An interesting read, with an invitation to reproduce their results. After learning that other countries have "mandatory" voting and many have voting day as a national holiday, it is embarrassing...
An interesting read, with an invitation to reproduce their results.
After learning that other countries have "mandatory" voting and many have voting day as a national holiday, it is embarrassing that the US the self described shining bastion of democracy limits it's citizens ability to demonstrate that democracy. It's embarrassing, it's hypocritical, and articles like this illustrate why such policy changes haven't gotten traction. Because enacting laws that would increase voter turnout would essentially be a lot of those legislators voting themselves out of office.
I feel like mandatory voting would be a good thing so long as there was mandatory education in middle-school/high-school on how to research candidates and issues. If someone is voluntarily going...
I feel like mandatory voting would be a good thing so long as there was mandatory education in middle-school/high-school on how to research candidates and issues. If someone is voluntarily going to vote I think they have at least some sense of why they're voting they way they are. I fear without the proper respect for the process, mandatory voting would foster more candidates to market themselves to the lowest common denominator and use even more inciting and misleading language in their campaigns ... if that's even possible.
I guess that's a cynical way of looking at it.
EDIT: Also, it'd be really interesting to see their process run for every election where they have sufficient data. I kinda get the (unfounded) feeling it'd be blue all the way down to the 80s.
It’s not possible. We’re already as far into stupidtown as we can get. It’s not like most voters today are hyper informed either. Their information comes from infotainment and the actual “news”...
fear without the proper respect for the process, mandatory voting would foster more candidates to market themselves to the lowest common denominator and use even more inciting and misleading language in their campaigns ... if that's even possible.
It’s not possible. We’re already as far into stupidtown as we can get. It’s not like most voters today are hyper informed either. Their information comes from infotainment and the actual “news” still mostly just covers politics like it’s Fantasy Football.
Australia has mandatory voting and none of these nightmare scenarios skeptics talk about have come to pass.
Currently most “informed” voters are just voting as they’ve been told by well funded ad campaigns. You’d probably get MORE rational outcomes if you just threw some randomness in there. At least then money gets less influence and a scrappy underdog, like AOC, can break through.
I agree... which is why I actually feel bad voting on something I'm not educated on (which is a lot). But, like I said, I think the action of voluntarily going out to vote means you have at least...
I agree... which is why I actually feel bad voting on something I'm not educated on (which is a lot). But, like I said, I think the action of voluntarily going out to vote means you have at least given it some thought. I think a sustained emphasis on civics earlier on in education would be a good thing to combat that level of ignorance.
It’s also worth noting that American ballots are heinously complicated and it’s literally impossible for people to make informed decisions on most of the stuff they’re voting on. In most countries...
It’s also worth noting that American ballots are heinously complicated and it’s literally impossible for people to make informed decisions on most of the stuff they’re voting on.
In most countries the ballot just has a list of parties to vote for a handful of various offices.
In the US you have at least 3 federal offices, 3 state offices, who knows how many county and municipal offices. On top of that you can sometimes need to vote for judges as well as random administrative roles from school board to clerk to dog catcher. And that’s before the confusingly worded ballot initiatives get into the picture.
If we want democracy to mean people meaningfully having an impact in how they’re governed, this ain’t it. We ought to reduce the number of offices people vote for and make constituencies small enough that voters might realistically meet or get to know the people claiming to represent them. At the very least they shouldn’t be more than 2 or 3 degrees of separation apart for the lowest offices.
Yea, tribalistic voting is definitely the current lowest common denominator type of voting, and probably the most practiced. Still, I think voluntary voting increases the ratio of those who've put...
Yea, tribalistic voting is definitely the current lowest common denominator type of voting, and probably the most practiced. Still, I think voluntary voting increases the ratio of those who've put in a bit more thought into their choices vs. those that vote tribal. If demographic statistics can accurately predict how mandatory voting would play out, then why not skip the voting process altogether and just assign candidates based on those demographics? Ridiculous, I know...but at that point voting would kinda seem only ceremonial. Until there was some kind of paradigm shift in terms of how a demographic block votes, anyhow. Or until we have a more reliable multi-party system. Or we move beyond first-past-the-post voting.
I don't feel like I understood the statistics behind this terribly well. However, as an anonymous internet poster, I am perfectly qualified to comment on the politics behind this. I feel very...
I don't feel like I understood the statistics behind this terribly well. However, as an anonymous internet poster, I am perfectly qualified to comment on the politics behind this.
I feel very strongly that mandatory voting is not an appropriate 'answer' to poor representation in government, let alone the problem that is electing a objectively terrible representative like Trump. It may make some people feel like they have better representation, true, but we've already got a problem with the persuasiveness of political advertising, and by having people compelled to vote, that problem will only get worse, making the influence of the rich even more powerful.
I think the question we should be asking is not "who would you vote for if you had to", but rather, "Why isn't everyone voting?" That is a question we already have answers to, but haven't been willing to correct. There are many states that seem almost dedicated to making it difficult to vote (no early voting, no mail ballots, confusing ballots, polling stations that have lines that take hours to pass).
