5 ms·

"Why do so few people in the United States exercise their right and privilege to vote?"

craftyguy 8y ago
"Why does nearly every political race for office in the United States come down to only two choices: turd sandwich or giant douche?"
- vidanay 8y ago
  Also a good question, but not exclusive of the other one.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    True, but it may help explain some of the motivation behind the other one (e.g. if folks feel like the two options are terrible, they may be apathetic towards participating). For example, in this round I did not cast a vote for governor in my state because I felt the two candidates with any chance of winning were terrrible (though I did vote on ballot measures, and other local offices).
- ninkendo 8y ago
  Because not enough people vote in the primaries? I get that you only really have a choice between two parties come the general election, but you get lots and lots of choices in the primary.
  - dahart 8y ago
    Voting in the primaries would help. IMO, a ranked choice ballot would help even more. I don’t need to choose between people who will make essentially the same policy decisions as much as I want to be able to vote for a third party without throwing away my vote.
- mmirate 8y ago
  That's easy, and the answer even has a googleable name: "first past the post".
- sverige 8y ago
  This one is actually easy: Those are the personality types who are drawn to running for office.
egypturnash 8y ago
Turn it around: "Why are so many people in the United States denied their right to vote?" * prisoners and former criminals can't vote in many places - https://www.sentencingproject.org/issues/felony-disenfranchisement/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/issues/felony-disenfranchi... * (this just got a little better - Florida just passed an amendment that will give the vote back to 1.4mil former felons, which is a full 1/10 of the state's population and 1/5 of its African-American population, that should make their next elections a ton of fun) * slashing funds to the part of government that buys/maintains/runs the voting system means you have to go further to vote, which is much easier if you have a white-collar job that gives you paid time off and can afford a car (vote-by-mail helps fix this one a LOT, I live in Seattle and it only took me like a half hour sitting at home skimming election guides, plus putting it in the mail a couple days later) * aggressive campaigns of preventing "voter fraud" can make having sufficient ID expensive in both time and money, which are hard to come by when you're working two part-time jobs with erratic hours
- vidanay 8y ago
  The apathy far outweighs the fraud.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  As with everything, there's a false positive rate and a false negative rate. The less voter fraud you allow, the more voter suppression, and vice versa. And you don't even have to think illegals vote, ever, to still be concerned about voter fraud. Dead people definitely vote, even if illegals never do.
rprenger 8y ago
The more interesting question from an economics point of view is why does anyone bother voting. Since races almost never come down to one vote, your vote almost certainly doesn't matter. Nevermind the fact that more people voted for democrats for the senate and the presidency and still lost both. The latest theory I've heard for why people vote is that being seen as a team player has social value. https://eml.berkeley.edu//~sdellavi/wp/turnout13-11-13.pdf https://eml.berkeley.edu//~sdellavi/wp/turnout13-11-13.pdf The Freakonomics guys bring this up every so often. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/magazine/why-vote.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/magazine/why-vote.html Also I just wanted to let everyone know that I voted ;)
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  From a mathematical perspective it's pretty silly to claim your vote doesn't matter just because it's not the tie breaking vote. You should give this a read: https://www.skishore.me/voting.html https://www.skishore.me/voting.html. Frankly this viewpoint has always puzzled me. Your specific claim that a vote almost certainly doesn't matter because elections don't come down to a single vote seems...unsupported, to put it politely. It might be more intuitively attractive to say your vote doesn't matter if you're not in a swing election, but it's not rigorously defensible. It's incorrect. It's like saying 4 and 5 are the same thing because they're both significantly smaller than 100,000. No, they're materially different quantities. If more people accepted this straightforward and uncontroversial truth - and acted on it - then more change might actually be effected. Instead this becomes a self-fulfilling and self-defeating prophecy with no rational basis. It's lazy cynicism, to put it bluntly.
  - matt-attack 8y ago
    Bit logically where was he wrong? It seems like a bit of a paradox to me. You keep say it’s wrong but can you point out exactly where his reasoning is wrong? My vote yesterday simply didn’t change any of the outcomes. That is a fact. None of the races were won by a single vote.
    - glastra 8y ago

