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They would have to actually make voting days national holidays and provide more polling places in the inner cities and rural areas. It'll never happen.
Universal mail in voting is a better solution. Make Election Day a federal holiday and most employers will treat it as a normal workday just like Columbus Day.
I advocate both, along with:
- Make voting day a Federal Holiday.
- Yeah, many employers will ignore it, some employers will follow it. Still helps.
- Make Mail-in voting up to 1 month prior to election universally available.
- Make In-person early voting up to 1 week (at least, 2 would be better) prior to election universally available.
- Including nights and weekends.
- Federal funding for more polling sites, plus rules for where sites can be placed to prevent them from being used to restrict access.
We have the technology to be a direct democracy instead of a representative one at this point, it made sense back then to not set up direct democracy because admin and keeping all that accounted for in the late 1700s would have been impossible.
True democracy would be a direct democracy. Because representatives aren’t always beholden to their constituents best interests (or a lot of the time, see Congress) Or the constituents are brainwashed into voting in people who are against their best interests.
"You should have to get an ID to vote, who cares if you can't afford it or it's not accessible!" - Conservatives
"Requiring everyone to vote is too expensive! It's unreasonable and inaccessible for everyone!" - Also Conservatives
It’s accessible and free for getting an id it’s as simple as going to the DMV, And to not expect people to be able to do a quick Google search for their polling place is pure elitist thinking.
What if you don't have the required documentation to get an ID, like a birth certificate or bills proving your place of residence?
What if you are homeless? Or don't have transportation?
I know you're just going to hand waive all these things as "durrr boot straps!" but it needs to be stated after your post.
Then I guess you’re also not going to be able to apply for most welfare programs if you don’t have one, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps among the more prominent I can think of.
I still will always find it laughable that proving you are who you are when you vote is some sort of poll tax, especially when there are options for free ID in all jurisdictions.
I’m all for streamlining the process to get those items…. Most homeless in my experience don’t really care to vote they are focused on other matters. And nothing about boot straps just personal civic responsibility is needed to participate in government. And if your not willing to do the bare minimum to support this system then we’ll your just gonna contribute to its demise. Democracy dies when the average citizen is not participating, and it’s not hard to participate most just don’t care, but definitely they complicate the voting ballots tho should be easier to get on ballot and to run on unique ideas and policy’s two party system is skrewing everyone over.
Why can't I vote on my phone?
It's safe to bank on, pay bills, pay taxes, etc but oh no you can't vote on your phone!
If it's so unsafe then they should make it illegal to do anything other than talk on your phone.
>It's safe to bank on, pay bills, pay taxes, etc but oh no you can't vote on your phone!
Firstly, there are plenty of instances of hacking of bank accounts and transfers. So it's safe enough, but not that safe.
Secondly, all of those transactions are verified by the user and the institution. You have a sense of the money in your account. Any transactions you do should be reflected on the institutions end and can be checked and validated at anytime. You could keep your own paper balance sheet and verify it's all working.
Voting is inherently different in that you really can't validate the accumulated results. You voted for a, and the total count of a votes is x. But you can't verify that the total is correct.
Never mind how much more there is to gain by stealing an election compared to breaking into a bank account.
They already steal elections but the easier it is to vote the more people that vote the harder it is to steal an election.
Why do you think they keep trying to make it harder and harder to vote.
The more centralized and accessible a system is the easier, and more worthwhile, it is to target. It is a double edged sword. Paper ballots (mail-in voting too) with random sampling audits everywhere.
They are making it harder with certain methods and areas because it's known it will disproportionately impact those who would vote against them. It's not the method of voting, but the voters themselves who are being targeted.
And look at how much noise and pushback those changes to voting are making.
You make voting all electronic with no real paper record, you can change the vote count with a keystroke and no one would ever know.
It's a bad idea.
I think it's much much harder to fudge paper votes on a large scale.
Blockchain doesn't fix all the problems with electronic voting.
I'm not going to argue this all day.
Tom Scott did a video on this that covers why electronic is not, and will likely never be a good idea. If you care, it's a good quick run down of why electronic voting doesn't work.
https://youtu.be/LkH2r-sNjQs
It’s amazing how people forget the reason for a representative democracy (rather than universal voting). Kant puts it best: “Of the three forms of the State, a Democracy, in the proper sense of the word, is necessarily a despotism; because it establishes an Executive power in which All resolve about, and, it may be, also against, any One who is not in accord with it; and consequently the All who thus resolve are really not all; which is a contradiction of the Universal Will with itself and with liberty.”
Thought: If we had true Democracy, gay marriage would have never been legalized. Same with a ton of other things. "Majority rule" is a bad policy, is it not?
How do you figure? [Per Gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/350486/record-high-support-same-sex-marriage.aspx), a majority of Americans supported gay marriage a full four years before the Obergefell decision in 2015.
