should go out and vote.
If you don't want to select any particular candidate in the election, you should still go anyway. You can submit your ballot without selecting a person you would like to choose for a given office (in fact, I often abstain from at least 1-2 of the lesser offices in an election if I don't know anything about them).
Not wanting to pick someone to be the president is not an excuse to skip voting.
Yeah that's important to note as well. You don't have to vote in every part of the ballot for it to count. I worked at a polling place years ago and clearly remember someone coming in simply to vote against a local ordinance increasing cigarette sales tax. She skipped through every part of the ballot except that part, voted, and then left.
In fact, oftentimes local offices and ballot measures are the things you can influence. Sometimes you can't influence the presidential elections due to electoral college, but local stuff is easy to have an influence on. A local candidate won by 117 votes in my district.
You might think: "Why should I vote when all the candidates are bought by corporations anyway?"
Well, there are two reasons, good sir.
1: There is a difference between being bought by corporations, and being bought by corporations + being fucking insane.
2: If enough people vote blankly (Voting for no one, but voting nonetheless) then that will be noticed, and will send the message that people won't vote for you unless you serve the people, and not corporations. With unlimited super pacs and all that, candidates will still be bribed, but they'll have to be somewhat better, or they won't be voted on. If enough people decide to vote only for a decent candidate, or vote blankly if that doesn't exist (which it doesn't, right now), there will be lots of progress.
On November 06 2012 04:03 vOdToasT wrote: You might think: "Why should I vote when all the candidates are bought by corporations anyway?"
Well, there are two reasons, good sir.
1: There is a difference between being bought by corporations, and being bought by corporations + being fucking insane.
2: If enough people vote blankly (Voting for no one, but voting nonetheless) then that will be noticed, and will send the message that people won't vote for you unless you serve the people, and not corporations. With unlimited super pacs and all that, candidates will still be bribed, but they'll have to be somewhat better, or they won't be voted on. If enough people decide to vote only for a decent candidate, or vote blankly if that doesn't exist (which it doesn't, right now), there will be lots of progress.
Or actually, things will continue on as if nothing happened. The non-votes of people who do not express their preferences are completely ignored because pissing those people off doesn't impact their chances. The strategy of modern political parties is actually to attempt to dissuade as many voters from the opposite side from voting. Media functions in the modern day to convince people that the side they favor has already won, and that voting is useless.
The reaction towards the problems you describe shouldn't be political inaction and apathy.
Edit: I kinda misinterpreted your post. While more cynical, yes what you describe might be valid.
What if, say, I happened to be a Republican in a state which votes overwhelmingly Democratic, or vice-versa? Even if I was like "Romney, fuck yeah!" and totally ignorant about the electoral college, my state would be won by Barack Obama regardless.
Also, why should I be pressured into voting if, as an American, I have the personal freedom to abstain from voting if I feel that neither candidate is qualified for holding public office?
On November 06 2012 04:07 ninazerg wrote: What if, say, I happened to be a Republican in a state which votes overwhelmingly Democratic, or vice-versa? Even if I was like "Romney, fuck yeah!" and totally ignorant about the electoral college, my state would be won by Barack Obama regardless.
Also, why should I be pressured into voting if, as an American, I have the personal freedom to abstain from voting if I feel that neither candidate is qualified for holding public office?
You do realize there are other things to vote on in an election season than that for highest office? A lot of those things will fundamentally affect you much more than whoever might end up being elected president (mayorships, initiatives and referendum, etc). You do have the freedom not to choose, I'm just trying to educate people as to why not choosing is a bad strategy if you are uncomfortable with the status quo.
On November 06 2012 04:07 ninazerg wrote: What if, say, I happened to be a Republican in a state which votes overwhelmingly Democratic, or vice-versa? Even if I was like "Romney, fuck yeah!" and totally ignorant about the electoral college, my state would be won by Barack Obama regardless.
Also, why should I be pressured into voting if, as an American, I have the personal freedom to abstain from voting if I feel that neither candidate is qualified for holding public office?
It's your civic duty as an American to exercise this freedom and right to vote! But of course, you can surely exercise your right not to vote as well. And I understand why it may seem futile to not bother if your state is going to lean the other way anyway.
Even though my state (like nearly all states) is most likely decided already by predictive polls, I'll still be voting. To show my support. To be a part (albeit negligible) of this huge process. Because I did research on the candidates and I feel like I'm informed enough to be voting for someone (and against someone else). And because it makes me feel good.
On November 06 2012 04:07 ninazerg wrote: What if, say, I happened to be a Republican in a state which votes overwhelmingly Democratic, or vice-versa? Even if I was like "Romney, fuck yeah!" and totally ignorant about the electoral college, my state would be won by Barack Obama regardless.
Also, why should I be pressured into voting if, as an American, I have the personal freedom to abstain from voting if I feel that neither candidate is qualified for holding public office?
You do realize there are other things to vote on in an election season than that for highest office? A lot of those things will fundamentally affect you much more than whoever might end up being elected president (mayorships, initiatives and referendum, etc). You do have the freedom not to choose, I'm just trying to educate people as to why not choosing is a bad strategy if you are uncomfortable with the status quo.
This. A lot of people forget that other offices are up for voting, and these offices matter a lot more than the presidency for most.
As others have said, there are more candidates and issues on the ballot than simply your choice for President. There's always a house seat up for grabs, 2/3rds chance of a senate race, and lots of local offices and initiatives you can vote on. If you don't like Romney or Obama, there are third party candidates you can choose too. Even though they won't win, votes for third parties can help with ballot access in future elections, and it sends a message to the major parties that they aren't properly addressing the issues you care about.
You should also vote because politicians don't give a shit about you if you don't. Most people on TL are under 30, a demographic that has very low voter turnout compared to older people, and as a result, we have a government that panders to the desires of those old people.
i will be old enough to vote soon, but i'm probably not going to vote even after i am old enough because i feel like i dont know enough about politics to make an informed decision about who to vote for, and i dont want to vote for somebody without being able to clearly support my decision. And actually learning enough to make an informed decision would take too long anyway
On November 06 2012 04:22 snively wrote: i will be old enough to vote soon, but i'm probably not going to vote even after i am old enough because i feel like i dont know enough about politics to make an informed decision about who to vote for, and i dont want to vote for somebody without being able to clearly support my decision. And actually learning enough to make an informed decision would take too long anyway
If you think that you don't know enough, you know more than most.
If I was an american I'd be really hard pressed to find a person to vote for with my whole heart even though I'm more inclined to Obama I'd like the USA to have a candidate that was fundamentally different than the ones americans are presented with - a candidate that believed in weakening the current imperialist ideology, less silly patriotism and less neoliberalist bullcrap. To cheer things up and HIGHLY on topic, some political rap: + Show Spoiler +
On November 06 2012 04:22 snively wrote: i will be old enough to vote soon, but i'm probably not going to vote even after i am old enough because i feel like i dont know enough about politics to make an informed decision about who to vote for, and i dont want to vote for somebody without being able to clearly support my decision. And actually learning enough to make an informed decision would take too long anyway
You are already inside of the political game the second you were born, if you can't grasp the whole of the situation at least vote in a way you judge that it'll change things positively around you, but remember, it only counts as positive if you are not selfish. (:
Not every candidate or position will be perfect, but there is such a thing as strategic voting: voting with the candidate or position that more closely reflects most of your preferences. You can also branch off entirely and roll your own political party and candidates; if enough of those 80 million plus voters who don't vote did so, the results would be quite interesting to observe.
And, as I said, there are more things on the ballot come election day than just voting for president. Not having opinions and expressing them on those can be uniquely bad for you in ways more significant than whoever gets elected as president.
You do realize there are other things to vote on in an election season than that for highest office?
Duh. If you read your OP, you will notice how much of it is devoted to the presidential race. That's why I'm talking specifically about the presidency. However, where I live, there is no Mayor, because my city is trolling us 24/7, and almost everyone is running unopposed, except for my Congressman, who also happens to be running for Vice-President. There's also a very bitter Senate race (damn right!) which I already voted on when I went to go vote early a few days ago. Also, I just so happened to vote for a presidential candidate while completing my ballot.
I'm just trying to educate people
I realize voting is important, but some people choose not to, and will have to live with the consequences.
You do realize there are other things to vote on in an election season than that for highest office?
Duh. If you read your OP, you will notice how much of it is devoted to the presidential race. That's why I'm talking specifically about the presidency. However, where I live, there is no Mayor, because my city is trolling us 24/7, and almost everyone is running unopposed, except for my Congressman, who also happens to be running for Vice-President. There's also a very bitter Senate race (damn right!) which I already voted on when I went to go vote early a few days ago. Also, I just so happened to vote for a presidential candidate while completing my ballot.
It focuses on the turnout rates for presidential elections. Turnout is measured by proportion of people voting for someone for highest office, and is the only set of statistics available across the 50 states consistently every year. I infer that turnout across the entire ballot reflects these rates, or are even smaller.
The low voter turnout in the United States can be explained almost entirely on two factors. 1. Institutional: Non compulsory voting. No election holiday. Different voting days for various elections. Voting registration. 2. Periods of "social cleavage events", i.e. voting blocs are formed by events causing social cleavage like depressions, wars, etc. The 1940s Great Depression was the last clear cut social cleavage event. You could call the 1960s a mini one but only for the Democrats and since then we've been starting and stopping and trying to figure out where the parties are headed. Basically, social cleavage events increase political participation and then it winds down again until the next major event. We've been stop and go for a while, so who knows what will happen this election. I predict it will be down a bit from last time but still higher than the decade average before.
I'm ok with voting inconvenient and people not voting. Voting should be viewed as a privilege. Studies done on propaganda in the 1950s indicated that the people who were least engaged in politics were the ones most susceptible to propaganda. Do you really want those people voting? Whenever you have a landslide election (like the last one), it's these people who are voting for the winning candidate.People who aren't particularly engaged and just pick up the most powerful tremors.
And as a final note, choice theory doesn't know why anyone votes, as even the closest presidential election was decided by hundreds of votes. Of course, then you get into problems of "if nobody votes, then the one person who does vote decides", and it goes in a big circle.
VOTE. There are a lot of things up for a vote, and your only real way to support your positions is via the ballot box. So you are in a place where your vote might not matter because of electoral college? VOTE ANYWAYS. The popular vote numbers can still send a message to the people in smokey back rooms trying to make decisions. If you are voting for the guy that wins, you're making sure they know he's supported. If you vote for the guy that doesn't win, you're telling them that it's worthwhile to put some effort into that location, because they have support there.
And, falling back on an old standby... even if there is no one you want to vote for, there may be someone you want to vote against. Don't like D or R? Vote L, G, or P. Hell, write in Incontrol. Or vote for Flash. Even the votes for Mickey Mouse can send a message to the political elite. And you'll probably find that there's a lot more locally that will more directly effect you that maybe you can influence.
5/5. If you are in a place where you can vote, DO IT.
On November 06 2012 05:19 Jerubaal wrote: The low voter turnout in the United States can be explained almost entirely on two factors. 1. Institutional: Non compulsory voting. No election holiday. Different voting days for various elections. Voting registration. 2. Periods of "social cleavage events", i.e. voting blocs are formed by events causing social cleavage like depressions, wars, etc. The 1940s Great Depression was the last clear cut social cleavage event. You could call the 1960s a mini one but only for the Democrats and since then we've been starting and stopping and trying to figure out where the parties are headed. Basically, social cleavage events increase political participation and then it winds down again until the next major event. We've been stop and go for a while, so who knows what will happen this election. I predict it will be down a bit from last time but still higher than the decade average before.
I'm focusing mainly on people who actively refuse to vote. They could vote but choose not to, usually because of a political reason, apathy, or straight-up ignorance. I agree that many of the things you listed above would help drive turnout substantially.
As for cleavage event, this recent economic crisis might turn out to be one.
On November 06 2012 05:38 Phailol wrote: As far as I'm concerned, every single politician is a crook trying to serve their own ends and fill their own pocket books. Every. Single. One.
This is why I don't vote. No matter who is at the helm, its going to be the same every single time
And nothing will ever change because you refuse to express your preferences in any meaningful way. Outside of violent revolution, change will never occur in the status quo outside of the ballot box.
On November 06 2012 05:38 Phailol wrote: As far as I'm concerned, every single politician is a crook trying to serve their own ends and fill their own pocket books. Every. Single. One.
This is why I don't vote. No matter who is at the helm, its going to be the same every single time
And nothing will ever change because you refuse to express your preferences in any meaningful way. Outside of violent revolution, change will never occur in the status quo outside of the ballot box.
On November 06 2012 05:38 Phailol wrote: As far as I'm concerned, every single politician is a crook trying to serve their own ends and fill their own pocket books. Every. Single. One.
This is why I don't vote. No matter who is at the helm, its going to be the same every single time
And nothing will ever change because you refuse to express your preferences in any meaningful way. Outside of violent revolution, change will never occur in the status quo outside of the ballot box.
And my voice is never going to matter. I'm just a cockroach among millions as far as those bastards are concerned. They don't care about the general populace, they don't care about what the people want. They want whatever will benefit them, and there is nothing that will change that. I'm sorry that you're so disillusioned from that, that you even think you even remotely have a chance at changing anything
On November 06 2012 05:38 Phailol wrote: As far as I'm concerned, every single politician is a crook trying to serve their own ends and fill their own pocket books. Every. Single. One.
This is why I don't vote. No matter who is at the helm, its going to be the same every single time
And nothing will ever change because you refuse to express your preferences in any meaningful way. Outside of violent revolution, change will never occur in the status quo outside of the ballot box.
And my voice is never going to matter. I'm just a cockroach among millions as far as those bastards are concerned. They don't care about the general populace, they don't care about what the people want. They want whatever will benefit them, and there is nothing that will change that. I'm sorry that you're so disillusioned from that, that you even think you even remotely have a chance at changing anything
Funny part is that's because you amongst other 'cockroaches' just let them do their stuff by not voting.
Voted from abroad about a month ago Stupid though that I had to register again (four years ago my ballot simply came in the mail), if it was not for my dad being informed I think I would have simply missed the elections...
On November 06 2012 05:19 Jerubaal wrote: The low voter turnout in the United States can be explained almost entirely on two factors. 1. Institutional: Non compulsory voting. No election holiday. Different voting days for various elections. Voting registration. 2. Periods of "social cleavage events", i.e. voting blocs are formed by events causing social cleavage like depressions, wars, etc. The 1940s Great Depression was the last clear cut social cleavage event. You could call the 1960s a mini one but only for the Democrats and since then we've been starting and stopping and trying to figure out where the parties are headed. Basically, social cleavage events increase political participation and then it winds down again until the next major event. We've been stop and go for a while, so who knows what will happen this election. I predict it will be down a bit from last time but still higher than the decade average before.
I'm focusing mainly on people who actively refuse to vote. They could vote but choose not to, usually because of a political reason, apathy, or straight-up ignorance. I agree that many of the things you listed above would help drive turnout substantially.
As for cleavage event, this recent economic crisis might turn out to be one.
There are two types of people who don't vote. People who are disengaged from the political process and people who claim to have "principled disgust". The former are vastly in the majority. I don't think I want those people voting. I don't even know if there's a way to forcefeed these people information. The second group is largely imaginary and where they actually exist exist largely in academia.
Well, one way to nonviolently combat corrupt local politicians is to always vote out the incumbents. If that were to happen, people might shape up in a decade or two. Not the president, but if we could overtake congress somehow by simply voting out incumbents until people stop making corrupt decisions it could potentially work.
But that's, of course, the dream that intellectuals feed themselves so that they can continue believing they have some part in it all. If you really want to change something you're gonna have to actually run for office. Even if you're forced into corruption, there will at least be something small you can change for the better.
I really only voted to take advantage of this principle of voting out local incumbents. Oh and one of my dad's old coworkers was running for treasurer so I voted for her, too.
Voting for president is a waste of time. The popular vote is to sway the electoral vote, who really elects the president. So, it's more important to vote for who/how the electorals get their status.
On November 06 2012 05:52 FabledIntegral wrote: I see no reason to vote. My individual vote will have zero impact on the election, and I get spammed shit via mail when I register.
Whether other people have this mentality as well is a completely flawed argument that doesn't detract from how it affects me as an individual.
On November 06 2012 04:10 itsjustatank wrote: You do realize there are other things to vote on in an election season than that for highest office? A lot of those things will fundamentally affect you much more than whoever might end up being elected president (mayorships, initiatives and referendum, etc).
On November 06 2012 05:52 FabledIntegral wrote: I see no reason to vote. My individual vote will have zero impact on the election, and I get spammed shit via mail when I register.
Whether other people have this mentality as well is a completely flawed argument that doesn't detract from how it affects me as an individual.
On November 06 2012 04:10 itsjustatank wrote: You do realize there are other things to vote on in an election season than that for highest office? A lot of those things will fundamentally affect you much more than whoever might end up being elected president (mayorships, initiatives and referendum, etc).
On November 06 2012 05:19 Jerubaal wrote: The low voter turnout in the United States can be explained almost entirely on two factors. 1. Institutional: Non compulsory voting. No election holiday. Different voting days for various elections. Voting registration. 2. Periods of "social cleavage events", i.e. voting blocs are formed by events causing social cleavage like depressions, wars, etc. The 1940s Great Depression was the last clear cut social cleavage event. You could call the 1960s a mini one but only for the Democrats and since then we've been starting and stopping and trying to figure out where the parties are headed. Basically, social cleavage events increase political participation and then it winds down again until the next major event. We've been stop and go for a while, so who knows what will happen this election. I predict it will be down a bit from last time but still higher than the decade average before.
I'm focusing mainly on people who actively refuse to vote. They could vote but choose not to, usually because of a political reason, apathy, or straight-up ignorance. I agree that many of the things you listed above would help drive turnout substantially.
As for cleavage event, this recent economic crisis might turn out to be one.
There are two types of people who don't vote. People who are disengaged from the political process and people who claim to have "principled disgust". The former are vastly in the majority. I don't think I want those people voting. I don't even know if there's a way to forcefeed these people information. The second group is largely imaginary and where they actually exist exist largely in academia.
Would you say frictional unemployment doesn't exist as well? There isn't much data on the motives for people who do not vote so political scientists just ignore them or argue that institutional shifts will account for them. I disagree with this approach. It assumes those 80 million or so people don't actually have an opinion either way and would never express their preferences.
It may be idealistic, but I'd like to see what might happen if they ended up voting.
'Murica,GoVote! Seriously, I've been albe to vote since Gore vs. Bush, and the election was decided that year by under 600 votes. This is always a possibility in an election, and those who didn't vote in that election would have been able to decide who won.
On November 06 2012 05:52 FabledIntegral wrote: I see no reason to vote. My individual vote will have zero impact on the election, and I get spammed shit via mail when I register.
Whether other people have this mentality as well is a completely flawed argument that doesn't detract from how it affects me as an individual.
not to mention if you live in a far left or far right state, your vote is basically decided for you and all you're doing is signing up for junk mail and jury duty service selection.
On November 06 2012 05:58 DigiGnar wrote: Voting for president is a waste of time. The popular vote is to sway the electoral vote, who really elects the president. So, it's more important to vote for who/how the electorals get their status.
As someone mentions below you, the votes of 600 people in Florida swayed the electoral vote in the elections of 2000.
On November 06 2012 05:52 FabledIntegral wrote: I see no reason to vote. My individual vote will have zero impact on the election, and I get spammed shit via mail when I register.
Whether other people have this mentality as well is a completely flawed argument that doesn't detract from how it affects me as an individual.
not to mention if you live in a far left or far right state, your vote is basically decided for you and all you're doing is signing up for junk mail and jury duty service selection.
On November 06 2012 04:10 itsjustatank wrote: You do realize there are other things to vote on in an election season than that for highest office? A lot of those things will fundamentally affect you much more than whoever might end up being elected president (mayorships, initiatives and referendum, etc).
'Murica,GoVote! Seriously, I've been albe to vote since Gore vs. Bush, and the election was decided that year by under 600 votes. This is always a possibility in an election, and those who didn't vote in that election would have been able to decide who won.
Except that's a terribly inaccurate portrayal because the 600 votes applied to a state, not the nation. Not that it would matter to me if the electoral college was even completely rid of, but at least the votes of many people would "count" in such a situation. Right now, concerning voting for the President himself, it's entirely useless if you live in a state like CA.
On November 06 2012 05:58 DigiGnar wrote: Voting for president is a waste of time. The popular vote is to sway the electoral vote, who really elects the president. So, it's more important to vote for who/how the electorals get their status.
As someone mentions below you, the votes of 600 people in Florida swayed the electoral vote in the elections of 2000.
This:
In 2000, Al Gore won 48.38% of the popular vote and 266 electoral votes. George W. Bush won only 47.87% of the popular vote but received 271 electoral votes, thus won the election.
Also:
This is because 48 states award all their electoral votes to the winner, regardless of how large their margin of victory was.
'Murica,GoVote! Seriously, I've been albe to vote since Gore vs. Bush, and the election was decided that year by under 600 votes. This is always a possibility in an election, and those who didn't vote in that election would have been able to decide who won.
Except that's a terribly inaccurate portrayal because the 600 votes applied to a state, not the nation. Not that it would matter to me if the electoral college was even completely rid of, but at least the votes of many people would "count" in such a situation. Right now, concerning voting for the President himself, it's entirely useless if you live in a state like CA.
Sure that applied to only Florida, but let me give you some stats about FL in 2000. The 2000 census recorded a projected number of over 15.9 million residents in Florida, and that still includes over 11 million people who could have voted in the election. Can you really tell me that there weren't at least 1200 people who didn't vote that year? I find it highly unlikely with all the numbers we know that there weren't at least 1200 people who hadn't voted.
Edit: ok so there were apparently around 6 million ballots cast in the 2000 election. That is a little more than half of the state voting...
On November 06 2012 05:19 Jerubaal wrote: The low voter turnout in the United States can be explained almost entirely on two factors. 1. Institutional: Non compulsory voting. No election holiday. Different voting days for various elections. Voting registration. 2. Periods of "social cleavage events", i.e. voting blocs are formed by events causing social cleavage like depressions, wars, etc. The 1940s Great Depression was the last clear cut social cleavage event. You could call the 1960s a mini one but only for the Democrats and since then we've been starting and stopping and trying to figure out where the parties are headed. Basically, social cleavage events increase political participation and then it winds down again until the next major event. We've been stop and go for a while, so who knows what will happen this election. I predict it will be down a bit from last time but still higher than the decade average before.
I'm focusing mainly on people who actively refuse to vote. They could vote but choose not to, usually because of a political reason, apathy, or straight-up ignorance. I agree that many of the things you listed above would help drive turnout substantially.
As for cleavage event, this recent economic crisis might turn out to be one.
There are two types of people who don't vote. People who are disengaged from the political process and people who claim to have "principled disgust". The former are vastly in the majority. I don't think I want those people voting. I don't even know if there's a way to forcefeed these people information. The second group is largely imaginary and where they actually exist exist largely in academia.
Would you say frictional unemployment doesn't exist as well? There isn't much data on the motives for people who do not vote so political scientists just ignore them or argue that institutional shifts will account for them. I disagree with this approach. It assumes those 80 million or so people don't actually have an opinion either way and would never express their preferences.
It may be idealistic, but I'd like to see what might happen if they ended up voting.
Disagree. Like I said, the evidence is that people who don't vote are disengaged from politics. The sprinkling of people who make a rational decision to not vote are an aberration. I don't consider the C- slackers who think they know shit but don't as part of the "principled disgust" crowd.
