Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: DeepSpace9er on October 17, 2008, 07:11:09 pm
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Its 2008.. and there STILL isnt a way to hamper voter fraud. From the 200,000 dubious voter registrations in Ohio, to the Acorn workers registering the starting line of the Dallas Cowboys in Nevada. Bogus social security numbers, dead people, and http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?s=9177991 (http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?s=9177991)
Companys have found more secure methods of avoiding fraud. What is the big deal here? I guess people would rather passively disenfranchise voters by allowing fraudulent registrations than actively causing far less by removing the dubious registrations. If you ask me, if you cant fill out a voter registration form correctly, and pass an easy civics test (like who the 2 major candidates are) you have no business voting.
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Send in Elections Canada...
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Actually, it sounds like the accusations of large-scale vote fraud are unfounded. Fraudulent registrations don’t necessarily translate into fraudulent votes, especially since most of them seem to be identified by the organizations collecting them. ACORN is required to turn in all the registrations they receive, (for obvious reasons – what if someone decided to, say, toss out all the cards from one of the parties?) but they can and do label the ones that are obviously bogus, and fire the people who collected them.
Articles on the issue here (http://www.slate.com/id/2202428/") and here (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/us/politics/15campaign.html?_r=1&oref=slogin).
Without evidence to suggest that large numbers of fraudulent votes are actually being cast, any steps making it more difficult to register or cast a ballot will only impinge on the rights of honest voters.
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What's the method of voting on the US?
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Send in Elections Canada...
:yes:
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What's the method of voting on the US?
A rather stupid one..
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What's the whole deal with having to register to vote, anyway? I thought the idea was that you were eligible past a certain age (18 in most places) instead of based on whether you remembered to fill out some form or another. It's all automatic here, the moment you hit 18 you're registered for life. You'll get a 'voting card' mailed to you a week or two before any election, which you then bring with you when you go to cast your vote, and that's all there is to it.
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I would have thought it was kind of hard to be anonymous in voting, especially if you have some kind of 'voter number' or the like?
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Nothing of the sort. The card is just for identification (to make sure you only vote once), it isn't the actual ballot. All anyone can tell later is that you voted.
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The US is actually fairly unusual in that it makes it relatively difficult to vote. You need to fill out a freely available form and supply some personal information.
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Ideally, it's meant to protect against voter fraud, such as ineligible people (like felons or non-citizens) attempting to vote, or people attempting to vote twice. How well it succeeds at that is anyone's guess, of course.
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It should be retina scans or handprints needed to register, that and a valid, checked SS# before the registration goes through. That way, if somebody tries to register under another SS#, the retina or handprint scan will pull up a name already registered thereby eliminating the possibility of registering twice under different SS#s.
Maybe a national database for this too. And when you goto the polls, you have to go to your pretedermined polling place, and have your hand or retina scanned again before you can fill out a ballot.
Of course, one political party or the other will claim this 'disenfranchises voters without eyes or hands' or some such thing.
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That sounds pretty draconian. Most other countries get by without such measures.
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What's the method of voting on the US?
Go to the voting booth. See that it has a Diebold machine. Know that the Republicans will win.
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What's the method of voting on the US?
Go to the voting booth. See that it has a Diebold machine. Know that the Republicans will win.
:lol:
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It should be retina scans or handprints needed to register, that and a valid, checked SS# before the registration goes through. That way, if somebody tries to register under another SS#, the retina or handprint scan will pull up a name already registered thereby eliminating the possibility of registering twice under different SS#s.
Maybe a national database for this too. And when you goto the polls, you have to go to your pretedermined polling place, and have your hand or retina scanned again before you can fill out a ballot.
Of course, one political party or the other will claim this 'disenfranchises voters without eyes or hands' or some such thing.
US citizens aren't too keen on large national databases and the like, even if it would increase security.
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Voter fraud only becomes a point of contention if the election is close, and I think Obama is going to mop the floor with McCain.
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Not if you believe the most recent national polls. He may win key states and take a reasonably comfortable margin of electoral votes, but I doubt he's going to run away with the popular vote.
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See we shall.
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Voter fraud only becomes a point of contention if the election is close, and I think Obama is going to mop the floor with McCain.
Given that the American people have done very little about election fraud in the previous elections I wouldn't be surprised if we simply see much larger vote rigging this time around.
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That's not necessarily true. In 2004 -- and moreso in 2008 -- the Democrats, at least, deployed teams (lawyers, observers, stuff like that) to polling stations in minority areas, which were the hardest hit by disenfranchisement tactics.
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Was anyone ever prosecuted? Was any tainted election ever forced into a re-election?
