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.)

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

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.