On November 06 2012 05:19 Jerubaal wrote: The low voter turnout in the United States can be explained almost entirely on two factors. 1. Institutional: Non compulsory voting. No election holiday. Different voting days for various elections. Voting registration. 2. Periods of "social cleavage events", i.e. voting blocs are formed by events causing social cleavage like depressions, wars, etc. The 1940s Great Depression was the last clear cut social cleavage event. You could call the 1960s a mini one but only for the Democrats and since then we've been starting and stopping and trying to figure out where the parties are headed. Basically, social cleavage events increase political participation and then it winds down again until the next major event. We've been stop and go for a while, so who knows what will happen this election. I predict it will be down a bit from last time but still higher than the decade average before.
I'm focusing mainly on people who actively refuse to vote. They could vote but choose not to, usually because of a political reason, apathy, or straight-up ignorance. I agree that many of the things you listed above would help drive turnout substantially.
As for cleavage event, this recent economic crisis might turn out to be one.
There are two types of people who don't vote. People who are disengaged from the political process and people who claim to have "principled disgust". The former are vastly in the majority. I don't think I want those people voting. I don't even know if there's a way to forcefeed these people information. The second group is largely imaginary and where they actually exist exist largely in academia.
Would you say frictional unemployment doesn't exist as well? There isn't much data on the motives for people who do not vote so political scientists just ignore them or argue that institutional shifts will account for them. I disagree with this approach. It assumes those 80 million or so people don't actually have an opinion either way and would never express their preferences.
It may be idealistic, but I'd like to see what might happen if they ended up voting.
Disagree. Like I said, the evidence is that people who don't vote are disengaged from politics. The sprinkling of people who make a rational decision to not vote are an aberration. I don't consider the C- slackers who think they know shit but don't as part of the "principled disgust" crowd.
I do. Your approach assumes they will always remain uninformed and are better off not being part of the franchise in the first place.
On November 06 2012 05:52 FabledIntegral wrote: I see no reason to vote. My individual vote will have zero impact on the election, and I get spammed shit via mail when I register.
Whether other people have this mentality as well is a completely flawed argument that doesn't detract from how it affects me as an individual.
not to mention if you live in a far left or far right state, your vote is basically decided for you and all you're doing is signing up for junk mail and jury duty service selection.
On November 06 2012 04:10 itsjustatank wrote: You do realize there are other things to vote on in an election season than that for highest office? A lot of those things will fundamentally affect you much more than whoever might end up being elected president (mayorships, initiatives and referendum, etc).
that doesn't excuse having a horribly flawed system.
'Murica,GoVote! Seriously, I've been albe to vote since Gore vs. Bush, and the election was decided that year by under 600 votes. This is always a possibility in an election, and those who didn't vote in that election would have been able to decide who won.
Except that's a terribly inaccurate portrayal because the 600 votes applied to a state, not the nation. Not that it would matter to me if the electoral college was even completely rid of, but at least the votes of many people would "count" in such a situation. Right now, concerning voting for the President himself, it's entirely useless if you live in a state like CA.
Sure that applied to only Florida, but let me give you some stats about FL in 2000. The 2000 census recorded a projected number of over 15.9 million residents in Florida, and that still includes over 11 million people who could have voted in the election. Can you really tell me that there weren't at least 1200 people who didn't vote that year? I find it highly unlikely with all the numbers we know that there weren't at least 1200 people who hadn't voted.
On November 06 2012 05:58 DigiGnar wrote: Voting for president is a waste of time. The popular vote is to sway the electoral vote, who really elects the president. So, it's more important to vote for who/how the electorals get their status.
As someone mentions below you, the votes of 600 people in Florida swayed the electoral vote in the elections of 2000.
In 2000, Al Gore won 48.38% of the popular vote and 266 electoral votes. George W. Bush won only 47.87% of the popular vote but received 271 electoral votes, thus won the election.
This is because 48 states award all their electoral votes to the winner, regardless of how large their margin of victory was.
Beyond this discussion is the fact that 80 million people (larger than the proportions of partisans who vote in the two-party consensus) don't express their political preferences at all. The Electoral College and other things will continue to exist without their participation in the process.
Any change in the institutional limitations to multi-party politics must be made through constitutional convention (or revolution), and will require the preferences of this silent majority to pass.
On November 06 2012 05:38 Phailol wrote: As far as I'm concerned, every single politician is a crook trying to serve their own ends and fill their own pocket books. Every. Single. One.
This is why I don't vote. No matter who is at the helm, its going to be the same every single time
And nothing will ever change because you refuse to express your preferences in any meaningful way. Outside of violent revolution, change will never occur in the status quo outside of the ballot box.
And my voice is never going to matter. I'm just a cockroach among millions as far as those bastards are concerned. They don't care about the general populace, they don't care about what the people want. They want whatever will benefit them, and there is nothing that will change that. I'm sorry that you're so disillusioned from that, that you even think you even remotely have a chance at changing anything
Have you ever written your representative or senator in congress? Have you ever even BOTHERED to speak out? Few enough people do this that it gets noticed.
If you're just going to let yourself be stepped on and go unheard, then you're going to be what you describe because you choose to be.
On November 06 2012 05:38 Phailol wrote: As far as I'm concerned, every single politician is a crook trying to serve their own ends and fill their own pocket books. Every. Single. One.
This is why I don't vote. No matter who is at the helm, its going to be the same every single time
And nothing will ever change because you refuse to express your preferences in any meaningful way. Outside of violent revolution, change will never occur in the status quo outside of the ballot box.
And my voice is never going to matter. I'm just a cockroach among millions as far as those bastards are concerned. They don't care about the general populace, they don't care about what the people want. They want whatever will benefit them, and there is nothing that will change that. I'm sorry that you're so disillusioned from that, that you even think you even remotely have a chance at changing anything
Have you ever written your representative or senator in congress? Have you ever even BOTHERED to speak out? Few enough people do this that it gets noticed.
If you're just going to let yourself be stepped on and go unheard, then you're going to be what you describe because you choose to be.
not really getting the american system getting 50,01% in one state and get ALL votes form the state is so 1800ish xD ^^
also only have 2 parties and have a direct voting candidat ^^ remembers me to german president elections between 1920-1940 ^^
ps: americans plz do the rest of the world and YOU a good thing and vote obama, if you vote romney ,,, no country in the world will take americans serious the next years ^^ you not wanna be laughts in every of your outlandish holidays want you ? xD
"i dont care 47% of the people anyway" -> "mehhh i am surely the 53%" ^^
On November 06 2012 05:38 Phailol wrote: As far as I'm concerned, every single politician is a crook trying to serve their own ends and fill their own pocket books. Every. Single. One.
This is why I don't vote. No matter who is at the helm, its going to be the same every single time
And nothing will ever change because you refuse to express your preferences in any meaningful way. Outside of violent revolution, change will never occur in the status quo outside of the ballot box.
And my voice is never going to matter. I'm just a cockroach among millions as far as those bastards are concerned. They don't care about the general populace, they don't care about what the people want. They want whatever will benefit them, and there is nothing that will change that. I'm sorry that you're so disillusioned from that, that you even think you even remotely have a chance at changing anything
to many thought taht in florida and WHUUUPS bush was ellected xD by if i remember a few hundret votes ? or douzend ? ^^
On November 06 2012 05:11 ]343[ wrote: well, I apparently didn't get my absentee ballot request through, so gggggggggggg
What state? Some states even let you register to vote on election day. High chance you can still get a ballot in.
NC. I submitted my absentee request a day before the deadline (a week before election day), but I checked my "absentee ballot status" and I'm not registered in the system...
On November 06 2012 05:11 ]343[ wrote: well, I apparently didn't get my absentee ballot request through, so gggggggggggg
What state? Some states even let you register to vote on election day. High chance you can still get a ballot in.
NC. I submitted my absentee request a day before the deadline (a week before election day), but I checked my "absentee ballot status" and I'm not registered in the system...
Get in contact with your local authorities. At any rate you should be allowed to vote in person tomorrow at your local poll because you are registered.
On November 06 2012 05:19 Jerubaal wrote: The low voter turnout in the United States can be explained almost entirely on two factors. 1. Institutional: Non compulsory voting. No election holiday. Different voting days for various elections. Voting registration. 2. Periods of "social cleavage events", i.e. voting blocs are formed by events causing social cleavage like depressions, wars, etc. The 1940s Great Depression was the last clear cut social cleavage event. You could call the 1960s a mini one but only for the Democrats and since then we've been starting and stopping and trying to figure out where the parties are headed. Basically, social cleavage events increase political participation and then it winds down again until the next major event. We've been stop and go for a while, so who knows what will happen this election. I predict it will be down a bit from last time but still higher than the decade average before.
I'm focusing mainly on people who actively refuse to vote. They could vote but choose not to, usually because of a political reason, apathy, or straight-up ignorance. I agree that many of the things you listed above would help drive turnout substantially.
As for cleavage event, this recent economic crisis might turn out to be one.
There are two types of people who don't vote. People who are disengaged from the political process and people who claim to have "principled disgust". The former are vastly in the majority. I don't think I want those people voting. I don't even know if there's a way to forcefeed these people information. The second group is largely imaginary and where they actually exist exist largely in academia.
Would you say frictional unemployment doesn't exist as well? There isn't much data on the motives for people who do not vote so political scientists just ignore them or argue that institutional shifts will account for them. I disagree with this approach. It assumes those 80 million or so people don't actually have an opinion either way and would never express their preferences.
It may be idealistic, but I'd like to see what might happen if they ended up voting.
Disagree. Like I said, the evidence is that people who don't vote are disengaged from politics. The sprinkling of people who make a rational decision to not vote are an aberration. I don't consider the C- slackers who think they know shit but don't as part of the "principled disgust" crowd.
I do. Your approach assumes they will always remain uninformed and are better off not being part of the franchise in the first place.
It's a chicken before the egg question. Are they uninformed because they don't vote or do they not vote because they are uninformed? Nobody's stopping anyone from becoming more engaged but I question if hand-holding is helpful.
On November 06 2012 06:34 CoR wrote: not really getting the american system getting 50,01% in one state and get ALL votes form the state is so 1800ish xD ^^
also only have 2 parties and have a direct voting candidat ^^ remembers me to german president elections between 1920-1940 ^^
ps: americans plz do the rest of the world and YOU a good thing and vote obama, if you vote romney ,,, no country in the world will take americans serious the next years ^^ you not wanna be laughts in every of your outlandish holidays want you ? xD
"i dont care 47% of the people anyway" -> "mehhh i am surely the 53%" ^^
1800ish? Sounds like a compliment as the average length of a form of government for Europe is ~50 years. Doubly ironic is that the German system basically takes all the good parts of the U.S. system and improves upon them. -A more robust form of federalism -A powerful but limited high court with a defined role. Not surprising considering the U.S. helped you write it. By the way, no other country in the world has any popular input on presidential candidates or executives. Every other country has theirs chosen by their parties. So lol?
On November 06 2012 05:11 ]343[ wrote: well, I apparently didn't get my absentee ballot request through, so gggggggggggg
What state? Some states even let you register to vote on election day. High chance you can still get a ballot in.
NC. I submitted my absentee request a day before the deadline (a week before election day), but I checked my "absentee ballot status" and I'm not registered in the system...
Get in contact with your local authorities. At any rate you should be allowed to vote in person tomorrow at your local poll because you are registered.
wait, I'm not registered in MA (where I am right now) though?
On November 06 2012 05:11 ]343[ wrote: well, I apparently didn't get my absentee ballot request through, so gggggggggggg
What state? Some states even let you register to vote on election day. High chance you can still get a ballot in.
NC. I submitted my absentee request a day before the deadline (a week before election day), but I checked my "absentee ballot status" and I'm not registered in the system...
Get in contact with your local authorities. At any rate you should be allowed to vote in person tomorrow at your local poll because you are registered.
wait, I'm not registered in MA (where I am right now) though?
Didn't you have to register to vote before requesting absentee? Or was this both registering to vote and requesting absentee?
Unfortunately, MA cuts off registration to 20 days before an election. Get in touch with your local voting authorities. If you sent it in before the deadline you should be able to vote, IMO.
You could always contact the local ACLU if you have additional questions or feel your rights have been violated as well, they are usually out in force about these issues come election season.
On November 06 2012 05:19 Jerubaal wrote: The low voter turnout in the United States can be explained almost entirely on two factors. 1. Institutional: Non compulsory voting. No election holiday. Different voting days for various elections. Voting registration. 2. Periods of "social cleavage events", i.e. voting blocs are formed by events causing social cleavage like depressions, wars, etc. The 1940s Great Depression was the last clear cut social cleavage event. You could call the 1960s a mini one but only for the Democrats and since then we've been starting and stopping and trying to figure out where the parties are headed. Basically, social cleavage events increase political participation and then it winds down again until the next major event. We've been stop and go for a while, so who knows what will happen this election. I predict it will be down a bit from last time but still higher than the decade average before.
I'm focusing mainly on people who actively refuse to vote. They could vote but choose not to, usually because of a political reason, apathy, or straight-up ignorance. I agree that many of the things you listed above would help drive turnout substantially.
As for cleavage event, this recent economic crisis might turn out to be one.
There are two types of people who don't vote. People who are disengaged from the political process and people who claim to have "principled disgust". The former are vastly in the majority. I don't think I want those people voting. I don't even know if there's a way to forcefeed these people information. The second group is largely imaginary and where they actually exist exist largely in academia.
Would you say frictional unemployment doesn't exist as well? There isn't much data on the motives for people who do not vote so political scientists just ignore them or argue that institutional shifts will account for them. I disagree with this approach. It assumes those 80 million or so people don't actually have an opinion either way and would never express their preferences.
It may be idealistic, but I'd like to see what might happen if they ended up voting.
Disagree. Like I said, the evidence is that people who don't vote are disengaged from politics. The sprinkling of people who make a rational decision to not vote are an aberration. I don't consider the C- slackers who think they know shit but don't as part of the "principled disgust" crowd.
I do. Your approach assumes they will always remain uninformed and are better off not being part of the franchise in the first place.
It's a chicken before the egg question. Are they uninformed because they don't vote or do they not vote because they are uninformed? Nobody's stopping anyone from becoming more engaged but I question if hand-holding is helpful.
On November 06 2012 06:34 CoR wrote: not really getting the american system getting 50,01% in one state and get ALL votes form the state is so 1800ish xD ^^
also only have 2 parties and have a direct voting candidat ^^ remembers me to german president elections between 1920-1940 ^^
ps: americans plz do the rest of the world and YOU a good thing and vote obama, if you vote romney ,,, no country in the world will take americans serious the next years ^^ you not wanna be laughts in every of your outlandish holidays want you ? xD
"i dont care 47% of the people anyway" -> "mehhh i am surely the 53%" ^^
1800ish? Sounds like a compliment as the average length of a form of government for Europe is ~50 years. Doubly ironic is that the German system basically takes all the good parts of the U.S. system and improves upon them. -A more robust form of federalism -A powerful but limited high court with a defined role. Not surprising considering the U.S. helped you write it. By the way, no other country in the world has any popular input on presidential candidates or executives. Every other country has theirs chosen by their parties. So lol?
So what's the rationale for the Electoral College? And don't just say "to protect the smaller states" because instead of the "big" states being important, it is just shifted to the "swing" states. Seems like the same problem to me?
My church group and I will be driving our off-white disheveled church bus down to the voting booths tomorrow, and along the way, picking up homeless men, transients, nomads and other people malleable enough to be influenced by fifty bucks, a crack rock or just the free cookies and juice provided to every voter. Over the last several months, we've spent every church service on Sunday and Wednesday scouring the King James bible for names that we can use to apply for absentee ballots. I can only hope our conviction was enough to keep the checks coming every month. Obama 2012
On November 06 2012 05:19 Jerubaal wrote: The low voter turnout in the United States can be explained almost entirely on two factors. 1. Institutional: Non compulsory voting. No election holiday. Different voting days for various elections. Voting registration. 2. Periods of "social cleavage events", i.e. voting blocs are formed by events causing social cleavage like depressions, wars, etc. The 1940s Great Depression was the last clear cut social cleavage event. You could call the 1960s a mini one but only for the Democrats and since then we've been starting and stopping and trying to figure out where the parties are headed. Basically, social cleavage events increase political participation and then it winds down again until the next major event. We've been stop and go for a while, so who knows what will happen this election. I predict it will be down a bit from last time but still higher than the decade average before.
I'm focusing mainly on people who actively refuse to vote. They could vote but choose not to, usually because of a political reason, apathy, or straight-up ignorance. I agree that many of the things you listed above would help drive turnout substantially.
As for cleavage event, this recent economic crisis might turn out to be one.
There are two types of people who don't vote. People who are disengaged from the political process and people who claim to have "principled disgust". The former are vastly in the majority. I don't think I want those people voting. I don't even know if there's a way to forcefeed these people information. The second group is largely imaginary and where they actually exist exist largely in academia.
Would you say frictional unemployment doesn't exist as well? There isn't much data on the motives for people who do not vote so political scientists just ignore them or argue that institutional shifts will account for them. I disagree with this approach. It assumes those 80 million or so people don't actually have an opinion either way and would never express their preferences.
It may be idealistic, but I'd like to see what might happen if they ended up voting.
Disagree. Like I said, the evidence is that people who don't vote are disengaged from politics. The sprinkling of people who make a rational decision to not vote are an aberration. I don't consider the C- slackers who think they know shit but don't as part of the "principled disgust" crowd.
I do. Your approach assumes they will always remain uninformed and are better off not being part of the franchise in the first place.
It's a chicken before the egg question. Are they uninformed because they don't vote or do they not vote because they are uninformed? Nobody's stopping anyone from becoming more engaged but I question if hand-holding is helpful.
On November 06 2012 06:34 CoR wrote: not really getting the american system getting 50,01% in one state and get ALL votes form the state is so 1800ish xD ^^
also only have 2 parties and have a direct voting candidat ^^ remembers me to german president elections between 1920-1940 ^^
ps: americans plz do the rest of the world and YOU a good thing and vote obama, if you vote romney ,,, no country in the world will take americans serious the next years ^^ you not wanna be laughts in every of your outlandish holidays want you ? xD
"i dont care 47% of the people anyway" -> "mehhh i am surely the 53%" ^^
1800ish? Sounds like a compliment as the average length of a form of government for Europe is ~50 years. Doubly ironic is that the German system basically takes all the good parts of the U.S. system and improves upon them. -A more robust form of federalism -A powerful but limited high court with a defined role. Not surprising considering the U.S. helped you write it. By the way, no other country in the world has any popular input on presidential candidates or executives. Every other country has theirs chosen by their parties. So lol?
So what's the rationale for the Electoral College? And don't just say "to protect the smaller states" because instead of the "big" states being important, it is just shifted to the "swing" states. Seems like the same problem to me?
The presidential election is not meant to be wholly democratic. The representative branch is wholly democratic. The electoral college is there to prevent tyranny of the majority, to put just one more hurdle in the way of dictatorship. Yes, there's an element of randomness and clunkiness and that's by design.
On November 06 2012 07:31 KING CHARLIE :D wrote: My church group and I will be driving our off-white disheveled church bus down to the voting booths tomorrow, and along the way, picking up homeless men, transients, nomads and other people malleable enough to be influenced by fifty bucks, a crack rock or just the free cookies and juice provided to every voter. Over the last several months, we've spent every church service on Sunday and Wednesday scouring the King James bible for names that we can use to apply for absentee ballots. I can only hope our conviction was enough to keep the checks coming every month. Obama 2012
What were those names ACORN was using? Donald Duck and Chester Cheeto?
Thank god I'm leaving this shit hole of a country as soon as I am able. I'm tired of the same bullshit politicians feed all the time and nearly every single monkey on this forum is gulliable(sp?) enough believe in their word. I can't wait until this whole system falls apart and the entire country goes into chaos, and all because of the idiot masses listening to big wigs looking like they know what they're talking about.
(The only reason I'm so heated about this is as stated in a previous post, I hate politics, all politicians are crooks. Name one that isn't in some way. Just one. And for the record, I do live in CA, so my vote is shit anyway)
On November 06 2012 07:53 Phailol wrote: Thank god I'm leaving this shit hole of a country as soon as I am able. I'm tired of the same bullshit politicians feed all the time and nearly every single monkey on this forum is gulliable(sp?) enough believe in their word. I can't wait until this whole system falls apart and the entire country goes into chaos, and all because of the idiot masses listening to big wigs looking like they know what they're talking about.
(The only reason I'm so heated about this is as stated in a previous post, I hate politics, all politicians are crooks. Name one that isn't in some way. Just one. And for the record, I do live in CA, so my vote is shit anyway)
I guess leaving the country entirely is radical enough of a political position to take, rofl.
I voted last week against my will lol. My parents forced me to vote republican with them, even though I dislike both candidates. Granted, I'm sure that I am not as informed as most people here, but I have gripes with the whole voting process. Popular vote should be the way to pick president, not this whole electoral college crap that lumps up a lot of popular votes into 1 electoral vote. I mean, as a nation, shouldn't WE (the majority) decide our president, and not our representatives?
On November 06 2012 04:07 ninazerg wrote: What if, say, I happened to be a Republican in a state which votes overwhelmingly Democratic, or vice-versa? Even if I was like "Romney, fuck yeah!" and totally ignorant about the electoral college, my state would be won by Barack Obama regardless.
Also, why should I be pressured into voting if, as an American, I have the personal freedom to abstain from voting if I feel that neither candidate is qualified for holding public office?
You do realize there are other things to vote on in an election season than that for highest office? A lot of those things will fundamentally affect you much more than whoever might end up being elected president (mayorships, initiatives and referendum, etc). You do have the freedom not to choose, I'm just trying to educate people as to why not choosing is a bad strategy if you are uncomfortable with the status quo.
This. A lot of people forget that other offices are up for voting, and these offices matter a lot more than the presidency for most.
Though this is true that people forget about the other offices, I feel that almost none of the voters are informed enough to make such a decision. Almost nobody takes the time to research who they are going to vote for for people other than the president. Either that or they vote straight republican or straight democrat. Hell, I didn't know anybody I was voting for besides Obama and Romney. The only thing that made me change my mind about 1 judge was this guy standing outside the voting line telling us to vote for someone. He was a nice enough guy so I did vote for whomever he was praising, regardless of my not knowing anything about anyone.
If your name happens to come first on the ballot, congrats - you have a significant advantage over your competitors.
On November 06 2012 08:03 Epishade wrote: I voted last week against my will lol. My parents forced me to vote republican with them, even though I dislike both candidates.
They didn't force you to vote Republican. You can vote for whoever you want once you're in the booth by yourself. It's not like your parents walked in and held your hand through the whole process. You could've voted for anyone on the ballot and they'd be none the wiser lol.
Funny how you consider 60 % to be a low turnout. At the all time low in 2002 we had election to the senate (the upper chamber of the parliament, it's power is basically only trying to veto laws, can be overruled by the lower chamber with a substantial majority, happens all the time) with turnout of 24 %. Literatly three out of four people went out of fucks that day.
So I consider the voting culture in the US quite good. I think it has a lot to do with a long history of democracy (mind you, we have had anything resembling a democracy only between 1918 to 1938 and from 1989 on - none of the elections between 1945 and 1989 were neither free nor fair).