If the worst that a cheat can expect is to have to weather a few months of being called a cheat then there's not really much of a disincentive not to do it.
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Hmm, you're probably right.
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People can be and have been arrested for committing voter fraud; the recent investigations into the actions of members of the voter-registration organization ACORN could potentially have a similar outcome. And there's never been a re-election because any fraud that has taken place in the past has occurred on a generally small scale that didn't have any impact on the election's outcome, or at least there was no evidence to the contrary. (Unless you're talking about the late 19th century, when politics was completely anything-goes to begin with.) I don't even know that any states have provisions for a re-election procedure; I'm fairly certain that nothing exists along those lines at the federal level.
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What's the method of voting on the US?
Two steps, IIRC: Primaries, you vote for the leader of whichever party you will be supporting, to elect the leader of the party. Election: You choose between the leaders of the two parties, who were chosen in the primaries.
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The primaries don't select the "leader" of the party so much as they select the candidate that particular party will be officially running for office; there are primary elections for members of the House of Representatives and Senate (as well as various state government positions) in addition to those for the presidential candidates. Many states have "open" primaries, where one can vote for a member of any party for a particular office. Others, like my own state of Pennsylvania, have "closed" primaries, where one can vote only for the members of the party one is registered under; if you're not registered under any party, you can't vote in the primary. On the day of the actual elections, of course, any voter can vote for a candidate of any party, no matter what party they're registered under.
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So even more complicated. I like our Canadian system.
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It's not that complicated. You vote in the primary, or you don't; then you vote in the general election.
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The only way people will actually wake up and notice voter fraud this year is if Nader wins.
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It's not that complicated. You vote in the primary, or you don't; then you vote in the general election.
Precisely. And generally, only the more die-hard party members vote in the primaries, which is why candidates will often seem to swing back to the center after they're over to capture the majority of moderate voters out there.
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And there's never been a re-election because any fraud that has taken place in the past has occurred on a generally small scale that didn't have any impact on the election's outcome, or at least there was no evidence to the contrary.
*points at Bush's first term*
There are many who will disagree with you there.
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And there's never been a re-election because any fraud that has taken place in the past has occurred on a generally small scale that didn't have any impact on the election's outcome, or at least there was no evidence to the contrary.
*points at Bush's first term*
There are many who will disagree with you there.
Yeah, myself included. And the Republicans are using many of the same tactics this year.
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And there's never been a re-election because any fraud that has taken place in the past has occurred on a generally small scale that didn't have any impact on the election's outcome, or at least there was no evidence to the contrary.
*points at Bush's first term*
There are many who will disagree with you there.
Yeah, myself included. And the Republicans are using many of the same tactics this year.
Bush won because of the electoral college. He actually lost the popular vote, which is why Gore requested a recount, but the electoral college once again selected Bush. The reason Kerry didn't request a recount was because he didn't have the popular vote.
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Right, I'm referring to some disenfranchisement tactics in Florida, which won him the electoral college.
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Right, I'm referring to some disenfranchisement tactics in Florida, which won him the electoral college.
Elaborate please. I wasn't able to vote that year.
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And there's never been a re-election because any fraud that has taken place in the past has occurred on a generally small scale that didn't have any impact on the election's outcome, or at least there was no evidence to the contrary.
*points at Bush's first term*
There are many who will disagree with you there.
If one side did it in that situation, then both sides were doing it in that situation. And it's all such a jumbled mess of partisanship and bitter history that whatever truth there may be to any accusations, no matter how ridiculous, would never come to light anyway. I hold very little pity for any people still fixated on some incredibly nebulous might-have-beens from eight years ago.
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Right, I'm referring to some disenfranchisement tactics in Florida, which won him the electoral college.
Elaborate please. I wasn't able to vote that year.
Some contend (and I agree, but it's definitely contentious) that the Republican government removed a lot of names from voter registration rolls, targeting largely black (and therefore largely Democratic) areas.
The tactic in question involves the names of felons. If a felon named Thomas M. Smith existed, then, allegedly, names such as Thomas D. Smith, Thomas R. Smith and so on were removed.
I don't have enough evidence for this claim, aside from widespread allegations of such tactics -- as well as the use of patrol vans meant to look like undercover cop vehicles, scaring off minority voters -- to really back it up.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Central_Voter_File
That should cover it in some detail.
If one side did it in that situation, then both sides were doing it in that situation. And it's all such a jumbled mess of partisanship and bitter history that whatever truth there may be to any accusations, no matter how ridiculous, would never come to light anyway. I hold very little pity for any people still fixated on some incredibly nebulous might-have-beens from eight years ago.
