BS: Should everyone vote?

Subject: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Wesley S
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:24 PM

In the past I'd always thought that the more people who voted – the better. That the more people who voted – the better the cross-section of people's opinions that would decide who was elected, what bond bills were passed,ect. Now I'm beginning to think that is a little naive. Recently our local paper showed that Texas has a terrible record on the number of women who vote. Basically – very few do. And very few of them even knew that an election was being held according to polls held on election days. And I started thinking – "Why should I care" ?



It's not that I don't want women to vote. It's not a gender thing. The question is – do we want folks voting – male or female – that can't be bothered to even know that there is an election being held that day? Let alone having enough interest to find out about the candidates and the issues. If they can't be bothered – why should we care? Idealistically if everyone got involved and got informed the electorate really would be the voice of the people. But that isn't going to happen. And I'm beginning to think that's a good thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:28 PM

People who feel disenfranchised don't vote. Is anyone the least bit surprised that a majority of women in the sexist state of Texas might feel disenfranchised, like low status women everywhere?

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:29 PM

Interesting questions, Wesley. My first reaction is "of course!" But, put the way you have, I am not sure. It points to a long time need for more education, I think. Not sure if anyone cares enough to rbing it about, though. I have been reading that the GOP may lose a lot of the Christian Nationalists' vote as they may stay home in protest against Foleygate...one can hope, at least.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:31 PM

When someone enters a voting both, make 'em solve a quadratic equation or answer some other question that shows they know one end of a pencil from another. If they can't do it, zip! down the ol' oubliette. If they succeed, they get to vote.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: GUEST,KB
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:42 PM

If you don't know something about the issues and the candidates you should not vote. You could wind up voting for someone you would detest if you knew their positions. You still have the right but it is a right that should be used wisely. It often is not.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:46 PM

If in doubt, vote against.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:46 PM

Hence the political duopoly partnering with global conglomerates, and destroying all life as we know it.

But hey, that's progress for you.

I'm sure if you vote for Democrats instead of Republicans, everything will be just fine.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:49 PM

Compulsury voting, on paper, and in person unless you have a very good reason, and with a 'None of the above' option gets my vote.

Easy to recount, and harder to commit fraud with than other mechanisms.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:54 PM

I don't think voting should be compulsory - people who were not interested would put a cross just anywhere so as not to get into trouble. But if you do care, and you don't agree with any of the candidates, what should you do (other than standing yourself)?

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: GUEST,same guest
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:57 PM

Yes, a 'none of the above' option would be good.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: GUEST,12:46
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 01:08 PM

None of the above isn't really an option. Having the guts to vote for a third party is though.

Most people are so conformist and fearful of being branded as "crazy" for voting outside the box, it is pathetic.

You get the government you deserve by continuing to vote for the duopoly.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 01:31 PM

People don't vote.

Two ways to look at it.

It is their fault.

It is the system's fault.

Politiicans prefer the former.
That should make you suspicious.

The people who get elected have a vested interest in the system.
As far as they are concerned the system works.
Why would they want to complicate things by coming up with successful strategies to get more people to vote?

When you decide that you don't care whether people vote, they win.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 01:40 PM

Here in MN, where there is a long history of public candidate debates leading up to the elections, only a handful of incumbents have agreed to participate in televised debates. This hiding by the political incumbents in MN is unprecedented, but does tell us something.

Congressional incumbents of both parties are afraid of voter wrath this year. Very, very afraid.

The duopoly is a system of institutionalized incumbency, serving global capitalist interests at the expense of the citizenry.

Now, y'all can keep voting to continue that system of malfeasant governance if you want. Delusion works for most folks, until it's THEIR job or THEIR backyard or THEIR car that blows up on them killing a few beloved family members.

Then their story changes.

The Mudcat Democrats, like Democrats everywhere, are bloody complacent, deluded, and fat middle class do-nothings that serve only THEIR corporate party masters.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: MMario
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 01:41 PM

I like the idea of a "none of the above" choice - and if that choice wins - then another election should be called - with none of the current candidates allowed to stand for that office - as they would already have been deemed unacceptable.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Wesley S
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 01:48 PM

I think something that really frustrates me is when I meet someone who says that they won't register to vote because then they might be called for jury duty { here in the USA many areas get juries from lists of register voters}. Good Lord – if you are unwilling to be on a jury – or too stupid to get out of jury duty – then I'm not sure I want you voting anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: lady penelope
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 03:50 PM

In Britain you get called for jury duty from the council tax register. So it doesn't matter if you don't vote.

