So are you Americans not going to vote again in 2004?

Guys: his statistic about the number of non-voters is correct. You're telling me that if the other VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE got off their ass, it still wouldn't even theoretically alter the election results?

I'm afraid Dubya will "win" 2004 too.

(although your stats are a little off— in 2000 it was ap. 50% voter turnout)

I understand your point, but the tone of the question is pretty off-putting. And yes, I do think that the Nader voters in Florida and the election debacle ARE important. Hypothetical situations aren't that important to me; what actually happened is.

What do you suggest? Surreptitiously slipping voting pamphlets inside ice cream sundaes?

If there's anything where people need to be browbeated to do, voting is it. Sorry.

Just because they caught Chuck Hagel doesn't mean that they are going to do anything about it.

yeah, 100% turnout for Saddam.

I agree that people not voting is totally fucked up and wrong in a democracy, but on the other hand I think that forcing or guilting people to do what they're not inclined to do is pretty damn anti-democratic.

Had Gore supporters gotten more organized and won one other state that Bush ended up winning, Florida would not have mattered at all.

H, if you feel people shouldn't be heavily persuaded to vote because "it isn't democratic", then at least spare me any bitching about any current administration's actions when the poor bullied non-voters' lack of action ends up working against the wishes of you or them.

Don’t forget the police roadblocks between black neighborhoods and polling places in Florida.

They hover around half, right?

For presidential elections. Down to 35% in off-year national elections. 25% in local/state elections.

A) always vote
B) always threaten (yes, with VIOLENCE) my friends to also do so

Maybe, in '04, things will be different.

H, if you feel people shouldn't be heavily persuaded to vote because "it isn't democratic", then at least spare me any bitching about any current administration's actions when the poor bullied non-voters' lack of action ends up working against the wishes of you or them.

I can bitch all I want about the current administration, even if I didn't vote! It's called the First Amendment, as far as I know it hasn't been suspended (yet). And I voted for Gore, and he won my state, even though the county I lived in had over 100K votes thrown out!

Assuming your vote doesn't matter is the easy way out: just because you're in a territory that always swings one way, does that make it any less important to register your support for the opposition? Even if it doesn't swing the vote, it at least sends a message, however small.

John, if you want someone to hear your opinions from far away about how much you hate to yell, and you want to never have to yell again to get on with life, are you not going to yell to honor your convictions?

So then stop arguing with him: "more than half of eligible voters not voting" is not a hypothetical situation.

Don't you think a little push, even if it hurts to hear, is necessarily sometimes to prevent further misery?

... which is why we end up with the candidates we do, because you can always count on one side or another to mobilize and vote for X because Y is pro-choice, or vote Y because X is pro-war, and in the meantime the vast middle sits on the side waiting for Mr Right.

Okay I'll shut up now because OBVIOUSLY I have nothing that's worth reading.

That said, DB's exhortation to the generally-left people of ILM to make sure to vote is a good one. (Except that most of us already live in guaranteed-Democrat states to begin with.)

I still think that all elections should have a "none of the above" selection so that if people dislike ALL of the candidates they can register that without spoiling or declining their ballot (either of which can easily be misinterpreted). Instead of being stuck with the candidate you dislike least, vote for "none of the above", and if "none of the above" wins, you have to start again...with different candidates. Yeah, it could potentially cost more money re-running elections, but it could also force people to run stronger campaigns and differentiate themselves more. (Maybe.)

Has this been an extensive study? I'd like to read up on this. Even with no stats, I'd base my guess that, nowadays, more left leaners don't vote than right leaners, just from my observations to how disorganized the U.S. left seems to be right now.

For my day job, I basically spend all day doing security checks so that military personnel, dept of energy, air marshalls etc can get their clearances before they start working or go active duty. And to put it generally (as always there are exceptions) most people I speak to are supportive of Bush and think that he is doing a good job. Mind you, I don't engage the m in these conversations or give my opinions because I could give a shit about their brainwashed views. But Bush does have the supporters he needs to perhaps win the next election. And I have had my share of horrible fights with military personnel (on my off time) who think they have something to teach a young girl about the way the world works.

I wish I could remember sources for the research. The upshot is that while the research obviously can't prove that increased voter turnout wouldn't have some effect on results, it was without question not clear that we should just assume it would benefit the left.

John your devil's advocate point is well taken, but I argue that continuing to live in America and taking advantage of the protection and freedoms afforded by citizenship is tacit complicity in "the system" (and yes, I am on the left of the political spectrum and I know things could be a lot better here and I hate Bushco). far from non-voting being an act of protest, it is a simple way of ensuring that no positive changes occur and it is a way of relinquishing responsibility for what goes on. The feeling of responsibility is a major feature of citizenship. I would argue, in fact, that the MOST IMPORTANT problem in America today is that nobody takes responsibility. The government is ELECTED. Honestly, in some ways, I dont blame Bush at all. There will always be idiots like Bush around, but they need to be elected to have power.

It's also a giant assumption that the working class is invariably liberal. (See also: giant assumption that the working class is invariably conservative.)

And then I think Vowell ran a search on Lexus Nexus on articles that had moron and Bush in the title and articles that had Gore and or geek/nerd in the title. You can imagine what the search results were.

I started to type out a long post about how I'd bet one of my cats that there have been a lot of extensive studies on the political leanings of non-voters, but that they've probably been commissioned by politically-interested groups to support one point or another, and are probably dodgy because of the sampling they use. Then I backspaced it cause it was just so much supposition. So I'll say something more useful instead:

"... how disorganized the U.S. left seems to be right now" is the most important point here, I think. Encouraging everyone to vote, no matter what, for God's sake vote!, when we have an eligible incumbent is not necessarily the best way to change things. Encouraging left-leaning folks who don't like the state of the union to get their shit together, find a good candidate, and put effort into making potential voters informed is something I'm totally in favor of.

