The election
 

After thinking about it for a long time, I have come to the conclusion that Tob is right about the voters, and Syc is right to encourage everyone to vote. (See the thread in Syc's area for where this is coming from)

Y'know everyone is saying that the Ds just didn't formulate and communicate a strong message this year, and damn if on Wednesday morning that seems so cryingly obvious. Of course - the Ds didn't give people any reason to vote FOR them.

That's why people CAN be influenced by someone being nice to them at the polling place, because they really have nothing specific to vote FOR. I can't tell the difference between Smith and Jones. You're for Smith and you're nice. OK, I'm for Smith.

This year, the number and urgency of the political ads got to the point for me where they were all just a big muss. Every negative ad has a problem: it has to deliver name recognition for two names instead of one, and has to deliver a particularly complex message for 30 second advertising. During commercial breaks, at the end, you might see three such ads; that's six names, three complex messages.

The head spins enough when the messages are "Mazda cars go zoomzoom" and "Verizon wireless you can hear me now good". When it's "Mayor Quimby is a fraud so vote for Chief Wiggum", the brain has a lot more to process. Especially if Quimby and Wiggum are pols I didn't remember before.

It doesn't help that my TV market covers three states and numerous municipalities. Ow.

So nobody got much message through, IMO. So to bring it back to Tob and Syc's points --

If people can be influenced at the polls by a random act of kindness, then they aren't really voting that hard to begin with. If you think you could lose your house, or your job, that act isn't going to get your vote.

If people aren't voting hard, that means they're pretty content. Which is the *real* reason why people don't vote as much. If you need help getting benefits, that's meaningful to your life, and Tob's act of kindness doesn't influence Syc or Rho to change their vote. We're lucky that fewer people these days have issues that are so meaningful.

The Greens and Libertarians have issues that they feel are extremely important - life-n-death issues, to their "base", because they have drank the kool-ade and are True Believers. But if they can't convince the masses that their issues truly are life-n-death, they do not deserve or receive electoral success.

And all they have to do is to convince people hard enough that a friendly umbrella won't sway their vote.

THere was a very interesting article yesterday on teh popularity of GWB by the Guardian published in the Age yesterday. Can't find it but i found this one by Salman Rushdie, one of my fav authors supporting a war on Iraq. The interesting bit i found is about the way he simplifys concepts and connects them with images to get a point across rather than abstract points, making it easier for everyone to understand. I'm still with plato though, our democracy is a joke and a flawed system of government at best. The people are not equipped to rule.

OK, now you're making some points I can agree with Tony. :)

That's largely what happened in the presidential election. Neither Gore nor Bush gave the swing voters a compelling reason to vote for them, or not to vote for the other guy.

I would say that it'd be interesting to see how the McCain-Feingold soft money ban will change things, except it'll be struck down as unconstitutional, so it's a moot point anyway.

I grew up in a town that pretty much straddled the line of Montana and North Dakota. WE lived on the Montana side but we hardly ever got any Television ads from Montana politians, but we always knew what the North Dakota Politions were saying. That said the only way we could get information on the Montanan races was through print. and usualyThis was an interesting experience though I wish I could have actually been able to vote in this period, the only time I was able to vote during and election, until this one was during the 2000 elections and we were snowed in. grrrr

I agree with you. But what can we do to encourage voter participation, especially in municipalities like Ut described? I've seen calls for everything from changes in the voting system (like preferential and ranking systems, where voters get to rank each candidate) to changes in the whole governmental system (like changing to a parliamentary system like the rest of the world).

Does anyone have any ideas on this? I really have no clue. I don't even know if any of those changes are plausible, or if they would make any difference if they were.

Offer a free meal if you vote. Say a hot dog, coke, and bag of chips. That would bring in the masses. :)

Penalize people for not voting. Raise taxes for unregistered voters who meet the requirements to vote. Give all registered voters a $500 not-voting fee, refundable upon receipt of their (completed) ballot.

I can suspect more people would go to the polls, if only to vote against it.

--Sk

If I'm not mistaken, it is mandatory for everyone over 18 to vote in the Netherlands.

Democratic Countries with mandatory voting statutes:

Belgium
Greece
Italy (not enforced)
Luxembourg
Switzerland (a few cantons only, not nationally)
Brazil
Ecuador
Costa Rica
Venezuela
Argentina
Mexico
Australia

Australia has had compulsory voting since 1915 in the state of Queensland and since 1924 in federal elections. By 1942 it applied to all lower house elections, federal and state.

