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I voted in the first election in the US to ever use the Dibold [1] [2] machines, in Atlanta Georgia. It was obvious to anyone with a single honest neuron that

I voted in the first election in the US to ever use the Dibold [1] [2] machines, in Atlanta Georgia. It was obvious to anyone with a single honest neuron that there was no way to trust these machines. I've never voted since. There is no point in pretending like the system has credibility or accountability. [1] https://columbusfreepress.com/article/diebold-indicted-its-spectre-still-haunts-ohio-elections https://columbusfreepress.com/article/diebold-indicted-its-s... [2] https://whowhatwhy.org/2020/05/27/touchscreen-voting-makes-everything-easy-including-hacking/ https://whowhatwhy.org/2020/05/27/touchscreen-voting-makes-e... Edit: Toned it down a bit. How many downvoting cowards do we have out there? Respond or GTFO.

dane-pgp 6y ago
I didn't downvote you, but I suspect that some people reacted negatively to your strategy of "don't vote, then the people with power will feel so embarrassed at the lack of credibility of the system that they will work to regain people's trust". Also, if the comment above is your "toned down" wording, I'm glad I didn't read the original version, or I probably would have downvoted you.
- minerjoe 6y ago
  Who are you quoting there? Putting a few too many words in my mouth. To many of us, the system has lost all cedibility, and voting is signalling just the opposite of that. Nothing about embarrassing anyone. No way to regain people trust at this point. We're too far gone.
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    Sorry, that wasn't intended to be a quote, I was trying to understand what you thought refusing to vote would achieve. Are you hoping that your non-participation in voting is "signalling" the lack of credibility in the system, and that public awareness of this will contribute to some eventual improved outcome for society, or are you just trying to avoid misleading(?) people into believing the supposed false notion that voting can lead to positive changes in government policy?
    - minerjoe 6y ago
      I'm not offering solutions, just observations. The system is broken and one of the indications of this is all the people that belive that voting can actually make a change for the better, as opposed to just swapping out puppets with no change of puppet-masters.
      - dane-pgp 6y ago
        Do you believe that the people and parties who win elections don't have any effect on the policies of governments? Does this apply to every country, or do some countries avoid being controlled by puppet-masters? I suppose it's possible that all the policy changes we've seen in governments around the world over the past decades have been due to changing whims of secretive puppet-masters which happen to coincide with the platforms of the candidates who ended up winning the elections, but I don't think that's the simplest explanation for the patterns observed.
  - arp242 6y ago
    I've also not voted once, in a local referendum in my country because I felt the entire thing was instigated under a fraudulent pretext just to stir up shit and had no legitimacy. I get where you're coming from. But ... have you noticed who is in office? The stakes are too high to make these sort of principled stands right now. Hell, I'm not even talking about the politics of it: four more years of Trump will mean four more years of a deeply toxic person in office bringing the entire level of discourse of the entire country down. Literally everyone of every political affiliation will be hurt by this, except perhaps die-hard anarchists who would prefer to see the entire society collapse (and Trump is certainly a step in that direction).

dane-pgp 6y ago

I didn't downvote you, but I suspect that some people reacted negatively to your strategy of "don't vote, then the people with power will feel so embarrassed at the lack of credibility of the system that they will work to regain people's trust". Also, if the comment above is your "toned down" wording, I'm glad I didn't read the original version, or I probably would have downvoted you.

minerjoe 6y ago
Who are you quoting there? Putting a few too many words in my mouth. To many of us, the system has lost all cedibility, and voting is signalling just the opposite of that. Nothing about embarrassing anyone. No way to regain people trust at this point. We're too far gone.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  Sorry, that wasn't intended to be a quote, I was trying to understand what you thought refusing to vote would achieve. Are you hoping that your non-participation in voting is "signalling" the lack of credibility in the system, and that public awareness of this will contribute to some eventual improved outcome for society, or are you just trying to avoid misleading(?) people into believing the supposed false notion that voting can lead to positive changes in government policy?
  - minerjoe 6y ago
    I'm not offering solutions, just observations. The system is broken and one of the indications of this is all the people that belive that voting can actually make a change for the better, as opposed to just swapping out puppets with no change of puppet-masters.
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      Do you believe that the people and parties who win elections don't have any effect on the policies of governments? Does this apply to every country, or do some countries avoid being controlled by puppet-masters? I suppose it's possible that all the policy changes we've seen in governments around the world over the past decades have been due to changing whims of secretive puppet-masters which happen to coincide with the platforms of the candidates who ended up winning the elections, but I don't think that's the simplest explanation for the patterns observed.
- arp242 6y ago
  I've also not voted once, in a local referendum in my country because I felt the entire thing was instigated under a fraudulent pretext just to stir up shit and had no legitimacy. I get where you're coming from. But ... have you noticed who is in office? The stakes are too high to make these sort of principled stands right now. Hell, I'm not even talking about the politics of it: four more years of Trump will mean four more years of a deeply toxic person in office bringing the entire level of discourse of the entire country down. Literally everyone of every political affiliation will be hurt by this, except perhaps die-hard anarchists who would prefer to see the entire society collapse (and Trump is certainly a step in that direction).