Voting

[The Captain]

I'm not sure about other countries, and feel free to chime in about it, but in the US, at best we get about 50% of the population to turn out and vote during Presidential elections which is an absolute disgrace. What can seriously be done to remedy this?

Would over turning the electoral college and thus forcing candidates to actually campaign across the entire country help? Would capping campaign spending help? Would banning attack ads help? How about having actual debates instead of pre-packaged "town hall" meetings already filled with bias audiences?

What do you think?

Take care all.

[The Redneck]

I say, screw it. If someone is so apathetic about where this nation is going that we have to get down and beg them or tailor the whole process so as not to offend them, just to get them to get off their butts and vote, than I'd rather that person not take part in such important decisions.

[nik0tine]

I agree with Redneck. Of course, politicians will never do that, because they know that they can win by turning an election into a soap opera of soarts.

[The Captain]

Why does half the nation not care though? That's the real question.

In my opinion, apathy OF apathy only makes the cycle more vicious.

Take care all.

[Masamune·1600]

The Captain, you may be interested in reading a book called The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty, written by Thomas E. Patterson of Harvard's JFK School of Government. It addresses the issue of low voter turnout in the US from a relatively neutral political stance, and observes what actions of the major political parties, the media, and the public at large contribute to this alarming trend. The final section does include some ideas that might possibly help to increase voter turnout, although the actual implementation of these ideas certainly has not yet happened.

[The Captain]

Thank you, I shall definitely look into that book.

What were some of the ideas proposed, if I might pry?

Take care all.

[Masamune·1600]

Well, I haven't read it since last summer, but one proposal I found interesting was the idea of making certain changes to the primaries; namely, replacing Super Tuesday with a concept that the book called Ultimate Tuesday. Under the Ultimate Tuesday system, one primary would be held in a given state (I believe starting in New Hampshire was preserved) every week or so, leading to an "Ultimate Tuesday" where primaries would be held in the remaining 46 states. This would theoretically allow candidates with less money to focus their funds on individual states, allowing them to compete with better financed candidates. By the time Ultimate Tuesday arrived, attention garnered from results in the initial states would hopefully give smaller candidates (if worthy) a chance in the ultimate runoff. This would also greatly shorten the length of the primary campaigns. Excessively long campaigns were often cited in the book as a major source of voter apathy.

[The Captain]

That's a fascinating idea.

Take care all.

[edczxcvbnm]

Thats a terrible idea. All states should go on the same day. People are too easily influenced. If anything the media should be withheld from reporting on anything so that people are not influenced and make their own decision with out feeling the need to go with the crowd. How many people win that stupid caucus that actually go on the win the primary? Far too many. I rest my damn case.

[Masamune·1600]

The idea's not flawless, certainly, but it makes more sense in the context of the other ideas the book proposes. Some of your ideas, if I recall correctly, were addressed by the book, although I think they might have been deemed too difficult to implement. I'll glance through it again when I'm home for the summer and see what it suggests.

[The Captain]

Why do you feel it's a terrible idea? It would certainly be a bridge from the current process to one you suggested at least.

Take care all.

[edczxcvbnm]

I think it is terrible because for something like this it isn't like there really needs to be a process. If you are going to jump from what we have to that other one with 5 weeks of primarys then why not just go all out on one day from the start? Its a waste of time to transition.

[Azure Chrysanthemum]

The biggest problem I see with apathy is that we think if we let those in charge make all the decisions, we can just go on living our lives like it doesn't matter. It DOES matter, and people need to realize that if they don't take interest in what's going on around them, we're SCREWED. Voter apathy's been a major concern of mine for quite some time now.

I think one of the major problems is uninspiring candidates. I mean, look at our Presidential election. We've got Bush, for whom I could go on for days on end citing what he's done that much of the general population doesn't agree with. And then the Democrats nominate... John Kerry!? It's like they all got together and said "all right, the strategy here is to nominate someone who has no chance of beating a President who's already done a great deal that can be exploited and used against him in the campaign. All clear? Let's go!"

I'll use my own state as an example of something else I dislike. Here in Washington, our governor election is still being contested. It literally came down to several hundred votes, and right now, while Christine Gregoire (the Democrat) is technically Governor, the Republicans are doing all they can to unseat her. And they may just succeed too. Now, when I was voting for either of them, this is what I had to go on:

According to all the radio and TV commercials, (pick one) Christine Gregoire/Dino Rossi are the ultimate devil incarnate whereas (pick one) Christine Gregoire/Dino Rossi are said to be related to Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, AND Mother Theresa. That's quite literally all I had to go by. They'd run their little adds about how someone's going to do such and such, and it didn't really matter because THEY WERE BOTH ACCUSING EACH OTHER OF THE SAME DAMN THING. "I'm a Democrat, but this time I'm voting for Dino Rossi because he doesn't hate small business like Christine Gregoire does." "I'm a Republican but this time I'm voting for Christine Gregoire because she doesn't hate small business like Dino Rossi does." And yes, they actually were doing that. It was disgusting. I don't care what your opponent can't do. I want to know what you CAN do.

Frankly, if we want more voter involvement I think we need to clean out all of this two-party trash and start all over again. Or at least dig someone up in Washington who is at least moderately interesting. I'm suggesting we don't dig up anyone who died after 1980.

[edczxcvbnm]

And that is what makes Obama so appealing because he doesn't attack the other canidate and talks about what he can do. Being from IL, I got that feel from him. He talked about the issues and what he would do. He didn't have a very big advertising campain from what I could see. If he can't help out the country and IL as sentor in his first term then I wouldn't expect him to bother running a second and maybe try for governor of IL instead. He is actually a polition that genuinly wants to help the people. He did get lucky when he got elected also.

During the primaries he went up against some big names that fell apart due to scandals. Then the same thing happened in the election against the initial republican opponent. He was still favored to win the State Senate but was far from favored to win the Primary until all those other alligations came up.

I talked about how he won because I feel that this is probably why most of the "better" politions don't win is because they don't have the finanical funding and don't really have any backstroy to talk about or scandal if you will. So the media ignores you and you fall through the cracks.

Its late so I hope what I feel makes sense.

[Shadow Nexus]

Why do you relate it specifically to apathy? Personally I don't believe in not going to vote because of such ideas people make of people who don't vote. You may not vote, for example, because you don't believe any party represents you, or you are against the electoral system, or against democracy itself.

I prefer voting a party we have here in Spain, called "Citizens in white". Their only electoral promise is to leave the parliment seats they may obtain empty, as a sign of protest against the current Spanish system. I don't think they will ever win any seat, but it would be great if they did. I believe it is a way of voting against the system and prooving it at the same time.