I will preface this by stating I'm not an American, and I certainly don't claim to speak for everyone. I'm also not against voting in principle, and in my own country I prefer to vote when I can, and have done so most of the time. But there were times when I chose not to, and there was a time when I regretted voting. I've also been browsing the English internet for a long time, which is dominated by Americans, and I've been part of English-speaking leftie spaces for a while too, which are also dominated by Americans. I base my post on these experiences.

There's a lot to be said on this topic, but I will try to briefly explain a key point I've been able to put into words only recently. Being a leftist, not a left-leaning person or a "leftist" that just means left-leaning liberal, but a genuine leftist, is a weird experience. You have a lot of issues close to your heart. You spend a great deal of time and energy learning to criticize the systems you live under, whether they be capitalism, nation-state, or some cultural hierarchy. You already feel alienated from most people on political issues, because you hold wildly unpopular opinions, and people treat you like a weird person for it. You get into a lot of arguments and conflicts as a result, which often result in further alienation. After all, refusing the status quo is not an easy thing to do, and it often leads to social isolation at some level. It's not predestined, and it's not all-encompassing, but you can't help but feel alienated from most. Their ideas, their ideologies, the things they endorse—it all seems, to put it mildly, a little bit insane.

Then comes the election season, and you realize the politicians of the supposed major """left""" option, which is actually just relatively left compared to the insanely right alternative(s), never take you seriously. They never voice policies that speak to your sensibilities, wishes, beliefs, morality, and principles. They always voice par for the course arguments, and obviously don't care for what you want.

Then, people that are part of the "normal" politics start making the same arguments. In my experience, this happens regardless of the country we're talking about.

• You should still vote for us. The other side is worse.
• If you don't vote for us, you're a traitor.
• A vote not cast for us is a vote cast for them (interestingly, the opposite of this is never voiced: "a vote not cast for them is a vote for us.")
• I don't approve of them in every way either, but this is the lesser of two evils.
• This is not the time to be having these arguments. It's a time for unity.
• This is the only option possible.
• You're not voting out of privilege. (extremely untrue, can even be called an outright lie)
• You should be logical and not emotional. Vote with your brain, not your heart. Be an adult.

The last item on thist list, I think, strikes at the heart of this post. People expect you to be this ultra-rational decision-making machine, "pragmatic" to the core, always willing to shut up and toe the line when it matters, without a care for what you want. But they don't expect this from anyone else (barring minorities). The far-right, right-wingers, centrists, liberals, people satistified with par for the course politics—they all get to voice their wishes, wants, opinions. They all get to act according to their own emotions, without critically examining their own beliefs, ideology, behavior. They all get concessions made to them by politicans. They all get to have a say. But not you. You should shut the fuck up and vote for them. You don't get a say.

They take it for granted that you would vote for them, that's why they never take what you want seriously. They give tons of shits about every other group, which are all part of the status quo politics, but they never give a shit about you. That's why they never make concessions to you.

At some point, naturally, you realize how hypocritical, unfair, and insidious this is. You may not consciously know it, or even be able to put it into words, but deep down you feel it: everybody else gets one, but not you. Then they seriously expect you to support them. And when you don't, they go on a witch hunt, labeling you a traitor.

For example, they expect you to be fine with "your" candidate supporting a genocide, even though this is the worst possible thing a country can do, and then be baffled when you don't take this well. And god forbid, if you "act emotionally" and have your own worldview and sensibilities, like every other group does, and not vote for them, you get labeled a traitor. These people don't realize that their own eagerness to so readily uphold the status quo politics, resulting in your own wishes and values getting eternally ignored, brings about your response.

So, I think this is why a lot of leftists don't vote when they prefer not to. I suspect this also applies to other demographics, such as minorities that get overlooked. And as long as the status quo politics ignores this problem, it won't be solved.

I think, for other people like me, something we can do is to voice why we don't vote when we choose not to. Because the status quo politicians and their supporters seem very eager to get the wrong message, which is "we need to move further right". This, of course, doesn't work, because right-wingers choose the original instead of the imitation anyway.

What I'm saying, I guess, is a very simple democratic process. If you want people to vote for you, you have to take them and what they want seriously, and at the very least make concessions to them. If you do not, they probably won't, and you can't blame them for it. This is how it works for every demographic. So, instead of blaming potential and future voters and supporters, you should criticize the party that failed to get their support.

