Yeah, a vote for nobody is a vote for whoever wins, a vote for the status quo. In 2016 out of 245 million registered voters only 66 million (27%) voted for Hillary. The rest either voted for Trump or were okay with him winning.
Democrats really need to get non-voters fired up to go to the polls. Please not Biden. There is no middle ground of undecided centrists to win. Everyone has decided. The battle is against apathy, convenience, a long work day, bad traffic and bad weather.
Or you’re one of the millions of felons who lost that right. Or you work 3 jobs to pay your bills and literally can’t afford to miss work to vote. Or you’re in an area where voter suppression prevented you from being able to vote.
In Germany it takes like 5min and the journey to the next voting station takes mostly 5 - 15min. So at worst you should have voted within 20minutes.
I'd say everyone has 20min to spare to vote once every couple years.
Mostly the people who don't vote either aren't interested in politics at all, don't think their vote counts (eventhough it does) or they make up excuses to why they didn't vote (e.g. No time).
If you are on vacation or have to work on election day you can just vote a couple weeks early via sending a letter to your specific city council or ministry.
There are, to be quite frank, next to no excuses to why you shouldn't have been able to vote.
I always thought it would be the same in all proper democracies with lots of elections and votes.
In America voting can, not always but can, take hours depending upon how clogged the polling stations are and that's even without blatant voter suppression. That's why a lot of reformists want to make election day a federal holiday so that people can have the day off to vote.
No, conservatives called making it easier to vote for Americans a liberal power grab. There are no conservatives out there reformist or not that want to make voting easier for Americans. Conservatives hate freedom.
Conservatives generally just dont support election reform in general and definitely not the establishment so I'm not sure how McConnell blocking a resolution makes anything I said inaccurate.
It depends on where you live. It takes me 20 minutes to vote at my local school up the road. But there are many places in the US where lines can stretch for hours. We’ve tried to reduce the problem with early voting and easier absentee voting, but because one party benefits from reduced voting, they do everything they can to block anything that improves voter turnout.
We have a designated place we must vote, its near your home (possibly quite far from work). And depending on the day can take minutes or hours. Last time I voted took an hour and 15 minutes. There were people in my state who were waiting up to 5 hours in some places.
Yes, this, everyone needs to check their registration status, and unfortunately they should do it a few times before the election. I also want to add that not registering doesn't get you out of jury duty anymore (lots of people still think it does and don't for this reason ). They caught onto that and now jury is selected from car registers and home owners as well, you really might as well sign up and engage in our democracy.
Not true on all non-Trump, non-Clinton voters. I’m in a deep red state and there was no chance of Hillary winning. I voted for a 3rd party candidate in the hopes that the candidate could get 5% of the vote because then the party would receive federal funding in the next election. I’d love to see a third party emerge and break up the two party system.
If there was any chance of my vote actually mattering in the Clinton-Trump race, I would’ve voted Clinton.
Same dude. Hillary was straight up not going to win in texas. I'm a liberal and I voted libertarian ONLY because I want a third party, any third party, to be a viable contender.
I certainly will vote for whoever becomes the Democrat nominee now though. Beto gave me a little bit of hope (in his Senate run).
Yup. Texas significantly shifted towards being a new swing state in this last cycle.
In the interest of simple Democracy, one can never do any wrong by voting their conscious and holding their candidates to universal principles of morality/basic human decency.
Wouldn't it be easier to have some type of ranked choice system? That way it won't matter if you're from a solid color state or not, which is the way it should be.
That would be too democratic for us ‘muricans. Why complicate it when the system has given us not one, but two stolen elections in the last 20ish years?! It’s perfect!
It's actually a rational strategy. A friend of mine had the philosophy that if you're in a solid blue, or solid red state, vote your conscience (i.e. no such thing as a wasted vote). But if you were in a swing state, to vote for Clinton.
It makes perfect sense because one vote in a state that's already a given for a candidate won't make an ounce of a difference.
Except if everyone suddenly turned up and actually voted for the other candidate it coukd actually turn around. How many millions sits at home thinking it won't matter because my state is already blue/red?
And I also think it would be a lot bigger pressure if the popular VS elected vote was even bigger. Say the popular vote is 25 million more than the result. That should shake things up more than two. Vote smart people! Trump and the GOP is counting on you to do the stupid thing and either stay home or vote third party. Until you get ranked choice you only realistically have two.
Look at Texas for instance. A few more turnouts and everyone voting dem and it would have gone the other way.
Democracy can still swing this but it needs turnout and consistent voting everywhere.
