5 ms·

How to solve voter turnout? free donuts?

crooked-v 9y ago
Mandatory voting, with real but minor punishments for not filing a ballot (but no requirement to actually vote for a candidate, to allow for cases where none of the above appeal). Of course, this will never happen with the current political structure of the US, as the Republican Party works to aggressively reduce total voter turnout everywhere it can.
- TallGuyShort 9y ago
  How would you implement mandatory voting without doing what Republicans want to do to verify right-to-vote in the first place? Requirements to vote have been associated with racism in the past, sure, and the ideas are often stupid and pointless, but talking to foreigners, myself included, the opposition to having to show ID to vote seems stupid too.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Voter ID, but getting a Voter ID is free, and every district has to have the same opening hours and the same number of voter ID registration places per 1000 citizen. The issue is that certain actors in the US want to make voter ID mandatory, only registration places in the rich districts, and ensure the poor can never get one via cost/availability, etc. In other countries, where this disenfranchisement never happened, say, Germany, mandatory ID for every human are laws few object to.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    If the law also made IDs free then I’d be ok with it. Pay to vote seems like a horrible system. And “free if you spend hours on the phone and mailing forms back and forth to prove you’re poor” doesn’t count. I would also need funding for sending out educational advertising in areas where there are high numbers of eligible voters without valid ID. I don’t see Republicans making a good faith effort here though.
  - crooked-v 9y ago
    Use existing voter registrations.
- ryanlol 9y ago
  >Mandatory voting, with real but minor punishments for not filing a ballot Exactly what they did in Catalonia. If you don't vote then your voice will not be heard.
- ericd 9y ago
  If they make voting day a national holiday, and they make the ID free and easy to get, then maybe. I believe it's mandatory in Australia, would be interesting to learn how they've felt about it.
TallGuyShort 9y ago
Haven't looked at the problem much, but I suspect it's a feeling of futility. If the problem in Spain is half the possible votes are illegal, I'd probably feel like whatever's going to happen through diplomatic channels is going to happen because that doesn't feel like a real election. In the US, most people live in either a red state or blue state and it'd take a heck of an upset to change that - and no one feels like a heck of an upset is coming. There are swing states where a tiny difference makes a huge difference nationally - and I suspect turnout is better in those states. But I haven't looked at it much - I could be wrong, and that would blow my theories to hell.
throwawayjava 9y ago
I think your idea is much better than everything else's, sadly. Yes, some form of tax return bonus would probably be the most effective mechanism.
HelloNurse 9y ago
Rajoy solved the problem of high voter turnout by having the federal police assault voters. Not exactly democratic.
Godel_unicode 9y ago
Make individuals feel their votes matter. Tricky, because obvious math says they don't.
taejo 9y ago
Make elections legitimate and meaningful. Turnout is low in Catalan independence referenda and US elections for different reasons. The former are viewed by opponents of independence as illegitimate: they are not approved by the central government and voting in them gives them the appearance of legitimacy. They're political tactic by the independence movement, and its opponents won't participate. The Spanish government could solve this by allowing an election, pledging to take the result seriously, and thereby answer the question for at least a generation. A significant factor in low turnout in US elections can be explained by the non-competitiveness of elections (correlation coefficient between turnout and margin by state was -0.4 in the last presidential election). If more states were competitive or the president were elected by popular vote (or Congress by proportional representation), turnout might be very different.

Mandatory voting, with real but minor punishments for not filing a ballot (but no requirement to actually vote for a candidate, to allow for cases where none of the above appeal). Of course, this will never happen with the current political structure of the US, as the Republican Party works to aggressively reduce total voter turnout everywhere it can.

TallGuyShort 9y ago
How would you implement mandatory voting without doing what Republicans want to do to verify right-to-vote in the first place? Requirements to vote have been associated with racism in the past, sure, and the ideas are often stupid and pointless, but talking to foreigners, myself included, the opposition to having to show ID to vote seems stupid too.
- kuschku 9y ago
  Voter ID, but getting a Voter ID is free, and every district has to have the same opening hours and the same number of voter ID registration places per 1000 citizen. The issue is that certain actors in the US want to make voter ID mandatory, only registration places in the rich districts, and ensure the poor can never get one via cost/availability, etc. In other countries, where this disenfranchisement never happened, say, Germany, mandatory ID for every human are laws few object to.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  If the law also made IDs free then I’d be ok with it. Pay to vote seems like a horrible system. And “free if you spend hours on the phone and mailing forms back and forth to prove you’re poor” doesn’t count. I would also need funding for sending out educational advertising in areas where there are high numbers of eligible voters without valid ID. I don’t see Republicans making a good faith effort here though.
- crooked-v 9y ago
  Use existing voter registrations.
ryanlol 9y ago
>Mandatory voting, with real but minor punishments for not filing a ballot Exactly what they did in Catalonia. If you don't vote then your voice will not be heard.
ericd 9y ago
If they make voting day a national holiday, and they make the ID free and easy to get, then maybe. I believe it's mandatory in Australia, would be interesting to learn how they've felt about it.

TallGuyShort 9y ago

Haven't looked at the problem much, but I suspect it's a feeling of futility. If the problem in Spain is half the possible votes are illegal, I'd probably feel like whatever's going to happen through diplomatic channels is going to happen because that doesn't feel like a real election. In the US, most people live in either a red state or blue state and it'd take a heck of an upset to change that - and no one feels like a heck of an upset is coming. There are swing states where a tiny difference makes a huge difference nationally - and I suspect turnout is better in those states. But I haven't looked at it much - I could be wrong, and that would blow my theories to hell.

throwawayjava 9y ago

I think your idea is much better than everything else's, sadly. Yes, some form of tax return bonus would probably be the most effective mechanism.

HelloNurse 9y ago

Rajoy solved the problem of high voter turnout by having the federal police assault voters. Not exactly democratic.

Godel_unicode 9y ago

Make individuals feel their votes matter. Tricky, because obvious math says they don't.

taejo 9y ago

Make elections legitimate and meaningful. Turnout is low in Catalan independence referenda and US elections for different reasons. The former are viewed by opponents of independence as illegitimate: they are not approved by the central government and voting in them gives them the appearance of legitimacy. They're political tactic by the independence movement, and its opponents won't participate. The Spanish government could solve this by allowing an election, pledging to take the result seriously, and thereby answer the question for at least a generation. A significant factor in low turnout in US elections can be explained by the non-competitiveness of elections (correlation coefficient between turnout and margin by state was -0.4 in the last presidential election). If more states were competitive or the president were elected by popular vote (or Congress by proportional representation), turnout might be very different.