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If you are free and able to vote but won't do it, it's hard for me to feel too much pity for your situation. I started voting when I was 16 (my birth country a

• pochekailov 4y ago
  Haha I am still not a citizen, so can't vote myself. I was trying to encourage my friends, but they were often too busy. They would vote for Hillary (or even for Trump), but never for a local mayor. Sometimes I am considering running myself for a local government after getting my citizenship, with the only goal: drop housing price at my city for at least 70%. Once achieved - retire from politics :).
  • dfxm12 4y ago
    I've got the political party for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_Is_Too_Damn_High_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_Is_Too_Damn_High_Party https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79KzZ0YqLvo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79KzZ0YqLvo
• lambertsimnel 4y ago
  Some people find it difficult to vote, for reasons I suspect disproportionately affect renters. Where people must be registered with their home address in order to vote, renters are at more risk of being unregistered at election time, because they move home more frequently. People experiencing economic hardship (who are more likely to be renters) are less likely to make time for voting (especially if polling stations are congested or at inconvenient locations) or for prompt electoral registration.
  • pochekailov 4y ago
    We probably need some service (an app or a site) that gives clear instructions on how, where and when to register. Yes, it is harder for renters, but it is designed to be harder. This is to prevent renters from having political power and making homeowner's houses more expensive. One more reason to fight, from my point of view.
    • choko 4y ago
      We have all that and more. There are even groups that seek people out to teach them to vote. When you file a change of address with the post office, they send you a packet with all kinds of moving resources including how to re-register. In addition, a really quick Google search gives you all you need to know to register and vote. I don't understand why some people pretend the process is difficult. If people still aren't voting it's due to lack of interest, not because it's confusing or difficult.
      • Retric 4y ago
        It is unreasonably difficult. There is no reason you should need to jump through any extra hoops beyond a change of address.
        • choko 4y ago
          Why stop there? Perhaps government employees should go door to door and record my vote for me. Sending something in the mail is unreasonably difficult.
          • Retric 4y ago
            Because this would actually save the government and thus taxpayers 100+ million dollars a year? A change of address is informing the government you moved and happens millions of times a year. Automating it doesn't just save citizens 10’s of millions of hours per year it also saves all the effort by all these different agencies when people communicate the same information to multiple agencies.
            • choko 4y ago
              Would it though? The agencies are at different levels - local vs. federal. In addition, you are notifying the post office you have moved, not the government. Your federal notification is basically to the IRS, and not everyone pays income tax, so integration there would not work. Also, not all taxpayers are eligible to vote - another complication. You have oversimplified the details of this sort of integration and conflated local vs federal institutions. The best way to do this change would be through your state's BMV/DMV, and many states already update your registration (or offer to) when you submit an address change there. Registration and voting are easy and well documented in every state in which I've lived or researched.
  • alistairSH 4y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted. Whether it's intentional or not, voting in the US is not always easy for several reasons... 1 - No national election day holiday, so wage-earners often have to forgo income to vote. 2 - Long lines, too few voting stations, exacerbate point 1 3 - Inconsistent voting laws as you cross municipal boundaries (mostly state to state). 3b - particularly WRT mail-in/absentee ballots. 4 - constant undermining of the voting system as a whole by the GOP. This has really ramped up in the last ~8 years, but it's been there much longer. The first 3 are more likely to impact poorer citizens, who are also more likely to rent their homes. We'd do well as a country to allow nationwide mail-in voting.
    • jimbob45 4y ago
      1 - No national election day holiday, so wage-earners often have to forgo income to vote. PSA: You can register as a poll worker and work election day to guarantee you have time to vote. There's a high chance that your work will give you the time off to go work as a poll worker without it eating into your PTO (and you get paid to boot!).
      • PuppyTailWags 4y ago
        > There's a high chance that your work will give you the time off to go work as a poll worker without it eating into your PTO (and you get paid to boot!). As an ex-linecook, LOL, there are too many assumptions baked in here to be in the realm of reality for working class jobs
      • Loughla 4y ago
        Holy cow, not even a little bit. This is so, so middle- to upper-middle income centered it's not even funny. 1st you are assuming people have one employer to worry about, not multiple. 2nd you are assuming people have a set schedule daily or weekly. 3rd you are assuming people have PTO. 4th you are assuming the employer will give any amount of shit about volunteerism. 5th you are assuming they won't be given a point or docked for missing a shift.