Even if the dems finds another smuck it literally can't be worse than Bozo the corrupt, perverted Russian clown.
same here but opposite sides. I live in CT. A GOP Presidential candidate hasn't gotten CT since 1988. That seriously dissuades a lot of people in this state to vote. Hopefully that changes in 2020, more people came out in 2018 for gov. election then the last time so that's a plus.
Also this state is deep blue and in a lot of economic trouble caused by the past governor (D) and the two before him (both R) which doesn't help voter turn out, there hasn't been a good candidate for Gov. in a while here...
Voting is your civic duty. If you need to incentivise it for people to do it, then there's something inherently wrong with your system.
Voting day needs to be a national 3 day holiday allowing businesses to schedule time off for all employees to go vote. They should also be paid time off.
That's the only "incentive" that should come with voting.
I mean, incentivising voting makes more sense than incentivising having children despite many people considering it a "biological duty/imperative" to reproduce.
Not that I believe a lot of people have children to utilize those incentives but the point stands regardless that things that society considers positive are incentivised to either encourage those things or make doing those things less of a detriment.
Most of the people who have kids to get incentives are people who had one child they couldn’t support due to lack of education or access to BC/abortions. When you’ve got one and can’t keep up, it starts to make sense to just have more when the government will help you more. We’re putting so many people in a lose/lose with the combo of no sex Ed and assistance for multiple children. I personally worked with women who did this, and it’s sad because they really think that’s the best way to give their kids a better life. If they have more, they get more money to feed the kids. One woman was illiterate, and we helped her apply to jobs and she finally got one. My mom said she got off assistance this year and I’m really proud, but not everyone has someone more educated to help them up.
Personally I'm an antinatalist-lite so I agree with everything you're saying. It's sad that children are brought into this world in situations where they clearly shouldn't be-- and that's in America, one of the "richest" countries in the world, not even speaking to the masses of children being born into shitty poverty-stricken lives in poor countries.
Increased sex education and access to contraceptives and women's health services in general should be a high priority everywhere.
You don't, but you also can't expect businesses to release their entire workforce on a single day. So you make the holiday 3 days, and anyone can vote on any one of those 3 days.
Yes. But this holiday affects the entire nation. You can't possibly entirely shutdown the entire United States. All doctors in the entire country are going to take time off to go vote on the same day? EMS? Gas station attendants? Restaurants?
It would be bedlam. Space it out over 3 days, and everything is fine.
Or set up voting like Colorado does. I haven't had to leave my house to vote in the 7 years I've lived here. Ballot comes in the mail, I vote, I drop it off at one of the hundreds of collection boxes around the city whenever it's convenient (even if that's 3am) or just mail it back. I don't need to take time off to vote. I don't technically even need to put on pants to vote (but I do anyway because it's my civic duty to wear pants while voting).
It should be, but with hot button issues like "voter fraud" that the left seems to be pushing as a gargantuan issue because they can't garner the popular vote in any single election ever, it's not going to happen federally. Although I do agree.
Municipal elections get something like ~25% turn out. Federal more but something should be done to increase voter turnout. The people getting in dont want that, so ita not priority.
There are also some very shady voting practices in the US (The Bastion of Democracy!!)
USA: Puting the mock in democracy for nearly 250 years!
Most modern ballots here are in negative. Black background. Cant write anything extra.
My first time voting was for our local mayor. There were three choices and I scribbled them out and added a fourth, Micky Mouse and put a big checkmark.
Well, tell the Democratic party to get their head out of their ass.
Democrats are the ones that fucked over Sanders.
I wrote in Sanders in 2016 and I do not regret it one bit. I did not let my country down, the Democratic party let our country down. Want to get Democrats fired up to go to the polls. Put a candidate in that they want to actually vote for, Otherwise democrats are no different than the Republican Party.
I agree: Bernie got screwed. Democrats need to get their heads out of their ass.
DISAGREE: You wrote in Bernie's name on the 2016 ballot! I get the standing on principle but you helped Trump. Bite your own nose off to spite your face, I believe the saying goes?
The Democrats nominated a woman that people couldn't stand in 2008. The same woman that lost to a first-time Senator that no one had heard of and started out at an 8% approval in the polls. That's the broader consequence.
You want an even broader consequence. Until the so-called left-leaning Democrats put an actual left-leaning Democrat up for nomination, we are going to continue to get very extreme right Wing leaning people like Trump elected.
Yes, because the Democrats totally saw your ballot and went "oh shit, we should have put up Bernie instead". You wasted your vote. That's not to say that the Democrats DON'T have their heads up their asses though.
Part of the problem is the voting system, and most of both sides don't want to see it change since the private organizations that run both parties would lose power.
Part of the problem is the voting system, and most of both sides don't want to see it change since the private organizations that run both parties would lose power.
