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Six Degrees of Voting

Posted by michael on from the who's-keven-bacon-voting-for? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Received a link to SixDegreesOfVoting.com that is a new take on the Registration drive concept. From the Manifesto: 'if we make sure everyone we know is voting, and they make sure everyone they know is voting, and so on, wouldn't everyone be voting?' Match it with a nice flash map showing linked signups, it looks pretty cool (albeit leaning solidly to the left right now)."

1 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. Re:oh yeah? by mcmonkey · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    If you haven't taken the time to reason through who the candidates are and why you would vote for one and/or vote against another, then stay home.

    You still haven't come through with specifics. What is 'taking the time to reason'? What is careful reasoning? Can you apply some IQ can come up with an objective standard?

    My concern is someone may read about a campaign to discourage the uninformed from voting or "why distort the margin by which a body of ideas wins or loses," and think 'I'm not happy about the war in Iraq, but I don't know enough about the other issues, so I won't vote.' Next thing you know you're drafted, up to your ass in sand, and taking up a collection to buy some body armor.

    Or someone may think, 'I don't like the idea of the v.p. being a former trial lawyer, but what do I know? I'm an idiot.' Next thing you know you're performing an appendectomy on yourself with a spork because no doctor can afford the malpractice insurance to perform any actual surgery.

    As for just going into the poll cold and voting randomly, I wouldn't recommend that. But I'll take it, if it gets someone who wasn't going to vote into the booth. Because maybe this time it's, 'well, I've got some time to kill until the 'shrooms kick in. Might as well vote.' And then next time it's, 'well, I guess I'll vote again. Might as well read some of the referendum questions ahead of time.' Who knows, some one who wasn't high up on the 'informed' scale might get involved and actually learn something.

    The opposite approach, discouraging people from getting involved and voting, leads to a lot of, 'nope, still too stupid to vote again this year.'

    What really gets me is, I read about uninformed voters and careful reasoning. Then I wonder, by what standard? How informed? How reasoning? Then I think about literacy tests, and bible reading, and stakes in the community. Why don't you just come out and say it. Enough with the code words; enough pussy-footing. 'Well informed' is code for christians, reciting bible passages in latin, white land owners. Just have the guts to admit it.

    We don't need any more idiots going around telling other people they shouldn't vote.

    You're uninformed if you think you shouldn't vote or that your vote doesn't count.