I'd vote, but I already know that Romney will win Texas. I have nothing against Obama, but I don't want to get raped on capital gain taxes (Isn't he the one against it?)
On November 06 2012 09:26 Silentness wrote: I'd vote, but I already know that Romney will win Texas. I have nothing against Obama, but I don't want to get raped on capital gain taxes (Isn't he the one against it?)
vote on your Congressional representative, your Senator, your city and county officials, and your school boards.
people who vote only for federal elections should just not vote ever, even if they are in a swing state.
So long as young people (which is most of TL) continue our apathy towards voting, expect our politicians to continue ignoring us. I mean, even if they have proposals and initiatives that can help us out, it doesn't help them get elected, so why bother? I mean, look at how solidly entrenched Medicare is, compared to say, student loan programs. Old people vote, and politicians are careful not to fuck with them.
On November 06 2012 07:31 KING CHARLIE :D wrote: My church group and I will be driving our off-white disheveled church bus down to the voting booths tomorrow, and along the way, picking up homeless men, transients, nomads and other people malleable enough to be influenced by fifty bucks, a crack rock or just the free cookies and juice provided to every voter. Over the last several months, we've spent every church service on Sunday and Wednesday scouring the King James bible for names that we can use to apply for absentee ballots. I can only hope our conviction was enough to keep the checks coming every month. Obama 2012
LOL Charlie
I can't vote, unfortunately. I've convinced both of my parents who and what to vote for, though.
Just an ignorant question from an foreigner: What are the exact benefits of having the typical absentee voters vote?
To me, it seems like, unless the preferences of the non-voting population differs significantly from those of the voting population, a sample size of 100m should be more than enough to get an accurate answer. Even if we assume that the non-voting population differs significantly from the voting population (a fairly big assumption), it still doesn't mean that it's a bad thing for them not to vote. In economics there's the idea that a free market allows the distribution of goods to consumers who place the highest value on those goods. Voting seems to be the same. Citizens who place the highest value on elections (and are thus the most likely to vote) get to have a greater say than those who don't value elections (and thus are unlikely to vote). As someone mentioned earlier, this should result in the more informed citizenry voting, ultimately resulting in better decisions being made.
The only situation in which I can personally see the benefit of having the non-voters vote is if there is some systematic factor dissuading a specific population group from voting. For example, before Obama it was possible that a large number of black Americans believed that none of the presidents would support them, resulting in a significant portion of the population not being represented (this is just an example, I have no idea if it black Americans really felt this way). However, as with the systematic bias, this is a very big assumption to make without having strong evidence supporting it. It also won't be fixed by motivating the average American to go vote.
So I guess my question remains: What is the benefit of non-voters voting, and why is it important to get these voters to vote?
On November 06 2012 09:48 Daigomi wrote: Just an ignorant question from an foreigner: What are the exact benefits of having the typical absentee voters vote?
To me, it seems like, unless the preferences of the non-voting population differs significantly from those of the voting population, a sample size of 100m should be more than enough to get an accurate answer. Even if we assume that the non-voting population differs significantly from the voting population (a fairly big assumption), it still doesn't mean that it's a bad thing for them not to vote. In economics there's the idea that a free market allows the distribution of goods to consumers who place the highest value on those goods. Voting seems to be the same. Citizens who place the highest value on elections (and are thus the most likely to vote) get to have a greater say than those who don't value elections (and thus are unlikely to vote). As someone mentioned earlier, this should result in the more informed citizenry voting, ultimately resulting in better decisions being made.
The only situation in which I can personally see the benefit of having the non-voters vote is if there is some systematic factor dissuading a specific population group from voting. For example, before Obama it was possible that a large number of black Americans believed that none of the presidents would support them, resulting in a significant portion of the population not being represented (this is just an example, I have no idea if it black Americans really felt this way). However, as with the systematic bias, this is a very big assumption to make without having strong evidence supporting it. It also won't be fixed by motivating the average American to go vote.
So I guess my question remains: What is the benefit of non-voters voting, and why is it important to get these voters to vote?
First you have to distinguish between absentee voting (which is voting by mail) and not voting. The greatest structural factor dissuading voting is the promotion in the political culture of the United States of keeping turnout low. It is to the advantage of the existing dominant political parties to attempt to reduce the turnout of supporters of the other side, as well as convince the large majority of people who don't vote to continue to do exactly that.
The point is that there is a huge proportion of the voting-eligible population in this country who do not vote, and if they had voted, the results from elections could potentially be drastically different. They end up not voting because the 'market' of voting explicitly prices them out of participating in the economy on purpose. Looking at the current system, with a small minority of people deciding elections in this country, and saying it is indicative of a normal distribution or otherwise okay isn't the way to go, because low turnout is indicative of market failure.
On November 06 2012 09:48 Daigomi wrote: Just an ignorant question from an foreigner: What are the exact benefits of having the typical absentee voters vote?
To me, it seems like, unless the preferences of the non-voting population differs significantly from those of the voting population, a sample size of 100m should be more than enough to get an accurate answer. Even if we assume that the non-voting population differs significantly from the voting population (a fairly big assumption), it still doesn't mean that it's a bad thing for them not to vote. In economics there's the idea that a free market allows the distribution of goods to consumers who place the highest value on those goods. Voting seems to be the same. Citizens who place the highest value on elections (and are thus the most likely to vote) get to have a greater say than those who don't value elections (and thus are unlikely to vote). As someone mentioned earlier, this should result in the more informed citizenry voting, ultimately resulting in better decisions being made.
The only situation in which I can personally see the benefit of having the non-voters vote is if there is some systematic factor dissuading a specific population group from voting. For example, before Obama it was possible that a large number of black Americans believed that none of the presidents would support them, resulting in a significant portion of the population not being represented (this is just an example, I have no idea if it black Americans really felt this way). However, as with the systematic bias, this is a very big assumption to make without having strong evidence supporting it. It also won't be fixed by motivating the average American to go vote.
So I guess my question remains: What is the benefit of non-voters voting, and why is it important to get these voters to vote?
First you have to distinguish between absentee voting (which is voting by mail) and not voting. The greatest structural factor dissuading voting is the promotion in the political culture of the United States of keeping turnout low. It is to the advantage of the existing dominant political parties to attempt to reduce the turnout of supporters of the other side, as well as convince the large majority of people who don't vote to continue to do exactly that.
The point is that there is a huge proportion of the voting-eligible population in this country who do not vote, and if they had voted, the results from elections could potentially be drastically different. They end up not voting because the 'market' of voting explicitly prices them out of participating in the economy on purpose. Looking at the current system, with a small minority of people deciding elections in this country, and saying it is indicative of a normal distribution or otherwise okay isn't the way to go, because low turnout is indicative of market failure.
huh? why are you discounting the fact that some of them may not vote because for some of them the vote is not important enough to waste time and money on?
further, how is a "low" turnout indicative of a market failure? especially when the purpose of voting is not simply to fill out and cast a ballot, but to elect effective leaders.
On November 06 2012 09:48 Daigomi wrote: Just an ignorant question from an foreigner: What are the exact benefits of having the typical absentee voters vote?
To me, it seems like, unless the preferences of the non-voting population differs significantly from those of the voting population, a sample size of 100m should be more than enough to get an accurate answer. Even if we assume that the non-voting population differs significantly from the voting population (a fairly big assumption), it still doesn't mean that it's a bad thing for them not to vote. In economics there's the idea that a free market allows the distribution of goods to consumers who place the highest value on those goods. Voting seems to be the same. Citizens who place the highest value on elections (and are thus the most likely to vote) get to have a greater say than those who don't value elections (and thus are unlikely to vote). As someone mentioned earlier, this should result in the more informed citizenry voting, ultimately resulting in better decisions being made.
The only situation in which I can personally see the benefit of having the non-voters vote is if there is some systematic factor dissuading a specific population group from voting. For example, before Obama it was possible that a large number of black Americans believed that none of the presidents would support them, resulting in a significant portion of the population not being represented (this is just an example, I have no idea if it black Americans really felt this way). However, as with the systematic bias, this is a very big assumption to make without having strong evidence supporting it. It also won't be fixed by motivating the average American to go vote.
So I guess my question remains: What is the benefit of non-voters voting, and why is it important to get these voters to vote?
First you have to distinguish between absentee voting (which is voting by mail) and not voting. The greatest structural factor dissuading voting is the promotion in the political culture of the United States of keeping turnout low. It is to the advantage of the existing dominant political parties to attempt to reduce the turnout of supporters of the other side, as well as convince the large majority of people who don't vote to continue to do exactly that.
The point is that there is a huge proportion of the voting-eligible population in this country who do not vote, and if they had voted, the results from elections could potentially be drastically different. They end up not voting because the 'market' of voting explicitly prices them out of participating in the economy on purpose. Looking at the current system, with a small minority of people deciding elections in this country, and saying it is indicative of a normal distribution or otherwise okay isn't the way to go, because low turnout is indicative of market failure.
huh? why are you discounting the fact that some of them may not vote because for some of them the vote is not important enough to waste time and money on?
further, how is a "low" turnout indicative of a market failure? especially when the purpose of voting is not simply to fill out and cast a ballot, but to elect effective leaders.
Absentee voting renders your first point moot. Filling out a ballot by mail (or getting it early and turning it in early) 'wastes' no time at all, except for the effort of becoming educated. I would agree that things like declaring Election Day a federal holiday or requiring paid leave for people who want to go out and vote on that day would be useful in driving turnout if that is what you are getting at.
Whether or not the leaders the minority picks are 'effective' can be left up for heated argument. I will say that allowing a minority to pick and leaving a sizable number of people out in the cold is not a fair way of electing leaders. In addition, because elections are more than just about who gets to be the next President of the United States, failing to exercise a sovereign vote in other offices and positions can affect a non-voter even more than if whoever wins the office of the Presidency isn't their first choice.
On November 06 2012 08:03 Epishade wrote: I voted last week against my will lol. My parents forced me to vote republican with them, even though I dislike both candidates.
They didn't force you to vote Republican. You can vote for whoever you want once you're in the booth by yourself. It's not like your parents walked in and held your hand through the whole process. You could've voted for anyone on the ballot and they'd be none the wiser lol.
You can actually send in the ballot blank, if you want to. You don't have to vote for anyone.
On November 06 2012 09:48 Daigomi wrote: Just an ignorant question from an foreigner: What are the exact benefits of having the typical absentee voters vote?
To me, it seems like, unless the preferences of the non-voting population differs significantly from those of the voting population, a sample size of 100m should be more than enough to get an accurate answer. Even if we assume that the non-voting population differs significantly from the voting population (a fairly big assumption), it still doesn't mean that it's a bad thing for them not to vote. In economics there's the idea that a free market allows the distribution of goods to consumers who place the highest value on those goods. Voting seems to be the same. Citizens who place the highest value on elections (and are thus the most likely to vote) get to have a greater say than those who don't value elections (and thus are unlikely to vote). As someone mentioned earlier, this should result in the more informed citizenry voting, ultimately resulting in better decisions being made.
The only situation in which I can personally see the benefit of having the non-voters vote is if there is some systematic factor dissuading a specific population group from voting. For example, before Obama it was possible that a large number of black Americans believed that none of the presidents would support them, resulting in a significant portion of the population not being represented (this is just an example, I have no idea if it black Americans really felt this way). However, as with the systematic bias, this is a very big assumption to make without having strong evidence supporting it. It also won't be fixed by motivating the average American to go vote.
So I guess my question remains: What is the benefit of non-voters voting, and why is it important to get these voters to vote?
First you have to distinguish between absentee voting (which is voting by mail) and not voting. The greatest structural factor dissuading voting is the promotion in the political culture of the United States of keeping turnout low. It is to the advantage of the existing dominant political parties to attempt to reduce the turnout of supporters of the other side, as well as convince the large majority of people who don't vote to continue to do exactly that.
The point is that there is a huge proportion of the voting-eligible population in this country who do not vote, and if they had voted, the results from elections could potentially be drastically different. They end up not voting because the 'market' of voting explicitly prices them out of participating in the economy on purpose. Looking at the current system, with a small minority of people deciding elections in this country, and saying it is indicative of a normal distribution or otherwise okay isn't the way to go, because low turnout is indicative of market failure.
huh? why are you discounting the fact that some of them may not vote because for some of them the vote is not important enough to waste time and money on?
further, how is a "low" turnout indicative of a market failure? especially when the purpose of voting is not simply to fill out and cast a ballot, but to elect effective leaders.
Absentee voting renders your first point moot. Filling out a ballot by mail (or getting it early and turning it in early) 'wastes' no time at all, except for the effort of becoming educated. I would agree that things like declaring Election Day a federal holiday or requiring paid leave for people who want to go out and vote on that day would be useful in driving turnout if that is what you are getting at.
Whether or not the leaders the minority picks are 'effective' can be left up for heated argument. I will say that allowing a minority to pick and leaving a sizable number of people out in the cold is not a fair way of electing leaders. In addition, because elections are more than just about who gets to be the next President of the United States, failing to exercise a sovereign vote in other offices and positions can affect a non-voter even more than if whoever wins the office of the Presidency isn't their first choice.
filling out the ballot early wastes time, just not a lot of it. it also wastes effort becoming informed on political issues. one could argue that an uninformed vote counts as much as an informed one, but then I would counter with the assertion that uninformed votes are the enemy of democracy, not the friend. further, I am not interested in the slightest in driving turnout. in fact, I think a depressed turnout is probably the best that we can hope for (for a variety of reasons).
whether or not the leaders that have been selected are effective is irrelevant to the fact that political representation is meaningless when it becomes the end in of itself. a democracy is not inherently better than a dictatorship. further, there is nothing stopping the majority from voting other than themselves, so your point about the fairness of our system is a straw-man. any system which guarantees the right to vote to the adult populace, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, economic status, gender, or political persuasion has already passed the standard of being "fair".
and as a response to your third point, I will again ask why a greater number of voters would somehow lead to better leaders and officials on any level: local, state, or federal? unless you think that the mere fact of a vote being cast freely for one side is the primary goal of the democracy, then the turnout is largely irrelevant.
On November 06 2012 09:48 Daigomi wrote: Just an ignorant question from an foreigner: What are the exact benefits of having the typical absentee voters vote?
To me, it seems like, unless the preferences of the non-voting population differs significantly from those of the voting population, a sample size of 100m should be more than enough to get an accurate answer. Even if we assume that the non-voting population differs significantly from the voting population (a fairly big assumption), it still doesn't mean that it's a bad thing for them not to vote. In economics there's the idea that a free market allows the distribution of goods to consumers who place the highest value on those goods. Voting seems to be the same. Citizens who place the highest value on elections (and are thus the most likely to vote) get to have a greater say than those who don't value elections (and thus are unlikely to vote). As someone mentioned earlier, this should result in the more informed citizenry voting, ultimately resulting in better decisions being made.
The only situation in which I can personally see the benefit of having the non-voters vote is if there is some systematic factor dissuading a specific population group from voting. For example, before Obama it was possible that a large number of black Americans believed that none of the presidents would support them, resulting in a significant portion of the population not being represented (this is just an example, I have no idea if it black Americans really felt this way). However, as with the systematic bias, this is a very big assumption to make without having strong evidence supporting it. It also won't be fixed by motivating the average American to go vote.
So I guess my question remains: What is the benefit of non-voters voting, and why is it important to get these voters to vote?
First you have to distinguish between absentee voting (which is voting by mail) and not voting. The greatest structural factor dissuading voting is the promotion in the political culture of the United States of keeping turnout low. It is to the advantage of the existing dominant political parties to attempt to reduce the turnout of supporters of the other side, as well as convince the large majority of people who don't vote to continue to do exactly that.
The point is that there is a huge proportion of the voting-eligible population in this country who do not vote, and if they had voted, the results from elections could potentially be drastically different. They end up not voting because the 'market' of voting explicitly prices them out of participating in the economy on purpose. Looking at the current system, with a small minority of people deciding elections in this country, and saying it is indicative of a normal distribution or otherwise okay isn't the way to go, because low turnout is indicative of market failure.
huh? why are you discounting the fact that some of them may not vote because for some of them the vote is not important enough to waste time and money on?
further, how is a "low" turnout indicative of a market failure? especially when the purpose of voting is not simply to fill out and cast a ballot, but to elect effective leaders.
Absentee voting renders your first point moot. Filling out a ballot by mail (or getting it early and turning it in early) 'wastes' no time at all, except for the effort of becoming educated. I would agree that things like declaring Election Day a federal holiday or requiring paid leave for people who want to go out and vote on that day would be useful in driving turnout if that is what you are getting at.
Whether or not the leaders the minority picks are 'effective' can be left up for heated argument. I will say that allowing a minority to pick and leaving a sizable number of people out in the cold is not a fair way of electing leaders. In addition, because elections are more than just about who gets to be the next President of the United States, failing to exercise a sovereign vote in other offices and positions can affect a non-voter even more than if whoever wins the office of the Presidency isn't their first choice.
filling out the ballot early wastes time, just not a lot of it. it also wastes effort becoming informed on political issues. one could argue that an uninformed vote counts as much as an informed one, but then I would counter with the assertion that uninformed votes are the enemy of democracy, not the friend. further, I am not interested in the slightest in driving turnout. in fact, I think a depressed turnout is probably the best that we can hope for (for a variety of reasons).
whether or not the leaders that have been selected are effective is irrelevant to the fact that political representation is meaningless when it becomes the end in of itself. a democracy is not inherently better than a dictatorship. further, there is nothing stopping the majority from voting other than themselves, so your point about the fairness of our system is a straw-man. any system which guarantees the right to vote to the adult populace, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, economic status, gender, or political persuasion has already passed the standard of being "fair".
and as a response to your third point, I will again ask why a greater number of voters would somehow lead to better leaders and officials on any level: local, state, or federal? unless you think that the mere fact of a vote being cast freely for one side is the primary goal of the democracy, then the turnout is largely irrelevant.
As you seem to think totalitarian systems are acceptable in the modern era, there won't be any space for middle ground here.
Even if we had a 100% increase in voter turnout the election result would be the same: 53% to 46% plus or minus 3 pts. You begin your arguement with the assumption that more voting creates a better government. Also if you are so intent on increasing voter turnout did it occur to you that telling ppl to get out to vote is probably one of the least effective ways of achieving your goal. Ppl don't vote cause they'd rather do smth mote important, like make dinner. System is good enough as it is, voter turnout not a big deal.
On November 06 2012 10:55 FinalForm wrote: Even if we had a 100% increase in voter turnout the election result would be the same: 53% to 46% plus or minus 3 pts. You begin your arguement with the assumption that more voting creates a better government. Also if you are so intent on increasing voter turnout did it occur to you that telling ppl to get out to vote is probably one of the least effective ways of achieving your goal. Ppl don't vote cause they'd rather do smth mote important, like make dinner. System is good enough as it is, voter turnout not a big deal.
You assume the votes of people who currently don't vote will follow the data created by polling people who likely will in the status quo. That doesn't follow.
More voting does not directly correspond to better government, it just gives more legitimacy to it.
Edit: Also you assume those polls aren't made up or doctored with 'house effects' to push the editorial concerns of the organization doing the polling.
On November 06 2012 09:48 Daigomi wrote: Just an ignorant question from an foreigner: What are the exact benefits of having the typical absentee voters vote?
To me, it seems like, unless the preferences of the non-voting population differs significantly from those of the voting population, a sample size of 100m should be more than enough to get an accurate answer. Even if we assume that the non-voting population differs significantly from the voting population (a fairly big assumption), it still doesn't mean that it's a bad thing for them not to vote. In economics there's the idea that a free market allows the distribution of goods to consumers who place the highest value on those goods. Voting seems to be the same. Citizens who place the highest value on elections (and are thus the most likely to vote) get to have a greater say than those who don't value elections (and thus are unlikely to vote). As someone mentioned earlier, this should result in the more informed citizenry voting, ultimately resulting in better decisions being made.
The only situation in which I can personally see the benefit of having the non-voters vote is if there is some systematic factor dissuading a specific population group from voting. For example, before Obama it was possible that a large number of black Americans believed that none of the presidents would support them, resulting in a significant portion of the population not being represented (this is just an example, I have no idea if it black Americans really felt this way). However, as with the systematic bias, this is a very big assumption to make without having strong evidence supporting it. It also won't be fixed by motivating the average American to go vote.
So I guess my question remains: What is the benefit of non-voters voting, and why is it important to get these voters to vote?
First you have to distinguish between absentee voting (which is voting by mail) and not voting. The greatest structural factor dissuading voting is the promotion in the political culture of the United States of keeping turnout low. It is to the advantage of the existing dominant political parties to attempt to reduce the turnout of supporters of the other side, as well as convince the large majority of people who don't vote to continue to do exactly that.
The point is that there is a huge proportion of the voting-eligible population in this country who do not vote, and if they had voted, the results from elections could potentially be drastically different. They end up not voting because the 'market' of voting explicitly prices them out of participating in the economy on purpose. Looking at the current system, with a small minority of people deciding elections in this country, and saying it is indicative of a normal distribution or otherwise okay isn't the way to go, because low turnout is indicative of market failure.
huh? why are you discounting the fact that some of them may not vote because for some of them the vote is not important enough to waste time and money on?
further, how is a "low" turnout indicative of a market failure? especially when the purpose of voting is not simply to fill out and cast a ballot, but to elect effective leaders.
Absentee voting renders your first point moot. Filling out a ballot by mail (or getting it early and turning it in early) 'wastes' no time at all, except for the effort of becoming educated. I would agree that things like declaring Election Day a federal holiday or requiring paid leave for people who want to go out and vote on that day would be useful in driving turnout if that is what you are getting at.
Whether or not the leaders the minority picks are 'effective' can be left up for heated argument. I will say that allowing a minority to pick and leaving a sizable number of people out in the cold is not a fair way of electing leaders. In addition, because elections are more than just about who gets to be the next President of the United States, failing to exercise a sovereign vote in other offices and positions can affect a non-voter even more than if whoever wins the office of the Presidency isn't their first choice.
filling out the ballot early wastes time, just not a lot of it. it also wastes effort becoming informed on political issues. one could argue that an uninformed vote counts as much as an informed one, but then I would counter with the assertion that uninformed votes are the enemy of democracy, not the friend. further, I am not interested in the slightest in driving turnout. in fact, I think a depressed turnout is probably the best that we can hope for (for a variety of reasons).
whether or not the leaders that have been selected are effective is irrelevant to the fact that political representation is meaningless when it becomes the end in of itself. a democracy is not inherently better than a dictatorship. further, there is nothing stopping the majority from voting other than themselves, so your point about the fairness of our system is a straw-man. any system which guarantees the right to vote to the adult populace, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, economic status, gender, or political persuasion has already passed the standard of being "fair".
and as a response to your third point, I will again ask why a greater number of voters would somehow lead to better leaders and officials on any level: local, state, or federal? unless you think that the mere fact of a vote being cast freely for one side is the primary goal of the democracy, then the turnout is largely irrelevant.