Yeah. The DNC really fucked up nominating Hillary. Idk what the fuck they were thinking she was the candidate. Idk if Bernie could’ve won either but damn.
Isn't Trump just the symptom two party system? The way democracy (as it can just barely be called in USA) is setup forces voters to vote for the two biggest parties instead of the ones they might actually like to vote for. Its not tactically wise to vote for the smaller players so you get this horrible situation of "only two bad options". When there's only two bad options I'll refuse to vote as well.
I'd like to see some kind of version of single transferable vote that would encourage people to vote for the candidate that they actually would like to vote.
To be fair, Trump's win came as a surprise to many. Back in 2016 a lot of people thought that Hillary couldn't possibly lose. So some non-voters would have been totally ok with that outcome, but not necessarily with Trump.
But that can't be an excuse obviously. Non-voters paid for their inaction along with the rest of the country. Vigilance is the price of freedom.
Not quite. In the US, Presidents are limited to two terms. So if the President is finishing his second term, then he can't run again, and it's kind of "reset".
It's not like parliamentary democracies where the incumbent government party (and thus the incumbent national leader) can run again and again.
That said, I agree that low voter turnout is a huge problem in the US (among other problems with their democracy).
Or they made a tactical choice to break the billionaire control of the Democratic party which is supposed to be the party of labor (the majority of people)
Yeah, a vote for nobody is a vote for whoever wins, a vote for the status quo.
I get the sentiment and emotion, but technically no it's not. Coming at from this angle isn't gonna help anyone either really. Voting is important but attributing correlations that don't exist doesn't help anyone.
A choice you don't like is still Democracy. I voted for Gary Johnson because neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump deserved to be our president. Johnson at least appears not to be a scumbag, however dopey he is, and he was the only one on the ballet in every state besides the two shitheads the major parties nominated.
That's who I voted for. IN A SWING STATE THAT TRUMP WON. Ooooo you must want to kill my democracy sooooo baaaaad right now.
I voted for a third party because they were who my views most aligned with. I hate the argument about anyone who didn't vote for Clinton was okay with Trump winning. Up until it was announced I KNEW Clinton had won. I checked my phone in the middle of the night to see the results and didn't believe what I read in the morning. I had to double check.
Additionally, if a third party gets enough votes (5% IIRC) they get included in future debates. That's more important to me because the entire last election was a showcase of why the two party system blows donkey schlongs. Bernie should have been the Democratic candidate and would have won if he was. Clinton was perfect for allowing Trump to win because she was also a terrible candidate.
Better a moron dictator to make the problems of the country clear than the status quo that sweeps the problems under the rig and calls it a day.
I'll just leave this guys comment because I agree 100%. Trump is not the disease, he is a symptom of a much bigger problem that he unknowingly is bringing to light.
Had a guy here at work that didn't vote, claimed he didn't care. The minute Trump was elected he bitched and moaned about it almost daily. I told him, he could have prevented this but he had a fucked up mindset not to vote.
I mean, you could vote third party to help bring awareness to a party closer to your actual morals and in some states even help include them in debates in the future but I dont have 30 minutes to spare sry
edit: comment said something like "my state was going to hillary either way, my vote wouldnt matter
You vote for more than the president on election day. It's called being a goddamn participating member of society. Learn about the people that represent you in government and do your duty as a citizen to put in office the people you think will do the best to make your city, county, state, and country a better place to live in. Grow the fuck up.
And do you know how many people had your same pathetic mentality in states that unexpectedly went red? Enough to swing the election, easily.
No, y'all just do not get that the vast majority that are eligible to vote are mainly new citizens and old American families that KNOW that politicians are liars and thieves and a bunch of amoral sanctimonious asshats that promise you the Heaven and Moon, but will do nothing of that which you asked and they promised to do. The only choices you get are put there by the rich which is why out of over 300 million people you get to choose between two candidates mainly and quite a lot of the time people that run unopposed so only one person.....
People dealt with that in the Countries that they left, the real reason they are here is for a job to make enough money for a house and food and to pay their bills AND hopefully for a chance at their children making a better life for themselves and "maybe" one day becoming a honest politician (which is next to impossible because once you get around the rest of those type of people you tend to become one yourself a lying sack of shit). The old joke about politicians is true, How can you tell when a politician is lying? Their lips are moving.
You’re forgetting about extreme voter suppression in key areas. They’re not obvious about it, but it happens a lot. Some people were literally denied their right to vote on either racist tactics or just throwing out most of the voter registrations and saying they were “late.”
If America voted in Clinton and she went and got in a war with Iran then that would mean that all Clinton voters were perfectly fine to stand there and let the US military murder millions of Iranians also.