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Election Dashboards:

• Associated Press
• Bloomberg
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• The New York Times
• Politico
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I have a slightly unusual last name, leading to people assuming they know how to spell it better than I do. I have already fixed my registered name once this year and I just received a new voter registration card...and it had the old spelling. I checked my registration online and the spelling has reverted in the state database too. Whose fault is this and WHY THE HELL DO PEOPLE MANUALLY ENTER/EDIT NAMES THAT USERS ENTER INTO COMPUTER SYSTEMS? WHY IS THIS A THING?? WHY DO I GET SO MUCH MAIL WITH MY NAME MISSPELLED??? JUST SPELL IT THE WAY I ENTERED IT INTO YOUR SYSTEM, YOU JACKASSES.

So I'm kind of terrified by recent political news. What can I do to help?

Options include:

• Donating
• Phone banking
• Text banking
• Postcarding
• Door knocking
• Volunteering as an election worker

Does anyone have an informed opinion about which of these will actually move the needle and which ones just make you feel like you're doing something?

This is specifically about voting on comments, and not articles. I think voting for topics is clear and intuitive.

I've noticed that, while reading users' comments on topics, I have a tendency to think "This is right, so I will vote it up," or "I agree with this, so I will vote it up." I'm not sure I should be doing this, or rather, I'm not sure that's the best use of my ability to vote on comments. I always worry that sites I frequent will morph into echo chambers, and I want to avoid that for this site. I want to encourage expressing alternate viewpoints, because exposure to alternate views helps me grow a human. The vote button is a low-effort means of accomplishing that, and I intend to use it as such.

I think the vote button should be used on comments that enhance the discussion, and help engage people, and not necessarily only on comments that make me feel happy, good or righteous. So, lately, I've been trying to explicitly vote up comments which have replies, especially ones which have several replies, but aren't voted as highly as their children or peers. If someone's comment can engage several people to reply and contribute positively to a conversation, then that comment is worthy of being seen and so I vote it up. I do this regardless of whether or not I agree with the substance of the message.

I've noticed a trend where there will be a low-voted comment with many replies. These aren't trolling comments, because if they were, then they would be removed. These are comments which are engaging people and furthering the conversation, but it seems like the community doesn't value these comments due to their low vote count. This leads me to suspect that the number of votes on a comment might be merely a tally of the number of people who agreed with it.

So, I'm curious. Do you vote on comments?

How do you decide to vote on a comment?

How should we collectively be using the vote for comments?

(As an aside, I also wonder how the psychology of reading comments would change if vote tallies on comments were hidden.)

Hi, I was wondering if the current duration before voting gets locked on a post is still 30 days? I tried to find the answer in the docs but didn’t see it (apologies if I missed it) and all I turned up in a search of the site was a topic from 3 years ago mentioning the 30 days, so I wanted to see if that’s still accurate.

Thanks !

I don't understand why people think an individual vote changes anything. I don't mean this as an insult, I just don't understand by what mechanism my vote matters. To be clear, I am not saying you shouldn't vote, simply that one persons vote is a neutral act.

I assume that if I vote in an election my vote will literally be counted; the votes for one candidate will go from 100,000 to 100,001. In tiny elections, it is possible, not likely, for a single vote to change a result. However, arguing for a system from its top 0.1% best case scenario is a bit disingenuous. In 99.9% of elections, it does not come down to one vote.

I have also been told I should just choose the candidate that is closest to my beliefs or even put in a blank ballet. In the US, a 3rd-party candidate will not win any non-local election; in other countries, I understand that it is different, but I can't speak from personal experience. And its not like I would ever choose any of the main party candidates; some are much worse than others, but none represent my beliefs. My understanding of this idea is that what is being valued is the performance of representation, not my actual representation in the system. 'The medium is the message', or who you vote for does not matter, what matters is that you vote.

I've heard people say something to the effect of 'if you don't vote, you have no right to complain about the political system'. This idea ignores the fact that not voting is an explicitly political act. I am engaging with the system by refusing to play what I perceive to be a rigged game.

But its not like the political system changes whether I vote or not; its not like anyone can know if I voted or not, unless I tell them or wear one of those 'I voted' stickers. I've heard people argue that if everyone thought this way, then the OTHER SIDE would win. But other people's decision to vote or not isn't my responsibility.

Is there something I am missing?

EDIT:

I changed my formatting to be more clear and edited the text, as a few responses seem to have missed some of my points.

Voting is determinative, especially where the constituency is precisely known, as with a legislature, executive council, panel of judges, gerrymandered electoral district, defined organisational membership. If you know, with high precision, who is voting, then you can determine or influence how they vote, or what the outcome will be. Which lends a certain amount of predictability (often considered as good), but also of a tyranny of the majority. This is especially true where long-standing majorities can be assured: legislatures, boards of directors, courts, ethnic or cultural majorities.

