6 ms·

> How can you have election integrity if you don't have integrity of facts? This one is easy. There is no integrity of facts. No matter what standard you use y

by cletus 5y ago

> How can you have election integrity if you don't have integrity of facts? This one is easy. There is no integrity of facts. No matter what standard you use you will have cases where reasonable people disagree. Historians argue about interpretation of facts all the time. There is no universal objective truth. You can argue that you don't need absolute integrity and just clamp down on the fringe stuff but that just shifts the problem. You will find a boundary where reasonable people disagree about action being needed. Election integrity actually has more to do with politicizing the elections process, which is so incredibly dangerous. The whole "ends justify the means" is a symptom of a siege mentality, which is deliberately created by those who personally benefit from it. So what could the US do? Three things: 1. State independent commissions to run elections, draw boundaries around Congressional districts and certify elections. This should not be done by the legislature; 2. Move voting to Saturday and Sunday; 3. Make appearing at a polling place mandatory. This one is controversial. This is the system Australia has. You don't have to vote. You simply need to show up and get your name crossed off. That's it; and 4. Preferential or ranked choice voting. Optional voting is nothing more than a tool for voter suppression. Stripping citizens of voting rights, (historically) tests on literacy to be able to vote, some districts requiring you to queue for hours to vote and so on are all designed to suppress the vote. I don't care if someone was a felon or you think they're not informed enough (who decided that?). The absolute death of democracies is where a small minority dictates what happens to the rest of the country and that's where the US is hdeaded. The tech giants have very little to do with that.

