4 ms·

Voting should be completely private, including the fact of whether a person voted or not. It's that person's choice, and not voting is just a valid of a choice

Voting should be completely private, including the fact of whether a person voted or not. It's that person's choice, and not voting is just a valid of a choice, and deserves to be kept private. This is how the ballot boxes get stuffed. The fraudsters figure out who doesn't vote, who's dead but still on the roles, etc, and stuff the boxes with votes for those people. Here's an infamous example: https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/17/archives/followers-say-jim-jones-directed-voting-frauds-busloads-of-voters.html https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/17/archives/followers-say-ji...

foozed 8y ago
oh come on, "choosing" to not vote is most often choosing to be lazy. If you want to express resistance to the dominant parties you vote independent or invalid but if you care about democracy you still go vote.
- kotajacob 8y ago
  and for people whom do not care about democracy and or do not believe we are in a democracy then?
  - Draiken 8y ago
    That's the question that nobody ever answers. I'm not american but I live in a country where I believe does not employ true democracy. I actually question the ability of the majority to decide on anything, but in either case, how do you get out of that? Here voting is mandatory which means even people that don't even know who the candidates are, have the same political power as I do. Voting feels like a sad joke that the rich and powerful gave us so we can pretend we are "in control". In reality money votes, not people.
  - elicash 8y ago
    On the latter, if you don't believe we are a democracy, then I want to see your plan for turning us into one. If you're going to make that claim, you better be willing to put in the work given what others have sacrificed for our right to vote.
    - kotajacob 8y ago
      I do not need to have that opinion to understand that it exists. Personally I do vote and at least somewhat believe there is a democracy here in the states (especially compared to many other places currently in the world), but I urge you to try and understand why some may not be so convinced. Probably a big part of it is lack of a good education. That combined with a few facts such as our usage of electronic voting machines having clear security exploits. These exploits are often found right after each election and the fact that the whole process isn't publicly audited is alone enough to raise suspicion. Even if they magically have never been exploited I'm sure many people believe the usage of gerrymandering, corporate campaign donations, lack of voting rights for the previously incarcerated, and the electoral college lead to a situation in which the realpolitik of America is different than what we're led to believe. Again I personally do believe we have a somewhat real and fair democracy. However there is much that can be done to improve the legitimacy and the projected legitimacy. Yelling at people who choose not to vote is not a solution. My personal suggestions would be to switch to a direct voting system in which each person has an equal vote. Consider switching to approval voting to allow for a more accurate representation of the peoples wants and allow for 3rd (or 4th or 5th...) party candidates to have a more serious chance. Paper Ballots with a more auditable process. You may not agree with my personal suggestions. That's not the point though. The point is that people choosing to not vote is not a problem that can be solved by being angry at said people. Instead we should find out their complaints and see if there is a way to make the validity of our democracy more obvious.
      - elicash 8y ago
        I think you may have misread what I wrote. I'm not arguing that we are or aren't a democracy, or saying that view is valid or invalid. I'm simply saying that if someone thinks that we're not a democracy, then they have a moral obligation to try to do something about it. > My personal suggestions... Personal suggestions are pointless without action. If that action isn't voting for someone, then all I'm saying is tell me what actions you're going to take instead? I find it obnoxious that while some of us are doing the HARD WORK for free that others complain from the sidelines. Not speaking to you specifically, but if someone thinks voting is pointless then do SOMETHING that isn't. Don't leave it to other people to do the work.
- retzkek 8y ago
  No, if you care about democracy you campaign. Marking your choices on a ballot has roughly the same external effect as noting them in your diary.
pluma 8y ago
You can "not vote" by going out and spoiling your ballot. "Not voting" by abstaining is functionally indistinguishable from apathy. Actual voter fraud is a non-issue in the US compared to voter suppression and gerrymandering.
- tomohawk 8y ago
  Ballots typically do not have "none of the above" options on them. This has a few consequences. You can put in "noone" in the write-in, but someone could legally make that their name. Not a valid way to mark none of the above. You could leave the entry unmarked. However, that is also ambiguous. Did you really mean to leave it unmarked, or did you make a mistake? It also leaves the possibility that someone could put a mark on there for you after the fact. Because of the lack of voter id, and problems such as ambiguous ballots, how would you show there was fraud or not unless you caught someone red handed? Of course, if you don't need to show an id, how would a monitor prove that the wrong person is voting. Some states do require an id, by my state does not and there are always strange unexplained results.
  - pluma 8y ago
    Oh, that's right. I forgot the US has widespread electronic voting. I was thinking of normal paper ballots where you can just spoil the ballot by scribbling all over it instead of ticking a box. I guess that makes it more difficult to submit a spoiled vote. That said, you can still vote for one of the lunatic fringe minority parties. Under the American two party system none of them will ever amount to anything.
mikeash 8y ago
Fraudsters will do what you describe either way. At least with the current system, the victims or people who know them have a chance of noticing that they were recorded as casting a vote when they actually didn’t. If we don’t make that info public, how would such schemes ever be discovered?
elicash 8y ago
I was calling infrequent voters yesterday, people who need a reminder. A couple didn't know it was Election Day, which may sound weird to some folks here but is not uncommon in off years. Others knew, but had no idea where they were supposed to go to vote. And still others didn't know about voter ID requirements that are new in some states. For those of us who volunteer to help infrequent voters have the info they need to vote, this data is crucial.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  What if I don't want anyone calling me? I would be extremely angry if I was contacted through voting data.
  - elicash 8y ago
    I genuinely don't understand people who would get a phone call from somebody donating their free time to make sure people know how to participate in their democracy and respond by being angry. If not for people like me volunteering to get out the vote by making calls and knocking on doors, our democracy would fall apart.
    - democrazy 8y ago
      And getting people who are so uninformed and clueless that they don't know there's an election happening to vote is keeping our democracy together? I genuinely don't understand people who think that getting lots of completely ignorant people to cast votes is better than having an election with a smaller turnout of informed, competent citizens.
      - elicash 8y ago
        Your view is one with an ugly history in this country. These are folks who have vested interests in the outcomes and absolutely have opinions about the issues.
    - malvosenior 8y ago