The result is a very high-stakes game in establishing majorities, influencing critical constituencies, packing courts, and gaming parliamentary and organisational procedures. But is this the best method --- both in terms of representational eqquity and of decision and goverrnance quality?

Hands down the most fascinating article I've read over the past decade is Michael Schulson's "How to choose? When your reasons are worse than useless, sometimes the most rational choice is a random stab in the dark", in Aeon. The essay, drawing heavily on Peter Stone, The Luck of the Draw: The Role of Lotteries in Decision Making (2011), which I've not read, mostly concerns decisions under uncertainty and of the risk of bad decisions. It seems to me that it also applies to periods of extreme political partisanship and division. An unlikely but possible circumstance, I'm sure....

Under many political systems, control is binary and discrete. A party with a majority in a legislature or judiciary, or control of the executive, has absolute control, barring procedural exceptions. Moreover, what results is a politics of veto power, where the bloc defining a controlling share of votes effectively controls the entire organisation. It may not be able to get its way, but it can determine which of two pluralities can reach a majority. Often in favour of its own considerations, overtly or covertly --- this is an obvious engine of corruption.

(This is why "political flexibility" often translates to more effective power than a hardline orthodoxy.)

One inspiration is a suggestion for US Supreme Court reform: greatly expand the court, hear more cases, but randomly assign a subset of judges to each case.[1] A litigant cannot know what specific magistrates will hear a case, and even a highly-packed court could produce minority-majority panels.

Where voting can be fuzzed, the majority's power is made less absolute, more uncertain, and considerations which presume that such a majority cannot be assured, one hopes, would lead to a more inclusive decisionmaking process. Some specific mechanisms;

• All members vote, but a subset of votes are considered at random. The larger the subset, the more reliably the true majority wins.
• A subset of members votes. As in the court example above.
• An executive role (presidency, leader, chairmanship) is rotated over time.
• For ranged decisions (quantitative, rather than yes/no), a value is selected randomly based on weighted support.

Concensus/majority decisionmaking tends to locked and unrepresentitive states. Fuzzing might better unlock these and increase representation.

Notes

1. A selection of articles on Supreme Court reforms and expansion, from an earlier G+ post: https://web.archive.org/web/20190117114110/https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/9btDjFcNhg1 Also, notably, court restructuring or resizing has been practiced: "Republicans Oppose Court Packing (Except When They Support It)".
   • Jonathan Turley at WashPo, suggesting 19 justices:
     https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fate-of-health-care-shouldnt-come-down-to-9-justices-try-19/2012/06/22/gJQAv0gpvV_story.html
   • Robert W. Merry at The National Interest, agreeing:
     https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/court-packing-revisited-7123
   • Michael Hiltzik at the LA Times:
     http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-scotus-20180629-story.html
   • Jacob Hale Russell, at Time, suggests 27 justices:
     http://time.com/5338689/supreme-court-packing/
   • And Glen Harlan Reynolds, at USA Today ups the ante to 59 justices:
     https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/07/02/make-supreme-court-lots-bigger-59-justices-more-like-america-column/749326002/
   • Dylan Matthews at Vox, pointing at several other suggestions:
     https://www.vox.com/2018/7/2/17513520/court-packing-explained-fdr-roosevelt-new-deal-democrats-supreme-court
   • From the left, Todd N. Tucker at Jacobin:
     https://jacobinmag.com/2018/06/supreme-court-packing-fdr-justices-appointments
   • Scott Lemieux at The New Republic:
     https://newrepublic.com/article/148358/democrats-prepare-pack-supreme-court
   • Ian Millhiser at Slate:
     http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/02/fdr_court_packing_plan_obama_and_roosevelt_s_supreme_court_standoffs.html
   • Zach Carter at Huffington Post:
     https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hey-democrats-pack-the-court_us_5b33f7a8e4b0b5e692f3f3d4
   • A pseudonymous piece by "@kept_simple" at The Outline:
     https://theoutline.com/post/5126/pack-the-court-judicial-appointment-scalia-is-in-hell
   • And a dissenting opinion from Justice Thomas Josh Blackman at National Review:
     https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/supreme-court-nominee-court-packing-not-feasible/
   • As well as some alarm klaxon sounding from The Daily Caller:
     https://dailycaller.com/2018/06/28/democrats-pack-supreme-court/