And thus you prove my point that few in America actually care about election fraud. Instead of wanting to find out what actually happened you're quite happy to sweep it under the rug, say that both sides did it (Even though only one side happened to have the brother of the man who won running the state) and say that we'll never know the answer.
To be honest I find that attitude rather pathetic considering that we're talking about the curtailing of one of America's most cherished values, the right of the people to decide who governs their country. But then as I said, Americans in general have always been incredibly lax about punishing electoral fraud or even giving a damn about it in the first place. Even as far back as Nixon no one cared. All he had to do was resign and he was pardoned.
Had the same thing that happened in Florida happened in say, Ukraine you'd have had hundreds of thousands on the street protesting. In America neither side even wants to have an investigation.
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To be honest I find that attitude rather pathetic considering that we're talking about the curtailing of one of America's most cherished values, the right of the people to decide who governs their country.
The right to what? I've never heard of this. You're just making **** up. How do you know that anyway? You don't even live here.
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Don't get me wrong; I do find it rather irritating that the system for determining eligible voters has become so needlessly (and sometimes even intentionally) muddled, and I think it's outright embarassing when incompetence, maliciousness, or some combination of the two is allowed to interfere with the normal process of an election. But at the same time, I see no inherent value in dredging up details of one of the most polarized elections in modern American history, particularly when any discoveries would be completely discredited by those they fell against and wouldn't have any effect on the eight ensuing years anyway. Also, I'm not too proud to admit that, since the person I desired to win that election wound up doing so, I have a bit of a personal vested interest in not finding out if he did so illegally (though what the alternative would have been is an interesting prospect, eight years in retrospect).
And I think the reason that most people here are so apathetic about it is because of the very fact that it's become ingrained as part of the idea of the dirtier side of politics. I'm quite certain that you could point to just about any election in American history and pick out at least one locale where some sort of alleged fraud ensued; hell, the entire city of Chicago has had that reputation for more than a century now (and indeed, there's been a long-running joke about dead Chicagoans voting for JFK in 1960). It's hard for people to become incensed about activities that occur election after election but normally don't have a game-changing impact. The 2000 election was a massive exception in the grand scheme of things; few presidential elections have come down to the electoral votes of a single state, and perhaps no previous election has been decided by such a small popular vote in said state. People have the idea that "the system works things out," and since any attempt to dig any deeper generally involves the ever-undesirable accusations of partisanship, there's an idea of letting sleeping dogs lie.
(Also, I find it rather unlikely that we're the only democracy out there that's prone to backhand dealings at at least some level, but that's nothing more than conjecture.)
As a random side note, Nixon's resignation had nothing to do with voter fraud; indeed, he won in a landslide rarely seen in presidential elections, in which any sort of localized voter fraud may have had no impact. The Watergate break-in and ensuing scandal were more symptoms of Nixon's paranoia and desire to keep tight control over his political enemies. But hey, at least he made for a hell of a Futurama character a long way down the road.
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If Nader would stop running, the Democrats might actually win one. :p
A vote for Nader is a vote for McCain.
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I agree with Nader's point that if the democrats can't win this one after 8 years of Bush they should go away and reinvent themselves.
But at the same time, I see no inherent value in dredging up details of one of the most polarized elections in modern American history, particularly when any discoveries would be completely discredited by those they fell against and wouldn't have any effect on the eight ensuing years anyway.
I dredged up the Bush election in response to your claim that the previous cases of voter fraud had been on a small scale and hadn't had any effect on the overall result.
I think we can both agree that this wasn't the case for the 2000 election and although you can claim that it would have no effect to dredge it all up now, that doesn't change the fact that it should have been investigated properly back then.
Furthermore the fact that even after the regime responsible is ousted (as happens at least every 8 years) no one still wants to investigate gives further credence to my point that there is no disincentive to trying to rig the vote.
Dictators rig the vote in 3rd world countries cause they figure they can rule for life. In America they do it cause they figure that although they won't no one will care.
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What you dredged up, albeit a bit one-sided by its nature, certainly raises questions, though I might also point out that said questions seem to have already been pursued legally by certain activist groups, leading to at least some level of reform. And from what I could garner from that rather-disjointed article (seriously, Wiki, sectional overkill much?), at least a few (though by no means all) aspects of it could have been attributed to good ol' fashioned human incompetence (which one should never underestimate the power of). Reforms and intentions aside, this particular issue was just one aspect of the very large mess that was that entire Florida election, a mess in which neither side was blameless. And, as I pointed out before, this election was decided by an historically slim margin, so what may have sadly contributed to its notoriety here would have had no lasting impact in almost any other situation.
