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Should You Vote?
George Bush's suggestion last week that the Net can turn a child's heart dark and murderous sparked a ton of comments and e-mail, much of it about whether people will vote in the presidential election or stay home. Frankly, I was surprised at the level of interest from the tech world -- including the many passionate pleas to vote. This is one of those conversations that ought to move beyond e-mail and into the open. A number said statements like Bush's -- and other Luddite, exploit-parental-fears posturing by Gore, Cheney and Lieberman about violence, "cultural pollution" and other dangers emanating from TV, Hollywood, the Net, and gaming -- were inspiring them to participate. Others said they would sit out the election to protest a process that seems irrelevant. So far, I haven't found my candidate. But if you've decided to vote and care to say why, here's your chance. People are definitely listening.
I don't know about US votes, but here in the UK there is the concept of a spoilt ballot: a voting slip which has not been correctly filled out.
Spoilt ballots get counted, and they are included in the announcement after the count.
I always vote, and I always find a canditate to vote for (usually the Labour candidate, although I was once strongly tempted to vote for Plaid Cymru's Cynog Davis, since he is an excellent constituency MP).
However, I have spoken to several UK citizens (*cough* - subjects) who never vote because they feel the whole thing is a sham / all politicians are as bad as each other / etc.
My feeling is that if you really have moral objections to all candidates, you *should* get up and spoil your ballot. Sure, your protest vote will get lumped in with the illiterates and idiots who just couldn't figure out how to draw an X in a box, but a high number of spoilt ballots *will* send out a message. It's better than being lumped in statistically with those too bone-idle to get off their arse and walk to the polling station.
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All across the country, many other things will be on the ballot. Members of your local school board, your city council, township board, county commission, etc. Statewide offices such as state senators, governors, secretaries of state, and governors are also on the ballot many places.
Perhaps you do think that the Presidential race doesn't involve you. Maybe you're right; maybe not. Your local race does involve you. Will your roads be will paved? Will your city be kept clean? Will your children (or YOU) be well educated? Will your water be kept clean and your environment healthy? These are important questions and are decided in a large part on a local or a state level. There are also races for the US Senate all over, which are also quite important.
I am frequently annoyed that people ignore these important local races and focus solely on the Presidency. This year's Presidential race is important; but it's also important that your local drinking water is clean and local students have access to excellent education.
Find a candidate you like and vote for him... if you don't like either of the two major contenders, find another candidate you like. It doesn't matter if they're a "fringe" candidate -- hell, write in Joe Walsh if you have to -- just get out there and vote for somebody. The dark horses may not win but if other people feel the same way you do, then guess what: suddenly your guy may not be a fringe candidate anymore. He might become a viable candidate for the next election (it's not always just about this year). Just get out there and cast a vote.
--Jim
Not sure who originally compiled this info but I thought it would be useful to those out there who are on the fence about whether to vote for Nader or Gore.
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To make the numbers case is Steve Cobble, a Nader supporter but one who, as an advisor for Jesse Jackson and many others, has earned a reputation as one of the most acute analysts of voter patterns and the arcane machinations of the political system. Cobble broke down the numbers in an article for TomPaine.com, and came to this conclusion:
"Except for a very small number of states, progressives have a free vote. They can vote their conscience for Ralph Nader, and help him get the 5 percent he needs to build a new fourth party. In at least two-thirds of the country, and perhaps as many as nine states out of ten, a vote for Ralph Nader is not a vote for George Bush. It's really a vote for Ralph Nader."
Here is Cobble's run down, state by state:
(1) Safe for Bush (17 states): Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming.
In these states, every progressive can vote for Nader knowing that they are not endangering the Supreme Court in any way.
(2) Leaning toward Bush (7 states): Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Nevada, New Hampshire.
Same basic rule -- in these states, progressives can vote for Ralph safe in the knowledge that none of these states are absolutely necessary to build a winning electoral coalition for Gore.
(3) Safe for Gore (15 states): California, Connecticut, D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, West Virginia, Vermont.
In these states, progressives can not only vote safely for Nader, they can each recruit one or two other friends to vote for Ralph, secure in the knowledge that George Bush has given up (or will give up in early October) on winning these electoral votes.
(4) Leaning toward Gore (7 states): Delaware, Iowa, Michigan, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, Wisconsin.
These states are likely to end up in Gore's column, unless he badly blows the debates. If they do maintain his current lead, then progressives are secure in voting for Nader.
(5) Toss-up (5 states): Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio.
In these five swing states, the Ivins Rule applies most strongly -- check the state polls right before election day, then make your judgment.
If you don't vote, you're statistically voting for the default result.
Exactly. Not voting is giving your approval to ALL of the candidates - after all, if you had an opinion, you'd go make it known, right?
You DON'T have to vote for either of the two big parties. Heck, you don't have to vote for any of the candidates on the ballot. Or even go in to vote and just not select anyone.
If everyone who was going to not vote went in and voted for nobody, that would be a huge percentage, and would definately be noticed. If, when they counted up results, 25% of the people voted for essentially "none of the above", don't you think that would send a message? That all those people found nobody worth voting for?
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"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
I am part of a small state, that almost always votes for the same party. This literally means that my vote is useless. Though a very small fraction of the country understands this process, I doubt it is a major stumbling block for the general population.
One state( can't remember which) at least broke up their electorial votes based on percentage of votes). I like that idea, since it basically is within the rights of a state.
The problems I have with the electorial college are:
- My vote means nothing.. Except a margin of error for historical statistics in my state.
