Geeks, Geek Issues and Voting

David Allen wrote in with a question we would all do well to think about this year. For Americans: it's high time we thought about who we want to run the country for the next 4 years. What kind of laws we would want passed...or repealed. Who would be the ideal "Geek Ticket" and why? Although slightly USA-centric, this topic might also be of interest to our non-US readers so that they can discuss what they want out of their government in the near future. Click below for the actual text.

David Allen asks: "Along with everybody else, I've been thinking about who to vote for recently. I've been seriously considering Bill Bradley, or even David McReynolds for President. Now the question: It seems to me that what I'm really looking for is a mixture - somebody who will regulate the Internet insofar as they will keep businesses from violating my privacy, but people who will keep out of the internet, so it can remain a free conduit for information exchange. (No silly crypto laws, freedom of speech and such). There's no mistaking that the internet is a big issue for me. Where do many slashdotters fall along this continuum? There doesn't seem to be a candidate who's willing to go to bat for privacy but not muck around in freedom of information areas. Of course you could always just not vote. Is there a candidate that would fit that bill, and somebody who could really make those things happen?

By the way, for slashdotters interested in getting a decent fix on what each candidate thinks, check out the candidate selector which isn't quite as arrogant as it sounds."

Comments

Best Bet - Make YOur own choice.

[Patman]

I shudder when I hear people talk of the Geek Ticket, or the Republican Ticket, or the Democratic Ticket.

I am proud to say that I don't belong to a single political party. Why? Because I make my own decisions. I support the candidate that best fits me, not the candidate with my favorite letter after their name.

I urge all of oyu to engage in some good political discussion and debate, but in the end, make your own choice. Don't let anyone shame you into a choice, and dont be a one-issue voter. Vote for more then just the guy who's best for the Net, because the Net is just a small piece of our world. No one is perfect. Make your choice on the best candidate. And for God's sake, vote. If you don't vote, don't bitch.

Ralph Nader The Geek Candidate?

[waldoj]

You know, I've never really given Nader much thought. Small potatoes, wasted vote, could never win, etc.

But I sure as hell ain't voting for Bush, and I'm less and less certain of Gore.

So I took the Presidential Candidate Selector. And, much to my surprise, I found that nobody even came close to my beliefs, save for good ol' Ralph Nader. (Though, to my fright, Orrin Hatch showed up, though way down on the list. :)

Nader really seems to be right up there on the geek ticket, if my results and those of several fellow geeks are any indicator. Anybody know his beliefs on copyrights, patents, etc?

It's clear that he doesn't think much of Microsoft. That's a hell of a start. :)

Fusion

[jagapen]

Personally, I would like to see the practice of "fusion" legalized and/or instituted in Presidential elections. "Fusion" is the practice whereby multiple political parties can nominate the same candidate. This is a highly useful tool for voters. Here's why:

Third-party candidates have no chance of winning the Presidency; therefore very few people will "waste" their votes on a third-party candidate; therefore... You get the idea. With fusion, a third party can nominate one of the major-party candidates that most closely represents their views. Then when at the polls, one can vote for a third-party ticket without "wasting" one's vote, because the candidate is also a major-party candidate and could win.

For example: Suppose that the Green Party also nominated Al Gore. Then on election day, Gore gets 47% of the vote as a Democrat, and 5% of the vote as a Green. These add up to 52% of the vote, and Gore wins. He also knows that he owes a good chunk of his victory to Greens, and he'd better pay attention to the issues they espouse.

I'd be happier with such a system, though I did vote for Nader in 1996.

Re:Fusion

[Nathaniel]

Third-party candidates have no chance of winning the Presidency;</FUD>

Go look up 'self-fulfilling prophecy'.

Now stop spouting that worn out fud. Get a grip. Each vote for a third party helps dispell the mindset which helps make third party votes more difficult to get.

There is nothing special about the Democratic or Republican parties. They are not enshrined in the constitution, they haven't always been around. And they both seem to be a bit long in the tooth.