As you seem to think totalitarian systems are acceptable in the modern era, there won't be any space for middle ground here.
you misread my comment, I am not advocating totalitarianism or dictatorship. I am merely pointing out the fact that one's rights are no more inherently protected by democracy than dictatorship. democracy only guarantees a majority rule. of course, there are a great many democracies that are very free, arguably freer than a dictatorship can be, and therefore would be an objectively better system of governance. however, there are plenty of democracies (both historically and extant) that, in some respects, are less free than the dictatorship that they replaced.
my main argument, as it should be understood, is that a high voter turnout does not lead to better leaders, and therefore is not necessarily desirable. William F. Buckley Jr put it best in his book Up From Liberalism, when he compared the situations in Mexico (a "democracy") and in Venezuela (a dictatorship). in Mexico, they observe the forms of democracy, and yet, the minority party routinely received less than 10% of the popular vote in a Presidential election (a statistical impossibility). the standards of living for the citizens were largely the same in Mexico and in Venezuela at the time, and the effective political power that could be exercised by the citizens was basically the same. however, one was seen as acceptable and the other was seen as unacceptable on the mere grounds that one used a vote to establish it's totalitarian regime and the other dispensed with the niceties.
when one puts more value on the mere fact of a person being able to cast a ballot than on that same person being safe and secure in his government and daily life, than one has effectively given implicit consent to any totalitarian system which is supported by 50.1% of the populace. in the end, it is not I who supports dictatorship, but you.
edit: the Mexican minority party would receive less than 10% of the vote because, in the words of Buckley:
"...in Venezuela any dissenting political activity was forbidden, whereas in Mexico only meaningful political activity is forbidden."
look up: Partido Revolucionario Institucional for more information on the pitfalls of "democracy".
On November 06 2012 10:55 FinalForm wrote: Even if we had a 100% increase in voter turnout the election result would be the same: 53% to 46% plus or minus 3 pts. You begin your arguement with the assumption that more voting creates a better government. Also if you are so intent on increasing voter turnout did it occur to you that telling ppl to get out to vote is probably one of the least effective ways of achieving your goal. Ppl don't vote cause they'd rather do smth mote important, like make dinner. System is good enough as it is, voter turnout not a big deal.
You assume the votes of people who currently don't vote will follow the data created by polling people who likely will in the status quo. That doesn't follow.
More voting does not directly correspond to better government, it just gives more legitimacy to it.
Edit: Also you assume those polls aren't made up or doctored with 'house effects' to push the editorial concerns of the organization doing the polling.
Yes I am assuming that. How do you think they will vote, will some magic discovery happen?
On November 06 2012 09:48 Daigomi wrote: Just an ignorant question from an foreigner: What are the exact benefits of having the typical absentee voters vote?
To me, it seems like, unless the preferences of the non-voting population differs significantly from those of the voting population, a sample size of 100m should be more than enough to get an accurate answer. Even if we assume that the non-voting population differs significantly from the voting population (a fairly big assumption), it still doesn't mean that it's a bad thing for them not to vote. In economics there's the idea that a free market allows the distribution of goods to consumers who place the highest value on those goods. Voting seems to be the same. Citizens who place the highest value on elections (and are thus the most likely to vote) get to have a greater say than those who don't value elections (and thus are unlikely to vote). As someone mentioned earlier, this should result in the more informed citizenry voting, ultimately resulting in better decisions being made.
The only situation in which I can personally see the benefit of having the non-voters vote is if there is some systematic factor dissuading a specific population group from voting. For example, before Obama it was possible that a large number of black Americans believed that none of the presidents would support them, resulting in a significant portion of the population not being represented (this is just an example, I have no idea if it black Americans really felt this way). However, as with the systematic bias, this is a very big assumption to make without having strong evidence supporting it. It also won't be fixed by motivating the average American to go vote.
So I guess my question remains: What is the benefit of non-voters voting, and why is it important to get these voters to vote?
First you have to distinguish between absentee voting (which is voting by mail) and not voting. The greatest structural factor dissuading voting is the promotion in the political culture of the United States of keeping turnout low. It is to the advantage of the existing dominant political parties to attempt to reduce the turnout of supporters of the other side, as well as convince the large majority of people who don't vote to continue to do exactly that.
The point is that there is a huge proportion of the voting-eligible population in this country who do not vote, and if they had voted, the results from elections could potentially be drastically different. They end up not voting because the 'market' of voting explicitly prices them out of participating in the economy on purpose. Looking at the current system, with a small minority of people deciding elections in this country, and saying it is indicative of a normal distribution or otherwise okay isn't the way to go, because low turnout is indicative of market failure.
huh? why are you discounting the fact that some of them may not vote because for some of them the vote is not important enough to waste time and money on?
further, how is a "low" turnout indicative of a market failure? especially when the purpose of voting is not simply to fill out and cast a ballot, but to elect effective leaders.
Absentee voting renders your first point moot. Filling out a ballot by mail (or getting it early and turning it in early) 'wastes' no time at all, except for the effort of becoming educated. I would agree that things like declaring Election Day a federal holiday or requiring paid leave for people who want to go out and vote on that day would be useful in driving turnout if that is what you are getting at.
Whether or not the leaders the minority picks are 'effective' can be left up for heated argument. I will say that allowing a minority to pick and leaving a sizable number of people out in the cold is not a fair way of electing leaders. In addition, because elections are more than just about who gets to be the next President of the United States, failing to exercise a sovereign vote in other offices and positions can affect a non-voter even more than if whoever wins the office of the Presidency isn't their first choice.
filling out the ballot early wastes time, just not a lot of it. it also wastes effort becoming informed on political issues. one could argue that an uninformed vote counts as much as an informed one, but then I would counter with the assertion that uninformed votes are the enemy of democracy, not the friend. further, I am not interested in the slightest in driving turnout. in fact, I think a depressed turnout is probably the best that we can hope for (for a variety of reasons).
whether or not the leaders that have been selected are effective is irrelevant to the fact that political representation is meaningless when it becomes the end in of itself. a democracy is not inherently better than a dictatorship. further, there is nothing stopping the majority from voting other than themselves, so your point about the fairness of our system is a straw-man. any system which guarantees the right to vote to the adult populace, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, economic status, gender, or political persuasion has already passed the standard of being "fair".
and as a response to your third point, I will again ask why a greater number of voters would somehow lead to better leaders and officials on any level: local, state, or federal? unless you think that the mere fact of a vote being cast freely for one side is the primary goal of the democracy, then the turnout is largely irrelevant.
As you seem to think totalitarian systems are acceptable in the modern era, there won't be any space for middle ground here.
you misread my comment, I am not advocating totalitarianism or dictatorship. I am merely pointing out the fact that one's rights are no more inherently protected by democracy than dictatorship. democracy only guarantees a majority rule. of course, there are a great many democracies that are very free, arguably freer than a dictatorship can be, and therefore would be an objectively better system of governance. however, there are plenty of democracies (both historically and extant) that, in some respects, are less free than the dictatorship that they replaced.
my main argument, as it should be understood, is that a high voter turnout does not lead to better leaders, and therefore is not necessarily desirable. William F. Buckley Jr put it best in his book Up From Liberalism, when he compared the situations in Mexico (a "democracy") and in Venezuela (a dictatorship). in Mexico, they observe the forms of democracy, and yet, the minority party routinely received less than 10% of the popular vote in a Presidential election (a statistical impossibility). the standards of living for the citizens were largely the same in Mexico and in Venezuela at the time, and the effective political power that could be exercised by the citizens was basically the same. however, one was seen as acceptable and the other was seen as unacceptable on the mere grounds that one used a vote to establish it's totalitarian regime and the other dispensed with the niceties.
when one puts more value on the mere fact of a person being able to cast a ballot than on that same person being safe and secure in his government and daily life, than one has effectively given implicit consent to any totalitarian system which is supported by 50.1% of the populace. in the end, it is not I who supports dictatorship, but you.
I would prefer that 'majority rule' actually constitutes a majority. When you see that the number of people who could have voted but did not dwarfs the popular vote totals of the two main party contenders consistently, it isn't actually majority rule.
On November 06 2012 09:48 Daigomi wrote: Just an ignorant question from an foreigner: What are the exact benefits of having the typical absentee voters vote?
To me, it seems like, unless the preferences of the non-voting population differs significantly from those of the voting population, a sample size of 100m should be more than enough to get an accurate answer. Even if we assume that the non-voting population differs significantly from the voting population (a fairly big assumption), it still doesn't mean that it's a bad thing for them not to vote. In economics there's the idea that a free market allows the distribution of goods to consumers who place the highest value on those goods. Voting seems to be the same. Citizens who place the highest value on elections (and are thus the most likely to vote) get to have a greater say than those who don't value elections (and thus are unlikely to vote). As someone mentioned earlier, this should result in the more informed citizenry voting, ultimately resulting in better decisions being made.
The only situation in which I can personally see the benefit of having the non-voters vote is if there is some systematic factor dissuading a specific population group from voting. For example, before Obama it was possible that a large number of black Americans believed that none of the presidents would support them, resulting in a significant portion of the population not being represented (this is just an example, I have no idea if it black Americans really felt this way). However, as with the systematic bias, this is a very big assumption to make without having strong evidence supporting it. It also won't be fixed by motivating the average American to go vote.
So I guess my question remains: What is the benefit of non-voters voting, and why is it important to get these voters to vote?
First you have to distinguish between absentee voting (which is voting by mail) and not voting. The greatest structural factor dissuading voting is the promotion in the political culture of the United States of keeping turnout low. It is to the advantage of the existing dominant political parties to attempt to reduce the turnout of supporters of the other side, as well as convince the large majority of people who don't vote to continue to do exactly that.
The point is that there is a huge proportion of the voting-eligible population in this country who do not vote, and if they had voted, the results from elections could potentially be drastically different. They end up not voting because the 'market' of voting explicitly prices them out of participating in the economy on purpose. Looking at the current system, with a small minority of people deciding elections in this country, and saying it is indicative of a normal distribution or otherwise okay isn't the way to go, because low turnout is indicative of market failure.
huh? why are you discounting the fact that some of them may not vote because for some of them the vote is not important enough to waste time and money on?
further, how is a "low" turnout indicative of a market failure? especially when the purpose of voting is not simply to fill out and cast a ballot, but to elect effective leaders.
Absentee voting renders your first point moot. Filling out a ballot by mail (or getting it early and turning it in early) 'wastes' no time at all, except for the effort of becoming educated. I would agree that things like declaring Election Day a federal holiday or requiring paid leave for people who want to go out and vote on that day would be useful in driving turnout if that is what you are getting at.
Whether or not the leaders the minority picks are 'effective' can be left up for heated argument. I will say that allowing a minority to pick and leaving a sizable number of people out in the cold is not a fair way of electing leaders. In addition, because elections are more than just about who gets to be the next President of the United States, failing to exercise a sovereign vote in other offices and positions can affect a non-voter even more than if whoever wins the office of the Presidency isn't their first choice.
filling out the ballot early wastes time, just not a lot of it. it also wastes effort becoming informed on political issues. one could argue that an uninformed vote counts as much as an informed one, but then I would counter with the assertion that uninformed votes are the enemy of democracy, not the friend. further, I am not interested in the slightest in driving turnout. in fact, I think a depressed turnout is probably the best that we can hope for (for a variety of reasons).
whether or not the leaders that have been selected are effective is irrelevant to the fact that political representation is meaningless when it becomes the end in of itself. a democracy is not inherently better than a dictatorship. further, there is nothing stopping the majority from voting other than themselves, so your point about the fairness of our system is a straw-man. any system which guarantees the right to vote to the adult populace, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, economic status, gender, or political persuasion has already passed the standard of being "fair".
and as a response to your third point, I will again ask why a greater number of voters would somehow lead to better leaders and officials on any level: local, state, or federal? unless you think that the mere fact of a vote being cast freely for one side is the primary goal of the democracy, then the turnout is largely irrelevant.
As you seem to think totalitarian systems are acceptable in the modern era, there won't be any space for middle ground here.
you misread my comment, I am not advocating totalitarianism or dictatorship. I am merely pointing out the fact that one's rights are no more inherently protected by democracy than dictatorship. democracy only guarantees a majority rule. of course, there are a great many democracies that are very free, arguably freer than a dictatorship can be, and therefore would be an objectively better system of governance. however, there are plenty of democracies (both historically and extant) that, in some respects, are less free than the dictatorship that they replaced.
my main argument, as it should be understood, is that a high voter turnout does not lead to better leaders, and therefore is not necessarily desirable. William F. Buckley Jr put it best in his book Up From Liberalism, when he compared the situations in Mexico (a "democracy") and in Venezuela (a dictatorship). in Mexico, they observe the forms of democracy, and yet, the minority party routinely received less than 10% of the popular vote in a Presidential election (a statistical impossibility). the standards of living for the citizens were largely the same in Mexico and in Venezuela at the time, and the effective political power that could be exercised by the citizens was basically the same. however, one was seen as acceptable and the other was seen as unacceptable on the mere grounds that one used a vote to establish it's totalitarian regime and the other dispensed with the niceties.
when one puts more value on the mere fact of a person being able to cast a ballot than on that same person being safe and secure in his government and daily life, than one has effectively given implicit consent to any totalitarian system which is supported by 50.1% of the populace. in the end, it is not I who supports dictatorship, but you.
I would prefer that 'majority rule' actually constitutes a majority. When you see that the number of people who could have voted but did not dwarfs the popular vote totals of the two main party contenders consistently, it isn't actually majority rule.
but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
On November 06 2012 10:55 FinalForm wrote: Even if we had a 100% increase in voter turnout the election result would be the same: 53% to 46% plus or minus 3 pts. You begin your arguement with the assumption that more voting creates a better government. Also if you are so intent on increasing voter turnout did it occur to you that telling ppl to get out to vote is probably one of the least effective ways of achieving your goal. Ppl don't vote cause they'd rather do smth mote important, like make dinner. System is good enough as it is, voter turnout not a big deal.
You assume the votes of people who currently don't vote will follow the data created by polling people who likely will in the status quo. That doesn't follow.
More voting does not directly correspond to better government, it just gives more legitimacy to it.
Edit: Also you assume those polls aren't made up or doctored with 'house effects' to push the editorial concerns of the organization doing the polling.
Yes I am assuming that. How do you think they will vote, will some magic discovery happen?
The data required to create those polls cannot be legitimate;y articulated to apply to people who aren't measured at all, that's just laughable. That's like me saying polling the preferences of people in a city in California will allow me to make inferences about the preferences of people living in a city in Zimbabwe.
And ideally, yes, some sort of magic discovery will happen. At the least I hope this blog convinces some nerd reading it to go out and vote.
On November 06 2012 09:48 Daigomi wrote: Just an ignorant question from an foreigner: What are the exact benefits of having the typical absentee voters vote?
To me, it seems like, unless the preferences of the non-voting population differs significantly from those of the voting population, a sample size of 100m should be more than enough to get an accurate answer. Even if we assume that the non-voting population differs significantly from the voting population (a fairly big assumption), it still doesn't mean that it's a bad thing for them not to vote. In economics there's the idea that a free market allows the distribution of goods to consumers who place the highest value on those goods. Voting seems to be the same. Citizens who place the highest value on elections (and are thus the most likely to vote) get to have a greater say than those who don't value elections (and thus are unlikely to vote). As someone mentioned earlier, this should result in the more informed citizenry voting, ultimately resulting in better decisions being made.
The only situation in which I can personally see the benefit of having the non-voters vote is if there is some systematic factor dissuading a specific population group from voting. For example, before Obama it was possible that a large number of black Americans believed that none of the presidents would support them, resulting in a significant portion of the population not being represented (this is just an example, I have no idea if it black Americans really felt this way). However, as with the systematic bias, this is a very big assumption to make without having strong evidence supporting it. It also won't be fixed by motivating the average American to go vote.
So I guess my question remains: What is the benefit of non-voters voting, and why is it important to get these voters to vote?
First you have to distinguish between absentee voting (which is voting by mail) and not voting. The greatest structural factor dissuading voting is the promotion in the political culture of the United States of keeping turnout low. It is to the advantage of the existing dominant political parties to attempt to reduce the turnout of supporters of the other side, as well as convince the large majority of people who don't vote to continue to do exactly that.
The point is that there is a huge proportion of the voting-eligible population in this country who do not vote, and if they had voted, the results from elections could potentially be drastically different. They end up not voting because the 'market' of voting explicitly prices them out of participating in the economy on purpose. Looking at the current system, with a small minority of people deciding elections in this country, and saying it is indicative of a normal distribution or otherwise okay isn't the way to go, because low turnout is indicative of market failure.
huh? why are you discounting the fact that some of them may not vote because for some of them the vote is not important enough to waste time and money on?
further, how is a "low" turnout indicative of a market failure? especially when the purpose of voting is not simply to fill out and cast a ballot, but to elect effective leaders.
Absentee voting renders your first point moot. Filling out a ballot by mail (or getting it early and turning it in early) 'wastes' no time at all, except for the effort of becoming educated. I would agree that things like declaring Election Day a federal holiday or requiring paid leave for people who want to go out and vote on that day would be useful in driving turnout if that is what you are getting at.
Whether or not the leaders the minority picks are 'effective' can be left up for heated argument. I will say that allowing a minority to pick and leaving a sizable number of people out in the cold is not a fair way of electing leaders. In addition, because elections are more than just about who gets to be the next President of the United States, failing to exercise a sovereign vote in other offices and positions can affect a non-voter even more than if whoever wins the office of the Presidency isn't their first choice.
filling out the ballot early wastes time, just not a lot of it. it also wastes effort becoming informed on political issues. one could argue that an uninformed vote counts as much as an informed one, but then I would counter with the assertion that uninformed votes are the enemy of democracy, not the friend. further, I am not interested in the slightest in driving turnout. in fact, I think a depressed turnout is probably the best that we can hope for (for a variety of reasons).
whether or not the leaders that have been selected are effective is irrelevant to the fact that political representation is meaningless when it becomes the end in of itself. a democracy is not inherently better than a dictatorship. further, there is nothing stopping the majority from voting other than themselves, so your point about the fairness of our system is a straw-man. any system which guarantees the right to vote to the adult populace, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, economic status, gender, or political persuasion has already passed the standard of being "fair".
and as a response to your third point, I will again ask why a greater number of voters would somehow lead to better leaders and officials on any level: local, state, or federal? unless you think that the mere fact of a vote being cast freely for one side is the primary goal of the democracy, then the turnout is largely irrelevant.
As you seem to think totalitarian systems are acceptable in the modern era, there won't be any space for middle ground here.
you misread my comment, I am not advocating totalitarianism or dictatorship. I am merely pointing out the fact that one's rights are no more inherently protected by democracy than dictatorship. democracy only guarantees a majority rule. of course, there are a great many democracies that are very free, arguably freer than a dictatorship can be, and therefore would be an objectively better system of governance. however, there are plenty of democracies (both historically and extant) that, in some respects, are less free than the dictatorship that they replaced.
my main argument, as it should be understood, is that a high voter turnout does not lead to better leaders, and therefore is not necessarily desirable. William F. Buckley Jr put it best in his book Up From Liberalism, when he compared the situations in Mexico (a "democracy") and in Venezuela (a dictatorship). in Mexico, they observe the forms of democracy, and yet, the minority party routinely received less than 10% of the popular vote in a Presidential election (a statistical impossibility). the standards of living for the citizens were largely the same in Mexico and in Venezuela at the time, and the effective political power that could be exercised by the citizens was basically the same. however, one was seen as acceptable and the other was seen as unacceptable on the mere grounds that one used a vote to establish it's totalitarian regime and the other dispensed with the niceties.
when one puts more value on the mere fact of a person being able to cast a ballot than on that same person being safe and secure in his government and daily life, than one has effectively given implicit consent to any totalitarian system which is supported by 50.1% of the populace. in the end, it is not I who supports dictatorship, but you.
I would prefer that 'majority rule' actually constitutes a majority. When you see that the number of people who could have voted but did not dwarfs the popular vote totals of the two main party contenders consistently, it isn't actually majority rule.
but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
On November 06 2012 09:48 Daigomi wrote: Just an ignorant question from an foreigner: What are the exact benefits of having the typical absentee voters vote?
To me, it seems like, unless the preferences of the non-voting population differs significantly from those of the voting population, a sample size of 100m should be more than enough to get an accurate answer. Even if we assume that the non-voting population differs significantly from the voting population (a fairly big assumption), it still doesn't mean that it's a bad thing for them not to vote. In economics there's the idea that a free market allows the distribution of goods to consumers who place the highest value on those goods. Voting seems to be the same. Citizens who place the highest value on elections (and are thus the most likely to vote) get to have a greater say than those who don't value elections (and thus are unlikely to vote). As someone mentioned earlier, this should result in the more informed citizenry voting, ultimately resulting in better decisions being made.
The only situation in which I can personally see the benefit of having the non-voters vote is if there is some systematic factor dissuading a specific population group from voting. For example, before Obama it was possible that a large number of black Americans believed that none of the presidents would support them, resulting in a significant portion of the population not being represented (this is just an example, I have no idea if it black Americans really felt this way). However, as with the systematic bias, this is a very big assumption to make without having strong evidence supporting it. It also won't be fixed by motivating the average American to go vote.
So I guess my question remains: What is the benefit of non-voters voting, and why is it important to get these voters to vote?
First you have to distinguish between absentee voting (which is voting by mail) and not voting. The greatest structural factor dissuading voting is the promotion in the political culture of the United States of keeping turnout low. It is to the advantage of the existing dominant political parties to attempt to reduce the turnout of supporters of the other side, as well as convince the large majority of people who don't vote to continue to do exactly that.
The point is that there is a huge proportion of the voting-eligible population in this country who do not vote, and if they had voted, the results from elections could potentially be drastically different. They end up not voting because the 'market' of voting explicitly prices them out of participating in the economy on purpose. Looking at the current system, with a small minority of people deciding elections in this country, and saying it is indicative of a normal distribution or otherwise okay isn't the way to go, because low turnout is indicative of market failure.
huh? why are you discounting the fact that some of them may not vote because for some of them the vote is not important enough to waste time and money on?
further, how is a "low" turnout indicative of a market failure? especially when the purpose of voting is not simply to fill out and cast a ballot, but to elect effective leaders.
Absentee voting renders your first point moot. Filling out a ballot by mail (or getting it early and turning it in early) 'wastes' no time at all, except for the effort of becoming educated. I would agree that things like declaring Election Day a federal holiday or requiring paid leave for people who want to go out and vote on that day would be useful in driving turnout if that is what you are getting at.
Whether or not the leaders the minority picks are 'effective' can be left up for heated argument. I will say that allowing a minority to pick and leaving a sizable number of people out in the cold is not a fair way of electing leaders. In addition, because elections are more than just about who gets to be the next President of the United States, failing to exercise a sovereign vote in other offices and positions can affect a non-voter even more than if whoever wins the office of the Presidency isn't their first choice.
filling out the ballot early wastes time, just not a lot of it. it also wastes effort becoming informed on political issues. one could argue that an uninformed vote counts as much as an informed one, but then I would counter with the assertion that uninformed votes are the enemy of democracy, not the friend. further, I am not interested in the slightest in driving turnout. in fact, I think a depressed turnout is probably the best that we can hope for (for a variety of reasons).
whether or not the leaders that have been selected are effective is irrelevant to the fact that political representation is meaningless when it becomes the end in of itself. a democracy is not inherently better than a dictatorship. further, there is nothing stopping the majority from voting other than themselves, so your point about the fairness of our system is a straw-man. any system which guarantees the right to vote to the adult populace, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, economic status, gender, or political persuasion has already passed the standard of being "fair".
and as a response to your third point, I will again ask why a greater number of voters would somehow lead to better leaders and officials on any level: local, state, or federal? unless you think that the mere fact of a vote being cast freely for one side is the primary goal of the democracy, then the turnout is largely irrelevant.