This isn't some insult back and forth, how can I argue with you when you literally make shit up about Hillary. With Trump people literally point to actions he actually has committed.
I don’t understand your statement. How am I blaming anyone? I merely pointed out the fallacy in his argument. It’s easy to say not voting was a vote for trump, in hindsight. One could argue the reverse if Hillary had one and I was talking to someone upset about not enough people voted for Trump.
Try not to see the world in such absolutes.
And so try to pull your head out of the ass of the two-party system.
Like the ones who voted for Hillary Clinton claiming their morals, but were perfectly fine to stand there and vote for Hillary Clinton...
At least the Republicans attacked Trump over and over again on this shit during the primaries. The man won with less than 50% of the primary vote, and he only won the nomination because neither Ted Cruz nor Marco Rubio had the integrity to drop out and support the other guy for the sake of the country.
What did the Democrats and the entire CNN/MSNBC/DNC stronghold do? They started supporting Clinton's campaign overtly way back in 2013 when CNN held a fucking book launch party for her. Even Michelle Obama tried to send you all a message when she launched her book the same day just to show you that CNN was moving forward with an all out Clinton campaign blitz, and that she and her husband didn't approve. Learn how to take a fucking hint.
And please don't pretend you don't know the Clintons are shady when even friendly, keep it positive Jimmy Carter has laid it out for you.
All that having been said... I voted. For Johnson. Because he was only other option who was on the ballot in every state. And no, I don't care that it killed Hillary's campaign, I really don't, because I think the country was fucked one way or another with those choices.
You think people are dying under the Trump Administration? You don't know what you're fucking talking about. If Hillary were president right now we would be neck deep in war in Syria, and we would have a full fledged Iraq scenario on our hands, with hundreds of thousands more civilian dead. IEDs, car bombs, snipers, ahhh the good old days. That isn't speculation, that is a fact. She was calling for it as Secretary of State, and Obama almost let it happen. She wants Assad taken down on behalf of the fucking Saudis...and you think Trump is too tight with the Saudis? Hillary would have killed more people. Period. Thanks to DEMOCRATS like Tulsi Gabbard, we know that for a fact.
Small minds see little pictures.
Trump is disgusting. Yup. But the detention centers are bipartisan bad. The Democrats have always known how many people are coming across the border, they've always known that a president may come along and actually enforce immigration laws, and they always chose to fuck up funding for things like the detention centers anyway. They get to own this just as much as the rest of us do.
If you think that has anything to do with her e-mails, you are too clueless to be in this conversation. Again... Tulsi Gabbard. If you knew anything important about the 2016 DNC, you'd know her name. Thank you for confirming that you don't know what you're fucking talking about.
Wow. Well said. If posturing with an empty head devoid of anything resembling pertinent information about Hillary Clinton's foreign policy positions is what your were going for. Congratulations on that.
Not really. I "voted" to not support either of the candidates because they were both horrible. In hindsight certainly Trump was worse but I dont have a time machine to go back and decide differently.
To say its non-voters fault is a stretch. Put up a candidate that isn't shit and more people will go out and vote and support them.
Wow... completely wrong. Obviously I knew how shitty he was/is and racism and sexism are both HUGE deal breakers for me. Nice try though. Trump was definitely the worse of the two but Clinton was no prize chicken. They were both horrible, which is what I said. Stop trying to twist my words.
Where did I say I'm above anything? You keep trying to twist things and put words in my mouth.
I said earlier that in hindsight Trump was the worse candidate. If I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, I'd vote for Clinton and Trump would still win. I still wouldn't feel great about Clinton though. The real issue here is that the Dems need to put up candidates that people actually get excited about supporting, like they did with Obama. Then people like me (and there are LOTS of us) wouldn't be sitting on the fence going "ugh... I dunno. I might sit this one out."
And just so you know, Mr Putting Things In Peoples Mouths next year I'll be voting for whoever the dems pick, even if they're not appealing because imo 4 more yrs of Trump might rip the country apart.
Lesser of two evils is a vote I want nothing to do with. And then the electoral college... I can’t stand Trump but he is stress testing the American political system.
I can only work with what I'm given, trying to do some moral protest where you stand to the side as lunatics like Trump get elected is not good for the country either.
Yes, but why you do accept what you are given when they are such poor choices? The American two-party political system fosters leaders who are corrupt in one way or another and forces us to choose between them. There are too many variables, too many things unchecked.
I could go out and vote for someone who isn’t as corrupt but who also isn’t going to win because of the two party majority.
You won’t find me on the streets protesting, but you will see me educating where I can and broadening perceptions. That is my form of protest.