I think the reason why people don't vote should be looked at.

Mostly, I think people don't vote because they see politics as being removed from their day to day lives. That it's nothing really to do with them. Politics is often seen as something only those who are intellectually inclined and/or rich get involved in.

There was recently a public information 'ad' on British television. It was an animation of two blokes having a conversation in a pub and one says to the other "Oh, I don't do politics" the rest of the 'ad' is taken up by the other bloke stopping 'he who doesn't do politics' every time he made a comment on the state of roads, public transport, water supply etc. etc. by saying "I thought you didn't do politics?"

I think we need to teach people from an earlier age than we currently do, how government is supposed to work for us, not around us.

Mind you, it also needs to be hammered home that if you don't vote you shouldn't bother complaining. If you excuse yourself from the decision making process at the start, why should you be included later?

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 04:25 PM

I agree with Mmario.

If 60% say none of the above then the election should be rerun with new candidates.

It might discourage politicians from overspending too as elections are an expensive process.

Perhaps this view will not stand up to rigorous scrutiny, but t offers food for thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: number 6
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 04:32 PM

Good post lady Penelope ... I most certainly agree with you.

"I think people don't vote because they see politics as being removed from their day to day lives"

Voting and communicating your concerns/issues with you local elected representatives at all government levels is a democratic right that not enough people take avantage of here in Canada.

Don't leave it up to the press to air the concerns of the people to the government.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 04:47 PM

MMario's right. Only if "none of the above wins" not only must there be a whole new slate of candidates, they also have to have completely new platforms to run on.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Wesley S
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 05:05 PM

But since the only folks who could change that are the people in power who have the most to loose - I don't think it will ever happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 05:21 PM

I'd like the whole system better if we could call for a new election when things get so bad, BEFORE the regularly scheduled one, as I think they can do in the UK. I also like the "none of the above" idea.

Janet, you are so far off-base it makes me LMAO. If you truly believed anything you post, you'd be actively doing something other than slagging off on your computer at people you obviously hate and are not going to change, esp. with invective spews.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 07:43 PM

It might discourage politicians from overspending too as elections are an expensive process. Lox

Won't work. It's our money they're spending, not theirs.

How about if 'none of the above' wins, then the canidates who stood have to pay for the whole election themselves?

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 08:16 PM

I've sometimes thought it'd work better if you could vote directly against candidates, as well as for them.

Every vote against you would cancel out a vote for you. If more people voted against you than for you, you'd be out.

It'd give an incentive to people to go along and vote even if they weren't too keen on anyone. In which case they'd cast their vote against, but not their vote for.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Gurney
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 09:38 PM

There are largely two kinds of voters here:

Those who vote against the incumbents.
Those who don't vote "because it only encourages the bastards."

I wonder if we'll ever get a government for whom the majority of electors voted?

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 01:58 AM

A factor, minor perhaps, that favors trying to get more people to vote comes from the requirement that both major parties (in a more or less two party climate) must be so close to the "middle of the road" that random voters are likely to split about equally between them. This allows a consolidated small group of voters with "an agenda" to swing the net result to give their separate "cluster vote" substantially greater impact than is proportional to their real numbers.

The general rule of thumb is that any 15% of the voters who can manage to "all vote together" can carry any election. (I'm told that the "big boys" who rule the corporations consider owning 15% of the stock as generally a "controlling interest," provided there isn't another stockholder or very cohesive bloc that has 16%.)

By having more numbnut pick-and-check random voters actually showing up at the poll booths, it at least requires a slightly larger group of "issue nuts" to get the "magic 15%" to swing the result, especially as a "popular" few issues is more likely to bring forth a competing bunch of issue voters.