As you seem to think totalitarian systems are acceptable in the modern era, there won't be any space for middle ground here.
you misread my comment, I am not advocating totalitarianism or dictatorship. I am merely pointing out the fact that one's rights are no more inherently protected by democracy than dictatorship. democracy only guarantees a majority rule. of course, there are a great many democracies that are very free, arguably freer than a dictatorship can be, and therefore would be an objectively better system of governance. however, there are plenty of democracies (both historically and extant) that, in some respects, are less free than the dictatorship that they replaced.
my main argument, as it should be understood, is that a high voter turnout does not lead to better leaders, and therefore is not necessarily desirable. William F. Buckley Jr put it best in his book Up From Liberalism, when he compared the situations in Mexico (a "democracy") and in Venezuela (a dictatorship). in Mexico, they observe the forms of democracy, and yet, the minority party routinely received less than 10% of the popular vote in a Presidential election (a statistical impossibility). the standards of living for the citizens were largely the same in Mexico and in Venezuela at the time, and the effective political power that could be exercised by the citizens was basically the same. however, one was seen as acceptable and the other was seen as unacceptable on the mere grounds that one used a vote to establish it's totalitarian regime and the other dispensed with the niceties.
when one puts more value on the mere fact of a person being able to cast a ballot than on that same person being safe and secure in his government and daily life, than one has effectively given implicit consent to any totalitarian system which is supported by 50.1% of the populace. in the end, it is not I who supports dictatorship, but you.
I would prefer that 'majority rule' actually constitutes a majority. When you see that the number of people who could have voted but did not dwarfs the popular vote totals of the two main party contenders consistently, it isn't actually majority rule.
but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
On November 06 2012 10:43 Waxangel wrote: new york, lol :o
Well natural disasters and all that, more excusable.
more like 99.9% projected democrat win D:
Oh that too, but like I've said to a lot of people in this thread, there's generally always more than just the office of President at stake in elections. Usually a lot of local government stuff, laws, etc that might end up having more effect on you.
On November 06 2012 10:13 itsjustatank wrote: [quote]
First you have to distinguish between absentee voting (which is voting by mail) and not voting. The greatest structural factor dissuading voting is the promotion in the political culture of the United States of keeping turnout low. It is to the advantage of the existing dominant political parties to attempt to reduce the turnout of supporters of the other side, as well as convince the large majority of people who don't vote to continue to do exactly that.
The point is that there is a huge proportion of the voting-eligible population in this country who do not vote, and if they had voted, the results from elections could potentially be drastically different. They end up not voting because the 'market' of voting explicitly prices them out of participating in the economy on purpose. Looking at the current system, with a small minority of people deciding elections in this country, and saying it is indicative of a normal distribution or otherwise okay isn't the way to go, because low turnout is indicative of market failure.
huh? why are you discounting the fact that some of them may not vote because for some of them the vote is not important enough to waste time and money on?
further, how is a "low" turnout indicative of a market failure? especially when the purpose of voting is not simply to fill out and cast a ballot, but to elect effective leaders.
Absentee voting renders your first point moot. Filling out a ballot by mail (or getting it early and turning it in early) 'wastes' no time at all, except for the effort of becoming educated. I would agree that things like declaring Election Day a federal holiday or requiring paid leave for people who want to go out and vote on that day would be useful in driving turnout if that is what you are getting at.
Whether or not the leaders the minority picks are 'effective' can be left up for heated argument. I will say that allowing a minority to pick and leaving a sizable number of people out in the cold is not a fair way of electing leaders. In addition, because elections are more than just about who gets to be the next President of the United States, failing to exercise a sovereign vote in other offices and positions can affect a non-voter even more than if whoever wins the office of the Presidency isn't their first choice.
filling out the ballot early wastes time, just not a lot of it. it also wastes effort becoming informed on political issues. one could argue that an uninformed vote counts as much as an informed one, but then I would counter with the assertion that uninformed votes are the enemy of democracy, not the friend. further, I am not interested in the slightest in driving turnout. in fact, I think a depressed turnout is probably the best that we can hope for (for a variety of reasons).
whether or not the leaders that have been selected are effective is irrelevant to the fact that political representation is meaningless when it becomes the end in of itself. a democracy is not inherently better than a dictatorship. further, there is nothing stopping the majority from voting other than themselves, so your point about the fairness of our system is a straw-man. any system which guarantees the right to vote to the adult populace, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, economic status, gender, or political persuasion has already passed the standard of being "fair".
and as a response to your third point, I will again ask why a greater number of voters would somehow lead to better leaders and officials on any level: local, state, or federal? unless you think that the mere fact of a vote being cast freely for one side is the primary goal of the democracy, then the turnout is largely irrelevant.
As you seem to think totalitarian systems are acceptable in the modern era, there won't be any space for middle ground here.
you misread my comment, I am not advocating totalitarianism or dictatorship. I am merely pointing out the fact that one's rights are no more inherently protected by democracy than dictatorship. democracy only guarantees a majority rule. of course, there are a great many democracies that are very free, arguably freer than a dictatorship can be, and therefore would be an objectively better system of governance. however, there are plenty of democracies (both historically and extant) that, in some respects, are less free than the dictatorship that they replaced.
my main argument, as it should be understood, is that a high voter turnout does not lead to better leaders, and therefore is not necessarily desirable. William F. Buckley Jr put it best in his book Up From Liberalism, when he compared the situations in Mexico (a "democracy") and in Venezuela (a dictatorship). in Mexico, they observe the forms of democracy, and yet, the minority party routinely received less than 10% of the popular vote in a Presidential election (a statistical impossibility). the standards of living for the citizens were largely the same in Mexico and in Venezuela at the time, and the effective political power that could be exercised by the citizens was basically the same. however, one was seen as acceptable and the other was seen as unacceptable on the mere grounds that one used a vote to establish it's totalitarian regime and the other dispensed with the niceties.
when one puts more value on the mere fact of a person being able to cast a ballot than on that same person being safe and secure in his government and daily life, than one has effectively given implicit consent to any totalitarian system which is supported by 50.1% of the populace. in the end, it is not I who supports dictatorship, but you.
I would prefer that 'majority rule' actually constitutes a majority. When you see that the number of people who could have voted but did not dwarfs the popular vote totals of the two main party contenders consistently, it isn't actually majority rule.
but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
On November 06 2012 10:20 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] huh? why are you discounting the fact that some of them may not vote because for some of them the vote is not important enough to waste time and money on?
further, how is a "low" turnout indicative of a market failure? especially when the purpose of voting is not simply to fill out and cast a ballot, but to elect effective leaders.
Absentee voting renders your first point moot. Filling out a ballot by mail (or getting it early and turning it in early) 'wastes' no time at all, except for the effort of becoming educated. I would agree that things like declaring Election Day a federal holiday or requiring paid leave for people who want to go out and vote on that day would be useful in driving turnout if that is what you are getting at.
Whether or not the leaders the minority picks are 'effective' can be left up for heated argument. I will say that allowing a minority to pick and leaving a sizable number of people out in the cold is not a fair way of electing leaders. In addition, because elections are more than just about who gets to be the next President of the United States, failing to exercise a sovereign vote in other offices and positions can affect a non-voter even more than if whoever wins the office of the Presidency isn't their first choice.
filling out the ballot early wastes time, just not a lot of it. it also wastes effort becoming informed on political issues. one could argue that an uninformed vote counts as much as an informed one, but then I would counter with the assertion that uninformed votes are the enemy of democracy, not the friend. further, I am not interested in the slightest in driving turnout. in fact, I think a depressed turnout is probably the best that we can hope for (for a variety of reasons).
whether or not the leaders that have been selected are effective is irrelevant to the fact that political representation is meaningless when it becomes the end in of itself. a democracy is not inherently better than a dictatorship. further, there is nothing stopping the majority from voting other than themselves, so your point about the fairness of our system is a straw-man. any system which guarantees the right to vote to the adult populace, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, economic status, gender, or political persuasion has already passed the standard of being "fair".
and as a response to your third point, I will again ask why a greater number of voters would somehow lead to better leaders and officials on any level: local, state, or federal? unless you think that the mere fact of a vote being cast freely for one side is the primary goal of the democracy, then the turnout is largely irrelevant.
As you seem to think totalitarian systems are acceptable in the modern era, there won't be any space for middle ground here.
you misread my comment, I am not advocating totalitarianism or dictatorship. I am merely pointing out the fact that one's rights are no more inherently protected by democracy than dictatorship. democracy only guarantees a majority rule. of course, there are a great many democracies that are very free, arguably freer than a dictatorship can be, and therefore would be an objectively better system of governance. however, there are plenty of democracies (both historically and extant) that, in some respects, are less free than the dictatorship that they replaced.
my main argument, as it should be understood, is that a high voter turnout does not lead to better leaders, and therefore is not necessarily desirable. William F. Buckley Jr put it best in his book Up From Liberalism, when he compared the situations in Mexico (a "democracy") and in Venezuela (a dictatorship). in Mexico, they observe the forms of democracy, and yet, the minority party routinely received less than 10% of the popular vote in a Presidential election (a statistical impossibility). the standards of living for the citizens were largely the same in Mexico and in Venezuela at the time, and the effective political power that could be exercised by the citizens was basically the same. however, one was seen as acceptable and the other was seen as unacceptable on the mere grounds that one used a vote to establish it's totalitarian regime and the other dispensed with the niceties.
when one puts more value on the mere fact of a person being able to cast a ballot than on that same person being safe and secure in his government and daily life, than one has effectively given implicit consent to any totalitarian system which is supported by 50.1% of the populace. in the end, it is not I who supports dictatorship, but you.
I would prefer that 'majority rule' actually constitutes a majority. When you see that the number of people who could have voted but did not dwarfs the popular vote totals of the two main party contenders consistently, it isn't actually majority rule.
but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
On November 06 2012 10:29 itsjustatank wrote: [quote]
Absentee voting renders your first point moot. Filling out a ballot by mail (or getting it early and turning it in early) 'wastes' no time at all, except for the effort of becoming educated. I would agree that things like declaring Election Day a federal holiday or requiring paid leave for people who want to go out and vote on that day would be useful in driving turnout if that is what you are getting at.
Whether or not the leaders the minority picks are 'effective' can be left up for heated argument. I will say that allowing a minority to pick and leaving a sizable number of people out in the cold is not a fair way of electing leaders. In addition, because elections are more than just about who gets to be the next President of the United States, failing to exercise a sovereign vote in other offices and positions can affect a non-voter even more than if whoever wins the office of the Presidency isn't their first choice.
filling out the ballot early wastes time, just not a lot of it. it also wastes effort becoming informed on political issues. one could argue that an uninformed vote counts as much as an informed one, but then I would counter with the assertion that uninformed votes are the enemy of democracy, not the friend. further, I am not interested in the slightest in driving turnout. in fact, I think a depressed turnout is probably the best that we can hope for (for a variety of reasons).
whether or not the leaders that have been selected are effective is irrelevant to the fact that political representation is meaningless when it becomes the end in of itself. a democracy is not inherently better than a dictatorship. further, there is nothing stopping the majority from voting other than themselves, so your point about the fairness of our system is a straw-man. any system which guarantees the right to vote to the adult populace, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, economic status, gender, or political persuasion has already passed the standard of being "fair".
and as a response to your third point, I will again ask why a greater number of voters would somehow lead to better leaders and officials on any level: local, state, or federal? unless you think that the mere fact of a vote being cast freely for one side is the primary goal of the democracy, then the turnout is largely irrelevant.
As you seem to think totalitarian systems are acceptable in the modern era, there won't be any space for middle ground here.
you misread my comment, I am not advocating totalitarianism or dictatorship. I am merely pointing out the fact that one's rights are no more inherently protected by democracy than dictatorship. democracy only guarantees a majority rule. of course, there are a great many democracies that are very free, arguably freer than a dictatorship can be, and therefore would be an objectively better system of governance. however, there are plenty of democracies (both historically and extant) that, in some respects, are less free than the dictatorship that they replaced.
my main argument, as it should be understood, is that a high voter turnout does not lead to better leaders, and therefore is not necessarily desirable. William F. Buckley Jr put it best in his book Up From Liberalism, when he compared the situations in Mexico (a "democracy") and in Venezuela (a dictatorship). in Mexico, they observe the forms of democracy, and yet, the minority party routinely received less than 10% of the popular vote in a Presidential election (a statistical impossibility). the standards of living for the citizens were largely the same in Mexico and in Venezuela at the time, and the effective political power that could be exercised by the citizens was basically the same. however, one was seen as acceptable and the other was seen as unacceptable on the mere grounds that one used a vote to establish it's totalitarian regime and the other dispensed with the niceties.
when one puts more value on the mere fact of a person being able to cast a ballot than on that same person being safe and secure in his government and daily life, than one has effectively given implicit consent to any totalitarian system which is supported by 50.1% of the populace. in the end, it is not I who supports dictatorship, but you.
I would prefer that 'majority rule' actually constitutes a majority. When you see that the number of people who could have voted but did not dwarfs the popular vote totals of the two main party contenders consistently, it isn't actually majority rule.
but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
Even though I dont live in the states these days, I still vote absentee to my home state. Lucky for me that state is a swing state, so at least my vote counts for something.
I would hate to be a democrat in texas or a republican in california T___T
On November 06 2012 10:55 FinalForm wrote: Even if we had a 100% increase in voter turnout the election result would be the same: 53% to 46% plus or minus 3 pts. You begin your arguement with the assumption that more voting creates a better government. Also if you are so intent on increasing voter turnout did it occur to you that telling ppl to get out to vote is probably one of the least effective ways of achieving your goal. Ppl don't vote cause they'd rather do smth mote important, like make dinner. System is good enough as it is, voter turnout not a big deal.
You assume the votes of people who currently don't vote will follow the data created by polling people who likely will in the status quo. That doesn't follow.
More voting does not directly correspond to better government, it just gives more legitimacy to it.
Edit: Also you assume those polls aren't made up or doctored with 'house effects' to push the editorial concerns of the organization doing the polling.
Yes I am assuming that. How do you think they will vote, will some magic discovery happen?
The data required to create those polls cannot be legitimate;y articulated to apply to people who aren't measured at all, that's just laughable. That's like me saying polling the preferences of people in a city in California will allow me to make inferences about the preferences of people living in a city in Zimbabwe.
And ideally, yes, some sort of magic discovery will happen. At the least I hope this blog convinces some nerd reading it to go out and vote.
believe in your magic then. you need to take a statistics class and go over random sampling. any statistics class will make your last sentence sound like third grader logic - "i need to see everything on the table to believe it"
On November 06 2012 10:39 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] filling out the ballot early wastes time, just not a lot of it. it also wastes effort becoming informed on political issues. one could argue that an uninformed vote counts as much as an informed one, but then I would counter with the assertion that uninformed votes are the enemy of democracy, not the friend. further, I am not interested in the slightest in driving turnout. in fact, I think a depressed turnout is probably the best that we can hope for (for a variety of reasons).
whether or not the leaders that have been selected are effective is irrelevant to the fact that political representation is meaningless when it becomes the end in of itself. a democracy is not inherently better than a dictatorship. further, there is nothing stopping the majority from voting other than themselves, so your point about the fairness of our system is a straw-man. any system which guarantees the right to vote to the adult populace, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, economic status, gender, or political persuasion has already passed the standard of being "fair".
and as a response to your third point, I will again ask why a greater number of voters would somehow lead to better leaders and officials on any level: local, state, or federal? unless you think that the mere fact of a vote being cast freely for one side is the primary goal of the democracy, then the turnout is largely irrelevant.
As you seem to think totalitarian systems are acceptable in the modern era, there won't be any space for middle ground here.
you misread my comment, I am not advocating totalitarianism or dictatorship. I am merely pointing out the fact that one's rights are no more inherently protected by democracy than dictatorship. democracy only guarantees a majority rule. of course, there are a great many democracies that are very free, arguably freer than a dictatorship can be, and therefore would be an objectively better system of governance. however, there are plenty of democracies (both historically and extant) that, in some respects, are less free than the dictatorship that they replaced.
my main argument, as it should be understood, is that a high voter turnout does not lead to better leaders, and therefore is not necessarily desirable. William F. Buckley Jr put it best in his book Up From Liberalism, when he compared the situations in Mexico (a "democracy") and in Venezuela (a dictatorship). in Mexico, they observe the forms of democracy, and yet, the minority party routinely received less than 10% of the popular vote in a Presidential election (a statistical impossibility). the standards of living for the citizens were largely the same in Mexico and in Venezuela at the time, and the effective political power that could be exercised by the citizens was basically the same. however, one was seen as acceptable and the other was seen as unacceptable on the mere grounds that one used a vote to establish it's totalitarian regime and the other dispensed with the niceties.
when one puts more value on the mere fact of a person being able to cast a ballot than on that same person being safe and secure in his government and daily life, than one has effectively given implicit consent to any totalitarian system which is supported by 50.1% of the populace. in the end, it is not I who supports dictatorship, but you.
I would prefer that 'majority rule' actually constitutes a majority. When you see that the number of people who could have voted but did not dwarfs the popular vote totals of the two main party contenders consistently, it isn't actually majority rule.
but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
On November 06 2012 10:55 FinalForm wrote: Even if we had a 100% increase in voter turnout the election result would be the same: 53% to 46% plus or minus 3 pts. You begin your arguement with the assumption that more voting creates a better government. Also if you are so intent on increasing voter turnout did it occur to you that telling ppl to get out to vote is probably one of the least effective ways of achieving your goal. Ppl don't vote cause they'd rather do smth mote important, like make dinner. System is good enough as it is, voter turnout not a big deal.
You assume the votes of people who currently don't vote will follow the data created by polling people who likely will in the status quo. That doesn't follow.
More voting does not directly correspond to better government, it just gives more legitimacy to it.
Edit: Also you assume those polls aren't made up or doctored with 'house effects' to push the editorial concerns of the organization doing the polling.
Yes I am assuming that. How do you think they will vote, will some magic discovery happen?
The data required to create those polls cannot be legitimate;y articulated to apply to people who aren't measured at all, that's just laughable. That's like me saying polling the preferences of people in a city in California will allow me to make inferences about the preferences of people living in a city in Zimbabwe.
And ideally, yes, some sort of magic discovery will happen. At the least I hope this blog convinces some nerd reading it to go out and vote.
believe in your magic then. you need to take a statistics class and go over random sampling.
rofl, they create random samples from the population of people who have expressed willingness to vote aka not the people this OP talks about, and aka data you cant use to infer about a population you dont measure.
On November 06 2012 10:49 itsjustatank wrote: [quote]
As you seem to think totalitarian systems are acceptable in the modern era, there won't be any space for middle ground here.
you misread my comment, I am not advocating totalitarianism or dictatorship. I am merely pointing out the fact that one's rights are no more inherently protected by democracy than dictatorship. democracy only guarantees a majority rule. of course, there are a great many democracies that are very free, arguably freer than a dictatorship can be, and therefore would be an objectively better system of governance. however, there are plenty of democracies (both historically and extant) that, in some respects, are less free than the dictatorship that they replaced.
my main argument, as it should be understood, is that a high voter turnout does not lead to better leaders, and therefore is not necessarily desirable. William F. Buckley Jr put it best in his book Up From Liberalism, when he compared the situations in Mexico (a "democracy") and in Venezuela (a dictatorship). in Mexico, they observe the forms of democracy, and yet, the minority party routinely received less than 10% of the popular vote in a Presidential election (a statistical impossibility). the standards of living for the citizens were largely the same in Mexico and in Venezuela at the time, and the effective political power that could be exercised by the citizens was basically the same. however, one was seen as acceptable and the other was seen as unacceptable on the mere grounds that one used a vote to establish it's totalitarian regime and the other dispensed with the niceties.
when one puts more value on the mere fact of a person being able to cast a ballot than on that same person being safe and secure in his government and daily life, than one has effectively given implicit consent to any totalitarian system which is supported by 50.1% of the populace. in the end, it is not I who supports dictatorship, but you.
I would prefer that 'majority rule' actually constitutes a majority. When you see that the number of people who could have voted but did not dwarfs the popular vote totals of the two main party contenders consistently, it isn't actually majority rule.
but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
On November 06 2012 10:59 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] you misread my comment, I am not advocating totalitarianism or dictatorship. I am merely pointing out the fact that one's rights are no more inherently protected by democracy than dictatorship. democracy only guarantees a majority rule. of course, there are a great many democracies that are very free, arguably freer than a dictatorship can be, and therefore would be an objectively better system of governance. however, there are plenty of democracies (both historically and extant) that, in some respects, are less free than the dictatorship that they replaced.
my main argument, as it should be understood, is that a high voter turnout does not lead to better leaders, and therefore is not necessarily desirable. William F. Buckley Jr put it best in his book Up From Liberalism, when he compared the situations in Mexico (a "democracy") and in Venezuela (a dictatorship). in Mexico, they observe the forms of democracy, and yet, the minority party routinely received less than 10% of the popular vote in a Presidential election (a statistical impossibility). the standards of living for the citizens were largely the same in Mexico and in Venezuela at the time, and the effective political power that could be exercised by the citizens was basically the same. however, one was seen as acceptable and the other was seen as unacceptable on the mere grounds that one used a vote to establish it's totalitarian regime and the other dispensed with the niceties.
when one puts more value on the mere fact of a person being able to cast a ballot than on that same person being safe and secure in his government and daily life, than one has effectively given implicit consent to any totalitarian system which is supported by 50.1% of the populace. in the end, it is not I who supports dictatorship, but you.
I would prefer that 'majority rule' actually constitutes a majority. When you see that the number of people who could have voted but did not dwarfs the popular vote totals of the two main party contenders consistently, it isn't actually majority rule.
but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
On November 06 2012 11:05 itsjustatank wrote: [quote]
I would prefer that 'majority rule' actually constitutes a majority. When you see that the number of people who could have voted but did not dwarfs the popular vote totals of the two main party contenders consistently, it isn't actually majority rule.
but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
You know, I've been going at this the wrong way. You fail to isolate a reason why encouraging more people to vote is uniquely a bad thing.
On November 06 2012 10:55 FinalForm wrote: Even if we had a 100% increase in voter turnout the election result would be the same: 53% to 46% plus or minus 3 pts. You begin your arguement with the assumption that more voting creates a better government. Also if you are so intent on increasing voter turnout did it occur to you that telling ppl to get out to vote is probably one of the least effective ways of achieving your goal. Ppl don't vote cause they'd rather do smth mote important, like make dinner. System is good enough as it is, voter turnout not a big deal.
You assume the votes of people who currently don't vote will follow the data created by polling people who likely will in the status quo. That doesn't follow.
More voting does not directly correspond to better government, it just gives more legitimacy to it.
Edit: Also you assume those polls aren't made up or doctored with 'house effects' to push the editorial concerns of the organization doing the polling.
Yes I am assuming that. How do you think they will vote, will some magic discovery happen?
The data required to create those polls cannot be legitimate;y articulated to apply to people who aren't measured at all, that's just laughable. That's like me saying polling the preferences of people in a city in California will allow me to make inferences about the preferences of people living in a city in Zimbabwe.
And ideally, yes, some sort of magic discovery will happen. At the least I hope this blog convinces some nerd reading it to go out and vote.
believe in your magic then. you need to take a statistics class and go over random sampling.
rofl, they create random samples from the population of people who have expressed willingness to vote aka not the people this OP talks about, and aka data you cant use to infer about a population you dont measure.
thats true I am not aware of any polls that use data from ppl not willing to vote, that would be interesting indeed, because it would give us the ability to see who would win the election if their turnout was forced. Again thought, I'm going to venture that there isn't much exciting hidden away in these ppl.
