Disappointing voter turnout in my precinct.

[Platapus]

Once again I was an election official during this election. Had a blast. I can highly recommend it. Working 17 hours straight to make democracy work :yeah: It makes you feel good.

By the end of the night, we only had 38% of the registered voters in my precinct (about 3800) vote. 1382 was the exact number. :nope:

I think that is pretty sad.

There are people around the world begging for a chance to vote and we don't.

There are people literally risking death and in fact dying while standing in line to vote in some places in the world. But we won't get up early or risk missing our evening TV shows to be bothered to vote.

We have thousands of dead military who died to ensure that we have the right to vote and who would probably prefer not being dead in order to vote, but we won't risk standing in the cold in order to vote.

It just saddens me to see such low voter turnout. :nope:

Everyone likes to bitch about the government, but I guess it does not bother them enough to vote.

No wonder why our representatives feel that they are not accountable to the citizens, evidently the citizens (at least 60%) really don't care about how our government is run.

And that makes me sad also. :nope:

[the_tyrant]

This is probably because the voters think that both candidates are similar(just like how marx predicted)

[Gerald]

This indicates a rather large lack of interest, and that many choose the couch instead of voting, which is not a favorable development in a democratic society.

[the_tyrant]

why can't people internet vote or phone vote?
It would increase voter turnout drastically

[Happy Times]

Well representative democracy works poorly and it is open to corruption often, same problems in Finland.
I am all for direct democracy, our politicians say it wont work, people are too stupid.
But it seems to work in Switzerland, probably the most well off country and people in the world.

[GoldenRivet]

why can't people internet vote or phone vote?
It would increase voter turnout drastically

way to easy to manipulate i should guess

[Platapus]

why can't people internet vote or phone vote?
It would increase voter turnout drastically

Anything in the Internets Tubes would be impossible to secure. People can vote through the mail, but are too lazy to even do that.

One thing I would be in favour of is making Election Day a federal and state holiday. That would get more people to vote. It has been suggested in Congress and consistently shot down.

[GoldenRivet]

yes voter turn out in these sorts of elections is rather pathetic.

"If you don't vote, you deserve the government you get" thats what i always say

[the_tyrant]

Anything in the Internets Tubes would be impossible to secure. People can vote through the mail, but are too lazy to even do that.

One thing I would be in favour of is making Election Day a federal and state holiday. That would get more people to vote. It has been suggested in Congress and consistently shot down.

that might be a consideration, but I think in the future internet voting should be implemented. Since the US has like the best encryption technology, with ecliptic curve and AES encryption methods.

And people and confident enough to enter personal information and wire money on the internet anyways

[Platapus]

One would have to prove that voting on the Internets Tubes is secure.

And how would one go about "proving" that? :nope:

Hell, I am even against the electronic voting machine we had in our precinct. I won't use it. There are many instances where technology improves things, voting is not one of them. I like paper ballots (of course not the stupid punch ones).

[August]

Elections are decided by who votes. Frankly as a voter I am glad not to have to share that power with those who can't be bothered to do their civic duty. Let the people who care about the community make the decisions for the community.

Now there are various schemes for making voting easier which are not the direction we should be taking imo. Voting by mail, or worse email, even using electronic voting machines. All these modern methods just beg to be corrupted and manipulated by someone.

I want the act of voting to include a voter showing up in public somewhere, having their ID verified as a properly registered voter of that precinct, and then having some privacy to cast a hard copy secret ballot that has to be hand counted, tabulated and recorded by their fellow citizens. The only exception i'd make to those requirements would be military absentee ballots.

[farmall]

I glanced at some news article yesterday and it said that more people vote on American Idol or Dancing with the Stars. I don't watch any of this type of TV programs. I am glad you had a blast being an official. Thank you for your effort in the election process sir.

[Platapus]

August,

You bring up a good point.

As an Election Officer, I see an "interesting" cross section of my community. There are times when I think that this idea of Universal Suffrage may not be such a grand idea.

What get's me is that we have a lot of people come in to vote and this is the first time they have looked at the ballot! :damn::damn:

In Virginia we had some pretty complicated constitutional issues to be voted on. How can a person vote on such a complicated issue if the only thing they are looking at is the two sentence ballot issue?? :damn::damn:

I swear what these people would really want is if we were to include at the bottom of the issues

The Republican Party wants you to vote this way
The Democratic Party wants you to vote this way

Seeing the number of voters copying directly from the "sample" ballots the party representatives give them, I am convinced few of them even understand the issue. The politically correct term is "Low Information Voter" :88)

One of these elections I want to show up for my Election Officer duty dressed as a sheep shepherd. Just herd them in and herd them out.

As a result, my county will sell yet another bond (deficit financing) and my State will increase tax expenditures. :damn::damn::damn:

Folks, we aint gots the money for this!!!!!

Sigh, Universal Suffrage. A great concept, but a lousy reality.

[TLAM Strike]

I want the act of voting to include a voter showing up in public somewhere, having their ID verified as a properly registered voter of that precinct, and then having some privacy to cast a hard copy secret ballot that has to be hand counted, tabulated and recorded by their fellow citizens. Shall I assume that under your system the ballots will be marked in blood too? :O:

[Platapus]

I want the act of voting to include a voter showing up in public somewhere, having their ID verified as a properly registered voter of that precinct, and then having some privacy to cast a hard copy secret ballot that has to be hand counted, tabulated and recorded by their fellow citizens.