My completely useless anecdotal bullshit: when my high school made voting in student council elections mandatory (God knows why), everyone was re-elected.

as usual, nabisco enters the fray with sweeping generalizations soon to be followed by many abstract hypothetical "what if"s and invalid inferrences will be raised followed by a grueling grind down of personal will and interest...

(warning: i'm leaving work soon, long drawn out debates will likely go unanswered)

:-D

the ideal that i can confidently vote for the candidate of my choice who lies outside of the bipartisan universe comes from personal philosophy which i will gladly refrain from explaing here. i did not participate in any vote swapping/trading and took a lot of shit for doing so from democrat-friendly friends/acquaintances.

kindly note: i have never voted dem/gop in pres. election and given the dnc hopefulls for 04, i am not planning to anytime soon. If Barbara Lee enters the race I would definitely support her even if she runs dem.

Voting fosters awareness, not just an increment to some counter every four years.

Voter apathy is the main reason people don't vote.. not because the non-voters don't like the system. Spending a few hours reading that pamphlet on the weekend or on a weekday evening -- even a week before the elections -- is NOT a terrible imposition on even hard working people.

And I think recent presidents, even Clinton, have become far too comfortable with voter apathy, and have taken advantage of it, because they don't a) get, or b) respect the feedback from their actions.

I think BushJr's war should the ultimate wake-up call to anyone who never believe what bad effect voter apathy can have.

Gygax's mother: "For dinner you can have either soup or poop."
Gygax: "I register my objection to both: I would prefer potatoes."
Gygax's mother: "Enjoy your poop."
Gygax: "I shall."

I was going to make some comment on how absurd to me it seems (again, keeping in mind that the Canadian electoral system is different in a lot of very key ways) to hold an election before you hold the election, but I think the point about the varying nature of how the primaries work is more key for this: if every state does things differently both in terms of the primaries and in terms of how the actual election is held (different polling mechanisms, different administration of the voting lists and how they conduct themselves on voting day when it comes to actually allowing people to vote--especially those who have been left off the voting lists, either maliciously or accidentally), then you can always expect someone to come in with this "but look what happened in Florida" kind of argument. To an outsider such as myself, it seems like whenever it comes to an election, that the process is less a uniform and totally fair process than one of warring fiefdoms with different ideas as to how democracy works, somehow trying to bring it all together on the same day. Who actually administers the local elections...the federal government? the states? the cities? If it's the states, as I've been led to believe from everything I've heard in the past and everything said here, how confident is everyone that state governments are not exerting some sort of influence over the voter rolls and the way voting itself is done?

All of this said, I still think "none of the above" is a good idea, especially if the public at large can't participate in the primaries.

So, you know, poop or crap -- in the average presidential election you're going to get one or the other whether you like it or not, and you've been given the slightest opportunity to engage with the process and affect the result. I don't like these more "soulful" approaches to voting where the value lies in voting for an ideal candidate completely independent of what consequences that vote will have in reality. I don't think voting has ever been meant to work that way. This is the entire reason we have primaries -- they're an institutionalized process that allows the major parties to cast their votes strategically for a non-ideal but realistic candidate they've ostensibly agreed to rally around!

I'll stop there, because there's already a Nader thread in the archive where I blew my top and kept asking any Nader voter to explain what concrete positive effect they expected their votes to have in the real world, and there was an amazing hesitancy among them to offer anything beyond "it made me feel like I did the right thing." So far as I'm concerned votes are for influencing reality, not for self-satisfaction.

nabisco, our government was founded politically on the idea that people could choose to express themselves freely.

wrt: YOUR WORDS "near-absolute endore(ment)": what's the difference between "near-absolutely endorse" and "expression of self"... do you think that the two do not intersect? (i fear this is opening up the whole abstract hypothetical 12 paragraph response).

I respect whatever personal ideals you have to vote only for candidates you near-absolutely endorse, but I think inserting those ideals into a voting process that's not built to accommodate them (i.e. a non-proportional one) is a bad and counterproductive idea that accomplishes nothing apart from giving you the satisfaction of having expressed yourself

this attitude will get you far in corporate america/academia. best of luck! :-D

nabisco's mother: "For dinner you can have either soup or poop."
nabisco: "(I really want potatoes) Soup."
nabisco's mother: "Enjoy your soup."
nabisco: "Thanks mother. (This is okay, but I really wish I had those potatoes).")

Ha! Ha!

It's a real stretch to conflate "freedom of expression was important to the Founding Fathers" with "the Founding Fathers would've supported the idea of using the right to vote, or the right to abstain from voting, symbolically instead of pragmatically," if that's what you're suggesting.

So basically the choice is being boiled down to the best compromise solution that the parties (note: not the PEOPLE) agree upon?

Note: I'm not really necessarily in opposition to you on this, because I understand the reality of the situation. Realistically, the Canadian setup features the same candidate selection process but on a more limited scale, it would appear (they hold conventions as opposed to primaries). Now, that said, Canada has more than two major political parties that have some chance of having their voices heard in parliament when all is said and done, which may well open up a broader range of debate post-election. But even in this circumstance I still think "none of the above" is a great option. I mean, I understand your point, but this "one of these two guys is going to get in so there's no point fighting it" attitude seems to preclude any possibility of making a difference or changing the voting process, etc. It seems a little defeatist, in other words.

Look: a vote contains elements of both choice and approval. I think the young left in America has gotten way caught up in the "approval" element at the expense of engaging properly with the "choice" element.

The "endorsement" versus "expression of self" part will not elicit a 12-paragraph response, because you read it completely backwards.

There's a certain logic to a commitment to electoral politics which leads ultimately to doing nearly *nothing* else -- partly an understanding that if you cast a vote for a party you take responsibility for it. Not voting seems an anti-democratic crime only to those who think voting is the *only* or at least *most important* thing you can do.