Perhaps I wasn't entirely clear earlier, but as someone who wasn't living here at the time, it may be somewhat difficult for you to envision the general atmosphere of this country at the time that this whole 2000 debacle was going on. It was about as partisan a time as I've seen in my lifetime, even more so than Bush's most divisive moments over the eight ensuing years. There were accusations of election-fixing and double agendas flying around everywhere, and in the end, I think just about everyone not directly involved with the process just wanted the damned thing to end and give us a new president. It's not a period in our history that anyone particularly wants to revisit, other than a few lingering hanging chad jokes. Eight years and one generally very unpopular presidency later, there's no real incentive to re-open past wounds.
Oh, and it seems as though your (http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=18&no=359064&rel_no=2) own (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/election07/scotland/2007/05/no_advert_for_democracy.html) system (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/may/02/localgovernment.postalvoting) is hardly immune to the same problem. (And that's just what a 30-second search turned up.) Perhaps you might not be so hasty to cast aspersions on one particular system when the underlying issue is really more of the long-standing tradition of those in power getting too accustomed to said power and giving into their basic human infallibilities. I'm sure that every democracy on this green Earth could drudge up similar stories...not that that makes it any more inherently acceptable for any one of us.
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(http://punditkitchen.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/political-pictures-sarah-palin-whoosh.jpg)
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Oh, and it seems as though your (http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=18&no=359064&rel_no=2) own (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/election07/scotland/2007/05/no_advert_for_democracy.html) system (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/may/02/localgovernment.postalvoting) is hardly immune to the same problem. (And that's just what a 30-second search turned up.) Perhaps you might not be so hasty to cast aspersions on one particular system when the underlying issue is really more of the long-standing tradition of those in power getting too accustomed to said power and giving into their basic human infallibilities. I'm sure that every democracy on this green Earth could drudge up similar stories...not that that makes it any more inherently acceptable for any one of us.
I never said the UK was fault free. But that case was investigated, new elections were called, the laws on postal voting were changed, and IIRC two people went to jail. That's my entire point.
It's as if the US never prosecuted criminals and then pointed at the UK when someone complained about it and said "They have crime too!" I'm not having a go at the US for having electoral fraud. I'm having a go at them for doing very little about it. When you have a country where people are quite happy to trust electronic voting machines made by a company whose head programmer has convictions for installing software back doors then something is very badly wrong.
I'm not going to hold up my country as a paragon of virtue cause it isn't. If I was going to hold up a country for caring about democracy it wouldn't be the UK. It would be one of the countries in Eastern Europe where democracy is new. As I mentioned before in Ukraine when that **** happens people demonstrate. They care about it far more than the West does, since we take it for granted even when it is quite obviously being inched out from under our noses. I'm not going to say you should take a lesson from the UK, you should take a lesson from the Eastern Europe or parts of the 3rd world where people care enough about democracy to risk being beaten up, blown up or shot at in order to vote. Quite frankly I wish citizens in the UK cared half as much about it as they do.
As for saying "It's a bad time, it should be forgotten about", that's such a weak argument I don't why you even bothered. Again you prove my point that the American public don't care. Can you imagine if the ANC had said "Apartheid was a bad time, let's not bother with that whole Truth and Reconciliation stuff!"
There are people who have been through far worse than a bit of partisan name calling who considered the truth being important enough that it deserved to come out. By claiming that the 2000 election was a bad time for the country, we want to forget about it you simply strengthen my argument that Americans by and large don't care about fraud in the electoral system. Again I'll point at Eastern Europe. There are several cases of people there not taking that **** lying down. In America it took only a couple of months for people to get tired of arguing in order to roll over. In Zimbabwe they still push for democracy after years of bullets!
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All right...you want it straight? We don't care. I don't care. I could give a damn less what did or didn't happen back in 2000. Bush became president that year, he served for eight years...it's over. It's all well and good for people still fighting with every ounce of passion to be able to enjoy the great gift of democracy, but when you've been living in it uninterrupted for more than 200 years, you're not exactly enthused about the whole process, particularly when something that's probably happened in every single one of those 200 years rears its ugly head again. I personally find politics as a whole to be about the most distasteful thing out there, and the only time when I'm not doing my best to completely ignore it is when I'm figuring out who to vote for...and since I figured that out a few months back, I've been blissfully ignoring every single debate, pundit, gaffe, or what have you. The dirty dealings on either side probably do a damn fine job of balancing themselves out as-is; so long as we keep electing people from office, I don't really give a damn about who's doing what.
If some other group wants to get all up in arms about what happened and make a big fuss over it, good for them. But count me out.
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That's your choice. I just didn't want you arguing that Americans, in general, did care when they so obviously don't. :)
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Well, um, I care. And I've spent months raising money for election-protection programs.
So perhaps I'm not a typical American, but there's hope yet.