mc32 5y ago
Facebooks lawyers claimed that their fact checking was opinion (not fact)[1]. So there is that too! Facts can be opinions instead. [1] https://insiderpaper.com/facebook-court-filing-fact-checks-are-protected-opinions/amp/ https://insiderpaper.com/facebook-court-filing-fact-checks-a...
cgriswald 5y ago
> 3. Make appearing at a polling place mandatory. This one is controversial. This is the system Australia has. You don't have to vote. You simply need to show up and get your name crossed off. That's it; and How is this enforced?
- detaro 5y ago
  You get fined (20-180 AUD apparently) if you don't appear.
- cletus 5y ago
  Well the first is that it's possible to not be registered to vote. If that's the case, there's nothing you need to do. My sense was that most people are registered to vote and this seems to be backed up by AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) statistics [1]. So if you are registered, then wherever you live, you'll bein a giant book. When you show up to vote, you just tell them your name and they draw a line through it. If you're out of your district, you can still vote. You just need to fill out an absentee voting form wherever you go to. This information is collated after the fact for failures to appear or duplicates. I believe if you fail to appear you just get mailed a fine that starts at $20 [2]. I'm not sure this enforcement is 100%. At least, I've never known anyone who has gotten one. Then again, not voting seems to be relatively uncommon. Voting, in my experience, is straightforward and quick. It's never taken me more than 5-10 minutes. The polling places are typically schools (which you can use, because it's on a Saturday) and I've never had to wait for more than a few minutes. But this is why mandatory appearance is so important: the AEC is then responsible for making sure there is sufficient capacity. They can't play games with making it harder or easier in particular districts. Mandatory appearance frees the AEC from any partisan traps of that particular type. [1]: https://www.aec.gov.au/enrolling_to_vote/enrolment_stats/ https://www.aec.gov.au/enrolling_to_vote/enrolment_stats/ [2]: https://www.elections.wa.gov.au/vote/failure-vote#:~:text=The%20penalty%20for%20first%20time,that%20will%20end%20the%20matter https://www.elections.wa.gov.au/vote/failure-vote#:~:text=Th....
Jefenry 5y ago
> There is no universal objective truth. So you're saying it's true that there's no objective truth?
- emerged 5y ago
  I believe they are saying that, for example, whether or not there is universal objective truth doesn’t have a universally objectively true answer.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
> This one is easy. There is no integrity of facts. That's wrong. If the election is on November 2nd that is an objective fact.
pessimizer 5y ago
> 3. Make appearing at a polling place mandatory. This one is controversial. This is the system Australia has. You don't have to vote. You simply need to show up and get your name crossed off. "It is not the case, as some people have claimed, that it is only compulsory to attend the polling place and have your name marked off, and this has been upheld by a number of legal decisions: "High Court 1926 – Judd v McKeon (1926) 38 CLR 380 Supreme Court of Victoria 1970 – Lubcke v Little [1970] VR 807 High Court 1971 – Faderson v Bridger (1971) 126 CLR 271 Supreme Court of Queensland 1974 – Krosch v Springbell; ex parte Krosch [1974] QdR 107 ACT Supreme Court 1981 – O'Brien v Warden (1981) 37 ACTR 13" https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/voting/ https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/voting/ ----- On Australia's ranked choice implementation: Some people (including me) see Australia's system as the forcing of an appearance of consent for the election of the same two parties. Within that system, you're not only not allowed to find all of the candidates unacceptable (and/or not to care about the outcome), but even further you're forced to rank all of the candidates. Albert Langer tried to get people to rank both major parties equally last, rather than accepting being forced to show a preference between them, and was jailed. "During his incarceration, Albert Langer was deemed by Amnesty International to be a 'Prisoner of Conscience.'" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Langer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Langer Australia managed to create a system even worse than FPTP. It annihilates small parties, and with their aggressive defense of it, this is obviously an intended effect. I think they just need proper runoffs if they honestly want to record people's preferences. At the absolute least, allow people to abstain from endorsing every candidate (but one, practically speaking.) Instead, millions of people who despise both the Labor and Liberal candidates have their votes recorded for one or the other every single election, under pain of fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langer_vote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langer_vote Australian-style ranked choice reduces to almost exactly what we have now, but additionally artificially inflates the support of status quo incumbents.
- deadbunny 5y ago
  Can you not spoil ballots in Australia? In the UK at least spoiled ballots are counted (and announced) separately with no vote for any candidate.
willcipriano 5y ago
> Make appearing at a polling place mandatory. This one is controversial. This is the system Australia has. You don't have to vote. You simply need to show up and get your name crossed off. That's it I'd agree to that if we add a "No Acceptable Candidate" option, and if it gets the majority of the vote the parties are forced to present new candidates and try again.
pessimizer 5y ago
> I don't care if someone was a felon or you think they're not informed enough (who decided that?). I don't even care if somebody is currently in prison; I think every prison needs a polling place and facilities for on-site journalists/reporters who are covering what is going on inside. If your elections could be significantly moved by the votes of prisoners, you live in a failed state.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  I have seen it claimed that in the US, elections are significantly moved by the votes of prisoners, in the sense that, while prisoners may not vote, they are counted as inhabitants of the county they are imprisoned in, so they increase representation of those who can vote nearby. Locations of prisons tend to be rural and have very different demographics from the places where prisoners would otherwise be living. Deciding to let prisoners vote needs to be followed up by a decision on whether to let them vote as if they returned to their former home, or in the location of the prison.
  - 8note 5y ago
    I think it's obviously where the prison is. Their vote should be able to impact the conditions of the prison
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      The prisoners don't necessarily outnumber the locals outside, so I don't think it is a foregone conclusion that they will be able to. But another way to look at it, is that by being counted as part of the population in the vicinity of the prison, it provides an incentive to have prisons and to incarcerate people, and it also reduces the representation of the places prisoners come from.
  - sutuplesu 5y ago
    I mean you can't have it both ways. If a person is counted for apportionment in a particular place, that is the place they're "represented" and it must be the place their vote counts.

by cletus 5y ago

mc32 5y ago

Facebooks lawyers claimed that their fact checking was opinion (not fact)[1]. So there is that too! Facts can be opinions instead. [1] https://insiderpaper.com/facebook-court-filing-fact-checks-are-protected-opinions/amp/ https://insiderpaper.com/facebook-court-filing-fact-checks-a...

cgriswald 5y ago

detaro 5y ago
You get fined (20-180 AUD apparently) if you don't appear.
cletus 5y ago
Well the first is that it's possible to not be registered to vote. If that's the case, there's nothing you need to do. My sense was that most people are registered to vote and this seems to be backed up by AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) statistics [1]. So if you are registered, then wherever you live, you'll bein a giant book. When you show up to vote, you just tell them your name and they draw a line through it. If you're out of your district, you can still vote. You just need to fill out an absentee voting form wherever you go to. This information is collated after the fact for failures to appear or duplicates. I believe if you fail to appear you just get mailed a fine that starts at $20 [2]. I'm not sure this enforcement is 100%. At least, I've never known anyone who has gotten one. Then again, not voting seems to be relatively uncommon. Voting, in my experience, is straightforward and quick. It's never taken me more than 5-10 minutes. The polling places are typically schools (which you can use, because it's on a Saturday) and I've never had to wait for more than a few minutes. But this is why mandatory appearance is so important: the AEC is then responsible for making sure there is sufficient capacity. They can't play games with making it harder or easier in particular districts. Mandatory appearance frees the AEC from any partisan traps of that particular type. [1]: https://www.aec.gov.au/enrolling_to_vote/enrolment_stats/ https://www.aec.gov.au/enrolling_to_vote/enrolment_stats/ [2]: https://www.elections.wa.gov.au/vote/failure-vote#:~:text=The%20penalty%20for%20first%20time,that%20will%20end%20the%20matter https://www.elections.wa.gov.au/vote/failure-vote#:~:text=Th....

