- #36
Alex_Sanders
- 73
- 0
Search Diebold machine people. There are a lot entries showing there are a lot people who do not feel quite secure about their votes. And you have to wonder, are those machines made in the states?
collinsmark said:I too am a bit lost by your statements. What particular truth is it to which the public/politicians do not want whom to know?
Alex_Sanders said:Search Diebold machine people. There are a lot entries showing there are a lot people who do not feel quite secure about their votes. And you have to wonder, are those machines made in the states?
wuliheron said: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.
Hobin said:That's actually not entirely true. A lot of people like to complain about politicians, because, well, they're politicians (of course, there are a many good reasons as well). However, when the time comes where they'll actually get to vote, most of them will keep voting for the same old people. Thus, while people may be dissatisfied with the politicians currently running the country, this does not necessarily mean their votes don't count.
Ivan Seeking said:I'm still not sure where you're going here as it could be taken on several different levels, but there is no doubt in my mind that voting matters. I said from the beginning that a Bush admin would be a disaster and I was right. It was just as bad as I feared it woud be. Neither Gore nor Kerry were anything to get excited about, but I think history would read quite differently had Gore [especially] won in 2000. I am just as sure of that as I was that Bush would be a disaster.
Of course, there is no way to prove how history might have read...
Ivan Seeking said:I agree that gerrymandering is a problem but I think your premise is flawed. People have a problem with everyone else's representitives, not their own.
I'm still not sure where you're going here as it could be taken on several different levels, but there is no doubt in my mind that voting matters. I said from the beginning that a Bush admin would be a disaster and I was right. It was just as bad as I feared it woud be. Neither Gore nor Kerry were anything to get excited about, but I think history would read quite differently had Gore [especially] won in 2000. I am just as sure of that as I was that Bush would be a disaster.
Of course, there is no way to prove how history might have read...
Galteeth said:A good example of the fact that voting does matter to an extent is the recent SOPA protest. The reason politicians backed down was because the public response was so overwhelming. They care about this precisely because they can be voted out.
The idea of voting could be seen at least to be something of a check on very unpopular laws.
ThomasT said:Electing candidates via middle persons (electoral college, etc.) should be done away with, imho. It makes no sense to me to give all the votes from a state to one candidate if the popular vote is almost evenly split. It makes no sense to me that a candidate with fewer popular votes can win an election.
I think that doing away with that sort of thing, and doing away with gerrymandering and other practices that legally but sometimes questionably skew the control of election results away from the actual vote of the populace, might precipitate a feeling among a vast number of Americans (who choose not to vote because they feel that their vote doesn't count) that their vote actually does count.
One of the big problems with the legislature, imho, is that you have career politicians who're able to gain inordinate power because of the absence of term limits.
Anyway, I think I have a certain understanding of why someone would feel that their vote doesn't count. But the thing is, unless one is part of a mass 'nonvoting' movement aimed at making a mass statement that professional politicians can't ignore, then it makes no sense to not vote. However, if one is interested in helping to bring about changes in the status quo, then the best course of action, imho, is to vote for candidates other than Republicans and Democrats.
wuliheron said:This year congress seriously debated whether or not they should be allowed to vote on legislation concerning companies they own stock in and whether or not to suspend habeas corpus. They've indefinitely suspended parts of the constitution, passed secret laws that were not available for public scrutiny, invaded peoples' privacy as never before, and last year NYC arrested 26 reporters in one day on trumped up charges to prevent them from covering OWS. About the only thing SOPA proves is that sometimes, just sometimes, they are willing to appease the mob by publicly encouraging them to give a thumbs up or down.
Galteeth said:but it is interesting to note that the portion of the government that does not have to face the ballot box behaves the most recklessly and cares the least what people think about their actions.
Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.wuliheron said:Instead of "pissed off and angry disenfranchised voters" those who abstain are called "apathetic" and instead of people insisting there is proof their vote matters, they keep coming up lame excuses exactly like the ones I'm hearing now for why voting matters.