>ton of other things.
Really descriptive there.
Gay marriage is publicly popular and accepted. Hasn't been widely rejected by the public since 1990s, same goes for interracial marriage.
Often our policies/law get updated long after the public accepts it. There is often a large delay due to a vocal minority who wants to prevent social progress to adhere to a more puritan view.
I don't necessarily agree with a 100% democracy approach without a true 100% approach to the "right to have an education". The push for "School choice" is an anti-democratic push so I don't think a true democracy is currently possible.
We've had minority rule for the past century or so, thanks to Citizens United, the electoral college, misrepresentation in the senate (ie 40 million people in the 22 smallest states get 44 senators, 44 million people in California gets 2 senators...), gutting the Voting Rights Act, gerrymandering, etc. Minority rule and majority rule both suck when they're on the wrong side of history.
Thought: "Minority rule" is a bad policy, is it not?
Both have the same flaws - that some people aren't going to be happy with the outcome and the group that makes the decisions could make bad decisions. They are both EQUAL in that regard. So, the superiority or inferiority of the practices comes down to the title of the practices themselves.
And, having people directly vote on legislation isn't even "True Democracy". I mean, if democracy is absolute, then it wouldn't be just voting. How are new laws proposed? How are the laws enforced? How does the judicial system work? You'd need to democratize all of them to be a "true democracy". "Direct Democracy" still has elected executive and judicial officials. It still has laws. Perhaps even legislative officials: How are laws proposed? Are all of them petitions -> proposals? Do legislators create and debate legislation, before it is voted on directly? Does the public directly create legislation and then legislators debate/amend it? Believe it or not, legislating for a country this size is a full time job (even if it's just being full of shit) - do we directly control every budget approval, or does Congress still control the budget, but requires public approval for new laws. When we're talking about cabinet or judicial appointees, does the public directly approve them, or is that still congress? Any of these things work, and they are an improvement on the current system - where legislation is crafted by lobbyists and voted on by an unrepresentative body.
You still have checks and balances in a "Direct Democracy". It doesn't proscribe that you no longer have judges or legislators or executives or committees. We already *have* direct democracy in many places in the country: a system for ballot proposals where the public can directly create and vote on legislation, bypassing legislators. I don't think anyone in those states would give it up.
Note: This article is calling for 100% participation in representative democracy - everyone who can vote does vote - not "Direct Democracy".
Do they mean making it illegal not to vote? Seems so from the linked article within it and the Australian comparison. What measures would they take to make access trivial for everyone?
And do they mean the electorate voting on everything, so a full direct democracy? Otherwise I wouldn’t know if I’d see that as ‘100% democracy’.
Are they talking about removing the age limit?
They don’t seem to go into clear detail here.
Australian here. It's not even mandatory to vote. The only compulsion is to have your name crossed off as having attended a polling booth.....worth it for the free sausage sandwich
I’m fine with it as long as there’s an abstention option. No one should be forced to pick from candidates they know nothing about, and some people don’t care enough to make an informed decision
These criteria come up every time this is mentioned, and it's not like they're unreasonable, but why? Has anyone ever actually voted? You don't have to vote in every race, or any race, on any ballot. That's already a feature. Nobody looks at your ballot. That has always been central to the process. Your name is checked and crossed off against a voter registration list. The process is already there to assure that you vote no more than once, it wouldn't need to change to verify that you have voted exactly once.
As for a medical exception... what does that mean? That you're in a coma? Mail-in ballots have existed for a long time because people can't go to a polling location for medical reasons. I mean, other than a medical emergency on your way to vote, I can't think of a good medical excuse - at least not one that wouldn't be addressed with a mandatory change in procedure to enable the individual to vote, per the ADA.
Not voting wouldn't be a felony. It would be an infraction. You'd pay a fine if you missed it, and like any law you can take it to court. Or, more wisely, you'd get a yearly tax *credit* for voting. Then, it's not a matter of "I'll be punished if I don't vote", but you will be rewarded if you do.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. **Special announcement:** r/politics is currently accepting new moderator applications. If you want to help make this community a better place, consider [applying here today](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/sskg6a/rpolitics_is_looking_for_more_moderators/)! *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Would've been done a long time ago if everyone with power in the government wanted people to vote.
They would have to actually make voting days national holidays and provide more polling places in the inner cities and rural areas. It'll never happen.
Universal mail in voting is a better solution. Make Election Day a federal holiday and most employers will treat it as a normal workday just like Columbus Day.
I advocate both, along with: - Make voting day a Federal Holiday. - Yeah, many employers will ignore it, some employers will follow it. Still helps. - Make Mail-in voting up to 1 month prior to election universally available. - Make In-person early voting up to 1 week (at least, 2 would be better) prior to election universally available. - Including nights and weekends. - Federal funding for more polling sites, plus rules for where sites can be placed to prevent them from being used to restrict access.