I'm not voting in this election, if I was then i would vote obama.
On November 06 2012 11:07 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
You know, I've been going at this the wrong way. You fail to isolate a reason why encouraging more people to vote is uniquely a bad thing.
the reason it's a bad thing is because it's a waste of your time. you could be growing a garden, maybe volunteering somewhere, or perhaps working some extra shifts. you could be going to Washington to help break down ties to politics and big business, that's how you would convince me to vote.
Voting owns. Go vote and be a cool dude. Voting accomplishes a few very important things:
- You contribute to the outcome of important elections (to varying extents) - You help to decide the fate of important propositions - You get to look down upon apathetic non-voters because hey, at least you did something.
Voting also feels cool. When you walk out of the booth a sudden sensation of pride washes over you, and not just from the cute girls who will appear under both your arms purely by coincidence (note: for this reason it is advisable to shower before going to the voting booths).
On November 06 2012 11:54 thedeadhaji wrote: Already mailed mine in!
As a California resident, my presidential vote is basically moot, but it was important for me to vote for the propositions!
Yeah, California voters (and voters in other jurisdictions which have ballot initiative and referendum) have a lot more responsibility because of that.
Listing the things voters are responsible for in California initiative ballot:
Sales tax rates
Income tax rates
Funding for education and healthcare programs
Labeling of genetically-modified foods
Car insurance regulation
The ability of corporations and unions to donate to candidates in political office with funds gained through payroll reductions
Effective repeal of the Three Strikes Law
Repeal of the death penalty
Increasing penalties for human traffickers (and forcing them to register as sex offenders
The way corporation tax is handled for multistate businesses
The way districts are drawn (who represents you in State legislature).
Low turnout for these critical decision points is simply unacceptable.
Waste of time for those of us that don't live in swing states. I don't think Obama or Romney have even visited my state during this entire election cycle.
I fundamentally disagree with how government is run, from the secretary of state, to the attorney generals office, to the treasury office, to the office of technology. I've worked with or for many of them of my state. And i can say, that voting for either party in any of these positions is basically pointless cause they just are not what i want out of my government. Also the amount of corruption i saw, misuse of budget from every fucking office that i was involved with(I'm in IT, lots of dumb spending that i had to sign for despite me and my peers cries against it), and incompetent people being hired for jobs that they are not even close to qualified for.
On November 06 2012 04:07 ninazerg wrote: What if, say, I happened to be a Republican in a state which votes overwhelmingly Democratic, or vice-versa? Even if I was like "Romney, fuck yeah!" and totally ignorant about the electoral college, my state would be won by Barack Obama regardless.
Also, why should I be pressured into voting if, as an American, I have the personal freedom to abstain from voting if I feel that neither candidate is qualified for holding public office?
It's your duty as a citizen to vote. If you've considered each item and your choice is to abstain, that's cool. But it seems unlikely that you would examine every issue and end up neither opposed nor in favour of all of them.
But as was said before, your vote doesn't matter. At all. Even quoting the 2000 Florida example is still not helpful, as that was decided by more than 1 vote. My one vote is completely meaningless. Why should I waste the gas to drive to the polling station (especially as I live in NY )?
On November 06 2012 04:07 ninazerg wrote: What if, say, I happened to be a Republican in a state which votes overwhelmingly Democratic, or vice-versa? Even if I was like "Romney, fuck yeah!" and totally ignorant about the electoral college, my state would be won by Barack Obama regardless.
Also, why should I be pressured into voting if, as an American, I have the personal freedom to abstain from voting if I feel that neither candidate is qualified for holding public office?
It's your duty as a citizen to vote. If you've considered each item and your choice is to abstain, that's cool. But it seems unlikely that you would examine every issue and end up neither opposed nor in favour of all of them.
I didn't sign up for the obligation to vote. How is it my duty? Who decided that?
On November 06 2012 13:48 soon.Cloak wrote: But as was said before, your vote doesn't matter. At all. Even quoting the 2000 Florida example is still not helpful, as that was decided by more than 1 vote. My one vote is completely meaningless. Why should I waste the gas to drive to the polling station (especially as I live in NY )?
On November 06 2012 04:07 ninazerg wrote: What if, say, I happened to be a Republican in a state which votes overwhelmingly Democratic, or vice-versa? Even if I was like "Romney, fuck yeah!" and totally ignorant about the electoral college, my state would be won by Barack Obama regardless.
Also, why should I be pressured into voting if, as an American, I have the personal freedom to abstain from voting if I feel that neither candidate is qualified for holding public office?
It's your duty as a citizen to vote. If you've considered each item and your choice is to abstain, that's cool. But it seems unlikely that you would examine every issue and end up neither opposed nor in favour of all of them.
I didn't sign up for the obligation to vote. How is it my duty? Who decided that?
You also didn't sign up to be born, and yet you have moral obligations as a rational being during your short time here. Nothing forces you to mind the obligation but it's there all the same. Inaction is opposition to someone, there is no such thing as "not participating" in the universe.
On November 06 2012 13:48 soon.Cloak wrote: But as was said before, your vote doesn't matter. At all. Even quoting the 2000 Florida example is still not helpful, as that was decided by more than 1 vote. My one vote is completely meaningless. Why should I waste the gas to drive to the polling station (especially as I live in NY )?
On November 06 2012 12:24 EatThePath wrote:
On November 06 2012 04:07 ninazerg wrote: What if, say, I happened to be a Republican in a state which votes overwhelmingly Democratic, or vice-versa? Even if I was like "Romney, fuck yeah!" and totally ignorant about the electoral college, my state would be won by Barack Obama regardless.
Also, why should I be pressured into voting if, as an American, I have the personal freedom to abstain from voting if I feel that neither candidate is qualified for holding public office?
It's your duty as a citizen to vote. If you've considered each item and your choice is to abstain, that's cool. But it seems unlikely that you would examine every issue and end up neither opposed nor in favour of all of them.
I didn't sign up for the obligation to vote. How is it my duty? Who decided that?
You also didn't sign up to be born, and yet you have moral obligations as a rational being during your short time here. Nothing forces you to mind the obligation but it's there all the same. Inaction is opposition to someone, there is no such thing as "not participating" in the universe.
First of all, the comparison is weak. I didn't sign up to be born, and thus, I don't have any obligation to live- as in, I have the right to commit suicide. But once I'm born, I have certain restrictions, not obligations. That's different than saying I have an obligation to vote.
Next, you assume i have a moral obligation to vote. But if it won't make a difference, I don't hear the argument that I can be obligated to do it, as a "matter of principle"
Also, once again, you are assuming I have a moral obligation to do anything. I don't generally agree with the idea of objective morality, so I still don't hear your argument.
Living in a firmly blue state (IL) from a firmly red state (GA). Would love to go vote tmrw, but I dunno when I'm going to have the time to stand in line (class + work + must study for midterms, etc.). Generally how long do the lines run and what's the avg. wait time, esp. for someone whose ballot application isn't preprinted?
I felt like I should add in my opinion on this as well. Unfortunately, I'm only sixteen so I cannot vote, but I have been doing some volunteering, and talking to several people, in an attempt to make some degree of an impact. But regarding the "my one vote won't matter statement" we had a public school tax increase that did not pass by ONE vote a couple years ago. (There was like 5,000 total votes or so, which is like 45~% of the people who could have voted by my estimation.), I felt pretty special because I had a long discussion with my friend's parents about their/my opinions about it and I actually caused them to change their opinions regarding it, resulting them to vote the other way. Which for me was pretty special to know that I was able to impact the city in some small way, even without being able to vote.
On November 06 2012 13:48 soon.Cloak wrote: But as was said before, your vote doesn't matter. At all. Even quoting the 2000 Florida example is still not helpful, as that was decided by more than 1 vote. My one vote is completely meaningless. Why should I waste the gas to drive to the polling station (especially as I live in NY )?
On November 06 2012 12:24 EatThePath wrote:
On November 06 2012 04:07 ninazerg wrote: What if, say, I happened to be a Republican in a state which votes overwhelmingly Democratic, or vice-versa? Even if I was like "Romney, fuck yeah!" and totally ignorant about the electoral college, my state would be won by Barack Obama regardless.
Also, why should I be pressured into voting if, as an American, I have the personal freedom to abstain from voting if I feel that neither candidate is qualified for holding public office?
It's your duty as a citizen to vote. If you've considered each item and your choice is to abstain, that's cool. But it seems unlikely that you would examine every issue and end up neither opposed nor in favour of all of them.
I didn't sign up for the obligation to vote. How is it my duty? Who decided that?
You also didn't sign up to be born, and yet you have moral obligations as a rational being during your short time here. Nothing forces you to mind the obligation but it's there all the same. Inaction is opposition to someone, there is no such thing as "not participating" in the universe.
First of all, the comparison is weak. I didn't sign up to be born, and thus, I don't have any obligation to live- as in, I have the right to commit suicide. But once I'm born, I have certain restrictions, not obligations. That's different than saying I have an obligation to vote.
Next, you assume i have a moral obligation to vote. But if it won't make a difference, I don't hear the argument that I can be obligated to do it, as a "matter of principle"
Also, once again, you are assuming I have a moral obligation to do anything. I don't generally agree with the idea of objective morality, so I still don't hear your argument.
I'm not sure I could make it clearer within the scope of a discussion centered on voting. If you don't agree with me about those things, I won't try and persuade you otherwise. About voting, I already acknowledged that nothing can force you. If you have beef with the system, inaction may be your only recourse. I'm not sure what system is better than democracy, though, so it seems more responsible to improve the culture of the system than detach from it and thereby undermine it.
On November 06 2012 14:17 Ettick wrote: I am voting tommorow. For who? I am still deciding between Jill Stein and Obama
It's kind of bullshit that Obama and Romney are the only "real" candidates when you think about it. :/
Yeah it really sucks lol I kind of almost feel wasteful not voting for either of them since it's pretty much guaranteed that one of them will win Anyways, after researching a bit more I think I've decided on Stewart Alexander
On November 06 2012 11:54 thedeadhaji wrote: Already mailed mine in!
As a California resident, my presidential vote is basically moot, but it was important for me to vote for the propositions!
Yeah, California voters (and voters in other jurisdictions which have ballot initiative and referendum) have a lot more responsibility because of that.
Listing the things voters are responsible for in California initiative ballot:
Sales tax rates
Income tax rates
Funding for education and healthcare programs
Labeling of genetically-modified foods
Car insurance regulation
The ability of corporations and unions to donate to candidates in political office with funds gained through payroll reductions
Effective repeal of the Three Strikes Law
Repeal of the death penalty
Increasing penalties for human traffickers (and forcing them to register as sex offenders
The way corporation tax is handled for multistate businesses
The way districts are drawn (who represents you in State legislature).
Low turnout for these critical decision points is simply unacceptable.
There are a lot of really bad arguements for voting which make the arguement sound terrible but you guys have go to care stuff like that.
On November 06 2012 16:39 Torte de Lini wrote: American Citizen, haven't registered yet or voted ever ): I'm stuck in Canada and I think I might get my driver's license before I register.
Not even sure how voting works for expats, but I would assume you would end up voting on the state ballot from which you last resided.
On November 06 2012 11:05 itsjustatank wrote: [quote]
I would prefer that 'majority rule' actually constitutes a majority. When you see that the number of people who could have voted but did not dwarfs the popular vote totals of the two main party contenders consistently, it isn't actually majority rule.
but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
i wish my voting place was at my college campus rather than some school a mile away
@Daigomi: i don't think most people choose to take leave from work to vote. polls are always busiest at around 6,7pm when everyone's gotten home from work.
On November 06 2012 19:14 synapse wrote: i wish my voting place was at my college campus rather than some school a mile away
@Daigomi: i don't think most people choose to take leave from work to vote. polls are always busiest at around 6,7pm when everyone's gotten home from work.
On November 06 2012 19:14 synapse wrote: i wish my voting place was at my college campus rather than some school a mile away
@Daigomi: i don't think most people choose to take leave from work to vote. polls are always busiest at around 6,7pm when everyone's gotten home from work.
Wow really? You must have a very good system then. In SA, we have roughly 18m people voting, and election day is a public holiday, and you still end up waiting in queues for 2+ hours. As such, I assumed voting in the US would take most of the day. I guess having more people vote wouldn't be too expensive then.
Question is, do the US system work like the Swedish one, where there's a difference between a deliberate blank vote and a skipped vote? The way it works in Sweden is that when you vote, you can decide to deliberately NOT cast a vote, by writing so on the note. This means, you specifically vote for no one, and no one gets your vote. However, if you simply do not go out and vote, you're put into a mass of "non-voter votes" which are distributed according to a system.
Which basically means, if you do not go out and vote, you're being dumb as shit and it encourages people to actually go vote.
On November 06 2012 20:43 Tobberoth wrote: Question is, do the US system work like the Swedish one, where there's a difference between a deliberate blank vote and a skipped vote? The way it works in Sweden is that when you vote, you can decide to deliberately NOT cast a vote, by writing so on the note. This means, you specifically vote for no one, and no one gets your vote. However, if you simply do not go out and vote, you're put into a mass of "non-voter votes" which are distributed according to a system.
Which basically means, if you do not go out and vote, you're being dumb as shit and it encourages people to actually go vote.
Not voting and going to vote but not filling out a certain portion of a ballot is functionally the same with regards to the outcome of that particular election. If I wanted to vote for president, but not for my congressman, I would just leave the congressman portion of the ballot blank (there are different types of ballots, but I've never heard of one that forces you to specify that you want to vote for nobody).
Just a question, isn't one of the reasons for the fact that the vote turnout in America is low because they live in predominantely Democratic or Republican states? Seeing as its winner takes it all then your vote is effectivly useless in those states if you are on the other side is it not?
On November 06 2012 21:17 Kipsate wrote: Just a question, isn't one of the reasons for the fact that the vote turnout in America is low because they live in predominantely Democratic or Republican states? Seeing as its winner takes it all then your vote is effectivly useless in those states if you are on the other side is it not?
This is correct. If all you wanted to do is vote for president, there are very few states where that vote would actually make a difference to the outcome of the election. However, there are many other things being voted on, not only for the national government but also on the local level. Most people tend to be far less interested in those, though.
On November 06 2012 11:07 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
I'm not arguing with your statistics but querying your final point.
What do you mean by "every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP"? Do you mean to say that having more people wishing to vote would take the day off work and thus cost the country money? In the UK Polling stations open in the evening so people can usually attend these (though sometimes they get full which is another matter), this together with postal voting systems (though possibly subject to manipulation), I do not see how having a higher turn out will directly impact upon a country's daily GDP.
I think the key issue is that by aiming for a higher turnout, it is hoped that the populus will have gained a greater knowledge of politics - as if the imperative 'go out to vote!' will promote an intelligent investigation in to who to vote for - yes, a slim, but a hopeful attempt nonetheless.
But don't lose sight of the fact that the main motivation is that the winning party can claim, whether rightly or wrongly, greater legitimacy for their victory if more people turnout to vote.
On November 06 2012 11:07 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] but for what purpose, other than to satisfy the rather vague principle of "majority should mean majority", would we actually encourage voter turnout? if it does not lead to objectively better results than why should it be called the objectively better system?
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
Isolate why having more people vote is bad.
To clarify why I am going at this this way: even if things are going fine now, why is encouraging more people to vote uniquely bad. If you are confident in the system and how things are going, more people voting shouldn't drastically change things (but if it does, then the status quo wasn't actually satisfactory to the voting populace). However if the true basis for this argument is what I think it is, that we assume people who do not vote are stupid and aren't worth giving rights and popular sovereignty to, then the net detriment is the fact that we give these commoners the right to vote. And in this case, 'democracy' is a sham.
So true and right, but what else can we expect from Carlin
Well, it's obviously the opposite of true and right. If you vote for someone and they act like shit, you have a right to complain because they betrayed your trust. If you sit in your house and do nothing, you have no right to complain since you accepted anything, and you got something, so you should be satisfied no matter what.
On November 06 2012 20:43 Tobberoth wrote: Question is, do the US system work like the Swedish one, where there's a difference between a deliberate blank vote and a skipped vote? The way it works in Sweden is that when you vote, you can decide to deliberately NOT cast a vote, by writing so on the note. This means, you specifically vote for no one, and no one gets your vote. However, if you simply do not go out and vote, you're put into a mass of "non-voter votes" which are distributed according to a system.
Which basically means, if you do not go out and vote, you're being dumb as shit and it encourages people to actually go vote.
Yes you can cast your ballot completely blank. You can also pick and choose what you want to vote on. Only thing that would spoil the ballot: writing your name on it (no longer a secret ballot), voting for more than allowed, and few other things made famous in the 2000 elections like whether your vote was clear or not.
So true and right, but what else can we expect from Carlin
It's actually wrong, because it assumes everyone voted for the guy to be in office and thus cannot complain because their actions enabled it.
You can't tell proactive people they have no right to complain because they were proactive. It's the people who cynically sit at home and don't vote, who have no right to complain due to decision to be removed from society.
Ironic coming from me, but to be honest; I've seen this video too many times and it gets annoying. There's an outer layer of hilarious truth that he's saying, but it's been used so many times that it's starting to peel.
Coming from where I am voting seems silly to me since most of the time is just a struggle for power between 2 very corrupt parties. Arguably, I don't have that much of a clue about the candidates in US but still... it does kinda seem like voting means "picking someone", and when you have to pick between 2 pieces of shit, well most of the time it doesn't matter... leave it to the folks that will bother walking to the voting center.
On November 07 2012 00:25 Aterons_toss wrote: Coming from where I am voting seems silly to me since most of the time is just a struggle for power between 2 very corrupt parties. Arguably, I don't have that much of a clue about the candidates in US but still... it does kinda seem like voting means "picking someone", and when you have to pick between 2 pieces of shit, well most of the time it doesn't matter... leave it to the folks that will bother walking to the voting center.
The democratic solution to having two shitty parties is not actually to ignore democracy, it's to create your own party. Might seem like a weird solution to Americans since they obviously realize a new party won't make a dent, but look at other countries and you'll see having more than 2 parties is definitely viable.
So yeah, instead of whining about there only being two terrible parties, go make new ones.
On November 06 2012 11:10 itsjustatank wrote: [quote]
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
I'm not arguing with your statistics but querying your final point.
What do you mean by "every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP"? Do you mean to say that having more people wishing to vote would take the day off work and thus cost the country money? In the UK Polling stations open in the evening so people can usually attend these (though sometimes they get full which is another matter), this together with postal voting systems (though possibly subject to manipulation), I do not see how having a higher turn out will directly impact upon a country's daily GDP.
I think the key issue is that by aiming for a higher turnout, it is hoped that the populus will have gained a greater knowledge of politics - as if the imperative 'go out to vote!' will promote an intelligent investigation in to who to vote for - yes, a slim, but a hopeful attempt nonetheless.
But don't lose sight of the fact that the main motivation is that the winning party can claim, whether rightly or wrongly, greater legitimacy for their victory if more people turnout to vote.
That was a mistake on my part. In SA, voting takes the entire day so election day is a public holiday. I did not realise that the US voting system was efficient enough to handle the millions of voters in the hours before and after work.
On November 06 2012 11:10 itsjustatank wrote: [quote]
If your preferences are served by continuing with the status quo, your argument is rational on a personal advocacy level. The problem is that for many people in this majority of non-voters, the current political order does not suit them, but they do nothing to change it. If we are going to call this a democracy, more votes and more turnout make it more legitimate. If that isn't a respectable goal to you, then we once again are at a point of departure. Rule by a minority elite is not true democracy.
how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
Isolate why having more people vote is bad.
To clarify why I am going at this this way: even if things are going fine now, why is encouraging more people to vote uniquely bad. If you are confident in the system and how things are going, more people voting shouldn't drastically change things (but if it does, then the status quo wasn't actually satisfactory to the voting populace). However if the true basis for this argument is what I think it is, that we assume people who do not vote are stupid and aren't worth giving rights and popular sovereignty to, then the net detriment is the fact that we give these commoners the right to vote. And in this case, 'democracy' is a sham.
To start, you're the one who says that people 'should' go vote, so you have to supply a good reason why they should do that. I'm not saying more people voting is necessarily bad, I'm saying that more people voting is very, very unlikely to be useful.
If voting adds no reasonable benefit, then encouraging more people to vote isn't good (it's also not particularly bad). It would be like encouraging people to stub their toes against a step. It's not particularly harmful, but it's an inconvenience with no clear benefit.
The big difference is, you're still basing your encouragement on the assumption that it can lead to some social change. Regardless of whether the status quo is satisfactory or not, encouraging more people to vote won't change the status quo. As has been argued already, even a turnout rate of 1% (of a perfectly random sample) will result in the preferred presidential candidate being chosen for the universe's expected lifetime (just so that it's clear, we're not talking about one "mistake" every fifty years, we're talking about one mistake every 10000000000000000000000000 years). When you reach a turnout rate of 60%, this should be true for the presidential election using an electoral system and all local elections.
All of this is based on the assumption that the people who vote are representative of the population as a whole. Given the sample size, this is a safe assumption if the sample is truly random. The question thus becomes if the voters are random or systematically biased in some way. Now, it's clear that the people who vote do differ systematically from the people who choose not vote. For one thing, the average voter clearly cares more about the election than the average non-voter. As such, we know that there is at least some form of systematic bias already going on. The quesiton is if this bias is a bad thing or not and whether encouraging people to vote decrease the bias.
Firstly, is the bias a bad thing? There are many ways in which the non-voting population can differ from the voting population, but the only characteristic we can be reasonably sure about is that they care less about the election (on average). There will be research on other characteristics they have, but I'll get to that later. Regarding participants caring less, it is better, by and large, if informed and interested parties make the decision, rather than all parties. To give you an easy example, imagine a school that is considering building an olympic swimming pool for it's students. If you just call a vote, then the people who have an interest in the topic (those who enjoy swimming, those who will have to pay for the pool, those who will have to build it, etc.) will be the most likely to vote and as a result, they will have the greatest say. The result should be that choice which benefits most residents gets chosen (let's assume, in this situation, it means the pool does not get built because it is too expensive). On the other hand, if you force the entire community to vote then you have people who will never use the pool or have to pay for the pool influencing whether the pool gets built or not. When disinterested parties are forced to vote, the results of the vote are almost always worse than if people could choose to vote. In this case, community members might think the pool sounds like a cool thing, without considering the costs or the number of people who will use it.
Just another quick example of the problem of forcing people to vote:
If Teamliquid ran a poll "Who is the greatest BW player of all time" with a list of viable candidates, you would expect a reasonably accurate answer. If Teamliquid forced ALL visitors to the site to vote, including those who never watched BW or even those who accidentally landed on Teamliquid, the results would be considerably less accurate. This is why most polls allow you to not make a choice, because an uninformed choice is often worse than no choice.
This is not to say that these people should not be allowed to vote. They have every right to vote. However, they also have the right to choose not to vote, and by choosing not to vote they say that they don't care enough or know enough about the election to wish to influence the result. Now, if the non-voting population starts getting screwed over, they will start caring more about the elections and they will change from disinterested parties to interested parties while other parties will become less interested. The point is, freedom to choose to vote (without social pressure) improves the effectiveness of a democracy.