Go outside sometime, and find a registered voter who belongs to one of these parties. Ask them if they agree with their party on all issues. They will say 'no'. Now ask them to give the party a rating on a scale of 1 to 10. Repeat this process a few times. You will find that very few people are happy with they two party system.

Bias alert, please parse accordingly

[babbage]

Here's an agenda I'd like to suggest: strongly consider supporting and voting for third party candidates. There has been a mentality in this country that you have exactly two choices on that first Tuesday in November (where year % 4 == 0 (heh)). Not so. The emergence of the Reform party has cracked that wall a little bit, but I'd like to see it crumble completely.

People assume that one of the Big Two parties is going to win anyway, and voting for a third party is a waste of a vote. But what if everyone stood back for a second and voted *not* for the most likely candidate, but for the candidate that seemed most likely to be the right person for the job? What if we voted as individuals, not as a pack? Maybe we'd end up with 40 candidates and none get over 10% of the vote. Maybe we'll need a runoff election every four years. But would that be such a bad thing? Maybe it would give a suitable underdog a shot for once.

Myself, I really like Ralph Nader and the Green Party -- he got my vote in 1996 and he'll get it again this year. But a lot of the hackers I know are Libertarians or Free Marketeers or Socialists or whatever, and that's fine. I'm sure there are great candidates in all these camps, really. Why not give them a shot. "Gee Dubya" is pretty obviously an imbecile and a stuffed shirt for his corporate backers -- do you really want to see him win? Is Al Gore, proud internet innovator, any better? Fuck no he's not. The survey at Select Smart isn't a bad place to find a candidate that comes close to your ideology, whatever it may be. And Project Vote Smart is also a pretty good place to learn more. And don't forget about local elections either -- they're less glamorous, but they have far more impact over your day to day life than the high profile CNN elections. Be an informed and active voter above all else. It's worth it.

I nominate myself

[Diamond Slicer]

Q.? Can a political party exist soley on the Net?

I hereby nominate myself as the Offical Canidate of the Geek or /. Party. I should be elected because:

I am a geek - and all geeks are superior to other types of humans.
I run Linux. (Distro is kept secret for fear of alienating geek voters)
I can code C,C++,Pascal,Basic,Visual Basic, HTML and have a rudimentary (very poor) knowledge of Perl.

If elected:
I will destroy Windows - and open the WinNT source.
I will destroy etoys.com amazon.com and any other .com that is annoying and stupid.
I will let DeCSS go to the stars (tell DVD guys to go to hell)
I will make the stupids slaves. (This should attract voters.)

Note: The above presentation assumes that only smart people vote. Sadly (I am in Minnesota USA) that is not the case - our gov is Jesse "The Body" Ventura (an ex-pro wrestler whos iq ranges from 1 to 5). While literacy tests and like should not be reinstituted how about making a geeks vote count for 2.

Yes, I vote... but rarely does the canidate of choice get elected.

Democrat, Republican, WHO CARES?

[maynard]

I'm 31 and have been voting in Presidential elections since '88. Usually I vote Democrat in federal and state elections, because I prefer most of the stated Democrat policies over Republican. But I'm just disgusted with huge soft money donations, lobbyists writing the bills that our legislators pass (along with another contribution), and the many riders and procedural tricks legislators use to subvert debate in what was supposed to be an open and public legislative forum.

I'd like to support the Reform ticket, but there's no way in hell I'll vote for Pat Buchanan. I'm actually considering joining the Republican party just so I can vote for McCain in the primary, because of his support for the McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform legislation... and I think he stands a better chance against Bush than Bradley does against Gore.

Honestly I like both McCain and Bradley more than I like the entrenched Gore and Bush and if either of them wind up in the general election I'll probably vote Democrat or Republican based on this and not party politics.