Sure, you'd only need a small portion of them to swing FL (or TN or ...) Gore's way. But it's just as easy of an assumption that they would have selected Bush.

The thing is, the end result is that you're still going to get either stabbed in the eye or stabbed in the ear. Just because you walked up and said "I choose not to pick either of those options" doesn't mean it still won't be inflicted on you. We're going to have a President. We can't escape that, that's how the US government is set up.

By going in and saying "OK, I guess being stabbed in the ear is marginally better" then at least you're helping get the lesser of two evils.

Why do all of the choices we get presented with suck, anyway. Maybe Plato was onto something about the only true leaders being the ones who refuse to seek power.

Incidentally, I don't necessarily think that non-voters are hugely leftist. My own personal experience has been that virtually every non-voter from the last election was anti-Bush.

Spoken like a true Chicagoan, nabisco

"Vote early, vote often" -Richard M. Daley

Now, would I have voted the same if I lived in another state? I don't know.

The one way I would see this to be correct is that at the time, I personally, did not think anyone would be stupid enough to vote for Bush (apologies to those who did, like my whole family) thus people who didn't vote thought Gore was a shoo in. We misunderestimated the American people.

wrt: "sarcastic personal attack"
*ahem* "fucking gygax"/"eat poop".. way to take the high road, do you feel better now? fwiw, i have not once been sarcastic in this thread.

i'm out.

:-D

Sam, I definitely understand that point, although it's still problematic: the real-world effect of voting Green is to encourage a Green movement. You can say "it doesn't matter in my state now," but by casting the vote you're still theoretically starting the ball rolling toward a day when it could matter in your state. Which is absolutely great if that's what you're committed to. All I'm saying is that decisions like this are necessarily strategic, and that it's necessary to think -- short-term and long -- about what you're contributing to and why and what you're hoping will come of it. (Saying "well this is the candidate I believe in and that's all that matters," while an important impulse to have, does not take those things into consideration.)

The 2000 voters' pamphlet here in Oregon was in two volumes, the first of which (which just covered the many measures that were up) was about 500 pages long? Something like that. The second volume, about the candidates, was much slimmer, probably about 100.

(People pay $500 to get a half-page to rant about whatever measure they support; many of the rants make excellent reading, especially on some of the hot-button issues. In 2000, Measure 9, which would have forbad public schools to discuss homosexuality -- that includes state universities! -- led to some fantastically good reading.)

As far as some of the other issues go: I think the problem isn't so much who in particular gets elected as it is the fact that so many people feel disenfranchised and don't care. It would be far better, from my point of view, if more people voted, even if it turned out they voted for people I disagreed with.

Stencil: you're absolutely right that this would be a different issue in different electoral circumstances -- which is why I said this is a completely different thing in a proportional or representational democracy. I think what's happened is that the strategic and coalition-based elements of voting in the U.S. have become so entrenched in the two-party system that they don't even seem to exist anymore: the parties look less like voter coalitions and more like structural elements of the whole voting process. In that sense I understand the impulse to buck the entire coalition-forming basis of voting and consider it as a more individual act.

last year the local paper ran this article about how most people explain low voter turnout among teens and twentysomethings as due to apathy, but the people around where we live just don't vote because they think it's too important and they are too ignorant. it made me want to go on an idiot hunt.

I don't vote because I don't believe in representative democracy as an effective or moral system of government. I'm well aware that, pragmatically, it makes no difference whether I am too lazy to get off my ass and down to the polling place or I am abstaining for the sake of a moral conviction. But I still don't choose to pick "the lesser of two evils" because, for one who does not approve of the whole premise of an elected official representing ones interests, there CAN BE NO "lesser of two evils." It's not a case of voting for poop or puke but of voting for poop or shit: that is, two names for the same thing.

I absolutely agree (except for the chicken part). Pamphlets shouldn't have "Volume 2"s.

You should vote for Republicans, then!

Erm, no. The point is that I don't think that one person can represent a group.

This is just my personal opinion and not an attack on anyone, but a lot of the philosophies on voting I'm seeing here seem -- to me -- to boil down to "My deep personal convictions unfortunately prevent me from making a positive contribution to the state of the world."

nabisco: Haha, but no, he really should just leave the country.

I should add that I DO vote on some legislative measures that I feel personally affect me.

I guess in a perfect world we'd all be free to propose any new law/repeal of an old one and then everybody would vote. Obviously, that's impossible for practical purposes.

I mean I'm perfectly capable of coming down and arguing at that level but I'd rather avoid it if possible.

(Note that while the new left fetishizes symoblic voting over pragmatic voting, the Christian Right does the exact opposite -- and note how successful they are in pushing their agenda!)

Uh, I don't remember reading that in the Constitution, and I re-read today actually. Voting is not compulsory. Nor, as I argued upthread, should it be, in my opinion. I think America's a big enough country (in the metaphorical sense) to allow people who live here to believe that "the US system of government is dead wrong" if they want. I don't agree with the sentiment myself, but isn't the First Amendment based around people being free to express their beliefs? Saying you don't believe in American-style democracy is not the same as yelling fire in a crowded theater.

Nabisco, would you agree with the sentiment that the difference between Democrats and Republicans are becoming less and less as time goes by? And if one truly felt that either a Democratic or Republican administration would not, in the long run, make a difference either way, then a vote for neither a Democratic nor a Republican is perfectly reasonable, as long as the voter is aware of his/her consequences?

I agree that one cannot ignore strategy in voting, and that sometimes it may be helpful to not directly vote for the guy you like the best, as long as you can arrange it as much as possible to help support your true voting target in other ways. Which is a perfect segue to Sterling's comment:

Fuck the democrats. Joe Lieberman to thread.
There's a certain logic to a commitment to electoral politics which leads ultimately to doing nearly *nothing* else -- partly an understanding that if you cast a vote for a party you take responsibility for it. Not voting seems an anti-democratic crime only to those who think voting is the *only* or at least *most important* thing you can do.