Although Italy officially has a statute that declares voting to be compulsory, it does not enforce compulsory voting, in fact, many Italians do not even consider voting to be mandatory, and do not fear sanctions if they do not vote. I know of no recent examples of any Italian being penalized for not voting. But the statutory threat remains.

States that enforce mandatory voting usually levy fines, some impose public ridicule or withhold political handouts or deny licenses that restrict the exercise of certain rights. In Brazil, non-voters may not work for the state, receive public funds or resources, work as a state contractor or obtain licenses, permits or a passports.

Edit note:

Other well established democratic nations-The Netherlands in 1970 and Austria more recently-repealed such legal requirements after they had been in force for decades.

I am mistaken. :)

Including yourself? Or just the hoi polloi?

He's really just echoing Thomas Jefferson here. Of course, he's also miming Lenin and a variety of political movements throughout history.

I don't really like the idea of compulsory voting. Not voting is as much of a form of protest as voting. I live in California, where our major ticket was the governor's seat, and both parties gave us crappy candidates. People should not be required to vote in situations like that - or ever, really. Fitting the polling place into a busy schedule can be rather difficult.

I like the food idea though. :)

I <b>beg</b> your pardon?

You mean the Jefferson who said:
" I have great confidence in the common sense of mankind in general."? And "My most earnest wish is to see the republican element of popular control pushed to the maximum of its practicable exercise. I shall then believe that our government may be pure and perpetual."? How about "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."? Not to mention "Men... are naturally divided into two parties. Those who fear and distrust the people... [and] Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe... depository of the public interest.".

Were you perhaps thinking of Hamilton? He wrote quite a bit that resonates with "the people are not equipped to rule". But surely not Jefferson.

NOTA
 

What do folks here think of the None of the Above option? If NOTA wins, all candidates on the ballot are out of the race. The partys draft new candidates and a new election is held. Repeat process until someone is nominated that the voters actually like. Waste of money?

I hate the idea of mandatory voting, smells like Cuba.

A ranking system would give feedback to the major parties. The Democrats are starting their fight over what went wrong, if a ranking system were in place they might find that a peace, libertarian, or green candidate may have had more appeal to their base.

Re: NOTA
 

Ye gods, it's a big enough PITA to have *one* election. Certainly I'd support electoral reform that loosened the two-party chokehold imposed by our current plurallity ballot. There are a number of voting systems that try to address this.

BAH! Voting should be voluntary, but it should be a priority. Voting is a form of action. (Griff will say force!) Not voting can hardly be justified as protest: that inaction is meaningless and a non comment. Sounds like cynical, justified lazy to me- or perhaps it truly is that no issues are alarming enough to merit your attention. If you cant find a candidate, write one in or write your disgust on the ballot- thats a protest action. Better yet, get involved in primaries and use your vote to protest before as candidates are selected. Of course it takes some effort.

As for fitting voting into your schedule...I'd like to see a national day off, and service workers should be scheduled and allowed time off for voting duty just as in the case of jury duty. Most every work place I've been associated with, public and private, (in PA, TX, and MN) has allowed and promoted time to vote.

I realize it justifies laziness, but until there's a box marked 'abstain,' I can't support compulsion in voting. The only way to abstain is to just not go.

And, yeah, I agree that it should be a priority. I think, however, that the whole system of polling places needs to be changed. (Look at this diary of an election worker for an example of the system.) If I'd been met with a 3 hour wait, frankly, I would have left. I don't have an extra 3 hours in my day for anything, and I think most Americans have too hectic of a schedule for it. So I don't know what would be better, but something needs to be done to upgrade the system.

I vote for a day off!

I'll give up Martin Luther King Jr Day off to get Election Day off. I think he'd approve. I never thought MLK Jr would approve of a day of sloth to honor him but he WOULD approve of a day for blacks (and everyone else) to go exercise their right to vote for which he struggled so hard.

Brian

And appropos of the "trust/don't trust the people" subthread (about which our resident Young Turks have been strangely silent since I pointed out the difference between Hamilton and Jefferson), what should wander into my in-box from that cute guy Krikket (the tall one with the long hair) who appeared with us on the news last night...

"Cheerful Libertarianism"

"Instead of railing how stupid our fellow citizens have been, Cheerful Libertarianism congratulates them on how far they managed to come using such gross and inefficient tools! During a century when communists and fascists and religious fanatics waved vicious-hypnotic ideological romanticisms around, Americans chose instead to follow Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. Hey, they were statists, but we got the roads and dams and universities, managed to end Jim Crow and got cleaner air... all without crushing entrepeneurialism to death."

http://www.techcentralstation.com/10...D=1051-102802A