        • 4y ago
  • mikkergp 4y ago
    I was curious on the data on this. I mean difficulty voting certainly is a major narrative and passes the smell test but the survey in this article suggests 3/4’s of non voters say it is easy to vote: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/561886-whos-not-voting-in-america/amp/ https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/561886-whos-not-voting-... This is however contrasted by the confusing bit that not being registered was the biggest reason people didn’t vote, above apathy and political disengagement.
    • ghaff 4y ago
      > not being registered was the biggest reason people didn’t vote, above apathy and political disengagement. And it seems likely they didn't make the (often minimal) effort to get registered because of apathy or political disengagement.
      • Loughla 4y ago
        Let's have this thought experiment played out. What did it look like for you to get registered to vote?
        • ghaff 4y ago
          Well, I get a form every year from my town to confirm my particulars. I sign it and send it back. I guess if I weren't registered I'd go down to the town hall and do so. If I couldn't for some reason, I assume I could call the town clerk, and they'd send me a form in the mail. When I go into Cambridge around election time, I frequently see various tables set up to register people. Obviously registering (and voting) is harder for some people than others but registering to vote is not, in general, an arduous process.
          • Loughla 4y ago
            >I guess if weren't registered I'd go down to the town hall and do so. What if your job wouldn't let you off during the town hall's regular hours? What if you don't have transportation? What if you don't have the necessary forms of identification? > I assume I could call the town clerk, and they'd send me a form in the mail What if you're not already registered and cannot just fill out a form to send in? What if you have to provide proof of residency in the form of a bill in your name and current address that matches your ID? What if you don't have an ID because you can't get to the DMV because you can't get time off work to go get it, or you don't have transportation, or you don't have internet access to set an online appointment with the DMV, or your credit is bad enough that the bills are only in your roommate's name to avoid headache with those companies? I guess my point is, it's very flippant to just say, "well it's easy for me, so it's probably pretty easy for everyone else, so it must be apathy as the only solution."
  • woofyman 4y ago
    There’s early voting.
• francisofascii 4y ago
  Well, you can't vote where you don't live. The large problem is the lack of appropriate land taxes in high cost municipalities. And you can't vote to change that until you live there, and once you live there, you are much less incentivized to vote against your self interests.
  • nradov 4y ago
    Most of the laws regarding property taxes are set at the state level, not the municipal level. In California, a voter in Modesto can influence tax rates in San Francisco. Local votes only control minor things like special additional school district assessments.
    • lotsofpulp 4y ago
      That is a California specific phenomenon due to various caps they put at state level on the rate at which property taxes can be increased
      • nradov 4y ago
        Even in other states which lack property tax caps, the basic framework within which tax rates are set is controlled at the state level. For example, some economists have proposed replacing property taxes with land value taxes but it would be impossible for a single city to do so without enabling state legislation.
        • lotsofpulp 4y ago
          Interesting. I assumed counties/cities are relatively free to set property tax rates according to their budget, and the city needing to compete with other cities is what keeps them relatively in line.
    • TuringNYC 4y ago
      That may be how things work in California, but it definitely does not work like that everywhere in the US. For example, here in NJ, property taxes are partly set by the state, but the schools portion is set my the county and township.
• lkbm 4y ago
  > If you are free and able to vote but won't do it, it's hard for me to feel too much pity for your situation. What if I vote, but people with interests aligned with mine tend not to? What if those people not voting are acting as rationally as the people who vote frequently? Consider these two groups, who get the same number of votes, live under the government for the same amount of time, but rationally have different incentives to vote: Home-owner: * Bob moves in, lives there ten years. Renters: * John moves in, lives there two years, moves out. * Phil moves in, lives there two years, moves out. * Mike moves in, lives there two years, moves out. * Jess moves in, lives there two years, moves out. * Fred moves in, lives there two years, moves out. If we assume these people are self-interested, Bob will, on average, vote more than the renters, because Bob values future-Bob's well-being more than John values Fred's. It's only through the altruism of John, Phil, Mike, and Jess that Fred will get to benefit from a government that accounts for his interests. It's also true that each renter has an incentive to vote for things of short-term value and to discount long-term benefits, so maybe it's okay that Bob ends up more represented. But "John isn't voting as much as Bob" isn't a case of John being less responsible than Bob. It's that they legitimately have different incentives.
  • jjav 4y ago
    > so maybe it's okay that Bob ends up more represented In this example, I'd say it is very legitimate that the Bob has over time more influence how local things are run, since he's a long-time local that has to live with it. All the others are transients that come and go.
    • lkbm 4y ago
      Collectively, the others live with it for the same amount of time. Their incentives are lower to improve things locally, but the impact on them is the same.
• banannaise 4y ago
  I voted, but somehow people keep saying my opinion doesn't matter because I, as a demographic, didn't vote.