Jefenry 5y ago

> There is no universal objective truth. So you're saying it's true that there's no objective truth?

emerged 5y ago
I believe they are saying that, for example, whether or not there is universal objective truth doesn’t have a universally objectively true answer.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

> This one is easy. There is no integrity of facts. That's wrong. If the election is on November 2nd that is an objective fact.

pessimizer 5y ago

> 3. Make appearing at a polling place mandatory. This one is controversial. This is the system Australia has. You don't have to vote. You simply need to show up and get your name crossed off. "It is not the case, as some people have claimed, that it is only compulsory to attend the polling place and have your name marked off, and this has been upheld by a number of legal decisions: "High Court 1926 – Judd v McKeon (1926) 38 CLR 380 Supreme Court of Victoria 1970 – Lubcke v Little [1970] VR 807 High Court 1971 – Faderson v Bridger (1971) 126 CLR 271 Supreme Court of Queensland 1974 – Krosch v Springbell; ex parte Krosch [1974] QdR 107 ACT Supreme Court 1981 – O'Brien v Warden (1981) 37 ACTR 13" https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/voting/ https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/voting/ ----- On Australia's ranked choice implementation: Some people (including me) see Australia's system as the forcing of an appearance of consent for the election of the same two parties. Within that system, you're not only not allowed to find all of the candidates unacceptable (and/or not to care about the outcome), but even further you're forced to rank all of the candidates. Albert Langer tried to get people to rank both major parties equally last, rather than accepting being forced to show a preference between them, and was jailed. "During his incarceration, Albert Langer was deemed by Amnesty International to be a 'Prisoner of Conscience.'" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Langer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Langer Australia managed to create a system even worse than FPTP. It annihilates small parties, and with their aggressive defense of it, this is obviously an intended effect. I think they just need proper runoffs if they honestly want to record people's preferences. At the absolute least, allow people to abstain from endorsing every candidate (but one, practically speaking.) Instead, millions of people who despise both the Labor and Liberal candidates have their votes recorded for one or the other every single election, under pain of fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langer_vote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langer_vote Australian-style ranked choice reduces to almost exactly what we have now, but additionally artificially inflates the support of status quo incumbents.

deadbunny 5y ago
Can you not spoil ballots in Australia? In the UK at least spoiled ballots are counted (and announced) separately with no vote for any candidate.

willcipriano 5y ago

> Make appearing at a polling place mandatory. This one is controversial. This is the system Australia has. You don't have to vote. You simply need to show up and get your name crossed off. That's it I'd agree to that if we add a "No Acceptable Candidate" option, and if it gets the majority of the vote the parties are forced to present new candidates and try again.

pessimizer 5y ago

> I don't care if someone was a felon or you think they're not informed enough (who decided that?). I don't even care if somebody is currently in prison; I think every prison needs a polling place and facilities for on-site journalists/reporters who are covering what is going on inside. If your elections could be significantly moved by the votes of prisoners, you live in a failed state.

perl4ever 5y ago
I have seen it claimed that in the US, elections are significantly moved by the votes of prisoners, in the sense that, while prisoners may not vote, they are counted as inhabitants of the county they are imprisoned in, so they increase representation of those who can vote nearby. Locations of prisons tend to be rural and have very different demographics from the places where prisoners would otherwise be living. Deciding to let prisoners vote needs to be followed up by a decision on whether to let them vote as if they returned to their former home, or in the location of the prison.
- 8note 5y ago
  I think it's obviously where the prison is. Their vote should be able to impact the conditions of the prison
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    The prisoners don't necessarily outnumber the locals outside, so I don't think it is a foregone conclusion that they will be able to. But another way to look at it, is that by being counted as part of the population in the vicinity of the prison, it provides an incentive to have prisons and to incarcerate people, and it also reduces the representation of the places prisoners come from.
- sutuplesu 5y ago
  I mean you can't have it both ways. If a person is counted for apportionment in a particular place, that is the place they're "represented" and it must be the place their vote counts.