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 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.

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.

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.

[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]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

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

way to easy to manipulate i should guess

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

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]

Originally Posted by Platapus

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?

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!

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??

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"

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.

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

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

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by August

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?

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by August

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........