For the 2016 election in particular, it seems like the reason why people didn't vote was because they felt disenfranchised. The Democratic primary was brutal; the nation was pretty divided between Sanders and Clinton. When Sanders lost, voters had three choices; vote for Clinton, vote for Trump, or abstain from voting. Granted that Sanders was advocating for some drastic changes and Clinton was fairly close to the status quo, it is understandable why a number of Sanders voters would not want their vote to go to Clinton.
To get back to the point, there are many problems with our electoral systems that need to be fixed if we want to have a truly representative government. Mandatory voting is what I think is just a quick bandage; It's an easy treatment, but it won't solve the actual ailment we're going through. In reality, we need more fundamental reforms that will alter the way political power is concentrated and structured.
An interesting read, with an invitation to reproduce their results.
After learning that other countries have "mandatory" voting and many have voting day as a national holiday, it is embarrassing that the US the self described shining bastion of democracy limits it's citizens ability to demonstrate that democracy. It's embarrassing, it's hypocritical, and articles like this illustrate why such policy changes haven't gotten traction. Because enacting laws that would increase voter turnout would essentially be a lot of those legislators voting themselves out of office.
I feel like mandatory voting would be a good thing so long as there was mandatory education in middle-school/high-school on how to research candidates and issues. If someone is voluntarily going to vote I think they have at least some sense of why they're voting they way they are. I fear without the proper respect for the process, mandatory voting would foster more candidates to market themselves to the lowest common denominator and use even more inciting and misleading language in their campaigns ... if that's even possible.
I guess that's a cynical way of looking at it.
EDIT: Also, it'd be really interesting to see their process run for every election where they have sufficient data. I kinda get the (unfounded) feeling it'd be blue all the way down to the 80s.
It’s not possible. We’re already as far into stupidtown as we can get. It’s not like most voters today are hyper informed either. Their information comes from infotainment and the actual “news” still mostly just covers politics like it’s Fantasy Football.
Australia has mandatory voting and none of these nightmare scenarios skeptics talk about have come to pass.
Currently most “informed” voters are just voting as they’ve been told by well funded ad campaigns. You’d probably get MORE rational outcomes if you just threw some randomness in there. At least then money gets less influence and a scrappy underdog, like AOC, can break through.
I agree... which is why I actually feel bad voting on something I'm not educated on (which is a lot). But, like I said, I think the action of voluntarily going out to vote means you have at least given it some thought. I think a sustained emphasis on civics earlier on in education would be a good thing to combat that level of ignorance.
It’s also worth noting that American ballots are heinously complicated and it’s literally impossible for people to make informed decisions on most of the stuff they’re voting on.
In most countries the ballot just has a list of parties to vote for a handful of various offices.
In the US you have at least 3 federal offices, 3 state offices, who knows how many county and municipal offices. On top of that you can sometimes need to vote for judges as well as random administrative roles from school board to clerk to dog catcher. And that’s before the confusingly worded ballot initiatives get into the picture.
If we want democracy to mean people meaningfully having an impact in how they’re governed, this ain’t it. We ought to reduce the number of offices people vote for and make constituencies small enough that voters might realistically meet or get to know the people claiming to represent them. At the very least they shouldn’t be more than 2 or 3 degrees of separation apart for the lowest offices.
Yea, tribalistic voting is definitely the current lowest common denominator type of voting, and probably the most practiced. Still, I think voluntary voting increases the ratio of those who've put in a bit more thought into their choices vs. those that vote tribal. If demographic statistics can accurately predict how mandatory voting would play out, then why not skip the voting process altogether and just assign candidates based on those demographics? Ridiculous, I know...but at that point voting would kinda seem only ceremonial. Until there was some kind of paradigm shift in terms of how a demographic block votes, anyhow. Or until we have a more reliable multi-party system. Or we move beyond first-past-the-post voting.
I don't feel like I understood the statistics behind this terribly well. However, as an anonymous internet poster, I am perfectly qualified to comment on the politics behind this.
I feel very strongly that mandatory voting is not an appropriate 'answer' to poor representation in government, let alone the problem that is electing a objectively terrible representative like Trump. It may make some people feel like they have better representation, true, but we've already got a problem with the persuasiveness of political advertising, and by having people compelled to vote, that problem will only get worse, making the influence of the rich even more powerful.
I think the question we should be asking is not "who would you vote for if you had to", but rather, "Why isn't everyone voting?" That is a question we already have answers to, but haven't been willing to correct. There are many states that seem almost dedicated to making it difficult to vote (no early voting, no mail ballots, confusing ballots, polling stations that have lines that take hours to pass).
For the 2016 election in particular, it seems like the reason why people didn't vote was because they felt disenfranchised. The Democratic primary was brutal; the nation was pretty divided between Sanders and Clinton. When Sanders lost, voters had three choices; vote for Clinton, vote for Trump, or abstain from voting. Granted that Sanders was advocating for some drastic changes and Clinton was fairly close to the status quo, it is understandable why a number of Sanders voters would not want their vote to go to Clinton.
To get back to the point, there are many problems with our electoral systems that need to be fixed if we want to have a truly representative government. Mandatory voting is what I think is just a quick bandage; It's an easy treatment, but it won't solve the actual ailment we're going through. In reality, we need more fundamental reforms that will alter the way political power is concentrated and structured.