In the recent vote in Kansas on the "marriage amendment" it appears that the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee effectively blocked the proposal, simply by tabling it, through three sessions of the Legislature; but allowed it to advance when the vote would come in an election when the only other thing on the ballot was election of Local School Committe representatives in only a third of the local districts. Nobody without a strong opinion and commitment (or stern instructions from their preachers) showed up, and the vote was carried by the wingnuts. Had it appeared when there were more general issues on the ballot, it is debatable whether it would have passed. Similar tactics have recently been used (successfully) by my County administrators to "manage" special interest votes so that they appear when general voter turnout is expected to be low.

Yes, probably everybody should vote, and they should be provided with "flippin' coins" when they enter the booths to make their random selections. The larger "random vote" does (usually) help to dilute the effectiveness of the radicals, and probably doesn't really hurt the real candidates.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 09:57 AM

Gurney, there've been plenty of goverments for which more than 50% of the elctorate have voted. Mainly in one party states, with compulsury voting though.....

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 11:58 AM

"Should everyone vote?"

If there is truth to the Diebold thing, then the only chance people have to prove that their votes don't matter is for NO ONE to vote. That's one helluva conundrum, ain't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: kendall
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 04:20 PM

Consider this. (And I've seen it with my own eyes)
Voting day is always on a weekday. Working people come home from a hard day and just don't bother to go out again to vote. If they could vote on Saturday or Sunday, or if voting day was a holiday, more working people would vote.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 04:23 PM

bingo! Many other countries hold their elections on the weekend.

If you want participation, you hold Saturday or Sunday elections.

If you want to suppress participation, you do it the American Way.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Wesley S
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 04:24 PM

I remember hearing a reason why elections are on Tuesdays but I can't remember it right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 04:31 PM

Why Tuesdays . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 05:09 PM

The general concept of this thread sounds Republican. The Republicans know that a populist turnout will gut them, and all their talk shows and pundits are voicing a malaise similar to that expressed at the start of this thread. The Republicans want a suppressed turnout, because a big turnout will mean a purge of the fascists. And hopefully Texas is going to be a political slaughterhouse on election day. Texas is the key state on election day because this is where the national Spanish-owned superhighway system is going to be implemented first. And if they get away with it here, they'll be bringing it to your state, stealing your property, taxing you into bankruptcy just to communte to and from your slave-job. Hopefully, the election day turnout will be so big and so NOT in favor of the fascists, they won't be able to steal elections.

Rule of thumb nationwide...incumbents have to be kicked out. And make a fuss after you vote at the polls. Tell the people handling your vote that they're being WATCHED. Tell them you are going to half a dozen other sources to make your vote known (even if you're not). And talk to the exit pollers and make sure your disaffection is well-noted. This is the last semi-real election we're going to have. Electronic voting machines will determine elections (phony results) from here on out. So do a Liebermann on EVERYONE who works for the govt (unless it's Ron Paul or a handful of other constitutionalists).

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 06:36 PM

Shall we tell that last Guest how many non-Americans, and therefore probably not Republicans are about here, or do you think that would just spoil their fun?

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: number 6
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 06:53 PM

"Working people come home from a hard day and just don't bother to go out again to vote."

... but we can get out to the mall, take their kids somewhere, jam, go get liquor, go out grocery shopping ... no excuse. We all have cars in Canada, U.S. (large majority do)... no excuse and the voting stations are usually in our ocommunities ... hell, you can usually walk to them.

Maybe that's the problem ... we haven't got the jam anymore.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 07:00 PM

"we haven't got the jam anymore."

Lots of folks have been buttered up by politicians then toasetd by the bastards. It's easy to lose faith after many decades of shit for people to run countries, provinces or states..

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: number 6
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 07:06 PM

Never lose the faith ... people have to take action

But it's pretty easy when our bellys are full, we have 900 channels on TV, internet forums .... maybe it easy to sit back, post our complaints while sitting at home, watching the press go on and on, and the big guys walk over us.