I am SICK of party politics! The constant fighting between these two behemouths is affecting our democracy/republic in very dangerous ways... I honestly feel very disenfranchised from our political system -- which as a middle class computer geek if I'm the norm then our leaders better wake up. The current duality and conflict between just two parties has turned far too corrupt leaving us citizens holding the bag time and again.

What about a multi party system based on proportional representation like Germany has? I think if we could reform campaign finance and create a system with more than two parties we might gain the citizen's trust in the political system once again. Obviously, the only way for citizens to trust their government is if the government's representatives actually act in the citizen's interests, and that's clearly not happening with our current political system.

Not Bush

[Robert Wilde]

I think, whether we have to put up with McCain, Forbes, Gore, or Bradley will be generally okay. The only real threatening candidate is Bush.

In the end though, research the candidates yourself. Don't rely on the superficial mass media reports, but spend some time using the vast resources of the Internet to probe their positions, and reach your own decision. Do vote because our democracy is not a sham unless you believe it is.

My money's on the rich white male...

[PLaNeTJoe]

from a wealthy and politically connected family. Someone who can argue passionately about the smaller issues while bending over to corporate America every time on the things that really matter. Someone who looks good on TV. Someone who defended the nation from the Mexican Viet-Cong or spent a summer overseas under heavy protection because he was a senator's son.

What a poor joke the American political system really is.

Multiple candidates

[Gandalf_007]

Maybe we'd end up with 40 candidates and none get over 10% of the vote. Maybe we'll need a runoff election every four years. But would that be such a bad thing? Maybe it would give a suitable underdog a shot for once.

Not likely.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the American electoral system (which, unfortunately, includes a great many Americans), here's what happens if nobody gets a majority of the electoral votes (actual popular votes only decide which candidate the electoral votes of a state go to):

• There is NOT a runoff election. There never was, and never will be, unless the constitution is amended!
• The election is decided by the House of Representatives (the Senate gets no say).

Which means, that if no candidate gets a majority of the vote, it goes to the house, the Republicans vote for Bush, the Democrats vote for Gore, and Bush gets elected (which might be the lesser of two evils).

Just my $.02 to clear things up.

There is NO GEEK TICKET.

[Signal 11]

No such thing. Can't happen. Doesn't exist. How arrogant of slashdot readers to assume they and they alone are the sum of geekdom. Since when was being a geek strictly computers? I know art geeks, car geeks, even *sports* geeks. There are some attributes that are generally accepted to be geeky, but all the candidates thus far do not meet those meager requirements. So before you go dropping your ballot, consider the following...

• Geeks tend to have a wide range of political tastes. Really, about the only thing that's safe to say is that they're unconventional and anti-authoritarian.
• Geeks are not (contrary to *cough* some websites) limited only to computers.
• Most geeks would rather be doing what they like than out voting or trying to influence the stupid masses of people who vote. Just give me my xDSL and leave the internet alone, k?
• Contrary to popular belief, Eric Raymond or Richard Stallman will not be running for president. You can still vote for them, however.

And this concludes my post. You may now moderate me down per the dogmatic policies.

Geek != specific political stance

[dutky]

What would make anyone think that geeks have a common set of political interests or agendas? We have seen, over the past century and a half, that other supposedly unified subsets of the electorate (e.g. women) end up having nearly as diverse political opinions as the electorate as a whole: what would make us think that geeks are any different.

Just because I'm a geek, what does this tell you about my opinions on:

• abortion
• welfare
• homosexuality
• civil rights
• church-state separation
• taxation
• defense spending
• market freedom
• monetary policy
• foreign policy
• immigration
• economic theory
• judicial activism
• gun control
• freedom of expression

or any other important political issue by which I might choose a candidate for high office?

Political opinions among the geeks who are my friends and coworkers ranges from radical leftism, to centrist liberalism, to free market libertarianism, to fiscal conservatism, to right wing religious radicalism, all the way to outright apathy. While we may usually agree on what is a good or bad technical issue, it is rare indeed for us to agree about the broader issues that govern our lives and how we cast our votes.