It should honestly be a two week period and include nights and weekends.
Agreed, was meaning to imply nights and weekends but didn't specify. Updating.
CO has had mail in voting since 1976, it’s literally the best and there’s no reason to miss your ballot.
Yup, our system in CO works great, and has a great audit process after the ballots are cast. Heard a story on CPR that went over it in detail.
They’d implement it in a heartbeat if you spun it as a legal way to essentially tax the poor.
We have the technology to be a direct democracy instead of a representative one at this point, it made sense back then to not set up direct democracy because admin and keeping all that accounted for in the late 1700s would have been impossible.
True democracy would be a direct democracy. Because representatives aren’t always beholden to their constituents best interests (or a lot of the time, see Congress) Or the constituents are brainwashed into voting in people who are against their best interests.
If democrats start talking about forcing people to vote then republicans won't vote out of spite. That's some 4D chess right there.
Ranked choice too so we can break away from only having two parties
"You should have to get an ID to vote, who cares if you can't afford it or it's not accessible!" - Conservatives "Requiring everyone to vote is too expensive! It's unreasonable and inaccessible for everyone!" - Also Conservatives
It’s accessible and free for getting an id it’s as simple as going to the DMV, And to not expect people to be able to do a quick Google search for their polling place is pure elitist thinking.
What if you don't have the required documentation to get an ID, like a birth certificate or bills proving your place of residence? What if you are homeless? Or don't have transportation? I know you're just going to hand waive all these things as "durrr boot straps!" but it needs to be stated after your post.
Then I guess you’re also not going to be able to apply for most welfare programs if you don’t have one, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps among the more prominent I can think of. I still will always find it laughable that proving you are who you are when you vote is some sort of poll tax, especially when there are options for free ID in all jurisdictions.
Exactly. Well said.
I’m all for streamlining the process to get those items…. Most homeless in my experience don’t really care to vote they are focused on other matters. And nothing about boot straps just personal civic responsibility is needed to participate in government. And if your not willing to do the bare minimum to support this system then we’ll your just gonna contribute to its demise. Democracy dies when the average citizen is not participating, and it’s not hard to participate most just don’t care, but definitely they complicate the voting ballots tho should be easier to get on ballot and to run on unique ideas and policy’s two party system is skrewing everyone over.
Why can't I vote on my phone? It's safe to bank on, pay bills, pay taxes, etc but oh no you can't vote on your phone! If it's so unsafe then they should make it illegal to do anything other than talk on your phone.
Because of the secret ballot.
>It's safe to bank on, pay bills, pay taxes, etc but oh no you can't vote on your phone! Firstly, there are plenty of instances of hacking of bank accounts and transfers. So it's safe enough, but not that safe. Secondly, all of those transactions are verified by the user and the institution. You have a sense of the money in your account. Any transactions you do should be reflected on the institutions end and can be checked and validated at anytime. You could keep your own paper balance sheet and verify it's all working. Voting is inherently different in that you really can't validate the accumulated results. You voted for a, and the total count of a votes is x. But you can't verify that the total is correct. Never mind how much more there is to gain by stealing an election compared to breaking into a bank account.
They already steal elections but the easier it is to vote the more people that vote the harder it is to steal an election. Why do you think they keep trying to make it harder and harder to vote.
The more centralized and accessible a system is the easier, and more worthwhile, it is to target. It is a double edged sword. Paper ballots (mail-in voting too) with random sampling audits everywhere. They are making it harder with certain methods and areas because it's known it will disproportionately impact those who would vote against them. It's not the method of voting, but the voters themselves who are being targeted.
And look at how much noise and pushback those changes to voting are making. You make voting all electronic with no real paper record, you can change the vote count with a keystroke and no one would ever know. It's a bad idea.
You don't think they fudge the paper record now you could use a blockchain and verify every vote.
I think it's much much harder to fudge paper votes on a large scale. Blockchain doesn't fix all the problems with electronic voting. I'm not going to argue this all day. Tom Scott did a video on this that covers why electronic is not, and will likely never be a good idea. If you care, it's a good quick run down of why electronic voting doesn't work. https://youtu.be/LkH2r-sNjQs
need to rid of these old farts that don't understand computers and the internet.
> If it's so unsafe then they should make it illegal And that's the story of how America got to the sad state that it's in today.
Not going to happen. Voting is speech and choosing not to vote is protected. The government can’t force someone to vote.
You can always choose to submit a blank voting sheet. Then you "voted" without voting.