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And I never said that I was representative of all Americans, or indeed of any Americans. Generalizations are the bane of critical thinking. :p
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I gave plenty of examples of how in general other Americans don't care either. :p
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Surely, if Americans in general cared, something meaningful would have been done.
Remember, if you're going to continue to call yourselves the greatest democracy, you have to either have the least corruption or the most corruption. Lots of corruption isn't quite enough.
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I gave plenty of examples of how in general other Americans don't care either. :p
Until you've done some door-to-door legwork yourself, I'm not putting a massive amount of stock in your opinion. :p Obviously, though, certain people cared enough to take the case of that voter list to court, which is good on them.
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Surely, if Americans in general cared, something meaningful would have been done.
I'm not sure if it's a matter of caring so much as it's a matter of them not knowing what's going on. Though I confess I am the former, I think it's hard to get so many independently-minded people to work together to achieve some goal without having some of them cheating. Unlike the military, the civilian population does not have a hierarchy from which orders are given.
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I'm not sure if it's a matter of caring so much as it's a matter of them not knowing what's going on. Though I confess I am the former, I think it's hard to get so many independently-minded people to work together to achieve some goal without having some of them cheating. Unlike the military, the civilian population does not have a hierarchy from which orders are given.
Truly, there's no power in the verse greater than the apathy of the American people. This goes back decades, if not centuries. There have been apathetic groups of people in the past, but those living in the US? Never have so many cared so little about so few.
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There are those who care, but not enough. Three months of daily canvassing was enough to demonstrate that!
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Ironic considering that the US would still be a British colony had the people been similarly apathetic a couple of hundred years back.
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There's a thought. . . Regarding the election, I'm just gonna watch the John Stewart show on wednesday.
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It's so nice to see all manner of people who have never spent more than a month in a particular country make all sorts of overarching generalizations about the inhabitants of said country. Please, don't let me keep you. Do go on. Hell, maybe you can even pass out a few pointers, so that the rest of us can join in on the fun.
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There's a definite difference of perspective. I don't think things are as bad as Kara suggests, but we've got two different views on the country -- one from the inside, one from the outside. Hard to say who's more valid.
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It's so nice to see all manner of people who have never spent more than a month in a particular country make all sorts of overarching generalizations about the inhabitants of said country. Please, don't let me keep you. Do go on. Hell, maybe you can even pass out a few pointers, so that the rest of us can join in on the fun.
Ah, the "You're not here so you can't know what it's like" argument . Always a firm favourite. Always so wonderfully flawed for so many reasons.
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Whatever. Everyone in your country spells "favorite" wrong. Checkmate.
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Ah, the "You're not here so you can't know what it's like" argument . Always a firm favourite. Always so wonderfully flawed for so many reasons.
I didn't say that you couldn't possibly know, but I'd put a hell of a lot more credence on the informed opinion of someone who's spent his or her entire life in this country than on someone going on whatever output they're receiving from media and entertainment sources. I certainly wouldn't feel qualified in the least to comment on the political or social circumstances of Britain, even if I did peruse the BBC's site every day. I could just as easily spout nonsense pigeonholing your entire populace into disaffected snobs, asinine chavs, or drunken Scots, but I'm not about to do that.
(Wales, you fit in there somewhere, but I'm not sure that anyone over there knows where either.)
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You don't need to live in a septic tank for a year to know it stinks. In fact after a year you'd get so used to the smell that the opinions of someone who didn't live in one would probably be more valid.
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That's quite apt, No not just in this context, but in most things, such as business models, coding etc etc. Fresh / external perspectives are normally less biased. I'm sure the same could be said of some of the UK.
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You don't need to live in a septic tank for a year to know it stinks. In fact after a year you'd get so used to the smell that the opinions of someone who didn't live in one would probably be more valid.
But what definitive evidence have you provided to back up your opinion? When I look around me every day and see people more engrossed by this election than any other in my lifetime (and let me tell you, the previous two were hardly picnics), when I have my phone ringing off the hook every day over these past few weeks with volunteers from all manner of political campaigns trying to tell me about their candidates, when the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live's political sketches are pulling in the highest ratings the show has seen in 10-15 years, when a candidate like Obama practically has a nationwide rabid fanbase, when I see predictions that this election could have the largest voter turnout in decades...when I add all of that up, the very last description of the American public as a whole that comes to my mind is "apathetic." And yes, this is just one limited example for one particular election, but I've seen this same general public raise heaps of money for all sorts of charities, participate in sometimes-staggering numbers in things like walks for breast cancer research, and do any number of things that decent people anywhere in the world who find it in themselves to care about a certain cause would do...none of which could be called "apathetic" in any real sense.
