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"More people voting always hurts <x party>, and helps their opponents" has always seemed to me like an admission that <x party> is innately anti-democratic, and

"More people voting always hurts <x party>, and helps their opponents" has always seemed to me like an admission that <x party> is innately anti-democratic, and I don't know how people ever spin it otherwise.

caslon 5y ago
Absolutely! That's...pretty much exactly what I said.
mbg721 5y ago
"Requiring ID to vote always hurts <y party>" has always seemed to me like an admission that <y party> is innately anti-democratic, and I don't know how people ever spin it otherwise.
- yifanl 5y ago
  I don't follow how flipping the point from "more voting" to "less voting" while not flipping the "anti-democratic" clause tracks.
  - mbg721 5y ago
    If 8 of my dead great-grandparents vote for Mayor Daley, but I vote against, his 8-1 victory isn't democracy.
    - KittenInABox 5y ago
      I think this is a bad faith response to the poster you're responding to.
      - mbg721 5y ago
        I'm not trying to respond in bad faith; I'm pointing out, albeit by hyperbole, that "more voting" can still be anti-democratic.
        LordDragonfang 5y ago
        The dead aren't people (at least, not any longer), so no. For, your eight dead relatives happen to be the average number of votes by the dead in a whole election[1], since votes by the dead have never actually been recorded in significant numbers, and certainly not in recent accusations [2][3][4]. Hell of a coincidence that it's all your dead relatives. You are not, in fact, responding in good faith. [1]https://ballotpedia.org/Votes_cast_in_the_names_of_deceased_people https://ballotpedia.org/Votes_cast_in_the_names_of_deceased_... [2]https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54874120 https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54874120 [3]https://apnews.com/article/ap-fact-check-donald-trump-georgia-elections-atlanta-c23d10e5299e14daee6109885f7dafa9 https://apnews.com/article/ap-fact-check-donald-trump-georgi... [4]https://www.factcheck.org/2020/11/thin-allegations-of-dead-people-voting/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/11/thin-allegations-of-dead-p...
        moate 5y ago
        "Dead people voting is a problem" That's not voting. That's absolute fraud. There's no nuance or gray area. There's no "some dead people should be allowed to vote but others shouldn't" use case. Compare to "requiring ID will eliminate fraud": No. It eliminates some types of fraud, some of the time. It doesn't fix someone hacking a system and changing votes. It doesn't prevent someone creating fake IDs to vote. It also disenfranchises people who are unable or unwilling to get government ID in time to present it at the polls.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- myfavoritedog 5y ago
  The ironic thing is that the people on Hacker News understand security. They know that a lack of voter ID, mass mail-in balloting, ballot harvesting, lack of chain of custody of ballots, lack of ability to observe the counting of ballots, etc. are all terrible security practices. They practically guarantee fraud in elections. If you told the average HN reader to secure his banking information like we secure the vote, she would think you're out of your mind. But somehow, a complete lack of ballot security is just dandy. It's almost like some people feel that any means necessary to win is okay.
  - moate 5y ago
    Hi: What? Who is proposing we eliminate the chain of custody for ballots? Who's actually called for that. Who has said "no observation of ballot counting" as opposed to "everyone who feels like it can come in and wander freely to investigate". Ballot harvesting has at least 3 different definitions, some of which are fine (put your ballots somewhere other than a polling place, and officials collect them) others are dubious (give some person you trust your ballot, have them deliver it to the polls). And if these things are "guaranteeing" election fraud, show me where it happened on such scale as to matter (and not some dude who did something he shouldn't but got caught and therefor disproves your point about how bad the security is). There's bad faith arguing and then there's this.
ByteJockey 5y ago
I don't think you can. But democracy's approval rating has been dropping for a while, so that's probably not the death blow it would have been. Democracy doesn't seem to be sacred anymore. The number of people saying it's essential (rating a 10/10 on importance) to live in a democracy seems to have peaked for people born in the 50s in Europe and has been dropping for birth cohorts since the 30s. [Figure 1 in the source] Source: https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/FoaMounk-27-3.pdf https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/0... Additionally, about 15-20% of people in the US (depending on age) seem to think democracy is a bad way to run a country [Figure 2 in previous source] Even this pew article, which is relatively rosy on democracy, finds that ~40% of the US would be fine with leaving policy making to experts. The question specifically mentions excluding elected officials. [4th chart in next source]. We could probably debate on the merits of technocracy, but it's a very different thing than democracy. Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2017/10/16/democracy-widely-supported-little-backing-for-rule-by-strong-leader-or-military/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2017/10/16/democracy-wide...