- It blocks non-mainstream party candidates. A candidate that gets 15% of the vote should have 15% of the final vote, which is not the case. A uniform 15% vote will get you zero electorial votes. The problem this causes is that the media AND organizations like the debate committee know this and so they completely discount 3'rd party candidates. If, for example, 3'rd party candidates could have gone to the debates, they could have mustered an enormous support (most people have never even heard of them). They could at least double their support (if nothign else than for people to vote against the main candidates with someone they _think_ looks trustworthy).
- The electorial process was deviced when we had state-loyalty. You were not an American, you were a Virginian. Today, people move from state to state will little concern - people identify with the US as a whole, we're more concerned with the Federal Gov. than the local ones. Back in the day, we trusted local Gov. more than the Fed., and so we united as a state to vote for a candidate. Today many don't even know who their local congressmen are.
Now, for the flip side. There are advantages to the electorial process that I can imagine. First of all, it is doing exactly what it was intended to do. Not least of which, it reduces the number of candidates. I have heard horror stories about politics in India (and I assume in other parts of the world), where there are hundreds of parties. You have a perfectly competative market, so you have to sell your self cheaper than your competitor - or more correctly, offer more apparent value, even if it means compromising good judgement. Incredibly, the US does not have a market-based executive branch. We don't see the same sort of free-wheeling, don't pay any attention to the detail of the man that is me, just see what I'm trying to give you if I'm elected to office. In other countries, they take a candidate like we take a McDonalds burger. They don't even want to KNOW what's inside, but it's cheap and it'll satisfy us for the short term. Political candidates are put through a lot of scrutiny, and if a candidate things something embarrasing has come out, they will tend to resign. There's more attention being paid to fewer candidates. The media will also be quick to spend enough air time on the flaws of candidates that people will generally discount unfavorables. You can't do this if you have hundreds of candidates. The likely hood that people will be well enough informed is slim.
The big issue we find today is that power corrupts, and our two main parties have been in power for a long while. A 3'rd party is not going to break through for a long while (if ever), especially when the main parties are catering to more and more of the other side. "Don't rock the boat", is too strong.
I don't know that things wouldn't go bad in time if we got rid of the electorial process, but I can't imagine that dividing state votes up based on their percentage isn't more "fair", and would at the very least provide enough scare into the main candidates to not dismiss the 15% or so that goes out.
In closing, I'll put my plug; a highly biased opinion. Though some don't like the social engineering that Gore proposes, I personally think it's a more intelligent approach than Bush's brute force approach (of giving away money to everyone). Neither really sticks to any philosophy. Bush claims support for regional independance, but then wants to use the purse strings for control. He claims to support the military, but doesn't fully fund it in his plan. He wants to give us rights to guns and says that "we know best", but wants to remove a woman's choice (actually it's consistent if you think of him as a sexist conservative male dominant character, but I doubt that's really true).
Gore is just a mixture of about everything (he's even taken a 180 from his earlier years on many issues). He's probably going to follow in Clinton's foot-steps and change opinion with what-ever is popular; just look at his new stance on Campain finance - especially after his fallings out. He's a green-peace person at heart, but he's trying to logically play the political game to accomplish as much as he can.. Thus, I'd label him an opportunist, which might not be the best for us. He's definately going to increase the size of government, and he'll only be successful if we don't hit a recession. To the credit of big government. If we hit a recession, then the large government could start cutting fat to alleviate the burden. If, in Bush's plan, we cut the fat now, while we're still at inflationary levels of prosperity, we'll over-heat the economy, and then have no monetary tools to adjust in the future (unless you believe the fed. reserve can accomplish this through trickle-down economics via interest rates)
Harry Brown was interesting for an intellectual thought game. Unfortunately, he basically assumes that people will know what's best, and we'll take proper care of our new-found responsibilities after our parental government goes away. Labeling him an anarchist isn't that far from the truth. Ideally, the government holds a monopoly on the use of force, then you let the people do just about anything they want from there-on-out. They obviously can't kill each other, so we don't have total social break-down. But then how do you enforce contractual obligations? Perhaps the Gov. stays in the business of en'forcing' contracts. But then where does it stop? Brown wants the federal court to not have any power on non-constitutional issues. At the very least, you would be hard pressed to support human rights when states seem biased. Most importantly on Brown, he doesn't seem like he'd mingle well with congress. You'd probably have a record number of executive decisions over-turned by congress with-in his term.
-Michael
-Michael
No I'm not ;-)
OK, to raise this from the common internet != USA yadayada post:
What does scare me (being european) is the influence on *my* life the US president has. I don't get to vote in your election, still I'm affected by your DMCA, carnivore, lawyerism shit (granted, you guys have done a good thing or two too)
The "tech world" or the "internet community" or whatever Katzism you use is international. Any attempt by the US (or any other nation) to force it's views onto a non-national site is colonialism, pure and simple.
When the land of the free tries to enforce american laws here thei are nothing but red coats.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
A lot of people tell you not to vote for a third party because it would "waste" your vote. But, really, the waste of your vote is to vote for a more "mainstream" candidate that you don't really believe in.
Bush and Gore both seem the same to me and they both sicken me. Did you see the debates? They were even wearing the same suit!
So, please, take a look at third parties and independents out there. These people aren't so politically entrenched as the major parties, and have some very insightful ideas about what to do with our country.
Don't waste your vote.
Ralph Nader, Green Party (also endorsed by the Reform Party)
Harry Browne, Libertarian
Pat Buchanan, Reform Party (sort of)
John Hagelin, Natural Law Party (sort of)
Howard Phillips, Constitution Party
The founders did not intend to have people voting directly on issues as far as that goes. They had seen what happens when you have the people in control (really nasty little problems in France, Oliver Cromwell in England, persecution of Puritans, Protestants, etc). They knew about the rights of the minority. The rights of the minority cannot be held in lower esteem than the rights of the majority.
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