And I agree there are more substantial things you can do than voting, but those alternatives cost one a LOT more time and money than voting, which is virtually free and takes only a trivial amount of time every four years. A single vote may not mean as much a single commitment to help campaign for your candidate, but getting everyone to follow through with their given right to vote in this country means everything, as it's the single and only basic unit that causes a change in the presidency every four years.

zaxxon:

The huge assumption here is that those who did not vote would have selected Gore.

Yes, it's an assumption of mine that a slight majority of the non-voters would have swung more to the left than the right, as I feel the left is more disorganized than the right at the moment. I don't feel that's an uneducated assumption at all.

Sure, you'd only need a small portion of them to swing FL (or TN or ...) Gore's way. But it's just as easy of an assumption that they would have selected Bush

and to say it once again, this would have not mattered at all had Gore been able to get one more state that Bush won instead... like maybe his own state?

I think America's a big enough country (in the metaphorical sense) to allow people who live here to believe that "the US system of government is dead wrong" if they want. I don't agree with the sentiment myself, but isn't the First Amendment based around people being free to express their beliefs? Saying you don't believe in American-style democracy is not the same as yelling fire in a crowded theater.

Hstencil, imagine you had four other roommates in your complex. It was mutually agreed that since Roomie #1 paid the most rent and initiated the lease, she should be able to propose changes to the household rules.

So she proposes a change.. a change that would completely derail your lifestyle at home. She puts the motion to a majority vote in the household, herself included.

You vote against her.

Roomie #2 votes with her.

You're friends with Roomie #3 and Roomie #4. They agree what she's proposing sucks ass, and would make your lives a living hell. But Roomie #3 and Roomie #4 feel that, since they don't really dig the mechanics of the way decisions are made in the house, they don't bother to attend the crucial house meeting to vote for her motion. So the vote ends up being 2 to 1 in her favor.

Obviously Roomie #3 and #4 weren't obligated to show up, but wouldn't you be extremely pissed off right now?

I just think voter apathy, overall, is contributing to a decrease in the quality of life of everybody, because the leaders know it and take advantage of it... Democrat or Republican. And that we have the ability to prevent that.

I guess in a perfect world we'd all be free to propose any new law/repeal of an old one and then everybody would vote. Obviously, that's impossible for practical purposes.

The problem is, as you said, it's totally impractical and completely impossible and will probably result in the destruction of the entire universe (ok you didn't say that last bit). So I guess what I am asking is what you would propose as a practical alternative to the form of electoral representation that we have now. I think that it is probably the best way out of a lot of flawed systems, personally.

Rather than getting into a not-voting-is-evil thing, I'll note that if you would prefer one politican to another, then you should vote. And while in 2000 Bush was pretending to be more centrist than he was, I think EVERYBODY knows where he stands and should react to his administration accordingly in 2004.

I said "nobody" voted!

Because a monarch is one, an elected group is many. It makes it harder for an individual lawmaker to enact a law purely out of self-interest. Who will stop a monarch?

That case is moot. If a proposition is made, at least one person -- the proposer -- is going to vote for it by definition.

Unless I'm missing some extremely subtle joke here.

I think all of that has changed now. :(

I mean, do you think Nabisco would argue that Nader should have voted for Gore in the 2000 election?

Or that's a theory, anyways.

Personally I'd much rather see a really radical leftward draw of the Democratic Party than see a third-party split come of the left. I think those who have given up on the major parties may in fact be underestimating how much the major parties can and have changed in short periods of time.

Unfortunately their appeal was mostly scare tactics about how horrible Bush would prove to be to, say, the environment (which has proven true) and not so much about what Gore would do to actually help the environment. There was no policy lain down, just scaremongering.

Whether any of that will have anything to do with how the 2004 election plays out remains to be seen -- a lot has happened since then, obviously.

I mean, if there was an element in the Democratic party that noted all of this and saw some potential in bringing in Nader's vibrant young left, that element certainly hasn't raised its head in the years since!

Clearly, however, people heeded the scaremongering tactics, so they hadn't gotten quite evil enough for many people. (Which I suppose is your argument. But when do you draw the line?)

this discussion is frustrating

relating to point touched on by darni3ll3 and piuma, i would be much happier if NOBODY voted, rather than EVERYBODY. that said, i vote.

to increase voting, i would suggest any of the following:

polls open for an entire week
longer poll hours
everyone on absentee and/or electronic voting (net,etc)
voting day on a weekend instead of tuesday or whatever (been on permanent absentee so long i can't remember)
no poll returns available until vote count complete/largely complete

much of the criticisms on this thread seem to be for "not making a positive contribution to the state of the world" (nabisco's words) / being unrealistic about the effect of one's decision to abstain from voting or to vote for a third party. what if you don't want to make a positive contribution to the world? more specifically, what if you think that a dose of destruction/negativity is the best thing for it?

any thoughts would be appreciated - i grapple with many conflicting political/social views inside my brane

correct. you are fined $50 if you don't. i'm not aware of anyone at all who feels their civil liberties are impinged upon for having to vote. fancy that.

I think this is more likely heard by the no voter as: "For dinner you can have either soup or soup."