foozed 8y ago

oh come on, "choosing" to not vote is most often choosing to be lazy. If you want to express resistance to the dominant parties you vote independent or invalid but if you care about democracy you still go vote.

kotajacob 8y ago
and for people whom do not care about democracy and or do not believe we are in a democracy then?
- Draiken 8y ago
  That's the question that nobody ever answers. I'm not american but I live in a country where I believe does not employ true democracy. I actually question the ability of the majority to decide on anything, but in either case, how do you get out of that? Here voting is mandatory which means even people that don't even know who the candidates are, have the same political power as I do. Voting feels like a sad joke that the rich and powerful gave us so we can pretend we are "in control". In reality money votes, not people.
- elicash 8y ago
  On the latter, if you don't believe we are a democracy, then I want to see your plan for turning us into one. If you're going to make that claim, you better be willing to put in the work given what others have sacrificed for our right to vote.
  - kotajacob 8y ago
    I do not need to have that opinion to understand that it exists. Personally I do vote and at least somewhat believe there is a democracy here in the states (especially compared to many other places currently in the world), but I urge you to try and understand why some may not be so convinced. Probably a big part of it is lack of a good education. That combined with a few facts such as our usage of electronic voting machines having clear security exploits. These exploits are often found right after each election and the fact that the whole process isn't publicly audited is alone enough to raise suspicion. Even if they magically have never been exploited I'm sure many people believe the usage of gerrymandering, corporate campaign donations, lack of voting rights for the previously incarcerated, and the electoral college lead to a situation in which the realpolitik of America is different than what we're led to believe. Again I personally do believe we have a somewhat real and fair democracy. However there is much that can be done to improve the legitimacy and the projected legitimacy. Yelling at people who choose not to vote is not a solution. My personal suggestions would be to switch to a direct voting system in which each person has an equal vote. Consider switching to approval voting to allow for a more accurate representation of the peoples wants and allow for 3rd (or 4th or 5th...) party candidates to have a more serious chance. Paper Ballots with a more auditable process. You may not agree with my personal suggestions. That's not the point though. The point is that people choosing to not vote is not a problem that can be solved by being angry at said people. Instead we should find out their complaints and see if there is a way to make the validity of our democracy more obvious.
    - elicash 8y ago
      I think you may have misread what I wrote. I'm not arguing that we are or aren't a democracy, or saying that view is valid or invalid. I'm simply saying that if someone thinks that we're not a democracy, then they have a moral obligation to try to do something about it. > My personal suggestions... Personal suggestions are pointless without action. If that action isn't voting for someone, then all I'm saying is tell me what actions you're going to take instead? I find it obnoxious that while some of us are doing the HARD WORK for free that others complain from the sidelines. Not speaking to you specifically, but if someone thinks voting is pointless then do SOMETHING that isn't. Don't leave it to other people to do the work.
retzkek 8y ago
No, if you care about democracy you campaign. Marking your choices on a ballot has roughly the same external effect as noting them in your diary.