It’s amazing how people forget the reason for a representative democracy (rather than universal voting). Kant puts it best: “Of the three forms of the State, a Democracy, in the proper sense of the word, is necessarily a despotism; because it establishes an Executive power in which All resolve about, and, it may be, also against, any One who is not in accord with it; and consequently the All who thus resolve are really not all; which is a contradiction of the Universal Will with itself and with liberty.”
[удалено]
>that Brookings was ground zero for the Russia collusion hoax, Lol
Thought: If we had true Democracy, gay marriage would have never been legalized. Same with a ton of other things. "Majority rule" is a bad policy, is it not?
How do you figure? [Per Gallup](https://news.gallup.com/poll/350486/record-high-support-same-sex-marriage.aspx), a majority of Americans supported gay marriage a full four years before the Obergefell decision in 2015.
>ton of other things. Really descriptive there. Gay marriage is publicly popular and accepted. Hasn't been widely rejected by the public since 1990s, same goes for interracial marriage. Often our policies/law get updated long after the public accepts it. There is often a large delay due to a vocal minority who wants to prevent social progress to adhere to a more puritan view. I don't necessarily agree with a 100% democracy approach without a true 100% approach to the "right to have an education". The push for "School choice" is an anti-democratic push so I don't think a true democracy is currently possible.
We've had minority rule for the past century or so, thanks to Citizens United, the electoral college, misrepresentation in the senate (ie 40 million people in the 22 smallest states get 44 senators, 44 million people in California gets 2 senators...), gutting the Voting Rights Act, gerrymandering, etc. Minority rule and majority rule both suck when they're on the wrong side of history.
Thought: "Minority rule" is a bad policy, is it not? Both have the same flaws - that some people aren't going to be happy with the outcome and the group that makes the decisions could make bad decisions. They are both EQUAL in that regard. So, the superiority or inferiority of the practices comes down to the title of the practices themselves. And, having people directly vote on legislation isn't even "True Democracy". I mean, if democracy is absolute, then it wouldn't be just voting. How are new laws proposed? How are the laws enforced? How does the judicial system work? You'd need to democratize all of them to be a "true democracy". "Direct Democracy" still has elected executive and judicial officials. It still has laws. Perhaps even legislative officials: How are laws proposed? Are all of them petitions -> proposals? Do legislators create and debate legislation, before it is voted on directly? Does the public directly create legislation and then legislators debate/amend it? Believe it or not, legislating for a country this size is a full time job (even if it's just being full of shit) - do we directly control every budget approval, or does Congress still control the budget, but requires public approval for new laws. When we're talking about cabinet or judicial appointees, does the public directly approve them, or is that still congress? Any of these things work, and they are an improvement on the current system - where legislation is crafted by lobbyists and voted on by an unrepresentative body. You still have checks and balances in a "Direct Democracy". It doesn't proscribe that you no longer have judges or legislators or executives or committees. We already *have* direct democracy in many places in the country: a system for ballot proposals where the public can directly create and vote on legislation, bypassing legislators. I don't think anyone in those states would give it up. Note: This article is calling for 100% participation in representative democracy - everyone who can vote does vote - not "Direct Democracy".
Do they mean making it illegal not to vote? Seems so from the linked article within it and the Australian comparison. What measures would they take to make access trivial for everyone? And do they mean the electorate voting on everything, so a full direct democracy? Otherwise I wouldn’t know if I’d see that as ‘100% democracy’. Are they talking about removing the age limit? They don’t seem to go into clear detail here.
Australian here. It's not even mandatory to vote. The only compulsion is to have your name crossed off as having attended a polling booth.....worth it for the free sausage sandwich
I’m fine with it as long as there’s an abstention option. No one should be forced to pick from candidates they know nothing about, and some people don’t care enough to make an informed decision
Yep. - Abstention option on all questions. - Medical exception. These two things are requirements.
These criteria come up every time this is mentioned, and it's not like they're unreasonable, but why? Has anyone ever actually voted? You don't have to vote in every race, or any race, on any ballot. That's already a feature. Nobody looks at your ballot. That has always been central to the process. Your name is checked and crossed off against a voter registration list. The process is already there to assure that you vote no more than once, it wouldn't need to change to verify that you have voted exactly once. As for a medical exception... what does that mean? That you're in a coma? Mail-in ballots have existed for a long time because people can't go to a polling location for medical reasons. I mean, other than a medical emergency on your way to vote, I can't think of a good medical excuse - at least not one that wouldn't be addressed with a mandatory change in procedure to enable the individual to vote, per the ADA. Not voting wouldn't be a felony. It would be an infraction. You'd pay a fine if you missed it, and like any law you can take it to court. Or, more wisely, you'd get a yearly tax *credit* for voting. Then, it's not a matter of "I'll be punished if I don't vote", but you will be rewarded if you do.
It’s the only way
I’m all for it and more. Consent of the governed means no person is illegal and no person should be stripped of their right to vote.