Have this damnable thought ever slipped through your mind that...

SHISHKABOB

Well, it's not that I'm not concerned about these national-scale issues, it's just that I am more connected to the issues near me. Perhaps it is not so in the Netherlands, but where I live (southeastern rural Pennsylvania, which is near Philadelphia) there is a biiiiig split in the ways people here would like things to be handled on the local scale. Things like public education in my area, or the way housing developments are taken care of, are things that people have vastly different opinions on in my "home town" and they also affect me quite a bit.

MarcoD

It's a combination of being a small country, so lots of global news, and having it fairly well, at least superficially. In short, it's a luxury problem.

Personally, I have the opposite set of priorities since I think the Netherlands have lots more problems than people care to admit.

turbo

There is a concerted move in the GOP to disenfranchise voters who are poor, disabled, elderly, and minorities. If the local poll-watchers challenge your ballot, it will be put in the "provisional" pile and may or may not get counted. In Maine, the Tea Party tried to eliminate same-day registration and early voting, citing voter fraud. The Secretary of State used our staff to go hunting and found exactly ONE example of an ineligible voter, and had to go back ten years to find that example. We managed to get the Tea Party measure repealed with a citizens' initiative, but the Secretary of State wants to require state-issued IDs before you can vote, which would be a severe hardship on people who are elderly or poor or don't have access to vehicles. If you are holding down two or three jobs trying to keep your family fed, should you have to blow a half-day at the Department of Motor Vehicles to get an ID? The poll-tax is back.

Gokul43201

This thread lives in GD (not P&WA). We should try to not make it political.

turbo

Sorry. It is an inherently political issue, especially in the light of the efforts of one party to suppress the votes of weaker, poorer, more elderly voters. Our votes really might not count, if they prevail. I have to vote by absentee ballot every election. What if my ballot is tossed into the provisional pile due to the objection of a poll-watcher that is dedicated to killing as many votes as possible from home-bound voters, people in extended-care facilities? I think we can all figure where this is going.

ThomasT

The notorious Alex Sanders. My comment, in another thread, on your ***sack got me an infraction. But it was funny.

As for votes counting -- well, of course they do. Votes are counted. Therefore, every vote counts.

Galteeth

Back in 08 I was a poll watcher at my precinct during the primaries. The precinct had three diebold machines. At one point, two of them apparently malfunctioned. The precinct chair called in people from the diebold company who took the two machines offsite to fix them. They brought them back an hour later and said the problem was fixed. Now of course I don't have evidence that anything went down. But the point is, the precinct chair entirely trusted these two guys from the company to take the machines off site about half-way through the polls. No observers were allowed to accompany them. My point is, elections in this country are not particularly secure.

cmb

... unless your local legislation permits plural voting (as was permitted in UK until the late 40's).

..Plus, where everyone's vote counts just once, it counts the same as those allowed to vote. It's a bit like saying your dollar is worth the same as everyone else's dollar... providing you're allowed to spend it!

wuliheron

Congress has an all time low approval rating with the overwhelming number of Americans disapproving of the job they're doing, yet only 10% of house seats have changed parties in the last ten years. If the overwhelming majority's vote counts for so little then why on earth would I think mine mattered?

The only study I've ever heard of actually done on the subject polled people about whether they intended to vote and if not why, then went back and polled them again after the election. The vast majority of people who said they thought their vote would not make a difference in the election were right. Even if all of them had voted the way they wanted it would have made no difference in the outcome.

Despite so many people insisting on the importance of voting its not like its rocket science. If your vote really counts then it should be possible to easily prove it counts and to give people even bipartisan feedback on exactly how much it counts. The fact that to this day there is no real effort to prove how much voting matters implies that the majority of voters don't want to know the truth and neither party has a stake in the truth being known.

nucl34rgg

I am literally dying laughing.

turbo

I doubt that.

eggshell

it matters in the sense that you have a greater chance of assigning electoral votes to your particular candidate, the only votes that matter, as opposed to the reduced likelihood of that happening if you were in a bigger state, regardless of the proportionality.

Hobin

Well, it *is* possible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_from_laughter

(Though, granted, not very probable.)

lisab

We haven't heard anything more from nucl34rgg, so....

Ivan Seeking

I was talking about the US. As for the UK, well, we fought a revolutionary war for good reason.

Here, aside from minors, I think felons are the only people who can't legally vote.

Ivan Seeking

I'm completely lost. Are you suggesting voter fraud? You comments here don't make any sense.

wuliheron

Among other things the US is infamous for turning gerrymandering into a science, the revolving door of congress, million dollar "consultation" fees for congressmen, etc., however, I'm not suggesting anything. I'm stating unequivocally that if the overwhelming majority of voters are dissatisfied with congress yet the seats in the house almost never change party hands then by definition their vote does not count for much. They simply are not getting what they want by their own admission and might as well be banging their heads against the wall for all the demonstrable good voting does them. International studies comparing peoples' attitudes towards their governments suggest much the same thing, that US citizens do not trust their government and are not getting what they want compared to other countries.

In addition, I'm asserting that this isn't rocket science. If the public and politicians insist that voting does matter then its simple enough to prove, but I don't see anyone rushing to fund any studies on just how much of a difference voting makes. Quite the contrary, the only study I've ever seen on the issue suggested voting makes no difference whatsoever. The implication is that neither the public nor politicians want the truth to be known.