Your right ... why bother going out to vote .... the hell with having faith .... think I'll order in a pizza.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 07:09 PM

1) I have not missed voting except for once or twice in my life in ANY election.
2) I have been thrown in the slam a few times for anti-war protest.
3) I eat once a day except after long call-outs where we've worked hard and sweat lots.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: number 6
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 07:12 PM

Most people don't give a rat's ass, just say they do .... just complain while munchin on a balogna sandwich and sipping on a Starbucks.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 07:14 PM

Bill, I apologize for the shitty post.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: number 6
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 07:18 PM

Not shitty ... you posted a good point. I just feel ya gotta do something ... vote and let yourself be heard .... might not make a diff ... but one must try.

sIx .. Bill ... bill .... william.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 07:25 PM

I have the dubious record of only ever voting three times for the Party that won. Never once for a candidate that won.

Despite the feeling that I'd be better off making paper airplanes, I think that the trip to the polls is one of the more important things I'll ever do with my life. So I have to agree with you, sIx. I have written some pretty bad things on a few ballots: "If you're gonna 'screw' me with a selection of candidates like THIS, please kiss me first" or "You have GOT to be kidding." But I continue to go and will continue to go until such time as someone decides we no longer need elections. I expect that day is not as far off as we'd like to think.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 07:40 PM

Well, gol danged...

Now here's a subject that get's this ol' hillbilly hotter than a 3 dollar pistol...

No, not everyone should vote... Stupid people shouldn't have a right to vote or we run the risk of gettin' stupid people runnin' out country and startin' wars for entertainment sake... And exactly who is it that is so entertained by war, you ask??? Well...

...stupid people, that's who... You know 'um... Stupid people are everywhere... Hey, look, I just bought a new lawnmower and there are two pages of "CAUTIONs" tellin' folks not to eat the lawn mower, not to stick their feet under it when it runnin' and not to drink gasoline??? Like...

...duhhhhh??? No, I think we nedd to take the "CAUTIONs" outtta products and let the stupid people just go off to whereever stupid people got after drinking gasoline...

But seriously, the reason we have Bush in office, other than the crimes his handlers did to get him thefre, is because of people who think that 2 of the 3 branches of governemnt are NASCAR and Walmart... I don't think this is waht Thomas Jefferson or his pals had in mind for our democracy...

Hey, Tom Jefferson said that for democracy to be successfull it would take an informed electorate... There's something quite outta wack when we have folks in the South who believe that Jesus is going to come and kill off all the Christians and leave the Erath to the heathens yet these folks are allowed to vote??? Like I said... No, what Tom Jefferson said, "an informed electorate"... No place in the Bible does it say that Jesus is going to come and kill off all the believers yet you have these stupid people, who have the right (?) to vote believin' exactly that???

Hmmmmmmmmmm???

And these stupid people get to vote and that explains alot of why out country is on it's way down the tubes...

Like I said, take the "CAUTIONs" outta all these owners manuals and just let nature take it course...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 09:45 PM

One of the problems with "expressing your independence" by voting for a third party candidate was quite well expressed in a series of articles that I believe appeared in Scientific American ca 1980. The articles reported a number of computer similations of voting patterns and options - back when that was a new thing.

With a more or less two party system, it is necessary for both of the major parties to be close to "middle of the road" on most issues in order to have any chance of being elected.

In the abscence of a third choice, people would select from one or the other of the two.

Those who choose to vote for a third party candidate will nearly all come from the major party most like the third party, thus assuring that the "other major party" - i.e. the one least acceptable to the those who vote third party is going to win.

Better to vote for the best (or least bad) candidate who has a chance to win than to take your vote for him/her (away from the "lesser of the evils") and allow the "worst of the evils" to have it.

A vote for a third party candidate is effectively a vote for the candidate you like least.

In places where there actually are more than two choices with a realistic chance of winning the situation is very much different, but in the US "winner take all" system, voting for someone who can't win is just taking the vote from one you might accept and in effect giving your vote to the worst.

In the last US presidential election, there is some evidence that (at least) one of the major parties actively solicited and encouraged "reluctant" third party candidates whom they expected would take votes from their major party real opponents, as a method of assuring their own win in specific areas. It appears to be a very well known and frequently used (surreptitious) method in local and regional elections. A common method is for a strong candidate, usually an incumbent, who is facing a real challenge to find an "unknown benefactor" to suddenly give support to a marginal third candidate, and then campaign that "#3 is just like #2 only better," thereby splitting the votes that #2 might have gotten.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Old Guy
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 11:11 PM

The Democrats have it by a mile. No Problem. Not to worry.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: OtherDave
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 12:18 AM

The basic premise of a democracy is that adults can vote -- not that they have to.

