uspol, exhortation
If it is legal for you to vote today and you haven't yet, please do so.
Even if you haven't registered: many states allow same-day registration.
Even if you think your vote won't matter: margin sizes matter. (And not just to politicians, but to your neighbors, who need all the support they can get.)
Even if you think others will ignore your representatives: they don't even have to ignore anything if you do it for them.
Even if you think an institution is corrupt: take an hour to vote for small improvements (or even the least-bad option), then keep pushing for larger ones.
uspol, exhortation
@aschmitz if all of the meaningful decisions in your district were made weeks ago during closed primaries that half of voters do not get to participate in, do you really think that the ratio of democrats versus republicans in the general election is a more meaningful signal than the ratio of voters versus nonvoters?
uspol, longish
@aschmitz if politicians do not view increasing voter turnout as part of their mandate, that just makes me desire less to vote for them 😞
uspol, longish
@aschmitz when you start considering a registered voter who does not cast a ballot differently from a registered voter who casts an empty ballot, ensuring the first group continues not voting starts to feel like part of your electoral strategy
uspol, longish
@Lady Certainly discouraging turnout from people you think would vote against you is also a strategy, yes, though I'm not sure I understand the argument you're making here. (To clarify: not a strategy I love either, but obviously it happens.)
uspol, longish
@aschmitz my argument is that elected officials in a functioning democracy have a mandate to the democratic process. that mandate is expressed in voter turnout numbers: high voter turnout means the democratic process is working; low voter turnout means the democratic process is not working. i think not voting increases the mandate to fix the democratic process, and choosing to increase this mandate is as valid as a choice as choosing to increase the mandate of, say, the democratic party platform by voting for it instead of the republicans
i realize that this might be controversial in the United States, but if a politician does not recognize their mandate to fix the democratic process when voter turnout is low, and instead cares only about winning the voters who do turn out, that is not a candidate who cares about having a functioning democracy
uspol, longish
@aschmitz and if the candidates do not care about having a functioning democracy, i do not think the burden should fall upon voters to try to clean up their mess
uspol, longish
@Lady I guess my argument is primarily that whether it should or not (it shouldn't), it does.
uspol, longish
@Lady I mean, they do, but not voting at all provides effectively no signal: people try to increase turnout every election, and usually you're lucky to bump it up by a couple percent from the last election. (Actually sustained outreach often does a bit better - and is obviously what I'd prefer - but you're still talking single-digit percentages: most people are just not that politically involved.)
In practice, being a voter means you're much more likely to have a say, whether you like it or not. (I don't love it! But we are where we are, and we're not getting a spherical candidate on a frictionless plane any time soon.)
uspol, longish
@aschmitz i disagree. i think that if ballots were mailed to every address alongside comprehensive voters guides, voter turnout would increase by more than a couple percent. i think that when voters feel like they are making an actual choice instead of rubberstamping a decision from primaries they had no say in, turnout increases by more than a couple percent. i think that if people got a paid day off of work on election day, voter turnout might increase by more than a couple percent. when polling lines are short and polling places numerous and the experience of voting is fast and enjoyable and makes people feel connected to their community, voter turnout probably increases by more than a couple percent. i think there are many things that governments can do to increase voter turnout quite considerably
uspol, longish
@Lady Yes, in a few different ways. Per a number of state politicians' staff I know, nonvoters basically don't get counted, while even just voting a ballot but leaving a race blank is more of a signal (which I intend to do for several races). Additionally, when reporting on results (or viewing them from your locality), all you see is the number of votes that happened, not how many people decided to sit it out, and that matters for anyone trying to figure out how much of their neighborhood supports them.
In the election itself, even the slimmest majority is a win, but the margins matter for what people feel they can do for the next N years. (And, as above, the ratio of ratios matters: if the Democratic Senator got 70% of the vote and the Representative got 55% and a bunch of abstentions, that provides additional information even if it doesn't change who gets seated.)