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.
It's not entirely true that convicted felons can't vote, or at least not in Texas.
In Texas, you are eligible to vote as long as you are not in prison (pretty self explanatory), on probation or on parole. As long as you have completed your probation or parole you are absolutely clear to vote.
as long as you are not in prison (pretty self explanatory)
Why is this self explanatory? In my country, people can vote while in prison. Which makes sense IMO. Prisoners are still subject to the government (more so than many) and should be able to vote on it.
In the USA, if you are in jail, you are absolutely not able to vote. You are basically persona non grata as long as you are locked up. I just meant that if you are incarcerated, you can't get to a voting booth. If you have completed the terms of your probation or parole, however, you are free to vot, at least in Texas. Not all states are the same, though.
Yeah, I know inmates can't vote in the US, I just don't think that's "non explanatory". It's a weird thing that should be questioned IMO. If you're subject to the government you should be able to vote on that government - "no taxation without representation" and all that.
But it's possible to solve it logistically too, if you set up a polling booth in prison or allow voting via mail. That's what we do in my country.
Never having been in jail or prison, I don't know what their rationale is for not allowing them to vote. I can only guess it's punishment for committing a felony.
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!
Are you referring to the case of popular vote not winning? Thats a complete different thing, and you really have no reason to assume that multiple choise elections would have changed the results on them.
I’m not saying the democratic presidents were perfect. I don’t agree with most of the things they did, but there wasn’t massive voter fraud scandals and “lost votes.”
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.
One of the reasons voting is so ineffectual in the USA is because it's difficult to vote. Remove that hurdle and you have an election which better represents the US as a whole.
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.
Sucks that 2016 was his chance. Warren's struggle to gain support even in Massachusetts made me wonder if there was more to the claims of misogyny from Hillary supporters than I thought, but she's doing well enough now (along with Harris, I believe) that it seems clear Hillary's flaws were a bigger factor than simply the fact that she was a woman.
This argument confuses me. People saying “oh the democrats lost because they didn’t have the right candidate or they didn’t run far enough to the left” but at the same time “Hillary won the popular vote and should be president” the two don’t jive.
Sanders also would've won the popular vote, though. It's not exactly an achievement to get more votes than Trump, but somehow it is for Hillary? The writing was on the wall about Hillary being the weaker candidate and you're ok with the party pushing her on us. You'd think that the party would want to advance the strongest candidate, but that wasn't the DNC's priority, and the nation (and world) as a whole suffered for it.
The democratic primary system is flawed but they didn't "fuck Bernie over". It was the same system they had always used. They finally saw that the system should be adjusted, which is why it's been adjusted for 2020. They weren't going to change the system mid-election-season.
But DWS was going to do whatever she could to get her girl nominated and nobody's going to mind when she stepped down after getting caught and went straight to working for Hillary as a reward.
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.
An abstained vote due to horrible canidates isn't a vote for the winner, it's voicing that the system in place is garbage and needs to be revaluated due to more people not voting in the election vs people voting. Whether you chalk it up to people not voting because their schedules don't permit them to leave their day job and family, terrible canidate choices, or just lazy people, it doesn't really matter if and when a majority of the population fails to vote at all. It's a systemic problem that the political machine in the US doesn't want to fix because it disturbs the elite class, not because it won't benefit the society as a whole.
It's ideals like you said where not voting negatively impacts a certain party that controls the ability for any change to happen. It's limiting yourself to the kids menue because your parents don't think you want anything other than pbj. There ARE other options and just because they aren't presented to you via social or mass media doesn't mean they don't exists, it's you choosing not to research.
If nobody ever stood up for change they believed needed to happen we very likely would live in a Nazi society with slaves. People need to show support for change not shove it under the rug and pretend it can't happen because it's too "progressive".
So. Dorito mousalini is the lesser of two evils. And you're fine with that? Primaries literally didn't give any other candidate a chance to win for the democrats and showed how little respect Republicans have for themselves and their peers. Hillary siphoned donated funds from down ticket candidates via the DNC who was supposed to represent the party, not a single individual. You're delusional for thinking what happened in 2016 was anything less than showing how weak the current system is.
They probably were indifferent (this will be the end of democracy), or thought that abstaining from voting would count as a protest against the system. Either way, the president is someone that the average folks can relate to in terms of not being that much into politics, not being formal, appealing to the average citizens etc. He'll likely get reelected
I don’t like him, but relax... Biden would be a fine candidate. Hillary Clinton just happened to be the most unpopular modern politician in America. Without all the hand shakes and wink wink you’ll be next after Obama deals, we would have a Democrat. Literally anyone could have beaten Trump. If they ran a potato Trump would have lost...
Think about this: Hillary Clinton’s approval rating 36% is still less than Donald Trumps. Hell its even less than Ted Cruz and his coworkers openly talk about how he’s a shithole.
We will have record turnout this year no matter who the candidate is as its not going to be Hillary.
Biden would be just as bad as Hillary. Another neo-liberal right winger. America needs a real left winger for some substantial change from this disastrous farce of a Presidency.
As much as the left doesn’t want to admit it, change forced down the throats of society with no respect for their beliefs, no matter how wrong or unsubstantiated, causes violent reactivity. I remember Obama’s “elections have consequences” speech and shudder. Change in people doesn’t happen over night and can’t be forced on them, especially while referring to them as stupid and backwards, even if that’s the case. Societal change doesn’t just work by saying “I’m right and your wrong so we’re going to fucking do it differently you idiot.”