Hindrances (in the U.S.) include:

-- The sorry state of civic education ("how a bill becomes law" never seems to involve lobbyists, contractors, or constituents who don't want to see the helicopter-blade factory close).

-- The relentless gerrymandering by whichever party's in power in a state, with the exception of places like Iowa, which has a nonpartisan commission charged with redrawing district lines after each census. (In the 2004 congressional election, I could scarcely find a congressional race outside of Iowa as competitive as the LEAST competitive of Iowa's.)

-- Pandering to the simplest elements in each party's base.

-- The overwhelming advantages of incumbency; in the 2004 congressional elections, only four incumbents who ran for re-election lost, a success rate greater than the old Supreme Soviet.

-- Neverending posturing by candidates criticizing "that government," as if it were an alien body rather than the post they lusted to belong to. (E.g., George Bush, asked about a topic he didn't want to talk about, said he'd received the report "from the bureaucracy," as if he hadn't sought to head that body.)

As for voting on Tuesday or Saturday -- why? The state of Oregon shifted to voting by mail, and in 2004 eighty-seven percent of registered voters voted.

You're always going to have stupid people, lazy people, venal people, single-issue people. I'd like a little more faith in the general electorate, and some help for them in terms of making information available sooner, in more forms, as well as making voting slightly more desireable than a trip to the Division of Motor Vehicles.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Cats
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 05:43 AM

I will never miss voting, even if I decide to deliberatley spoil my paper or vote tactically. In the Uk any voter can register to vote by post if they think getting to the polling station may be a problem. I have a very good reason for making sure I vote ~ my Grandmother was a suffragette and was sent to prison, going on hunger strike and being force fed, so that women and, many people forget this, working men had the right to vote. If I didn't vote she would be turning in her grave and probably come back to berate me! If you do not vote, I believe, you have no right to criticise the government, be it local or national. So, think about those women who gave everything, some even their lives, so that we can put a cross on a piece of paper and hold our heads high while we do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 09:44 AM

Postal voting should be limited to those who are either out of the country, or honestly unable to make it to the polling station, and they should be issued election by election, unless you can demonstarate a permenant reason why you need one. The housebound pensioner would keep her postal vote, the Asian housewife would not be allowed to vote from home, or pass it on to her husband because 'he deals with everything like that'

The active promotion of postal voting in the UK in recent years has seen a huge increase in electoral fraud, mainly amongst ethnic minorities. Whole families have their votes made for them by community leaders, and houses turn out to have 19peoples postal votes registered to them, most of whom never lived there.

The net effect of action aginst this is, in the short term, partisan, and with a heavy racial bias, but that is where the problem is. Elections we can trust are vital, and the best time to stop the rot is before it spreads.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: number 6
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 09:45 AM

Great post Cats.

Let's think not only about women who struggled for the right to vote, but for everyone in the past who fought for democracy and their right to vote.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 10:30 AM

I believe that every person who is legally entitled to vote should vote. It is not hard to stay informed--altho' that isn't a requirement--and it isn't hard to do it (vote, that is). As a traveling man, I vote by mail ballot. I never, never watch the commercials from either side, and all mailers and flyers become unread kindling. In my next life I want to make and sell those ads...way too big bucks there! I try to listen to what candidates say and compare that to how they act, rather than what the opponant has to say about hmr. [hmr=him or her]

I missed the 1960 election by being 3 days too young, but I have never missed an election since, save one primary; I've even voted for winning candididates or issues a time or two.

A 'Guest' above opined as to how right-wing talk show hosts are trying to suppress voting turn-out. On what planet is this happening? I listen to a lot of talk radio, local, national, some left, most right. I have heard no host try to get people not to vote; contrariwise, they pooh-pooh those few on the right who do want to boycott elections or cast protest votes. Some of those hosts are actively promoting various candidacies and exhorting Republican voting.

Subject: RE: BS: Should everyone vote?
From: Peace
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 12:28 PM

"I've even voted for winning candididates or issues a time or two."

In the same election, huh?! Good on ya.