The second question is, will encouraging people to vote decrease the bias? At this stage, I'm not simply talking about people who are disinterested in politics. There are other potential sources of bias. For example, first generation US citizens might feel like they have less of a "right" to vote, or some of the minority groups might feel that their interested are not represented and thus abstain from voting. This could result in the voting being biased away from those groups' interests. However, walking up to the average American and encouraging them to vote is unlikely to address this problem. If your sampling method is biased, increasing the size of the sample does not decrease the bias. What you would need to do is identify which population sub-groups are not being represented and find a specific solution to their problem.
So, to sum it all up, people should be free to vote if they want to, but also free to abstain if they don't want to vote. Placing social pressure on people to vote will simply result in worse decisions. Added to that, the chances that the elections will be changed by those who choose not to vote is very small, so you should not concern yourself over it.
On November 06 2012 11:19 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
I'm not arguing with your statistics but querying your final point.
What do you mean by "every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP"? Do you mean to say that having more people wishing to vote would take the day off work and thus cost the country money? In the UK Polling stations open in the evening so people can usually attend these (though sometimes they get full which is another matter), this together with postal voting systems (though possibly subject to manipulation), I do not see how having a higher turn out will directly impact upon a country's daily GDP.
I think the key issue is that by aiming for a higher turnout, it is hoped that the populus will have gained a greater knowledge of politics - as if the imperative 'go out to vote!' will promote an intelligent investigation in to who to vote for - yes, a slim, but a hopeful attempt nonetheless.
But don't lose sight of the fact that the main motivation is that the winning party can claim, whether rightly or wrongly, greater legitimacy for their victory if more people turnout to vote.
That was a mistake on my part. In SA, voting takes the entire day so election day is a public holiday. I did not realise that the US voting system was efficient enough to handle the millions of voters in the hours before and after work.
On November 06 2012 11:19 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] how does higher turnout make it more legitimate?
is the systems legitimacy not based on the actual benefit of the system to the citizen? why would it's legitimacy be based on how many people decide to take part in the voting, and not on how free and prosperous those people are?
"true democracy" is a very strange term, again much discussed in Buckley's work, Up From Liberalism (I highly suggest you read it). one should assume that democracy, in truth, is a system by which one votes for ones government. a populace of three thousand where only two people choose to vote is as much a "true democracy" as any other in that sense.
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
Isolate why having more people vote is bad.
To clarify why I am going at this this way: even if things are going fine now, why is encouraging more people to vote uniquely bad. If you are confident in the system and how things are going, more people voting shouldn't drastically change things (but if it does, then the status quo wasn't actually satisfactory to the voting populace). However if the true basis for this argument is what I think it is, that we assume people who do not vote are stupid and aren't worth giving rights and popular sovereignty to, then the net detriment is the fact that we give these commoners the right to vote. And in this case, 'democracy' is a sham.
To start, you're the one who says that people 'should' go vote, so you have to supply a good reason why they should do that. I'm not saying more people voting is necessarily bad, I'm saying that more people voting is very, very unlikely to be useful.
If voting adds no reasonable benefit, then encouraging more people to vote isn't good (it's also not particularly bad). It would be like encouraging people to stub their toes against a step. It's not particularly harmful, but it's an inconvenience with no clear benefit.
Then there is no net detriment to be had for society here. The good reason I provide is the exercise of rights and popular sovereignty.
However, they also have the right to choose not to vote, and by choosing not to vote they say that they don't care enough or know enough about the election to wish to influence the result.
I am also not forcing people to vote, I just think it is a good idea for them to do so, and if they want to vote then they should. This is perhaps the most fundamental misreading of what my advocacy is here.
I also isolate a number of net detriments existent in the status quo that have resulted from the current levels of low turnout, in particular the continued presence of the two-party consensus at the expense of alternate political movements.
Added to that, the chances that the elections will be changed by those who choose not to vote is very small, so you should not concern yourself over it.
Except where I show that the number of people who do not vote but could (and are already registered) far outnumbers the number of people who vote for the two majority party candidates. The potential for swing between the results of the two, or the emergence of an alternative is great if they all voted.
On November 06 2012 11:20 itsjustatank wrote: [quote]
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
I'm not arguing with your statistics but querying your final point.
What do you mean by "every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP"? Do you mean to say that having more people wishing to vote would take the day off work and thus cost the country money? In the UK Polling stations open in the evening so people can usually attend these (though sometimes they get full which is another matter), this together with postal voting systems (though possibly subject to manipulation), I do not see how having a higher turn out will directly impact upon a country's daily GDP.
I think the key issue is that by aiming for a higher turnout, it is hoped that the populus will have gained a greater knowledge of politics - as if the imperative 'go out to vote!' will promote an intelligent investigation in to who to vote for - yes, a slim, but a hopeful attempt nonetheless.
But don't lose sight of the fact that the main motivation is that the winning party can claim, whether rightly or wrongly, greater legitimacy for their victory if more people turnout to vote.
That was a mistake on my part. In SA, voting takes the entire day so election day is a public holiday. I did not realise that the US voting system was efficient enough to handle the millions of voters in the hours before and after work.
On November 06 2012 23:20 itsjustatank wrote:
On November 06 2012 18:33 Daigomi wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:55 sc2superfan101 wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:47 itsjustatank wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:41 sc2superfan101 wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:28 itsjustatank wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:23 sc2superfan101 wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:20 itsjustatank wrote: [quote]
Not everyone in this country is 'free and prosperous.' Especially not the second part of that slogan.
of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
Isolate why having more people vote is bad.
To clarify why I am going at this this way: even if things are going fine now, why is encouraging more people to vote uniquely bad. If you are confident in the system and how things are going, more people voting shouldn't drastically change things (but if it does, then the status quo wasn't actually satisfactory to the voting populace). However if the true basis for this argument is what I think it is, that we assume people who do not vote are stupid and aren't worth giving rights and popular sovereignty to, then the net detriment is the fact that we give these commoners the right to vote. And in this case, 'democracy' is a sham.
To start, you're the one who says that people 'should' go vote, so you have to supply a good reason why they should do that. I'm not saying more people voting is necessarily bad, I'm saying that more people voting is very, very unlikely to be useful.
If voting adds no reasonable benefit, then encouraging more people to vote isn't good (it's also not particularly bad). It would be like encouraging people to stub their toes against a step. It's not particularly harmful, but it's an inconvenience with no clear benefit.
Then there is no net detriment to be had for society here. The good reason I provide is the exercise of rights and popular sovereignty.
I am also not forcing people to vote, I just think it is a good idea for them to do so, and if they want to vote then they should. This is perhaps the most fundamental misreading of what my advocacy is here.
I also isolate a number of net detriments existent in the status quo that have resulted from the current levels of low turnout, in particular the continued presence of the two-party consensus at the expense of alternate political movements.
There's also no net detriment to society for everyone to stub their toes against a chair, but that doesn't make advocating for it a good idea. Also, you're excluding all the paragraphs I wrote in the middle pointing out why an uninformed/uninterested vote is a bad vote.
The exercising of rights is a terrible reason to vote. I've got the right of free speech as well, but you're not advocating that I walk down the street and insult people. It's the fact that the rights exist which is a good thing. We don't have to pointlessly exercise our rights to make them worthwhile. The popular sovereignity advantage doesn't work either. An election is a way of recording the will of the people. The will of all 360m people do not need to measured to know what their will is, just like you don't need to drink the entire glass of Coke to know that it's Coke. Any system that accurately measures the will of the people (like a perfectly random sample of 1,000,000 voters would do) has the advantage of popular sovereignity.
As you say, you're not forcing people to vote. However, the fact that everybody is constantly telling everybody else to "VOTE" is a significant form of social pressure (which is why you guys are doing it). You can't have it both ways: Either your advocacy will result in disinterested people voting, in which case it is unlikely to be good and may be bad, or it won't result in disinterested people voting, in which case it does nothing. At best, you're advocating that people stub their toes.
Added to that, the chances that the elections will be changed by those who choose not to vote is very small, so you should not concern yourself over it.
Except where I show that the number of people who do not vote but could (and are already registered) far outnumbers the number of people who vote for the two majority party candidates. The potential for swing between the results of the two, or the emergence of an alternative is great if they all voted.
Come on, how many times do I need to go over the stats. It doesn't matter if only 1% of all people in the US voted. Unless you can concretely show that the votes of the non-voters would have differed from those who did vote, then the vote of the 1% will give you exactly the same result as the vote of the 100%. Sure, it's possible for the non-voters to all vote Obama or Romney and change the result, but there's no reason to believe that that would be the case. It's the same as rolling a die 1,000,000 times and finding that, 66% of the time, the number is equal to 4 or lower. Sure, it is technically possible that by rolling the die another 99,000,000 times the distribution will change, and you will find that 5 and 6 come up 50% of the time, but the odds of that happening is almost exactly same as the odds of the universe ending while I type this.
On November 06 2012 11:23 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
I'm not arguing with your statistics but querying your final point.
What do you mean by "every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP"? Do you mean to say that having more people wishing to vote would take the day off work and thus cost the country money? In the UK Polling stations open in the evening so people can usually attend these (though sometimes they get full which is another matter), this together with postal voting systems (though possibly subject to manipulation), I do not see how having a higher turn out will directly impact upon a country's daily GDP.
I think the key issue is that by aiming for a higher turnout, it is hoped that the populus will have gained a greater knowledge of politics - as if the imperative 'go out to vote!' will promote an intelligent investigation in to who to vote for - yes, a slim, but a hopeful attempt nonetheless.
But don't lose sight of the fact that the main motivation is that the winning party can claim, whether rightly or wrongly, greater legitimacy for their victory if more people turnout to vote.
That was a mistake on my part. In SA, voting takes the entire day so election day is a public holiday. I did not realise that the US voting system was efficient enough to handle the millions of voters in the hours before and after work.
On November 06 2012 23:20 itsjustatank wrote:
On November 06 2012 18:33 Daigomi wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:55 sc2superfan101 wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:47 itsjustatank wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:41 sc2superfan101 wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:28 itsjustatank wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:23 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] of course not, but how would increasing the turnout of the vote alleviate this problem?
also, I would argue that the majority of the country are free and prosperous enough to grant the system a great degree of legitimacy. one cannot simply point to the exception and call it the rule. generally, the US population is free and prosperous by any standard which maintains historical relevance.
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
Isolate why having more people vote is bad.
To clarify why I am going at this this way: even if things are going fine now, why is encouraging more people to vote uniquely bad. If you are confident in the system and how things are going, more people voting shouldn't drastically change things (but if it does, then the status quo wasn't actually satisfactory to the voting populace). However if the true basis for this argument is what I think it is, that we assume people who do not vote are stupid and aren't worth giving rights and popular sovereignty to, then the net detriment is the fact that we give these commoners the right to vote. And in this case, 'democracy' is a sham.
To start, you're the one who says that people 'should' go vote, so you have to supply a good reason why they should do that. I'm not saying more people voting is necessarily bad, I'm saying that more people voting is very, very unlikely to be useful.
If voting adds no reasonable benefit, then encouraging more people to vote isn't good (it's also not particularly bad). It would be like encouraging people to stub their toes against a step. It's not particularly harmful, but it's an inconvenience with no clear benefit.
Then there is no net detriment to be had for society here. The good reason I provide is the exercise of rights and popular sovereignty.
I am also not forcing people to vote, I just think it is a good idea for them to do so, and if they want to vote then they should. This is perhaps the most fundamental misreading of what my advocacy is here.
I also isolate a number of net detriments existent in the status quo that have resulted from the current levels of low turnout, in particular the continued presence of the two-party consensus at the expense of alternate political movements.
There's also no net detriment to society for everyone to stub their toes against a chair, but that doesn't make advocating for it a good idea. Also, you're excluding all the paragraphs I wrote in the middle pointing out why an uninformed/uninterested vote is a bad vote.
The exercising of rights is a terrible reason to vote. I've got the right of free speech as well, but you're not advocating that I walk down the street and insult people. It's the fact that the rights exist which is a good thing. We don't have to pointlessly exercise our rights to make them worthwhile. The popular sovereignity advantage doesn't work either. An election is a way of recording the will of the people. The will of all 360m people do not need to measured to know what their will is, just like you don't need to drink the entire glass of Coke to know that it's Coke. Any system that accurately measures the will of the people (like a perfectly random sample of 1,000,000 voters would do) has the advantage of popular sovereignity.
As you say, you're not forcing people to vote. However, the fact that everybody is constantly telling everybody else to "VOTE" is a significant form of social pressure (which is why you guys are doing it). You can't have it both ways: Either your advocacy will result in disinterested people voting, in which case it is unlikely to be good and may be bad, or it won't result in disinterested people voting, in which case it does nothing. At best, you're advocating that people stub their toes.
Disinterested people will continue not to vote. If they are affected by my advocacy they are no longer disinterested but are actually interested in voting. Their vote and sovereign voice matters. Unless I am going around with a rifle forcing people to, in Plexa's example, vote or die, your criticism doesn't apply.
And even if it did, I would argue that because we term ourselves a democracy, a disinterested vote is still valuable out of principle. Continuing to term ourselves as a democracy and keeping our institutions open in such a way means we at some level care about getting more people to vote; otherwise we'd just limit the franchise to what you appear to think is a good idea and exclude everybody else. The true hypocrisy is saying people have a right to vote, they should vote, but they really shouldn't because they are too dumb to vote and would ruin the perfect world we created without them.
To turn your own advocacy on its head, arguing for a restricted vote or why low turnout is a good thing might make interested voters not care and fail to exercise their vote. I'd say that's a more clear net detriment than having more people vote.
On November 06 2012 11:28 itsjustatank wrote: [quote]
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
I'm not arguing with your statistics but querying your final point.
What do you mean by "every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP"? Do you mean to say that having more people wishing to vote would take the day off work and thus cost the country money? In the UK Polling stations open in the evening so people can usually attend these (though sometimes they get full which is another matter), this together with postal voting systems (though possibly subject to manipulation), I do not see how having a higher turn out will directly impact upon a country's daily GDP.
I think the key issue is that by aiming for a higher turnout, it is hoped that the populus will have gained a greater knowledge of politics - as if the imperative 'go out to vote!' will promote an intelligent investigation in to who to vote for - yes, a slim, but a hopeful attempt nonetheless.
But don't lose sight of the fact that the main motivation is that the winning party can claim, whether rightly or wrongly, greater legitimacy for their victory if more people turnout to vote.
That was a mistake on my part. In SA, voting takes the entire day so election day is a public holiday. I did not realise that the US voting system was efficient enough to handle the millions of voters in the hours before and after work.
On November 06 2012 23:20 itsjustatank wrote:
On November 06 2012 18:33 Daigomi wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:55 sc2superfan101 wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:47 itsjustatank wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:41 sc2superfan101 wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:28 itsjustatank wrote: [quote]
Because of the majoritarian voting systems in the United States, and the construction of its institutions in the Constitution, low turnout is simply unacceptable. A voting system that relies on 50% +1 winner takes all with a poor turnout rate isn't legitimate.
It may work, and the results might be pretty (to you, or the minority who benefit), but calling it democracy is insidious.
but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
Isolate why having more people vote is bad.
To clarify why I am going at this this way: even if things are going fine now, why is encouraging more people to vote uniquely bad. If you are confident in the system and how things are going, more people voting shouldn't drastically change things (but if it does, then the status quo wasn't actually satisfactory to the voting populace). However if the true basis for this argument is what I think it is, that we assume people who do not vote are stupid and aren't worth giving rights and popular sovereignty to, then the net detriment is the fact that we give these commoners the right to vote. And in this case, 'democracy' is a sham.
To start, you're the one who says that people 'should' go vote, so you have to supply a good reason why they should do that. I'm not saying more people voting is necessarily bad, I'm saying that more people voting is very, very unlikely to be useful.
If voting adds no reasonable benefit, then encouraging more people to vote isn't good (it's also not particularly bad). It would be like encouraging people to stub their toes against a step. It's not particularly harmful, but it's an inconvenience with no clear benefit.
Then there is no net detriment to be had for society here. The good reason I provide is the exercise of rights and popular sovereignty.
I am also not forcing people to vote, I just think it is a good idea for them to do so, and if they want to vote then they should. This is perhaps the most fundamental misreading of what my advocacy is here.
I also isolate a number of net detriments existent in the status quo that have resulted from the current levels of low turnout, in particular the continued presence of the two-party consensus at the expense of alternate political movements.
There's also no net detriment to society for everyone to stub their toes against a chair, but that doesn't make advocating for it a good idea. Also, you're excluding all the paragraphs I wrote in the middle pointing out why an uninformed/uninterested vote is a bad vote.
The exercising of rights is a terrible reason to vote. I've got the right of free speech as well, but you're not advocating that I walk down the street and insult people. It's the fact that the rights exist which is a good thing. We don't have to pointlessly exercise our rights to make them worthwhile. The popular sovereignity advantage doesn't work either. An election is a way of recording the will of the people. The will of all 360m people do not need to measured to know what their will is, just like you don't need to drink the entire glass of Coke to know that it's Coke. Any system that accurately measures the will of the people (like a perfectly random sample of 1,000,000 voters would do) has the advantage of popular sovereignity.
As you say, you're not forcing people to vote. However, the fact that everybody is constantly telling everybody else to "VOTE" is a significant form of social pressure (which is why you guys are doing it). You can't have it both ways: Either your advocacy will result in disinterested people voting, in which case it is unlikely to be good and may be bad, or it won't result in disinterested people voting, in which case it does nothing. At best, you're advocating that people stub their toes.
Disinterested people will continue not to vote. If they are affected by my advocacy they are no longer disinterested but are actually interested in voting. Their vote and sovereign voice matters. Unless I am going around with a rifle forcing people to, in Plexa's example, vote or die, your criticism doesn't apply.
And even if it did, I would argue that because we term ourselves a democracy, a disinterested vote is still valuable out of principle. Continuing to term ourselves as a democracy and keeping our institutions open in such a way means we at some level care about getting more people to vote; otherwise we'd just limit the franchise to what you appear to think is a good idea and exclude everybody else. The true hypocrisy is saying people have a right to vote, they should vote, but they really shouldn't because they are too dumb to vote and would ruin the perfect world we created without them.
Let me try to address your points again.
The fact that you are convincing people to vote on the last day does change them from disinterested to interested, but not in the way that I defined disinterested earlier. Regardless of whether they vote today or not, it doesn't change the fact that they have been disinterested in politics. The only part of them that changes is the part that decides on whether to vote or not. All the other characteristics stay the same. Also, as I mentioned, if their primary reason for voting is social pressure, they are not voting based on what's best for their country, they are simply voting.
Furthermore, you seem to have a misconception regarding what a democracy is. A democracy is about having a say in the way that you are governed. It's not about forcing people to say how they will be governed, it's about allowing them to say how they will be governed. There is no innate advantage to one additional vote in a democracy. The reason quantity of voting is useful is that the more people who vote, the more representative the democracy will be of the people's will. However, if the people's will can be perfectly defined with just 1,000,000 votes, having additional votes add absolutely no benefit. Now, I'm not saying 1,000,000 votes is actually enough in the US, I'm simply pointing out that a vote carries no innate benefit and does not necessarily benefit the democracy. In fact, when people vote randomly, it actually undermines the ability of the democracy to fulfill the goals of the people which is why it's better to have voters self-select.
Furthermore, you've mentioned multiple times that I'm advocating that only smart/interested people vote. I never did this. I advocated that only people who want to vote vote. That has nothing to do with intelligence or political savvy and it has everything to do with people's choice. What I am saying is that allowing people to abstain tends to work out better for a democracy because those who are uninformed or uninterested choose not to vote. This is simply a positive externality of giving people the freedom to choose and I never suggested that such a system should be enforced. As mentioned earlier, this system is self-regulating as well, which makes it even more effective.
On November 07 2012 01:12 itsjustatank wrote: To turn your own advocacy on its head, arguing for a restricted vote or why low turnout is a good thing might make interested voters not care and fail to exercise their vote. I'd say that's a more clear net detriment than having more people vote.
Just to make it clear, I never argued for a restricted vote. I also never encouraged people not to vote. I simply pointed out the problems with encouraging people to vote which happened to highlight how low turnout rates can be beneficial.
On November 06 2012 11:41 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
I'm not arguing with your statistics but querying your final point.
What do you mean by "every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP"? Do you mean to say that having more people wishing to vote would take the day off work and thus cost the country money? In the UK Polling stations open in the evening so people can usually attend these (though sometimes they get full which is another matter), this together with postal voting systems (though possibly subject to manipulation), I do not see how having a higher turn out will directly impact upon a country's daily GDP.
I think the key issue is that by aiming for a higher turnout, it is hoped that the populus will have gained a greater knowledge of politics - as if the imperative 'go out to vote!' will promote an intelligent investigation in to who to vote for - yes, a slim, but a hopeful attempt nonetheless.
But don't lose sight of the fact that the main motivation is that the winning party can claim, whether rightly or wrongly, greater legitimacy for their victory if more people turnout to vote.
That was a mistake on my part. In SA, voting takes the entire day so election day is a public holiday. I did not realise that the US voting system was efficient enough to handle the millions of voters in the hours before and after work.
On November 06 2012 23:20 itsjustatank wrote:
On November 06 2012 18:33 Daigomi wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:55 sc2superfan101 wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:47 itsjustatank wrote:
On November 06 2012 11:41 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] but you've yet to show me why low turnout is unacceptable when higher turnout has no foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole. if the higher turnout led to more prosperity or could be shown to have a positive effect upon the citizen or society as a whole, than perhaps it could justify itself. however, without some benefit, there is nothing to justify a higher turnout. one cannot say that the justification for a higher turnout is the fact of a higher turnout.
democracy has almost never been universal (or never?) and we should resist any effort to redefine the word so as to mean something which it has never meant before. democracy is simply a system by which the majority opinion of the voting populace is followed. whether the majority of the populace is actually voting or not is irrelevant. Greece was a more pure democracy than almost any we have now, and even they excluded the vast majority of their populace from voting.
Your arguments are rooted in the belief that things are fine now and they work for you. This may or may not be necessarily true for the people underrepresented in the current voting system. The foreseeable benefit to the populace as a whole is the fact that more of the populace as a whole has a say in how they are governed.
I am not satisfied with something we term democracy but is actually rule by a minority, when the only barrier to achieving higher turnout is education. It is pure laziness on the part of society to accept the way things are now.
you are neglecting the fact that the only reason those people are "underrepresented" is because they choose to be underrepresented.
once again you have used the fact of higher turnout as justification for higher turnout. if it has no foreseeable benefit other than itself than I don't think it can be described as very necessary.
This sums it up pretty well in my opinion. So far, you've given no real reason why increasing the turnout is a good thing other than vaguely referring to how a democracy works. To me, if the results of 1,000,000 people voting is identical to the results of 150,000,000 people voting, the democracy is equally effective in both situations. Having a 100% turnout might make us feel better about the legitimacy of the voting, but it generally has no real effect. A perfectly random sample of 1m voters will give the same result (at least on the presidential level) as a sample of 150,000,000 voters every time. To give you the maths: The odds of a candidate who is preferred 50.5% to 49.5% losing in the popular vote when 1,000,000 people vote is 0.000000000000000000000000027 (or about once in every septillion years). Obviously things get more complicated once you add the electoral vote and municipal votes in, but a perfectly random sample of 5,000,000 voters will result in both preferred president and local politicians winning for as long as a the US exists.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased. However, assuming a statistical bias exists, it still leaves us with a multiple problems. Firstly, as was pointed out, the reason for a systematic bias is because certain groups of people choose to be underrepresented. It is perfectly democratic to choose not to vote and we shouldn't force these people to choose (that would be the same as having a scientific poll without a "none of the above"/"I don't know" option, which, without fail, biases the results). Secondly, as has been argued, if the current elections are biased, they are biased towards people who care and are informed about politics. This should result in an election which is biased towards the better presidential candidates, not worse, and as such is a good thing. Democratic elections are a means to an end and should not be confused with the end. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
From what I can see, motivating the average person to vote will have no effect on any election, local or national. In fact, it will probably harm the country more than it benefits it. In the UK, every day where the general population doesn't work costs the country 2.3bn GBP. In the US, considering the size of their economy, increasing the participation rate by 30% will cost the country roughly 7.5bn USD. That's a lot of money for no tangible benefit.