So, then, let me ask this of you: when you use that term, to which aspect of the society that I live in are you referring, and in what context? Because from where I stand, if you're just tossing that term around without any justification, you might as well say that Americans all believe that the moon is made of cheese.
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In the election, yes. But in actually doing anything about it if they suspect cheating, no. And if you remember that is what the topic was about.
And you wouldn't believe the amount of stuff there is out there about Diebold. If you really want to read up on it I'm more than happy to post links.
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I think everyone's aware of the possibility of the Republicans stealing the election. There's definitely activism on that front.
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If you knew that someone was trying to rig the election, just how exactly would you go about fighting it? By making that knowledge public, right? The fact that there are so many articles about people’s registrations being purged or lost or denied and voting machines malfunctioning and so forth means that there are people watching for foul play and doing their part to stop it.
And if you google some variation on “disenfranchise 2008 (http://www.google.com/search?q=disenfranchise+2008)” or “voters purged (http://www.google.com/search?q=voters+purged)” or what have you, it’s apparent that this sort of thing is being caught all over the place, (or how would we know about it?) and that people are taking action against it, as evidenced by the number of lawsuits you’ll see mentioned.
I know that of the blogs I regularly read, most of which are not explicitly political in nature, almost all have posted about this issue and encouraged people to vote early, fight disenfranchisement, and make sure their votes count. I wouldn’t call that apathy.
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Don't you think that there is something wrong with the system when you have to tell people to vote early to avoid disenfranchisement though?
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I doubt she's denying that there's something wrong with the system, but the argument is about whether people care, or are doing anything about it. Which they are. We'll see if it's enough people.
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Don't you think that there is something wrong with the system when you have to tell people to vote early to avoid disenfranchisement though?
It's not that. It's that not everyone can get time off to vote on Tuesday. I'm at college right now, so I had to run up to Albuquerque to vote a couple of weekends ago. I will give you that it makes it easier to avoid disenfranchisement, but that's not why people vote early. That begs the question though, why is election day on Tuesday?
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Well you and Rian can argue over which one of you is right and then I'll take on the winner. :p
I doubt she's denying that there's something wrong with the system, but the argument is about whether people care, or are doing anything about it. Which they are. We'll see if it's enough people.
If enough people cared the system wouldn't be broken though.
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At least according to this article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Election_Day), it's a holdover from the days when you'd need to hitch up your horse and buggy to make it to your local polling place. It allowed a day for travel on either side while avoiding the Sabbath or the usual market day on Wednesday. I haven't the foggiest idea why it hasn't been declared a federal holiday, although apparently one representative has recently introduced a bill that would do just that.
And karajorma, seeing as how this will most likely be the most-scrutinized election in this nation's history, I find the idea that "Diebold will steal my votes! ZOMG!" to be utterly laughable at best. People from both parties are going to be watching just about every voting district like a hawk. If anything starts coming up odd, they'll trumpet it to the heavens. These are the very sorts of people that deny your assertion, since they're the ones giving of their time and energy to ensure that the system works as it's supposed to.
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Well you and Rian can argue over which one of you is right and then I'll take on the winner. :p
I doubt she's denying that there's something wrong with the system, but the argument is about whether people care, or are doing anything about it. Which they are. We'll see if it's enough people.
If enough people cared the system wouldn't be broken though.
That's probably not true. Stuff tends to break, since people try very hard to exploit systems. Corrections aren't instantaneous and effortless, nor are defensive measures.
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And just getting the teeming masses outraged about something isn't going to automagically get it fixed. Short of an armed uprising, there isn't much a few million irate Average Joes can do to effect any sort of legal change. This is the very reason we have activist groups that do have legal experience and can take the right steps to bring dirty dealings to light...just as they did in the Florida example that you yourself brought to light earlier in the thread.
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And just getting the teeming masses outraged about something isn't going to automagically get it fixed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Revolution
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I never claimed that avoiding disenfranchisement was the only reason to vote early, or even the primary reason. On the other hand, it’s pretty clear that you get more people voting when they’re allowed to vote on their own schedules. Because a lot of disenfranchisement efforts have focused on financially disadvantaged voters – those least able to afford a day off work to go vote – I would say that Spartan and I are talking about two different aspects of the same issue.
I’ve never claimed that the system was perfect. To the contrary, I think it’s cumbersome, outdated, and has failed a lot of people. But that’s a separate issue entirely from claiming that the public doesn’t care – an attitude that I’m beginning to think has more to do with feeling superior to the stupid Americans than actual concern for the issues. The United States is a large and incredibly diverse nation, and although a great many people in this country are committed, hardworking, and passionate, they’re passionate about different and sometimes contradictory things.