Please furnish the mainstream articles that back your post up. If you are going to make a statement of fact, it requires proof.turbo said: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.
russ_watters said:Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.
eggshell said:pure democracy is possibly one of the worst forms of government out there; nothing more than the majority enslaving the minority, even if it be 51% vs 49%.
turbo said:It's been all through the news, and I figured everybody paying attention should know about the disenfranchisement movement. I can go back and get more links if you want.
http://www.fdlreporter.com/article/20120311/FON0101/203110367/Judge-delays-ruling-voter-ID-lawsuit
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/03/10/441831/minnesota-third-way-voter-id/?mobile=nc
http://www.dnj.com/article/20120308/NEWS05/303080019/24-must-show-ID-vote-count?odyssey=nav%7Chead
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120311/OPINION/303110043/-1/groupblogs/Hard-find-examples-voter-fraud
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/gop-war-on-voting-targets-swing-states-20120309
http://info.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/09/10622507-rev-al-sharpton-to-speak-at-conclusion-of-historic-voting-rights-and-immigration-reform-march-in-alabama
http://www2.godanriver.com/news/2012/mar/09/tdmain06-voter-id-bill-headed-to-the-governor-ar-1751923/
Galteeth said:I don't think congress encouraged people to "give a thumbs up or down" on SOPA.
I am anarchist. I despise government. I think the concept of democracy and voting in the context of a state is absurd. But voting does have some effect.
Also, as far as NYC goes, we don't vote for the cops. Maybe if we did, they would behave a bit more reasonably. I am not going to go that far, but it is interesting to note that the portion of the government that does not have to face the ballot box behaves the most recklessly and cares the least what people think about their actions.
russ_watters said:Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.
wuliheron said:NYC doesn't even own their cops anymore. Wall Street literally owns them now and the city voted to give the entire government to big business. It's their prerogative to sell their government to the highest bidder, but when your mayor is a billionaire businessman who sells the services of public servants like the cops to the highest bidder and has 26 reporters arrested in one day to stifle freedom of the press its not much of a democracy by modern standards.
Hobin said:How is that one of the worst forms of government? I quite agree that it is worse than an indirect democratic government with an additional set of rules along the lines of "if more than 30% of the people would experience a significant negative effect because of decision X, then we don't do it" (although the governments I know don't have such rules, all the indirectness more or less introduces them). This does not, however, make direct democracy 'one of the worst'. Requiring a 50+% approval rating before introducing a new law is significantly more than than in pretty much all other Xcracies.
...Unless you have a theocracy where more than half of the population are high priests, or an aristocracy where more than 50% are nobles, and so on and so forth.
No. I thought it was just based on lack of fast transportation and communication in the old days. Like lectures in school were done because there weren't enough books to go around.Galteeth said:Do you understand the theory behind it?
ThomasT said:No. I thought it was just based on lack of fast transportation and communication in the old days. Like lectures in school were done because there weren't enough books to go around.
What happened?Galteeth said:The system was almost changed in 1969-1970.
ThomasT said:What happened?
Thanks, I was in the armed forces then and more or less oblivious to political issues. Too bad it didn't pass, imho. I would hope that this would be considered again, sometime in the foreseeable future.Galteeth said:Nixon won a decisive electoral college victory but won the popular vote by less then one percent. A motion was adopted to abolish the electoral college and replace it with a system that was closer to popular election (40% minimum required to win, failing that, a runoff between the top two candidates.
It passed the house, and the president gave his approval, with 2 out of six undecided states having to decide to approve to gain the 3/5s state requirement (this was a constitutional amendment.)
When it reached the Senate, it was narrowly filibustered. In order to break the filibuster, the senate needed 2/3 majority, and in two votes narrowly missed (five votes short the second time).
mege said:None of the articles say anything that this is a purposeful 'attack' by anyone (Al Sharpton makes the allusion, but it's unsubstantiated hyperbole). The articles only address concerns that 'there is no fraud' rather than any real purposeful campaign to 'disenfranchise'. Attack the claims that the voter ID law doesn't need to exist because there is no harm inherent in the system, fine, but accusing a political party (or whomever) of trying to 'disenfranchise' voters by pushing a reasonable piece of legislation is very extreme (and quite frankly: disgustingly insulting). Where has anyone of merit, whom supports the voter id legislation, actually made the claim that this legislation is intended to remove certain legitimate voters from the rolls? I think that's a burden of proof for this being some 'disenfranchisement movement'.
SHISHKABOB said:"literally"? You're making some controversial claims there, do you have any evidence that the police forces of NYC are owned by "Wall Street"?
If that's the intent, then it wouldn't make much sense for advocates of it to claim that as the intent. Would it? I'm not sure what the intent is, but the net effect would seem to be the disenfranchisement of a certain number of legitimately eligible voters.mege said:Where has anyone of merit, whom supports the voter id legislation, actually made the claim that this legislation is intended to remove certain legitimate voters from the rolls?
That's one view. Maybe it's correct. The solution, imho, is to vote for candidates other than Republicans and Democrats. Maybe those votes will count for something.wuliheron said:"Public servant" has come to be synonymous with corporate owned and sponsored.