I also think a "no vote" is much more likely to be interpreted as a vote for the status quo then some sign of protest. I'n unsure if it really "acts" that way though. I suppose it depends if a lower turnout inherently helps the incumbent.

for example, the best idea i've heard was splitting up the US into several smaller countries, as discussed on some other thread. thus, destructive. but sooooooo unlikely impossible. what i like about this idea is that it would result in less power being centered in the "US", with less overall suffering than other routes, i.e. prolonged economic and/or military ass-kicking at the hands of... who? the way it looks right now, for the US to get a serious beat-to-the-ground-ass-whoopin would take some MAJOR SHIT GOIN' DOWN...

that's on a good day - i think "can't we tone the world down a few notches in a calm, orderly manner?" it could be sort of like the EU but in reverse. or like doing a stock split

but then on a bad day it's like "PLEASE GOD, KILL US NOW"

another big thing for me is population reduction. not necessarily destructive per se, but of a kindred spirit. also NOT LIKELY to take top spot on anyone's campaign platform. argh

ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION

THANK YOU GOOD NIGHT

That list of reforms to the US system someone listed upthread look reasonable at first glance but as I'm not closely familiar with the system I can't tell what problems there'd be grafting them on.

If you haven't registered to vote in your county/state... do it now.

If you wait til the last minute, specifically less than 30 days before the election day (depending on your state) or MORE (depending on your state), you will NOT BE ABLE TO VOTE FOR THE PRESIDENT OF 2004.

You need to be a U.S. Citizen and have a driver's license or state I.D. card for where you live. That shoud be it. You should be able to find forms for registering to vote in many public areans like libraries, schools, etc. It depends on your state, but don't hesitate. Do the research and find out.

Unless you want to help contribute to the apathy that might get you stuck with some fucker in the White House you don't like for the next four years...

(I'm seriously going to start a "kill voter apathy" domain name and compaign cum my free time, and just make a simple page that has links to voter registrations sites for every state of the U.S. if I have to...)

(and yes, I did miss it, and I did indeed register late to vote in this state, which was dumb of me, because I could have voted on a number of local issues affecting me in the meantime.)

(Ned, I know, let me retype "election day" as "election time")

In California, you actually get the voter reg. card well before the ID if you apply for bopth at the same time, at least in my experience.

what's the deal w/ motor-voter reg. in new york? how soon after you apply for your ID is the voter application sent/processed? when i did this i got a postcard saying "your registration is effective immediately" but there was no date on it, not even a postmark.

I'll be voting, in any case. Since my non-driver's ID is from NH (the result of a frustrating comedy of errors), I'm registering there when I visit my mother, and then I'll vote by absentee ballot.

You want to look into America Votes

People should vote anyway - vote in local elections. Right-wingers are everywhere, trying to get their people elected dogcatcher. The other side has got to pay attention more.

Besides, I think we should drive the popular vote through the roof this time.

Why don't you ask Jeb Bush or Sam Katz?

So had the voter turnout been closer to 100% overall in America in 2000, or any year within the past five decades before for that matter, it wouldn't have made so much an election result difference as much as make politicians realize "holy shit, everyone voted, maybe we should be accountable for our actions and listen to what our voters have to say instead of doing what we want, stomping around where we want, and sucking our special interest groups' cocks." This implies, of course, that there would be have to be a huge increase in protest turnout as well, on either side, whenever a major global/federal issue came up, like say, oh, the Iraq war.

And this statement applies to both the Bush and Clinton years. And many terms before that.

I never lived in Florida, so I can't gauge what the difference in non-voting left vs. right folks in Florida was four years ago.

Ned's reference is great.. although wasn't there also a time before or after that election where voter turnout was hideously low, like 10%? I completely forget the election candidates, date, and why such was the case.

http://proxy.blogads.com/nzhmftjbtqsptqfdupsh/matthewyglesias/3130975/thumb?rev=rev_4

Even if you vote for Nader!

Or Mickey Mouse!

That's our system.

If you want to change the status quo, you'll have to be violent.

(While I occasionally daydream about bringing back the guillotine or a few good peasants-with-pitchforks moments - no, violence is (almost) never the answer. )

Browbeating people into voting, in addition to being ineffective and a weak band-aid solution to systematic problems (ie why people don't vote to start with), gives people a real copout for political apathy. "Oh, I'm engaged with the political process, I voted! Don't need to anything else!" The energy spent beating people into casting a meaningless ballot would be better spent getting them to engage with politics in a non-electoral arena. Protesting, signing petitions, working in a fucking soup kitchen, something.

Why don't people vote, DB? Is it just laziness? Is it dissatisfaction with the choices offered to them? I'm going with the latter, based on the way people vote in nations where they have real choices with IRV and parliamentary democracy (etc.).

If people aren't voting because they don't like the choices - what, exactly, are they going to accomplish by voting for one of these choices that they don't like? Other than letting politicians claim a mandate?

It's not like Belgium or anywhere else in the civilized universe where a vote for a minor party matters - if you vote Green or Libertarian in the US, you've thrown your vote away. You'll never find enough people around you to get either one elected (in my lifetime). So your alternative is to vote for a Democrat or Republican who doesn't represent your views, and who you really doubt will ever do anything in office that you support.

So, yeah, maybe disengagement with the electoral process (but not 'politics') is the answer for people who aren't satisfied with either of the two major parties.

(And there are people on both sides of the Ds and Rs advocating this - Howard Zinn "It's a bad move for progressive organizations to tie themselves to the electoral system because the electoral system is a great grave into which we are invited to get lost." and libertarians refusing to vote)

The Spanish ruling party lost 40 seats in the election, with almost 80% turnout. The ruling coalition will be made up of at least three parties, and almost a dozen total will hold seats in the new Parliament.

I'll take the Spanish system, thanks.

haha. of course, voting accomplishes more than any of those things.

I wonder if milo is going to side with Ralph Nader or with Noam Chomsky, who, while taking the position that there is little difference of background or place on the "political spectrum" between Bush and Kerry, argues that, given the power of the Presidency, the small difference that does exist might be sufficient for the wrong to lead to "severe, but maybe irremediable damage to the world"...

AA: Could any of the presidential candidates put us in a better position?