caslon 5y ago

Absolutely! That's...pretty much exactly what I said.

mbg721 5y ago

"Requiring ID to vote always hurts <y party>" has always seemed to me like an admission that <y party> is innately anti-democratic, and I don't know how people ever spin it otherwise.

yifanl 5y ago
I don't follow how flipping the point from "more voting" to "less voting" while not flipping the "anti-democratic" clause tracks.
- mbg721 5y ago
  If 8 of my dead great-grandparents vote for Mayor Daley, but I vote against, his 8-1 victory isn't democracy.
  - KittenInABox 5y ago
    I think this is a bad faith response to the poster you're responding to.
    - mbg721 5y ago
      I'm not trying to respond in bad faith; I'm pointing out, albeit by hyperbole, that "more voting" can still be anti-democratic.
      - LordDragonfang 5y ago
        The dead aren't people (at least, not any longer), so no. For, your eight dead relatives happen to be the average number of votes by the dead in a whole election[1], since votes by the dead have never actually been recorded in significant numbers, and certainly not in recent accusations [2][3][4]. Hell of a coincidence that it's all your dead relatives. You are not, in fact, responding in good faith. [1]https://ballotpedia.org/Votes_cast_in_the_names_of_deceased_people https://ballotpedia.org/Votes_cast_in_the_names_of_deceased_... [2]https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54874120 https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54874120 [3]https://apnews.com/article/ap-fact-check-donald-trump-georgia-elections-atlanta-c23d10e5299e14daee6109885f7dafa9 https://apnews.com/article/ap-fact-check-donald-trump-georgi... [4]https://www.factcheck.org/2020/11/thin-allegations-of-dead-people-voting/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/11/thin-allegations-of-dead-p...
      - moate 5y ago
        "Dead people voting is a problem" That's not voting. That's absolute fraud. There's no nuance or gray area. There's no "some dead people should be allowed to vote but others shouldn't" use case. Compare to "requiring ID will eliminate fraud": No. It eliminates some types of fraud, some of the time. It doesn't fix someone hacking a system and changing votes. It doesn't prevent someone creating fake IDs to vote. It also disenfranchises people who are unable or unwilling to get government ID in time to present it at the polls.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
myfavoritedog 5y ago
The ironic thing is that the people on Hacker News understand security. They know that a lack of voter ID, mass mail-in balloting, ballot harvesting, lack of chain of custody of ballots, lack of ability to observe the counting of ballots, etc. are all terrible security practices. They practically guarantee fraud in elections. If you told the average HN reader to secure his banking information like we secure the vote, she would think you're out of your mind. But somehow, a complete lack of ballot security is just dandy. It's almost like some people feel that any means necessary to win is okay.
- moate 5y ago
  Hi: What? Who is proposing we eliminate the chain of custody for ballots? Who's actually called for that. Who has said "no observation of ballot counting" as opposed to "everyone who feels like it can come in and wander freely to investigate". Ballot harvesting has at least 3 different definitions, some of which are fine (put your ballots somewhere other than a polling place, and officials collect them) others are dubious (give some person you trust your ballot, have them deliver it to the polls). And if these things are "guaranteeing" election fraud, show me where it happened on such scale as to matter (and not some dude who did something he shouldn't but got caught and therefor disproves your point about how bad the security is). There's bad faith arguing and then there's this.

ByteJockey 5y ago

I don't think you can. But democracy's approval rating has been dropping for a while, so that's probably not the death blow it would have been. Democracy doesn't seem to be sacred anymore. The number of people saying it's essential (rating a 10/10 on importance) to live in a democracy seems to have peaked for people born in the 50s in Europe and has been dropping for birth cohorts since the 30s. [Figure 1 in the source] Source: https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/FoaMounk-27-3.pdf https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/0... Additionally, about 15-20% of people in the US (depending on age) seem to think democracy is a bad way to run a country [Figure 2 in previous source] Even this pew article, which is relatively rosy on democracy, finds that ~40% of the US would be fine with leaving policy making to experts. The question specifically mentions excluding elected officials. [4th chart in next source]. We could probably debate on the merits of technocracy, but it's a very different thing than democracy. Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2017/10/16/democracy-widely-supported-little-backing-for-rule-by-strong-leader-or-military/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2017/10/16/democracy-wide...