Isolate why having more people vote is bad.
To clarify why I am going at this this way: even if things are going fine now, why is encouraging more people to vote uniquely bad. If you are confident in the system and how things are going, more people voting shouldn't drastically change things (but if it does, then the status quo wasn't actually satisfactory to the voting populace). However if the true basis for this argument is what I think it is, that we assume people who do not vote are stupid and aren't worth giving rights and popular sovereignty to, then the net detriment is the fact that we give these commoners the right to vote. And in this case, 'democracy' is a sham.
To start, you're the one who says that people 'should' go vote, so you have to supply a good reason why they should do that. I'm not saying more people voting is necessarily bad, I'm saying that more people voting is very, very unlikely to be useful.
If voting adds no reasonable benefit, then encouraging more people to vote isn't good (it's also not particularly bad). It would be like encouraging people to stub their toes against a step. It's not particularly harmful, but it's an inconvenience with no clear benefit.
Then there is no net detriment to be had for society here. The good reason I provide is the exercise of rights and popular sovereignty.
I am also not forcing people to vote, I just think it is a good idea for them to do so, and if they want to vote then they should. This is perhaps the most fundamental misreading of what my advocacy is here.
I also isolate a number of net detriments existent in the status quo that have resulted from the current levels of low turnout, in particular the continued presence of the two-party consensus at the expense of alternate political movements.
There's also no net detriment to society for everyone to stub their toes against a chair, but that doesn't make advocating for it a good idea. Also, you're excluding all the paragraphs I wrote in the middle pointing out why an uninformed/uninterested vote is a bad vote.
The exercising of rights is a terrible reason to vote. I've got the right of free speech as well, but you're not advocating that I walk down the street and insult people. It's the fact that the rights exist which is a good thing. We don't have to pointlessly exercise our rights to make them worthwhile. The popular sovereignity advantage doesn't work either. An election is a way of recording the will of the people. The will of all 360m people do not need to measured to know what their will is, just like you don't need to drink the entire glass of Coke to know that it's Coke. Any system that accurately measures the will of the people (like a perfectly random sample of 1,000,000 voters would do) has the advantage of popular sovereignity.
As you say, you're not forcing people to vote. However, the fact that everybody is constantly telling everybody else to "VOTE" is a significant form of social pressure (which is why you guys are doing it). You can't have it both ways: Either your advocacy will result in disinterested people voting, in which case it is unlikely to be good and may be bad, or it won't result in disinterested people voting, in which case it does nothing. At best, you're advocating that people stub their toes.
Disinterested people will continue not to vote. If they are affected by my advocacy they are no longer disinterested but are actually interested in voting. Their vote and sovereign voice matters. Unless I am going around with a rifle forcing people to, in Plexa's example, vote or die, your criticism doesn't apply.
And even if it did, I would argue that because we term ourselves a democracy, a disinterested vote is still valuable out of principle. Continuing to term ourselves as a democracy and keeping our institutions open in such a way means we at some level care about getting more people to vote; otherwise we'd just limit the franchise to what you appear to think is a good idea and exclude everybody else. The true hypocrisy is saying people have a right to vote, they should vote, but they really shouldn't because they are too dumb to vote and would ruin the perfect world we created without them.
Let me try to address your points again.
The fact that you are convincing people to vote on the last day does change them from disinterested to interested, but not in the way that I defined disinterested earlier. Regardless of whether they vote today or not, it doesn't change the fact that they have been disinterested in politics. The only part of them that changes is the part that decides on whether to vote or not. All the other characteristics stay the same. Also, as I mentioned, if their primary reason for voting is social pressure, they are not voting based on what's best for their country, they are simply voting.
Furthermore, you seem to have a misconception regarding what a democracy is. A democracy is about having a say in the way that you are governed. It's not about forcing people to say how they will be governed, it's about allowing them to say how they will be governed. There is no innate advantage to one additional vote in a democracy. The reason quantity of voting is useful is that the more people who vote, the more representative the democracy will be of the people's will. However, if the people's will can be perfectly defined with just 1,000,000 votes, having additional votes add absolutely no benefit. Now, I'm not saying 1,000,000 votes is actually enough in the US, I'm simply pointing out that a vote carries no innate benefit and does not necessarily benefit the democracy. In fact, when people vote randomly, it actually undermines the ability of the democracy to fulfill the goals of the people which is why it's better to have voters self-select.
Furthermore, you've mentioned multiple times that I'm advocating that only smart/interested people vote. I never did this. I advocated that only people who want to vote vote. That has nothing to do with intelligence or political savvy and it has everything to do with people's choice. What I am saying is that allowing people to abstain tends to work out better for a democracy because those who are uninformed or uninterested choose not to vote. This is simply a positive externality of giving people the freedom to choose and I never suggested that such a system should be enforced. As mentioned earlier, this system is self-regulating as well, which makes it even more effective.
As I said above. If you don't want to vote, you don't have to. There is no pressure, coercive or otherwise, in my advocacy forcing people to vote. I just think it's a good idea to have more people vote if they want to and provide reasons and data as to why.
Furthermore, you've mentioned multiple times that I'm advocating that only smart/interested people vote. I never did this.
See:
On November 07 2012 00:42 Daigomi wrote: Regarding participants caring less, it is better, by and large, if informed and interested parties make the decision, rather than all parties. To give you an easy example, imagine a school that is considering building an olympic swimming pool for it's students. If you just call a vote, then the people who have an interest in the topic (those who enjoy swimming, those who will have to pay for the pool, those who will have to build it, etc.) will be the most likely to vote and as a result, they will have the greatest say. The result should be that choice which benefits most residents gets chosen (let's assume, in this situation, it means the pool does not get built because it is too expensive). On the other hand, if you force the entire community to vote then you have people who will never use the pool or have to pay for the pool influencing whether the pool gets built or not. When disinterested parties are forced to vote, the results of the vote are almost always worse than if people could choose to vote. In this case, community members might think the pool sounds like a cool thing, without considering the costs or the number of people who will use it.
As such you advocate an elitist conception of rule by minority, and it is simply something I cannot agree with. "It works out that people don't vote" is functionally equivalent to "It's better that people don't vote" because the implication is that if more people voted, they would ruin a status quo that you agree with.
On November 07 2012 00:42 Daigomi wrote: Regarding participants caring less, it is better, by and large, if informed and interested parties make the decision, rather than all parties. To give you an easy example, imagine a school that is considering building an olympic swimming pool for it's students. If you just call a vote, then the people who have an interest in the topic (those who enjoy swimming, those who will have to pay for the pool, those who will have to build it, etc.) will be the most likely to vote and as a result, they will have the greatest say. The result should be that choice which benefits most residents gets chosen (let's assume, in this situation, it means the pool does not get built because it is too expensive). On the other hand, if you force the entire community to vote then you have people who will never use the pool or have to pay for the pool influencing whether the pool gets built or not. When disinterested parties are forced to vote, the results of the vote are almost always worse than if people could choose to vote. In this case, community members might think the pool sounds like a cool thing, without considering the costs or the number of people who will use it.
As such you advocate an elitist conception of rule by minority, and it is simply something I cannot agree with. "It works out that people don't vote" is functionally equivalent to "It's better that people don't vote" because the implication is that if more people voted, they would ruin a status quo that you agree with.
I'm sorry but now you're just making shit up.
I never suggested a rule by minority. I suggested that people who are interested in ruling should rule while people who are not interested in ruling should not rule. I've said, multiple times, that everyone should be allowed to vote if they want to. If you want to talk about functional equivalence, what I've said is that people who don't want to rule should not be forced to rule. If you read my swimming pool analogy, I never once said that the elitist minority are the only ones who should be allowed to vote. I said that, because they are most interested, they would be most likely to vote. Since the vote doesn't affect anyone else and since no-one else knows anything about the situation, this is obvious.
And yes, "it works out that people don't vote" is functionally equivalent to "it's better that people don't vote," but you completely left out the context. The full context is "a democracy works out better if people who do not want to vote do not vote". Please tell me how that suggests there is some status quo that I am trying to protect? What would you prefer, a democracy where people are forced to vote? If not, then you prefer the same thing I do, a democracy where people who do not want to vote do not have to vote.
Also, the status quo argument is ridiculous. You've mentioned it twice now, and twice I've rebutted it. Having 100m people vote and 50m people vote are equally likely to maintain or change the status quo since they equally represent the will of the people. I'm not sure why you have trouble understanding this, but I'll use the Cola analogy again since that's the most obvious. Imagine you have a mystery drink placed in front of you: It is either beer or Coke. Perhaps after a tiny sip you don't know what it is. However, once you've had half the glass, you know that it's either a beer or a Coke. You do not need to drink the full glass to know that it is Coke. Also, no matter how many sips you take, it won't change what it is. It can either support the status quo (all the previous mystery drinks have been Cokes as well) or it can change the status quo (all the previous drinks have been beers), but drinking more won't change that.
Your example assumes a binary choice in politics, which, while existent in American politics, is not inevitable.
It also doesn't apply to the myriad of other choices in an election season, especially those that do not rely on simple majority voting rules, such as school boards, boards of supervisors, etc.
Daigomi, your assumption that voter turnout is irrelevant to the outcome of an election because adding more votes is unlikely to sway the election one way or another is wrong because it assumes that people who vote and people who do not vote would vote similarly if they were all forced to do so. In the US, the more wealthy and educated a person is, the more likely they are to vote, while the poorer and less educated they are, the less likely they are to vote. As poorer people (and minorities, who tend to be poorer) tend to be more Democratic than the middle and upper class (who tend to be more white), a system that included compulsory voting could result in very different outcomes.
That's an aspect I think I've ignored entirely in my analysis, and its totally my fault. Too focused on talking about prospects for third parties and voting institutions. Thanks for bringing it up.
On November 07 2012 02:34 Gheed wrote: Daigomi, your assumption that voter turnout is irrelevant to the outcome of an election because adding more votes is unlikely to sway the election one way or another is wrong because it assumes that people who vote and people who do not vote would vote similarly if they were all forced to do so. In the US, the more wealthy and educated a person is, the more likely they are to vote, while the poorer and less educated they are, the less likely they are to vote. As poorer people (and minorities, who tend to be poorer) tend to be more Democratic than the middle and upper class (who tend to be more white), a system that included compulsory voting could result in very different outcomes.
I've mentioned this in almost every post I've made so far. In fact, I spend about half of each of my posts discussing that very possibility...
My first post in the thread:
On November 06 2012 09:48 Daigomi wrote: The only situation in which I can personally see the benefit of having the non-voters vote is if there is some systematic factor dissuading a specific population group from voting. For example, before Obama it was possible that a large number of black Americans believed that none of the presidents would support them, resulting in a significant portion of the population not being represented (this is just an example, I have no idea if it black Americans really felt this way). However, as with the systematic bias, this is a very big assumption to make without having strong evidence supporting it. It also won't be fixed by motivating the average American to go vote.
My second post:
On November 06 2012 18:33 Daigomi wrote: As I mentioned in my previous post, the only real reason why it could be good for more citizens to vote is if the voting population is systematically biased ... Finally, and perhaps most importantly, motivating the average person to go vote will have no effect on fixing a systematic bias, should one exist. If the method of drawing a sample is biased, increasing the sample size won't decrease the bias. To fix a systematic bias, the causes of the bias must be identified and addressed.
My second last post:
On November 07 2012 00:42 Daigomi wrote: The second question is, will encouraging people to vote decrease the bias? At this stage, I'm not simply talking about people who are disinterested in politics. There are other potential sources of bias. For example, first generation US citizens might feel like they have less of a "right" to vote, or some of the minority groups might feel that their interested are not represented and thus abstain from voting. This could result in the voting being biased away from those groups' interests. However, walking up to the average American and encouraging them to vote is unlikely to address this problem. If your sampling method is biased, increasing the size of the sample does not decrease the bias. What you would need to do is identify which population sub-groups are not being represented and find a specific solution to their problem.
With that said, I think this is a more relevant discussion than the one we've been having up to now. As I've said (multiple times, in quite some detail) a systematic difference between the non-voters and voters is important to consider. However, I don't believe a general appeal to "vote," especially not on a gaming forum like Teamliquid, solves that problems. The reasons why these groups do not vote must be considered and addressed if we want to obtain a more representative sample of voters.
On November 07 2012 03:10 Gheed wrote: I haven't read this whole argument, I just skimmed through it and then read the beer and coke sipping analogy. Sorry if I misrepresented your posts
No worries, it's a valid argument and one which I think has more room for debate than just the pure stats. For example, I believe a specific effort needs to be made to fix any such systematic biases, but there are other solutions which could also work.
On November 07 2012 03:10 Gheed wrote: I haven't read this whole argument, I just skimmed through it and then read the beer and coke sipping analogy. Sorry if I misrepresented your posts
No worries, it's a valid argument and one which I think has more room for debate than just the pure stats. For example, I believe a specific effort needs to be made to fix any such systematic biases, but there are other solutions which could also work.
An interesting hypothetical question: if only a random sample of votes were selected to vote would they actually reflect the voting preference of the majority when asking whether the populus be less inclined to have a political opinion if they had a minimal chance of being selected to express/actualize their views? A kind of systematic bias where the selection of a sample biases the behaviour of the majority.
This is probably more beyond the scope of the blog but an interesting theoretical supposition.
I usually never vote and honestly I don't give a shit who wins (both suck), but this year I got harassed by door to door Obama supporters 7 times. So I walked across the street and cast my ballot for the republican.
On November 07 2012 06:46 deepfield1 wrote: I usually never vote and honestly I don't give a shit who wins (both suck), but this year I got harassed by door to door Obama supporters 7 times. So I walked across the street and cast my ballot for the republican.
funny how things work lol Anyway although I don't live there I do agree that voting is important regardless of how inclined your area is towards one side or the other. Hope nobody got stuck in a long line.
On November 07 2012 11:00 wei2coolman wrote: I think this quote says it all.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. -Joshua;WarGames (1983)
This is so ridiculously against what the blog is about it's hilarious.
I was simply mentioning my views as to why I chose not to vote.
But you're not even mentioning your views, you're just saying that you mysteriously don't like voting because its "a strange game". Honestly it would be more useful if you could provide some actual reasons, because otherwise you're not really contributing anything.
Even if you're voting in states dominated by democrats/republicans, like tank said there are other things to vote for on the ballot (besides that you never know when turnarounds can happen...there have been cases where the polling turned out to be completely wrong, I know that's what happened in Canada with the Wild Rose party in Alberta). And if you're not in one of those states, then keep in mind sometimes races can be incredibly close (aka florida), so its more worth voting.
Thirdly...if you're just one of those people who say "the system is corrupt, my voice is meaningless, all politicians are crooks", its kind of an extreme paranoia (no offense). The whole narrative that the game is "rigged" by corporations and that it doesn't matter who you vote for doesn't make sense, because powerful interests are spending huge sums of money to elect their candidate over the other one. Clearly they care, or they wouldn't waste their money (billions of dollars..).
Even if you don't like both of them, you can be like the funny lady I saw on the news. When asked why she was voting for Obama, she chuckled and said "the lesser of two evils" . There is no good reason not to vote, unless you're a die hard occupy wall street protester who thinks you're living under a secret dictatorship where money rules everything, and the people literally have no power. But that's plain extremism
On November 07 2012 22:09 Mementoss wrote: I hope you guys realize they could make up every single election number by a huge margin and no one would ever know the difference.
Vote if you want to, don't vote if you don't want to. Voting for the sake of voting is stupid, if your going to vote, do some research at least.
Who are these "they" you are talking about? Because I hope you realize that the votes are counted meticulously by several parts spread all over the country, to have enough impact to change a vote in an established democracy, you have to do some badass vote-cheating.
On November 07 2012 11:00 wei2coolman wrote: I think this quote says it all.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. -Joshua;WarGames (1983)
This is so ridiculously against what the blog is about it's hilarious.
I was simply mentioning my views as to why I chose not to vote.
But you're not even mentioning your views, you're just saying that you mysteriously don't like voting because its "a strange game". Honestly it would be more useful if you could provide some actual reasons, because otherwise you're not really contributing anything.
Even if you're voting in states dominated by democrats/republicans, like tank said there are other things to vote for on the ballot (besides that you never know when turnarounds can happen...there have been cases where the polling turned out to be completely wrong, I know that's what happened in Canada with the Wild Rose party in Alberta). And if you're not in one of those states, then keep in mind sometimes races can be incredibly close (aka florida), so its more worth voting.
Thirdly...if you're just one of those people who say "the system is corrupt, my voice is meaningless, all politicians are crooks", its kind of an extreme paranoia (no offense). The whole narrative that the game is "rigged" by corporations and that it doesn't matter who you vote for doesn't make sense, because powerful interests are spending huge sums of money to elect their candidate over the other one. Clearly they care, or they wouldn't waste their money (billions of dollars..).
Even if you don't like both of them, you can be like the funny lady I saw on the news. When asked why she was voting for Obama, she chuckled and said "the lesser of two evils" . There is no good reason not to vote, unless you're a die hard occupy wall street protester who thinks you're living under a secret dictatorship where money rules everything, and the people literally have no power. But that's plain extremism
I'm guessing you've never seen the film, War Games?
On November 07 2012 11:00 wei2coolman wrote: I think this quote says it all.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. -Joshua;WarGames (1983)
This is so ridiculously against what the blog is about it's hilarious.
I was simply mentioning my views as to why I chose not to vote.
But you're not even mentioning your views, you're just saying that you mysteriously don't like voting because its "a strange game". Honestly it would be more useful if you could provide some actual reasons, because otherwise you're not really contributing anything.
Even if you're voting in states dominated by democrats/republicans, like tank said there are other things to vote for on the ballot (besides that you never know when turnarounds can happen...there have been cases where the polling turned out to be completely wrong, I know that's what happened in Canada with the Wild Rose party in Alberta). And if you're not in one of those states, then keep in mind sometimes races can be incredibly close (aka florida), so its more worth voting.
Thirdly...if you're just one of those people who say "the system is corrupt, my voice is meaningless, all politicians are crooks", its kind of an extreme paranoia (no offense). The whole narrative that the game is "rigged" by corporations and that it doesn't matter who you vote for doesn't make sense, because powerful interests are spending huge sums of money to elect their candidate over the other one. Clearly they care, or they wouldn't waste their money (billions of dollars..).
Even if you don't like both of them, you can be like the funny lady I saw on the news. When asked why she was voting for Obama, she chuckled and said "the lesser of two evils" . There is no good reason not to vote, unless you're a die hard occupy wall street protester who thinks you're living under a secret dictatorship where money rules everything, and the people literally have no power. But that's plain extremism
I'm guessing you've never seen the film, War Games?
Neither have many other readers of this thread, so why don't you either not make your cryptic 'against the grain' point, or actually explain it?
On November 07 2012 11:00 wei2coolman wrote: I think this quote says it all.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. -Joshua;WarGames (1983)
This is so ridiculously against what the blog is about it's hilarious.
I was simply mentioning my views as to why I chose not to vote.
But you're not even mentioning your views, you're just saying that you mysteriously don't like voting because its "a strange game". Honestly it would be more useful if you could provide some actual reasons, because otherwise you're not really contributing anything.
Even if you're voting in states dominated by democrats/republicans, like tank said there are other things to vote for on the ballot (besides that you never know when turnarounds can happen...there have been cases where the polling turned out to be completely wrong, I know that's what happened in Canada with the Wild Rose party in Alberta). And if you're not in one of those states, then keep in mind sometimes races can be incredibly close (aka florida), so its more worth voting.
Thirdly...if you're just one of those people who say "the system is corrupt, my voice is meaningless, all politicians are crooks", its kind of an extreme paranoia (no offense). The whole narrative that the game is "rigged" by corporations and that it doesn't matter who you vote for doesn't make sense, because powerful interests are spending huge sums of money to elect their candidate over the other one. Clearly they care, or they wouldn't waste their money (billions of dollars..).
Even if you don't like both of them, you can be like the funny lady I saw on the news. When asked why she was voting for Obama, she chuckled and said "the lesser of two evils" . There is no good reason not to vote, unless you're a die hard occupy wall street protester who thinks you're living under a secret dictatorship where money rules everything, and the people literally have no power. But that's plain extremism
I'm guessing you've never seen the film, War Games?
Neither have many other readers of this thread, so why don't you either not make your cryptic 'against the grain' point, or actually explain it?
I thought it was more popular O.o.
Pretty much Joshua was a war AI developed for the American Military to activate nuclear missles/attacks in case of Soviet attacks (this was during Cold War). Essentially the AI believes that an actual Soviet attack was imminent (not the case, it was essentially hacked by some kid who thought it was a hidden computer game). The creator of the AI convinces the AI to play tic tac toe with itself, which results in a series of draws (as optimally played tic tac toe, always results in draws), teaching the AI about futility. Then it continues running through war scenarios involving nuclear weapons, and then realizes that any form of nuclear warfare lead to mutually assured destruction, and stalemate. That's where the quote comes in, after the computer learns futility.
you speak of futility but the outcomes as a result of different elected officials / passed legislation are not equivalent. unlike the ties in tic tac toe which take different paths to the same outcome, different policies adopted by different officials could represent your interests in a way superior to those pushed by alternative officials to be elected.
On November 07 2012 22:09 Mementoss wrote: I hope you guys realize they could make up every single election number by a huge margin and no one would ever know the difference.
Vote if you want to, don't vote if you don't want to. Voting for the sake of voting is stupid, if your going to vote, do some research at least.
not voting is still a vote, your voice is still be heard by not saying anything. Think about it.
I didnt vote because I dont believe anyone knows how to fix the economy. Why should I be picking a way to run the government when I am not sure what the best method is. I am not about to vote based on my opinion because I dont consider myself an expert in how governmental policies should be run.
The uneducated masses voting blindly is a horrible horrible thing. Please only vote if you know exactly what you are voting for and the consequences that will come with whatever ideology you choose.
On November 08 2012 06:47 arcHoniC wrote: not voting is still a vote, your voice is still be heard by not saying anything. Think about it.
I didnt vote because I dont believe anyone knows how to fix the economy. Why should I be picking a way to run the government when I am not sure what the best method is. I am not about to vote based on my opinion because I dont consider myself an expert in how governmental policies should be run.
The uneducated masses voting blindly is a horrible horrible thing. Please only vote if you know exactly what you are voting for and the consequences that will come with whatever ideology you choose.
If you don't want to pick a person for the position of president (or any other office) then you can leave that part blank. You should still go and get counted as having 'voted' even if you don't pick anyone. That makes much more of a statement than "I intentionally didn't vote... although I guess I don't appear any different in the statistics than someone who was just too lazy..."