NC:   Slightly.  We know who the two candidates are going to be...it’s an interesting snapshot of American political culture.  The two candidates both come from backgrounds of great wealth, extensive political connections.  Both went to Yale.  Both joined the same secret society at Yale.  That’s the range of choices that we have!  But there is some difference between them – I don’t think a very great difference, just as there is very little range within the corporate-run political spectrum altogether.  But there is some difference, and in a system of tremendous power, small difference can translate into large effects.  So those small differences do matter.  But the real problem is to dismantle and undermine the entire system of completely illegitimate nomination.  

The people around Bush happen to be an unusually fanatical, extreme, arrogant and incompetent group, and they’re very dangerous.  But it’s a small group, and they barely hold political power.  And they’re frightening people, including the traditional conservatives, because they’re such extreme, radical, nationalist fanatics.  And Kerry doesn’t come from that background, he leans more towards the normal center.  But they’re very dangerous.  I think that with another four-year mandate, they might do not only severe, but maybe irremediable damage to the world.

I'll assume that milo is not a complete moron - I think he recognizes this possibility; I just think he doesn't really give a shit.

PF: no, why?

the most substantial reason was because 75% or more Americans did not vote

I didn't know we had extended the franchise to toddlers. If you meant registered voters, rather than Americans, 50.7% of them turned out in the 2000 election. In the last 70 years, no more than 62.8% have turned out in any election (that was for Kennedy-Nixon). The average turnout is probably around 55-6%.

To address the idea that people don't vote because they "don't have a real choice"...

The people who don't vote, I assume, are people who don't care, people who feel a sense of personal insignificance, people who believe that they are so important that they can only vote for a personally-tailored candidate, people who don't want to be part of civic life, people who feel that voting is an act of submission in approval of elites or intellectuals, people who require more charisma from candidates, people who have no idea that there's an election, and people who are deterred from voting by intimidation. I think that the number who feel they don't have a substantive choice is pretty insignificant. And if you disagree, you have to believe that there has been no choice for 70 years, dating back to the New Deal.

oh yes, the latter is much more personally rewarding

PF: er, no.

no. not even remotely. this should be self-evident.

I'm assuming that you don't consider voting for a loser an accomplishment (and that you think that feeding people is a good idea).

The first - I do consider it an accomplishment. The second - yes.

But it's much more demoralizing to consider the lack of voting and overall involvement from a larger civil standpoint. While slightly over 50% made a vote for president in 2000, a lower percentage didn't even bother to fill out the rest of the ballot completely. I don't know the number offhand anymore, but I remember in 2000 that the majority of registered voters could not identify the Vice Presidential candidate for both sides. The presidential election is nothing more than a beauty contest for most people.

Meanwhile, a host of representatives run unopposed or virtually unknown on a local level. The vast majority of Americans cannot name their Congressional representatives, let alone those that represent them on a local level. School boards and other municipal elections are virtually ignored year in and year out, with the spoils of local elections going to people who got maybe 15% of the registered voters in an election that drew maybe 25%. It's great that we're talking about voting in 2004, but do we have the same enthusiasm for all these little races that we do for electing Bush/Kerry/Nader/etc.? I'm willing to bet that most of the people on ILX who voted in 2000 pulled the handle on party lines, just because it's easier than, you know, bothering to consider where anyone stood on anything. Is the end of our civil duty to merely vote?

I can guarantee the powers that be are fine with them them not voting.

Chomsky is Allah! All Leftists must bow at his feet...

No one's disagreeing that Bush is 'dangerous,' or that Kerry is 'less-dangerous.' (Find where I've said anything of the sort.)

Thing is, the longer you continue to say "well, okay, this time we'll vote for the centrist, corporate candidate because the other guy is pure evil" the more impossible it is to ever see real change.

of course people should all go and vote but i don't know if it's appropriate to say that the main reason bush won was because not enough people voted.

Well, it's been 100 years or more in counting since any "real change" thanks to the ruling president. (Then again, "real change" is a great yet extremely subjective convenient rhetorical phrase to use when you're arguing) Are you hoping "real change" is just going to come around the corner now? Or are you going to strive to make it happen? Are you hoping everyone in the country is just going to listen to what you say one day and make this change happen for you?

And you induced, cynically and sarcastically or both, that voting and not voting doesn't accomplish any change any more thanks to us perpetuating the centrist/right status quo, that is, via catch 22. So, can we escape this? Any ideas? Or are you just making more cynical comments without possibly offering any solutions?

So I'm not denying people don't want to change things. I'm just suspicious of folks who are accusing Dem voters, this time around specifically, of supporting the centrist/right status quo when I (personally) feel that voting for a lesser evil is more urgent and key right now.. I don't think I'm alone right now.

Voting for the lesser evil is, I suppose, a perfectly valid choice. But it's a victory for the right. As long as progressives/liberals/leftists are content to just hold the line, rather than make progress, they'll continue to score victories on their issues. They'll be the ones leading the nation, with everyone to their left content to play catch-up and defense in order to appeal to anyone who might conceivably vote for them. And we'll continue sliding further right and further into apathy.

You can only do damage control for so long.

My solution for the catch-22? Well, I disagree with the first part of it - that not voting is an expression of content. That requires us to ignore every other piece of data about non-voters. But I've said it either here or the other thread - forget voting, if neither of the major candidates represents your views. Make your political difference in an arena that matters.

...to the terrorists, ha!

My solution for the catch-22? Well, I disagree with the first part of it - that not voting is an expression of content. That requires us to ignore every other piece of data about non-voters. But I've said it either here or the other thread - forget voting, if neither of the major candidates represents your views. Make your political difference in an arena that matters.

So your solution to the catch 22 is to, indeed, not vote... and make differences in other arenas that matter...

Ok, then.

Arenas like....?

Regardless of what gabbneb says, there are about a thousand things more meaningful than voting. Voting is the least involved you can actually be in the political process (barring not being involved at all).