Coordinating a revolution among 300 million people of widely varying cultural, geographic, and political perspectives is probably an impossible task. We work within the system we have, we make noise and point out injustice when we see it, and if the voters do the job right, we’ll elect the people who are most likely to improve things as well.
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Everyone is all upset about Republicans cheating but no one is talking about how the democrats had dead people vote for them in the last two elections. the system is so corrupt that it really doesn't matter who you vote for.
what matters is who can cheat the most while getting away with it.
and voting early (I think) makes cheating easier. it seems that it's just too easy to vote twice under different names.
BTW if obama doesn't win riot will ensue. then again, if he does win he will probably be impeached.
strange strange world, aint it?
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Everyone is all upset about Republicans cheating but no one is talking about how the democrats had dead people vote for them in the last two elections.
Cause they lost. Had they won this argument would have been the other way around.
But that’s a separate issue entirely from claiming that the public doesn’t care – an attitude that I’m beginning to think has more to do with feeling superior to the stupid Americans than actual concern for the issues.
Ah, so now we're going to the Anti-Americanism defence. I did wonder when that one would pop up. Have I not already said that I wish the people in the UK cared more already?
Try making a comment about this sort of thing about British politics and see what happens. Everyone agrees with you. That's why we don't have debates like this about British politics. It's not that no one starts topics bashing the British political system or our stupid, short-sighted, greedy politicians or the idiots who vote them into power. It's just that only when dealing with America do you get people so desperate to defend their country that they'll argue the point rather than simply agreeing.
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Everyone is all upset about Republicans cheating but no one is talking about how the democrats had dead people vote for them in the last two elections.
Cause they lost. Had they won this argument would have been the other way around.
but who says they won't do it again?
anyway, am I the only one here that thinks that the world will end really, really soon?
^^^^totally not off topic^^^^^
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I’m not defending the country. I don’t even consider myself particularly patriotic. I’m defending the people who are doing their best to make it better, whose efforts you malign when you say that all Americans are apathetic.
Indeed, I do recognize that things have been going badly wrong. But I prefer celebrating those who are trying to fix it over commiserating with people who think it’s hopeless.
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This brings me to one of the greatest questions i have: Is democracy as we see it wortwhile?
Is it right that my well informed descision that candidate 'A' will not send my country of a cliff equal to a foolish 40-year-old mother of 5 who believes that since candidate 'B' outright lied about and said 'A' will eliminate child benifites in an ad on her soap opera, and that is her sloe factor in voting?
But to propse that all people whom want to vote MUST complete a civics course when they are 18, and act retroactivity so that all voters must complete it will likely be out-voted by 'B' and 'B''s millions of asine moron supporters.
hmmm...
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Everyone is all upset about Republicans cheating but no one is talking about how the democrats had dead people vote for them in the last two elections.
Cause they lost. Had they won this argument would have been the other way around.
But that’s a separate issue entirely from claiming that the public doesn’t care – an attitude that I’m beginning to think has more to do with feeling superior to the stupid Americans than actual concern for the issues.
Ah, so now we're going to the Anti-Americanism defence. I did wonder when that one would pop up. Have I not already said that I wish the people in the UK cared more already?
Try making a comment about this sort of thing about British politics and see what happens. Everyone agrees with you. That's why we don't have debates like this about British politics. It's not that no one starts topics bashing the British political system or our stupid, short-sighted, greedy politicians or the idiots who vote them into power. It's just that only when dealing with America do you get people so desperate to defend their country that they'll argue the point rather than simply agreeing.
Kara, aren't you being a little selective in your arguments? You only responded to a fraction of Rian's post.
I know her pretty well and I can tell you she's the last person who's 'desperate to defend her country'. Most of America does agree with you, Kara. And from reading the news over here I can tell you that there are plenty of people out there doing things about these problems, and lots being accomplished.
It's frustrating when people don't recognize that change is incremental and difficult.
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Everyone is all upset about Republicans cheating but no one is talking about how the democrats had dead people vote for them in the last two elections.
Cause they lost. Had they won this argument would have been the other way around.
Whether they won or lost, they should be held as accountable as the Republicans. They still cheated.
Ah, so now we're going to the Anti-Americanism defence. I did wonder when that one would pop up.
That's not what this is about. I'm deeply sorry we're not able to bring change to an extremely heterogeneous country of 300+ million as quickly as Europe did, but its a slightly different situation over here.
It's funny, the United States is probably the one country that would benefit the most from a multi-party, coalition-style government and yet is one of the few Western countries which doesn't use it. :p
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I’m not defending the country. I don’t even consider myself particularly patriotic. I’m defending the people who are doing their best to make it better, whose efforts you malign when you say that all Americans are apathetic.
