Are you voting?

[Belle Rose]

I’m going to vote but I’m going to vote for Bill Gates LOL!

[TheEncogitationer]

Kristina,

You do make excellent points of where the analogy between prayer and voting breaks down, ones I had not considered.  Excellent!

I guess my focus is on the common denominators between mythical powers-that-be gods and real-life powers-that-be politicians that make appeals to them both fall flat:

They both will do what they’re going to do, and usually just because they can.  They both regard the beings beneath them as so much gravel to be pushed around for some social engineering scheme.  They both deceive, they both plunder, they both enslave, and they even both murder, and scraping them off and keeping them harmless has been a continuous struggle of thoughtful humans.

[PopeBeanie]

As for voting vs praying, I’d say they’re more equivalent as “faiths”, and specifically “group faiths”. When I vote, which I will mail in as soon as I study the local ballot measures, I know it won’t really make a difference. So I vote with the faith that I’m doing the right thing for my fellow citizens, as I think my fellow citizens are also doing, faithfully for others.

Keep in mind the lack of faith people had in the candidates back in 2016. A large percentage of people voted just to protest the status quo, and didn’t realize how their votes, en masse, would actually elect the worst president in our history, or at least the worst in many, damaging ways. Soooo many people just went to the voting booth thinking “what the hell, our vote’s not going to change anything anyway, why not protest the system and throw a monkey wrench into it”!

I believe that’s not going to happen again, at least not in 2020.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Soooo many people just went to the voting booth thinking “what the hell, our vote’s not going to change anything anyway, why not protest the system and throw a monkey wrench into it”!

Yes, I think that is a good observation. Trump did have his core MAGA supporters who made all the noise and got all the limelight but I do think the majority of his votes were protest votes – which Trump was smart enough to notice.

I will watch the last debate tonight. The mute function will be interesting and the whole world is watching.

[TheEncogitationer]

Pope Beanie,

An electoral system might better address the disgruntled with better results if there were a “None Of The Above” option.

Under this option, if the majority vote for “None Of The Above ” for a particular office, all parties running candidates for the office would have to go back to the drawing board and pick better candidates.

This would encourage parties to better reach out to prospective constituents or at least teach its fixed ideology to better appeal to prospective constituents.

Better candidates and better positions on issues might prevail if “None Of The Above” were available.

Getting the existing parties to go along with this might be like pulling teeth, though.  Until that day comes, non-voting seems like the only choice for those of us disgusted with false binaries and looney-fringe alternatives.

[TheEncogitationer]

Pope Beanie,

Others have also suggested getting rid of parties entirely and letting individual candidates run solely on their ideas and past records.

Again, parties wouldn’t go for it, but if more candidates tried running without parties  and had wonderful ideas, perhaps it would draw support away from party establishments  and drew attention of establishment media.

 

 

[PopeBeanie]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Others have also suggested getting rid of parties entirely and letting individual candidates run solely on their ideas and past records.

I’m close to believing that, I just don’t know how to make it happen. I think the founders of USA had no idea how two-party politics would be able to hang on to power and then corrupt the representation and election processes, e.g. by gerrymandering and by buying free speech with big pockets and huge donors. I think (but am not positive) that USPS Media Mail was created just to make free speech more affordable via mail, but that’s no longer the most effective way to get voters’ attention.

As for None as a choice on the ballot, I’d agree, if we first had Ranked Voting, which gives voters the ability to rank each candidate (and None) from first choice to last choice. This would not only encourage more candidates to run and get recognized, but would allow voters to vote for their next most-favorite candidate(s), in order, if their first choice has no way to win. Even None could win it.

In the 2000 presidential election, enough Democrats voted for Nader instead of Gore such that Bush won the highest number of votes in Florida, which then led to Bush winning the country without getting the majority of the votes. In a ranked voting system, those Nader voters could have voted for both Nader and Gore, and Gore would have beat Bush because the votes would have been applied as a simple Gore v Bush contest after eliminating Nader from the count.

The other advantage of Ranked Voting is there would never be a need to have any runoff election when no candidate wins the majority in a field of more than two candidates. A runoff election is the very time-consuming, expensive way to get the same result as a single Ranked Vote election in those elections not dominated by an electoral college process.

[jakelafort]

Me voted.

First time Charley.

Watched the debate. Me am thinking how scintillating those candidates are. The best and the brightest. Plato’s Philosopher Kings.

[Unseen]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Others have also suggested getting rid of parties entirely and letting individual candidates run solely on their ideas and past records.

I’m not sure how you’d get rid of parties in a free society. I’m sure something would crop up to support candidates that would resemble parties.

[TheEncogitationer]

PopeBeanie and Unseen,

I know it does sound utopian.  Maybe a more realistic possibility is if already-existing third parties got State and Federal court rulings against the strict and onerous ballot access laws that keep third parties from standing against the Demopublican-Republicratic duopoly.

Such ballot access laws do inhibit the ability to petition for redress of grievances in a significant way that arguably violates the 1st Amendment.

[Bio Bill]

I have already voted. Oregon has vote by mail only, but ballots can be submitted in person at designated locations. Voters can also check if they were received at the Oregon Secretary of State website.

[PopeBeanie]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

PopeBeanie and Unseen, I know it does sound utopian. […]

And that’s ok! I don’t do enough reading on these things but still develop my own ideas. I’m thinking, e.g. that new “parties” will be willing to join forces one day to overcome the hurdles of running against the two party system. The theme, at least at first, could be “we form coalitions, unlike the partisan two-party system”.

And then it can evolve increasingly quickly from there.

[CKayeP]

In 2016, I made the mistake of thinking Hillary had it in the bag, and I didn’t like either choice, so I opted out. I’ve felt sick about it ever since, and never more so than now that Supreme Court will be strongly influenced by so-called “Christian values,” potentially for generations. That probably wouldn’t have happened if every eligible citizen voted in 2016, because Clinton had the popular vote by over three million.

On the upside, the 24/7 shitshow since has inspired me to make an oath to never squander the privilege of voting again. I personally delivered my ballot directly to a ballot box yesterday so it would be counted by election night.

 

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