"If voting changed anything they would make it illegal"

I don't know if I'd demean the act of voting by categorizing it this way, but as I alluded to earlier, civic duty is not summed up by casting a vote. And again, if citizens would wake the fuck up and start noticing that political power and influence begins in AT HOME and not by simply paying attention every four years when a presidential candidate gets trotted out to the tune of $100M, maybe things wouldn't be so fucked up. But probably not, because the citizens of this country are much happier to trade convenience for political power.

I dont' consider it demeaning at all, just an 'it is what it is' situaton. Barring not taking part, how do you get less involved than showing up every other year (if we're lucky!) to vote?

America is in a pretty unique situation in thet their democratic processes are directly important to millions of non Americans around the world. People have died as a result of US foreign policy adventures in pretty much every administration since the year dot, in a way that does not apply to, for example, the administration of New Zealand; many of the guys around Bush now were involved with Reagan as he sponsored the wholesale murder of ethnic minorities and leftists throughout Central America. Right now Bush is fucking with the democratic process in Venezuela, and god knows what just happened with Haiti, just that dozens of people are now dead that wouldn't have been if it hadn't happened.

Thus indifference within the US to the operation of the sort of power that has such effects on people outside the US is vexing to say the least.

The Republican party was founded in 1854. The American political system is as fluid as any other political system; the "we have a two-party system" line is transparently false, and a quick look at history reveals that. (Eugene Debs got a million votes while running for president from the inside of a prison cell!) Finally, the "don't complain" line is such tired, defeatist, obviously-intended-to-shame-the-conscientious-lefty-into-voting-for-yet-another-privileged-moneyed-bought-and-paid-for Dem candidate that it only just barely merits response. Refusing to play a rigged game doesn't disqualify anybody from pointing out that the game sucks and so do its players.

Blount I don't know if any of that was for me but I've been third-party all my life!

A: Yes, so fucking back off, Dem party-liners

--

Other things Kerry would say if he were actually worthy of anybody's vote:

"Weapons of mass destruction? No, even I never believed that, but you didn't have to be Dr. George Fischbeck to know which was the wind was blowing back when the Iraq thing started out"

"Catching Bin Laden? [chuckling]Oh, sure, that's a huge priority, I mean it's not like the economoy's completely tanked or anything"

"Anybody besides me think the whole Alaskan reserve thing sort of re-sets the bar for 'cynical'?"

"Patriot Act? Patriot Act? You are kidding, right?"

"If nobody else is going to point out publicly that declaring 'War on Terror' is about as sensible as declaring 'War on Anger,' then I guess I'm gonna have to take the hit, 'cause that dog don't hunt"

ad lib every other issue whose actual left-leaning response is obvious but won't be articulated by Kerry or any other Dem nominee between now and the Gog-Magog ticket in 2016

Kerry would NEVER say 'that dog won't hunt' (he's a damn Yankee y'know!)(still, yellow dog, etc.)

I think the reason that progressive politics don't do well in America is that they co-exist so poorly with the current electoral and political systems, and no politician who can be taken seriously within the sick system is going to try to kill the system that has served him so well.

Anyways, since you're voting for the little Satan anyways, my tired defeatist work here is done.
xp Colin otm

glad to see we've got somebody here who really takes the historical view

yes you're right 150 years = permanence, I'll run tell the Romans that this whole Italian parliament thing is just a passing fad

------------

yes you're right 150 years = permanence, I'll run tell the Romans that this whole Italian parliament thing is just a passing fad

-- J0hn Darn1elle (edito...), March 16th, 2004.

Italian parliament thing

everybody get up for the down stroke
-- cinniblount (littlejohnnyjewe...), March 16th, 2004.

Chicago Democrats love to assume that the voters are idiots.

But there was something about him that turned a lot of people off. He's too damned new-agey PC-liberal for me. He made me pine for Paul Wellstone something fierce. Progressive politics without coming off as some nutter with an ideology culled from bumper stickers (Dept of Peace!) and crystal-divining ceremonies.

I also have zero respect for someone who, by my read, shifted from pro-life to pro-choice simply to further his political career. (cf. Al Gore)

I hope this table comes out looking okay after I hit submit.

Upper Class - 4% of voters 56% Gore, 39% Bush, 0% Buch 3% Nader
Upper-Middle 27% of voters, 43% Gore, 54% Bush 0% Buchanan 3% Nader
Middle 46% etc. 48% Gore, 49% Bush 0% Buchanan 2% Nader
Working 18% etc. 51% Gore, 46% Bush 0% Buchanan 3% Nader
Lower Class 2% negligible, apparently

Under $15,000- 7% of voters ; 57% Gore, 37% Bush, 1% Buch, 4% Nader
$15-30,000 16% of voters ; 54% Gore, 41% Bush, 1% Buch 3% Nader
$30-50,000 24% of voters ; 49% Gore, 48% Bush, 0% Buch, 2% Nader

$50-75,000 25% of voters ; 46% Gore, 51% Bush, 0% Buch, 2% Nader
$75-100,000 13% of voters ; 45% Gore, 52% Bush, 0% Buch, 2% Nader
Over $100,000 15% of voters ; 43% Gore, 54% Bush, 0% Buch, 2% Nader

however milo your objections to Kucinich are so superficial that they call your whole stance into question - next you'll be saying that you don't wanna vote Kucinich because he doesn't wear Prada or something

I have issues with progressives/leftists who make the ideology an easy punchline. That's what Kucinich does with his new-agey stuff and the Dept. of "Peace."

There were other problems, too - but that's a bunch of dirty laundry.

A lot of ex-Nader people went into the Dean campaign instead, because it felt more honest, it was a serious campaign, and, even if Dean wasn't 'progressive', he was populist, reform-minded and ran a campaign with the theme of accountability. Those things are more fundamental than specific issues to many of those who voted for Nader.

