4 ms·
Why would we want to make it any easier to vote? It's always going to be true that it's far more expensive to educate oneself to choose the most correct choice
by CWuestefeld 15y ago
Why would we want to make it any easier to vote?
It's always going to be true that it's far more expensive to educate oneself to choose the most correct choice in an election, than to actually cast that vote. It seems to me that as the difference in cost between these two things increases, we risk an increase in reckless, uninformed voting.
Perhaps we should make it even more difficult to vote. People who are voting on a whim would be less likely to make a frivolous vote. But people who had already invested significant time in understanding the issues would still feel motivated to use their knowledge. I'm not sure I'd really advocate a measure like this, but I think it's an interesting thought experiment.
After pondering it a bit, I'm coming to the same old libertarian conclusion that the apparent dichotomy is caused by giving the government too much power. We only need to be experts when voting because the government is dictating so much of our own lives. If we didn't try to achieve Plato's ideal of experts running everything, but limited the government's power to policing right and wrong, the only expertise necessary for voting would be introspection into one's own value system.
- yohui 15y agoWere you responding to the "Internet voting" thread? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3221370 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3221370 As for your question, I don't see a way to enact a plan to weed out "uninformed" voters. It'd be nice if all votes were cast on a rational basis, but current impediments to voting seem to tilt the system in favor of highly-opinionated, partisan voters over more laid-back voters. While some partisan voters may have arrived at their convictions through reason and analysis, many more are of the "angry voter" mentality. A voting system such as Australia's, which encourages everyone to vote, seems in principle less susceptible to hacking by special-interests. It is inevitable and sometimes good that highly-opinionated minorities gain outsize political weight relative to a passive majority, but we do not need the election system to make it too easy to do so. In effect, maximizing voter participation should align government more closely to the actual will of the governed. (It's worth noting that a statistically random sample would work just as well, with the additional benefit of encouraging gravitas in the selected voters, but explaining statstics to the general public may be a challenge in itself.) Also, while you may be right, I wouldn't jump too quickly to the conclusion that the best way to solve a problem with an important issue (governance) is to make it unimportant. Certainly one may try to reduce the government's power, but that is orthogonal to the issue of making sure elections are well run.
- zokier 15y agoRestricting voting to only "informed" voters would eventually lead to aristocracy and elitism.
- VladRussian 15y agovoting exposes lives, rights and property of others to danger, the same way like driving on public roads. Thus one is[must be] allowed to drive or to vote or to perform other potentially damaging activity only after meeting the minimally necessary threshold of related education/skills/etc..