If you read my arguments I've actually been very careful to avoid using the word all and have always prefaced my comments with most or in general.
So yes, most Americans are apathetic about this stuff. And yes there are some who aren't, but there are nowhere near enough of them.
But to propse that all people whom want to vote MUST complete a civics course when they are 18, and act retroactivity so that all voters must complete it will likely be out-voted by 'B' and 'B''s millions of asine moron supporters.
To be honest I wouldn't disagree with you about the idea. The problem is that in practice both A and B are going to spend the entire time complaining about bias in the civics course whenever they don't win. Because an educated electorate is the biggest danger almost every politician could face.
Whether they won or lost, they should be held as accountable as the Republicans. They still cheated.
Absolutely. But the question was why no one is talking about it. And it's for the same reason no one cares much if someone who came fourth in an Olympic event tests positive for drugs. In the end it changes nothing. Now when someone who won something tests positive, then you have a story.
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well, that civic's course is a smite better than an IQ test where people who score low enough simply do not vote, like convicts (most convicts ARE pretty stupid...right?)
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But to propse that all people whom want to vote MUST complete a civics course when they are 18, and act retroactivity so that all voters must complete it will likely be out-voted by 'B' and 'B''s millions of asine moron supporters.
To be honest I wouldn't disagree with you about the idea.
And I would view it as the biggest affront to rights ever perpetuated on a populace that considers themselves "free." What is simultaneously the greatest blessing and greatest curse of any democratic system is that everyone's vote has equal weight, whether they be the chair of a university's political science department or a welfare mom who decries "rich old white men." Apathetic or not, informed or not, we're all one and the same once we set foot inside that voting booth. Take that away, and the whole idea of voting as a citizen's right becomes utterly moot.
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Moreover, qualifying tests have a nasty history. Literacy tests were used to disenfranchise black voters after the passage of the fifteenth amendment, and a civics test today would disproportionately deter economically disadvantaged citizens.
Educated or not, everyone should have the opportunity to vote on the matters relevant to their lives. It’s in their own interest to educate themselves about the issues and candidates on the ballot, because they will have to live with the results. No further qualification should be necessary.
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Whoa whoa, I'm going to have to disagree with you two. I don't find it unamerican in the least to have civic education be a requirement for voting--if you look back far enough you'll see the people who wrote the Constitution and shaped our country did nothing but stress the importance of an educated populace being essential to the life of a democracy. Greek democracy and Roman republicanism (well, the early part at least) succeeded because their people were educated enough to make informed decisions.
If you want to talk about disenfranchisement, how many well-educated and informed voters are screwed because they are so outnumbered in their own state by the folks who vote "how daddy voted" or base their entire political decisions off of a smear ad? What's worse, our country's electoral process favors that exact situation, and that's how politicians are elected.
Civics education should be mandatory at the high school level here. I know that before I took my civics class, I simply would've voted how my parents voted, and I'm certain that's the case with at least 50% of the people I took the class with.
I do want a free America, where everyone should be allowed to vote, but electing the future leaders of the free world, the third most populous nation on Earth, and one of the most influential countries is too delicate and important a process to be left to people who don't even know which Amendment gave them their right to vote.
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Whoa whoa, I'm going to have to disagree with you two. I don't find it unamerican in the least to have civic education be a requirement for voting--if you look back far enough you'll see the people who wrote the Constitution and shaped our country did nothing but stress the importance of an educated populace being essential to the life of a democracy. Greek democracy and Roman republicanism (well, the early part at least) succeeded because their people were educated enough to make informed decisions.
yeah, but who decides who is educated enough to vote? if you do that then someone will, without a doubt, use that to gain control, or at least, keep control. next thing you know you have a dictatorship where the only people allowed to vote are the so-called "educated" ones that have the same extremest views or are being paid off by those in power. basically what the constitution was meant to protect us against.
that or schools become "re-education centers". all other schools that have different views will be classified as "not good enough to give you the right to vote".
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That's why civic education is run by an independent, nonpartisan organization (http://www.civiced.org/index.php?page=wtp_introduction) which sets the standards, not federal or state education departments.
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In an ideal world, perhaps that works. In this world, not a chance. I'd much rather err on the side of not-screwing-people-over.
(Also, interestingly enough, even before I took a government class [which was optional, sadly] in high school, my political views were largely opposite that of my parents'. :p)
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There’s a difference between making civics a mandatory class in school and requiring a test before voting. I’m all in favor of the former, but still have to oppose the latter.
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That's the basic problem with it. If you make the classes mandatory but lack a test many people will ignore, skip or just piss about in them. But if you include a test you risk disenfranchising the poor.