You know, there's a far-left Trotskyist party in France called Lutte Ouvriere, led for decades by Arlette Laguiller, that hasn't changed in all that time as far as I know, and they find the right despicable and the left hypocritical and corporate. They have allied with the Ligue communiste révolutionnaire party for this year's elections in an attempt to reach the second round for once, but that's as compromising as they're ever going to get. Perhaps this would appeal to you?

ha ha ha

For a good examination of the "blue"/"red" divide in the last election, see the current Harper's and Thomas Frank's piece...

I guess it is supposed to be satirical, but that wasn't really why I thought it was funny.

I have a problem (specifically) with a Democratic politician suddenly becoming pro-choice because being pro-life hampered his career, and trying to fool the electorate. If I'm voting for a pro-choice candidate, I want him to be, you know, pro-choice.

The whole thing felt like a sham to me.

Of course, there's not going to be a lot of research and money to study why people don't vote, and do something about it and get those people voting. Who's really going to stand to benefit from some research who has the money? christhamrin's reference to "if voting really changed anything, it wouldn't be allowed" rings true here, once again.

I recognize there are flaws with the U.S. election system, electoral system, that's it's a republic, not a democracy, etc. I'm not happy with the U.S. in general right now in many different arenas. (which is why I've been hinting not so subtlely that I might be moving abroad in the near future). It's just frustrating that people don't recognize why voter apathy is just as much a catch-22 as voting is, that's all. "I don't vote because voting perpetuates the status quo, therefore I let the others perpetuate the status quo for me by them voting, and not having my say in something I find fundamentally ridden with flaws, but I'll still be bitching about it anyway after the fact... it doesn't matter anyway. Apathy is apathy, and the non-apathetic in power still win at the end. surprise surprise. Lose-lose situation. blah blah. whine whine. Congrats. Let's find more subversive ways to change things... which aren't violent of course, because that would be bad."

It can happen if we work to find candidates that ordinary people can believe in.

Actually, I was totally wrong about this. The 50.7 number must be the percentage of the entire population. In 2000, 54.5% of the voting-age population voted, and 67.1% of registered voters voted.

With respect to the claim that many nonvoters would vote Republican, or at least vote the same way that vthose who vote do, check out these statistics...

In 2000, Al Gore won more than half of the states (18 of 30) in which the percentage turnout among the state voting age population (VAP) was above the national average of state VAP percentage turnouts. However, George Bush won nearly all of the states (17 of 20, and within 300 votes in #18) in which the percentage VAP turnout was below the national average. So Gore edges Bush slightly when more people turn out, but Bush wins overwhelmingly when fewer people do.

And that's not all; there's a demographic dimension. Half of the low turnout states have large minority populations (>20% black and/or >15% hispanic). Only 15% (5 of 30) of the high turnout states do.

i've decided that I'm just going to start rounding up friends to make sure that they're registered and then make sure they'll vote. Having friends who still move around all the time, this month I'm going to make sure that they're registered to their present address and not to some apartment that they lived in six years ago. That's my goal for September.

Then November, I'll be on the phone, being a nag.

If my plan works out right, I'll get maybe a dozen more votes for the right team. Not much in the whole scheme of things, but I'll feel better about my actions in the process.

< trying hard not to be pretentious > Maybe some of you could try the same, hmm? < trying hard to be pretentious >

I DO relish your enthusiasm, however, Plesant Pains, and wish good luck. THAT is cool.

Why do some US people say "The US is a Republic not a Democracy"? There is nothing in most definitions to justify that distinction. Is it just Madison's distinction that this is based upon? (i.e Democracy must be small and direct - an idea which is best summed up by 'pure' democracy). A Republic is either a state without monarchy (older definition) or a state in with sovereignty is in the hands of the people or their elected representatives. A democracy is a form of government in which the people have a voice in the exercise of power, typically through elected representatives. So all Republics are (in a modern sense - we can perhaps ignore states like the PRC) democracies but not all democracies are republics.

I wouldn't usually care, but it's something I see a lot when US politics is being discussed, and it seems annoyingly (and maybe incorrectly) pedantic. Even if the person who claims it's not a democracy but a republic is using one of the (few) defintions which allow their distinction, they have to recognise that it is perfectly legitimate to describ the US as a democracy. Um, sorry.

It's also kind of a key theoretical issue for parties like the Libertarians, who tend to subscribe to the Ayn Rand thinking Milo's talking about. More specifically, they'll contrast a "pure" democracy with a "republican" one, claiming that in the latter there's a much greater respect for individual rights (e.g. property rights) no matter what the will of the public in general.

this thread contains ilx's first mention of 'obama'

at least according to the search engine

If you're not American, I really don't care to hear your opinions on our politics and I certainly don't need you to tell us whether to vote. Granted, this is to the OP 5 years ago.

the OP is very much an American

Fair enough, perhaps I was venting my frustration at the wrong place. I dislike criticism from people unwilling to do anything other than blab; a foriegner is almost certainly going to be unable to do much.

< trying hard not to be pretentious > Maybe some of you could try the same, hmm? < trying hard to be pretentious >

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Tuesday, September 7, 2004 11:11 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

PP04: Toodles! Just making sure you're registered to vote at your new address! Wouldn't want you to miss out on VoTiNg ObAmA!
PP08: Dude, if you ever call me again while I'm rocking the baby to remind me to do something I've done every other year since I turned 18, I will kill you.

i was thinking of starting a "'we get the leadership we deserve': true/false?" thread, cuz i'm not really sure myself.

it's really more than voting... it's about massive systemic changes and a rethinking of our priorities. if the entirety of the u.s. were taught to think critically and to use knowledge as a weapon, there'd be rioting in the streets over the way our quality of life has been ass-raped.