"Why does nearly every political race for office in the United States come down to only two choices: turd sandwich or giant douche?"

vidanay 8y ago
Also a good question, but not exclusive of the other one.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  True, but it may help explain some of the motivation behind the other one (e.g. if folks feel like the two options are terrible, they may be apathetic towards participating). For example, in this round I did not cast a vote for governor in my state because I felt the two candidates with any chance of winning were terrrible (though I did vote on ballot measures, and other local offices).
ninkendo 8y ago
Because not enough people vote in the primaries? I get that you only really have a choice between two parties come the general election, but you get lots and lots of choices in the primary.
- dahart 8y ago
  Voting in the primaries would help. IMO, a ranked choice ballot would help even more. I don’t need to choose between people who will make essentially the same policy decisions as much as I want to be able to vote for a third party without throwing away my vote.
mmirate 8y ago
That's easy, and the answer even has a googleable name: "first past the post".
sverige 8y ago
This one is actually easy: Those are the personality types who are drawn to running for office.

egypturnash 8y ago

Turn it around: "Why are so many people in the United States denied their right to vote?" * prisoners and former criminals can't vote in many places - https://www.sentencingproject.org/issues/felony-disenfranchisement/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/issues/felony-disenfranchi... * (this just got a little better - Florida just passed an amendment that will give the vote back to 1.4mil former felons, which is a full 1/10 of the state's population and 1/5 of its African-American population, that should make their next elections a ton of fun) * slashing funds to the part of government that buys/maintains/runs the voting system means you have to go further to vote, which is much easier if you have a white-collar job that gives you paid time off and can afford a car (vote-by-mail helps fix this one a LOT, I live in Seattle and it only took me like a half hour sitting at home skimming election guides, plus putting it in the mail a couple days later) * aggressive campaigns of preventing "voter fraud" can make having sufficient ID expensive in both time and money, which are hard to come by when you're working two part-time jobs with erratic hours

vidanay 8y ago
The apathy far outweighs the fraud.
AnimalMuppet 8y ago
As with everything, there's a false positive rate and a false negative rate. The less voter fraud you allow, the more voter suppression, and vice versa. And you don't even have to think illegals vote, ever, to still be concerned about voter fraud. Dead people definitely vote, even if illegals never do.

rprenger 8y ago

The more interesting question from an economics point of view is why does anyone bother voting. Since races almost never come down to one vote, your vote almost certainly doesn't matter. Nevermind the fact that more people voted for democrats for the senate and the presidency and still lost both. The latest theory I've heard for why people vote is that being seen as a team player has social value. https://eml.berkeley.edu//~sdellavi/wp/turnout13-11-13.pdf https://eml.berkeley.edu//~sdellavi/wp/turnout13-11-13.pdf The Freakonomics guys bring this up every so often. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/magazine/why-vote.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/magazine/why-vote.html Also I just wanted to let everyone know that I voted ;)

throwawaymath 8y ago
From a mathematical perspective it's pretty silly to claim your vote doesn't matter just because it's not the tie breaking vote. You should give this a read: https://www.skishore.me/voting.html https://www.skishore.me/voting.html. Frankly this viewpoint has always puzzled me. Your specific claim that a vote almost certainly doesn't matter because elections don't come down to a single vote seems...unsupported, to put it politely. It might be more intuitively attractive to say your vote doesn't matter if you're not in a swing election, but it's not rigorously defensible. It's incorrect. It's like saying 4 and 5 are the same thing because they're both significantly smaller than 100,000. No, they're materially different quantities. If more people accepted this straightforward and uncontroversial truth - and acted on it - then more change might actually be effected. Instead this becomes a self-fulfilling and self-defeating prophecy with no rational basis. It's lazy cynicism, to put it bluntly.
- matt-attack 8y ago
  Bit logically where was he wrong? It seems like a bit of a paradox to me. You keep say it’s wrong but can you point out exactly where his reasoning is wrong? My vote yesterday simply didn’t change any of the outcomes. That is a fact. None of the races were won by a single vote.
  - glastra 8y ago