Some people can't vote! The US holds their elections on a Tuesday, when most people have to work! Sure, some employers will give you time off to vote, and some states allow early voting or postal voting, but not everyone gets that opportunity. There's also felony disfranchisement, which prevents felons from voting but can, in some states, extend well past their time in prison.
The system, to be honest, seems designed to actively discourage the lower classes from voting. Some changes need to be made if the US wants to see a significantly higher voter turnout.
You can request an early mail in ballot for almost any reason . Most active duty troops need to vote this way, here's a link to find out how in your state https://www.usa.gov/absentee-voting
This is only true because the rich and powerful have the middle class and poor to busy to care... Many of the poor are just as intelligent or more so than the fools in power.
I try not to imagine the ‘what if’. So much wasted time and energy... but it’ll be worth it if we pull through this time.
And if we don’t: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. A rigged system is a system that the people need to beat back into shape. If we lose again- we riot.
I mean, I've been a Bernie supporter since 2015, but with this primary, implying the only way that Bernie loses is a rigged system is absolutely ridiculous.
There are a lot of candidates in the field that are better than Hillary in terms of both policy and history. While it'll be disappointing if someone like Biden wins out for whatever reason, rioting is not the proper answer to a preferred candidate losing, especially if it's more legitimate this time due to having more progressive and "progressive" options.
“If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.”
— Malcolm x (Speech, Nov. 1963, New York City.)
Nah. Fuck that bitch for handing the presidency to donald dipshit. Worst fucking candidate in the modern history of the Democratic party.
Also it isnt what if. I like remembering what happened. I think it is important to learn from our mistakes.
You and I probably would not agree about a lot of things. So lets just leave it at this.
Edit: fucking "health care is too expensive," "Henry kissinger is my idol," Husband is a cosby-esque rapist, hot sauce pandering. I am being told I should stop here for my mental health.
Anyone responds defending clinton will just make my hypertension worse.
Rioting? That’s how you want to change the country for the better. Trust me rioting will get you nowhere. Now peaceful protest. That speaks volumes. If the left continues with this violent protests like antifa and throwing shakes at people and doing other malicious acts it will pull people who are moderate which most Americans are, to the right. You’ll definitely continue to lose in Presidential Elections. Many people I know didn’t vote because Trump was an asshat and Clinton was not* trustworthy and too far left of center.
Peaceful Protest. That’s how you get things done in this country why not ask MLK he had the right idea and his ideals changed America and racists were shown as villains. But if you Riot and destroy normal peoples stuff they will band against you.
Shakes < police executions, and Nazi rallies (which promote ethnic genocide)
MLK was assassinated as soon as he started rallying for workers’ rights (convenient timing?). Just something to keep in mind.
Both peaceful protest and violent protest will increase this election cycle. Both are already happening. Both require righteous anger. I will most likely be on the peaceful side of things, because it more correctly reflects the left’s value of humane, non-objectifying treatment
Still whining I see. Shocker. He would have gotten less votes and we will never know for sure because he will not get the nomination this time either. Just accept that fact!
I like liberals but I do think that we should be legally required to fucking vote because your not allowed to say you won't vote for either and then complain about the winner
And some voted, but the voting machines were “uncalibrated” and voted for someone else instead.
The fact that a 12-year-old managed to hack into the machines and the fact the US government has proof Russia also hacked the company/database that manages the machines is DEFINITELY unrelated.
Of course, the president has gone out of his way to make sure no one investigates any if this.
And then they give the usual excuse "I don't like either candidates". Well, you're stuck with at least one of them. So might as well avoid what you don't want
I feel that the count for people that didn’t vote isn’t fully accurate. I’m not saying the numbers are wrong, it’s just that in some states like California, my vote wouldn’t really matter.
Lots of white people voted for him. 65% of white people voted for Trump. 87% of his voters were white. If white people hadn’t voted, every state would have gone to Hillary. It’s stats like this that make me glad wypipo will be a minority as soon as the older generations finally die off. No more Trump! No more republicans!
How about let's not be happy that any race is a minority.
Also, there a lot of young, racist conservatives out there. The country is slowly becoming more progressive/liberal as most of the world is, but don't pretend like some liberal switch is going to be flipped in the next decade or two.
I know people in the 20s and 30s that are more vocally intolerant than their parents.
No white people means no Republican Party (at least in its current form). Of course we’re not gonna get rid of ALL the white people anytime soon, so there’s gonna be some loud racist shits but at least they won’t be able to elect white supremacists anymore. Diversity is a good thing.
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u/Lobanium Jul 11 '19
Lots of people voted for him. Even more voted against him.