That's what we have in Virginia with the paper ballots. As for the electronic ballots........ :nope:

[Ducimus]

I didn't vote, because it doesn't make any difference. (yes, you heard me) I have no faith in either party, nor any candidates. I view it all as systemically broken. No matter who gets elected, everybody loses. The real power in this country isn't with the voter, but lobbiests, special interest groups, and corporate dollars. That never changes except for who's strings they are pulling.

I posted this before, i'll post it again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk

Except for the reversal of "no right to complain", I think he's is 100% spot on. Though, in a sense, he's correct there as well because no matter who you vote for, the end result will be the same. So vote for one, or the other, either way your equally at fault when the politicians invariably do the exact same crap they always do.

Nothing short of a political revolution, and the breaking up of both party's, will anything ever change.

[Platapus]

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the precipitate

or some thing like that. :hmmm:

That does not sound right. :06:

[Ducimus]

If i had the option to cast my vote as "NONE OF THE ABOVE", i would have the perfect voting record.

Can you imagine that though? If they allowed that, it would turn the entire poltiical system on its head. What if "none of the above" got the majority vote?

Now THAT would be interesting.

[Platapus]

That would be interesting, but if that happened, we would be forced to keep the incumbent jerk in office while we dick around with run-off elections.

I don't think Americans would feel comfortable with run-off elections. We like our elections quick and clear. That is one of the reasons we are still stuck in a system where we really only have 2 viable parties despite actually having around 15 political parties (depending on the year).

The public probably does not want to know that we actually elect our President based on about 20-30% of the eligible votes.

Remember 2004? President Bush's "Mandate of the People" when he got re-elected. I use 2004 Bush as an example as I have the numbers. The same would, of course, apply to a Democratic Presidential Candidate.

According to the Federal Election Commission the voter turnout in 2004, was 56.7% (which is actually pretty good for the US) and of those votes, President Bush received 50.7% of them. This means that only 28.7% of the eligible voters voted for President Bush.

For comparison, in 2008, President Obama was "swept into office" with 30.3% of the eligible vote. A whole whopping 1.6% more than Bush. ohh another "Mandate"!

Pretty sad when a person can be elected President by garnering only 29% or 30% of the possible votes. The electoral college is great at concealing this from the public.

But since our elections are based on a plurality of only the votes cast, (actually the electoral college is based on this, but you know what I mean) we can delude ourselves that our Presidents are elected by the "majority", when in reality almost half of the eligible voters really don't give a crap who is president.

That's why I shake my head when any political party claims a "mandate from the people". The only mandate of the people is that about half don't give a crap. :nope:.

[Buddahaid]

why can't people internet vote or phone vote?
It would increase voter turnout drastically

Use absentee ballots if you want to vote on your own time. And the issues are too complicated for many (me) to understand well by design, just like taxes. This confusion allows people to be swayed by sound bites and red herring points. I try to avoid that by never reading anything sent in the mail except the voter guides for both the significant parties. The tripe goes from the mailbox to the recycling instantly. :arrgh!:

[Ducimus]

I care. I just don't have faith in the jerkweeds we have to chose from, nor in the system that sustains them. It's like, gee, what do i have to choose from?

Candidate Blue: Dishonest jackwagon, power hungry, hypocritical, Takes funds from lobbiests.

Candidate Red: Dishonest jackwagon, power hungry, hypocritical, Takes corporate funds.


Really? Wow...... s'cuse me while i sit this one out.

[Platapus]

I used to hate voting in California in the 80's

We used to have issues worded thus,

Should the State Legislation be prevented from enacting legislation that would reverse the remanding of the exception to the law restricting tax expenditures increases to no more than an increase of 4% from the 1980 proposition xx which was not enacted.

HUH???? :o:stare::doh::doh::doh::doh:

[Ducimus]

OH good christ, the attack ad's here suck. You NEVER hear anything positive. EVERYTHING is negative. But since california has this proposition system where's props are passed by the people, and props can only be removed by a majority vote of the people. Governer can't do jack about it.
The states constitution needs to be tossed out the window and rewritten.

Hence the unoffical fun name, " The peoples republic of california", and with as many special interests as we have here, funds get diverted every which way from props. (aside from illegal immigration, probably one of the biggest reasons californas broke) The attack ads are henious, and constant.
That's just the propositions.... never mind the candidates. Im willing to bet poor voter turn out is for two reasons:

1.) A belief ( which i share), that Sh*ts screwed anyway, doesn't matter who gets into office.

2.) Majorly turned off by attack ads. The republicans really need to get away from the constant rhetoric. No solutions, no practical talk, just rhetoric. Democrates offer solutions at least, but then they do some crap thats a little too bleeding heart for my tastes.

Insert carlin clip here.

[August]

Use absentee ballots if you want to vote on your own time.

I have a problem with absentee ballots for everyone. It's just too easy to collect votes by bribe and trickery.

Let every voter make his own decisions in a private voting booth away from outside influences and at least be sober enough to walk on his own into a polling place and go through the mechanics of voting.