pluma 8y ago

You can "not vote" by going out and spoiling your ballot. "Not voting" by abstaining is functionally indistinguishable from apathy. Actual voter fraud is a non-issue in the US compared to voter suppression and gerrymandering.

tomohawk 8y ago
Ballots typically do not have "none of the above" options on them. This has a few consequences. You can put in "noone" in the write-in, but someone could legally make that their name. Not a valid way to mark none of the above. You could leave the entry unmarked. However, that is also ambiguous. Did you really mean to leave it unmarked, or did you make a mistake? It also leaves the possibility that someone could put a mark on there for you after the fact. Because of the lack of voter id, and problems such as ambiguous ballots, how would you show there was fraud or not unless you caught someone red handed? Of course, if you don't need to show an id, how would a monitor prove that the wrong person is voting. Some states do require an id, by my state does not and there are always strange unexplained results.
- pluma 8y ago
  Oh, that's right. I forgot the US has widespread electronic voting. I was thinking of normal paper ballots where you can just spoil the ballot by scribbling all over it instead of ticking a box. I guess that makes it more difficult to submit a spoiled vote. That said, you can still vote for one of the lunatic fringe minority parties. Under the American two party system none of them will ever amount to anything.

mikeash 8y ago

Fraudsters will do what you describe either way. At least with the current system, the victims or people who know them have a chance of noticing that they were recorded as casting a vote when they actually didn’t. If we don’t make that info public, how would such schemes ever be discovered?

elicash 8y ago

I was calling infrequent voters yesterday, people who need a reminder. A couple didn't know it was Election Day, which may sound weird to some folks here but is not uncommon in off years. Others knew, but had no idea where they were supposed to go to vote. And still others didn't know about voter ID requirements that are new in some states. For those of us who volunteer to help infrequent voters have the info they need to vote, this data is crucial.

malvosenior 8y ago
What if I don't want anyone calling me? I would be extremely angry if I was contacted through voting data.
- elicash 8y ago
  I genuinely don't understand people who would get a phone call from somebody donating their free time to make sure people know how to participate in their democracy and respond by being angry. If not for people like me volunteering to get out the vote by making calls and knocking on doors, our democracy would fall apart.
  - democrazy 8y ago
    And getting people who are so uninformed and clueless that they don't know there's an election happening to vote is keeping our democracy together? I genuinely don't understand people who think that getting lots of completely ignorant people to cast votes is better than having an election with a smaller turnout of informed, competent citizens.
    - elicash 8y ago
      Your view is one with an ugly history in this country. These are folks who have vested interests in the outcomes and absolutely have opinions about the issues.
  - malvosenior 8y ago