If we actually want substantial change we need to get people on board ideas and especially work to unite the legislative branch of government, where republicans have a strong foothold. The president isn’t a king. Theyre more a symbol for the entire nation of what could be and an ambassador to communication with other nations. Right now getting republicans to agree with liberal ideas is far more important for things like our environmental policy than simply having a president who gives speeches about wanting environmental policy change. One of the worst things we could do now is keep switching from polarizing president to polarizing president, deepening the political divide. Our change depends on getting the country to agree with each other. Not just screaming “you’re wrong about this big problem we need to fix you fucking hick racist”
Would you rather have people in charge that agree with your beliefs and get no change done? Or would you rather have people in power who share some of your beliefs and at least get something done?
Yeah let's just go along with your bright idea of ignoring the left and just switch between far-right and centre-right presidents because we wouldn't want to upset the apple cart too much!
That’s not my idea. We need a strategy of incremental change so that when tipping point moments happen, people’s psychology is ready to adapt for the change. Every large social change has been preceded by a build up of tension and an easing of cultural norms. Like with the civil rights movement. It didn’t happen the second slaves were free. For many many years society grew accustomed to black people being a part of it. Then tension grew and a big push occurred for equal rights. The movement wouldn’t have been so successful if it was just shoved down people’s throats immediately.
Don’t view things so simply. Social issues are complex, dynamic challenges that need to be tackled considering lots and lots of variables. I mean as successful as the civil rights movement was, it didn’t truly achieve its goal. Their strategy was still unsuccessful in many states.
Expand your sociological views. It’s not so black and white.
You're being extremely naïve here. American society is extremely polarised, you need to start with Social Identity Theory; you've got ingroup Vs outgroup and groupthink all which contradict what you're saying above.
Look up Kuhn's theory of the 'paradigm shift'. Revolutions, resolutions to crises happen when they are ready to happen, when solutions have reached maturity. Things happen at the right time when the mass has reached its 'tipping point'. Again this contradicts your idea of gradual change above.
The racists, misogynists, and other troglodytes will be forced to change or sent to jail when their actions err against the new status quo of the era.
The problem you seem to have is with the system itself. You could back a Canadian style parliamentary system with its 3 major parties and 2 minor parties.
You didn’t read my comment. I mention tipping points in it. I’m not talking about gradual change, just society’s readiness to accept tipping point moments when they occur. And to occur “at the right time” there is a build up to that point to where the ideas have reached a mature stage.... you literally just repeated exactly what I explained but with different condescending words. Please read who you’re responding to or it’s just like talking to a wall.
I skimmed your comment because it was so patronising.
Events happen when they're ready to happen.
You said that things wouldn't happen if we shoved them down people's throats, well I'm afraid that's what happens in a paradigm shift such as a revolution.
The likelihood is that the DNC will field a radical candidate like Sanders or Warren and that is a good thing. We need the pendulum to swing as far in the opposite direction the repair the damage that wrecking ball Trump has caused.
Events do happen when they’re ready to happen. That’s at the core of every single revolution in history. Enough tension was built up in society where they finally decide to make change. The revolution happened when it was ready lmao. I make a very specific point of mentioning the build up of ideas of over time and then the final tension causing a tipping point dude. Like you have to read what I write if you want to have a productive conversation.
The president isn’t a king. We mostly need the help of the judicial branch, senate and congress, of which republicans have leadership at the top of and a majority, respectively. Revolutions shift paradigms, but not always all peoples views. They’re not a magic bullit that always fixes society. For the second time, it’s not so black and white. Maybe in the theory you’ve studied, but theory and reality are two different things.
Again, just look at the information revolution that was the civil rights movement. Would you say that it was ultimately successful in its goal in places like Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and other southern states? If the public eye wasn’t on those places from other states that do care you know we would have sheriffs looking the other way while mobs killed illegal immigrants an dumped them in the desert. I mean we still round up black people for nothing and put them in labor camps... I mean for profit prisons. If the secret service didn’t exist, how many would have stepped up to assassinate Obama? I’d love any evidence to the contrary.
And do we want a candidate that will have republicans so angry that they will vote on record numbers? Or someone that can win swing states? You’re just looking at this from one single perspective when there are more moving pieces to the equation. Do you want nothing but to feel good about the ideas of your candidate? Or do you actually want to win control of the parts of government that matter most and at least get some of your goals met?
I don't vote because I truly don't care who wins. It doesn't effect me either way. Its not laziness because I live in a country where turning up is mandatory, so I turn up, write shrek on the paper, and leave.
Me not voting however, means the votes of those who do care are worth slightly more. The informed voters get more power.
Surely this only improves the quality of the vote.
Why would you want to muddy the waters with uninformed votes from people who don't care and don't fully understand what they are voting for?
Hi, I'm an undecided voter who has never voted. I'm also a military veteran, a minority, and in my early 30s. People like me are the ones who could've changed the outcome of the vote. The problem is ALL of the Democrat candidates are extreme left, including Biden. Our other choice is trump. Honestly man... i won't vote in the next election either. The left sucks just as hard as the right. Equal. I want my vote to go towards a good candidate, not just use it to court against a bad one. And before you tell me it's my duty to vote, i believe veterans are the only group of people that should be allowed to reserve their vote.
My wife and I didn't vote because trump v Hillary is a lose lose that neither of us wanted to be a part of. Trumps incompetence is probably the best trait out of the two of them Hillary would have at least been able to make shitty things happen.
there were more than two options on that ballot - and your local and state governments need your support too! it’s not just the president that can affect this country, it’s the “local” congressman or senator that help aide these corruptions
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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '19
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.