I would as soon vote for a geek-centered candidate as I would vote for a candidate running on a platform emphasizing only their stand on abortion or foreign policy. These may be important issues in an election but they are not the only issues. The same goes for geek/technology issues.

Political parties and protest voting

[Uruk]

"I am proud to say that I don't belong to a single political party. Why? Because I make my own decisions. I support the candidate that best fits me, not the candidate with my favorite letter after their name."

Makes sense to me. But I didn't really think all that many people really identify themselves with republicans or democrats so strongly that they don't make their own decisions. It's just that the parties tend to fall in a certain spectrum. For example, if you feel strongly about the need to regulate gigantic businesses through legislation, it's pretty bloody unlikely that you're going to vote republican. Similarly, if you want to get rid of welfame and affirmitive action, I would think it would be very rare that the democrats would put somebody up that you'd want to vote for.

I was the guy who submitted the question - hopefully you checked out the David McReynolds link. I've been thinking more and more about voting for him if I see him on the ticket in my state. (Unfortunately, I find myself in Virginia) I agree with his views more than any other candidate, with some small nitpicking exceptions. In general though, I think it's worth voting for him even though I know he can't win, because IMHO (and I know this could draw flame because other people tend to have NSHO's) a vote for a third party candidate is like a protest vote, or equivalent to a "vote of no confidence"

For those of you who have ever heard any spoken word performances by Jello Biafra (yes, that's his name) he suggested something quite interesting - running the election as usual with an extra option - you could vote "No Confidence" on as many candidates as you wanted. And if any candidate had more than X% (where X is determined through the democratic process) of no confidence votes, the election would have to be redone, BARRING that candidate from the "redo" election, because voters had voted him off the ticket.

You would have to redo the whole thing though, since if there are two candidates, and one gets 60% no confidence, the guy who actually wins obviously wasn't running against a worthy opponent in the public's view. (i.e. it wasn't so much that he was good, but rather "The lesser of the two evils"

My ~3.2 Pfennigs

Hear hear! (Re:Geek != specific political stance )

[slim]

Well said. It concerns me that just because I support Free Software, many might expect me to agree with ESR (for example) on issues of extreme libertarianism and gun control.
--

Strategic Voting

[hey!]

This is kind of a pet peeve with me.

The problem with third party candidates in this country is that our system assumes that the relationship of candidate preference is transitive when applied over the electorate. Mathematically, this is not the case, that is to say, it is not the case that if A > B and B > C then A > C. This is like the rock/scissors/paper game. It is quite possible that 2/3 of the electorate prefer A to B, 2/3 prefer B to C, and 2/3 prefer C to A.

This leads to "strategic voting", where you vote atainst your own preferences to avoid a worse outcome. If it comes down to Gore/Bush, I'll vote for Gore though perhaps Nader would be a better choice.

If you took the political theory of Declaration of Independence seriously, you would choose the candidate that the most people would assent to be governed by. That is to say, I should be able to vote for Nader, and also for Gore (or Bradley) if I would find it acceptable to be governed by either. When you added up each candidate's votes, you would get a count of how many people find him acceptable for the job.

The relationship of being acceptable to more people is transitive. This mathematical advantage also has important practical advantages. It would empower third party candidates, who would no longer be caught in a catch 22 phenomenon of unelectability. It would eliminate the need of candidates to pander to political extremes. It would prevent extremist political factions from gaining disproportinate power by their ability to make or break coalitions (like the religious right here, or to a greater degree in Israel). However no minorities would be come irrelevant due to tactical considerations (e.g. I can count the Christian right out because the Buchannan has a lock on them).

This kind of assent based voting would substantially increase the degree of political equality in this country. However it would go against a catch phrase that is used as a stand in for equality: "one man, one vote." Ironically, one man, one vote emphatically does not ensure political equality. This kind of voting system would be a simple cure for many of the political problems of this country; unfortunately, the current parties are in power because of the existing system's deficiencies.