The problem with not voting

Yeah, vote if you want, but please do more than that.

As an outsider, it's really depressing to hear you only get two parties to choose from.

There were a few times the Klan rallied behind progressive pro-civil rights candidates to intentionally sabotage them, but this tactic doesn't get used today.

That's pretty good! Mine is similar: I check which feces-smearing insurrection has attendees with the "Camp Auschwitz" hoodies and vote against their candidate.

This works 100% of the time.

Don't they regularly declare they're voting for Democrats as a dog whistle?

You shouldn't have just one other guy though. KKK might prefer one, but be ok with the other as well.

I yes it have so great outcomes so far lmao /s

You should.

You won't though.

You can hate the concept of government in it's entirety and still vote. Even Lysander Spooner, a total anarchist, said as much in his writings. He said government is completely illegitimate, but there's nothing wrong with voting when you are forced into the system, and doing so does not imply your consent to the system. It's like a torturer asking you how you'd prefer to be tortured. It's OK to have an opinion. Over here in the USA, I'd rather suffer Sleepy Genocidal Joe than that fucking orange monster. Since we don't have ranked choice voting, I have to pick one or else I don't get any say at all, and that's exactly how the powers-that-be want it.

Maybe you can. I can't.

You can dislike excrement and cyanide and still eat shit.

In the US that would almost literally be voting in Republicans. They want the system to crawl to a halt, and critical functions are legislated to frequently sunset so they can hold the system hostage on a regular basis.

Yeah, try calling it the “same thing” when you can’t pass any legislation or form coalitions

Isn't that the Republican strategy?

Well, good news, US legislature managed to dismantle itself with all the "checks and balances" and liberum veto filibuster. Now it's just a circus to play for the gullible to legitimize this oligarchic empire. It is no representation, one way or another and somebody should openly state it. The best the progressive caucus could do now is to walk out.

That's a pretty brilliant strategy probably. I'll run as an empty seat guy.

Don't know how much credit you can give to the guy who gushes over the monarchy.

Who would tell someone not to vote?

Lemmy's so small I have my doubts it's that widespread. We have a good amount of extreme left true believers here.

I mean, why wouldn't it be? There is nothing stopping bad faith actors from participating. The only reason they wouldn't is if there was little value in doing so.

If all else fails, blame Russia lol

Did hexbear and Lemmygrad not tip you off? Except they're not just bots, there are a lot of real people at it too.

Yup. Anyone who thinks differently than you do is a bot and/or explicitly supportive if Russia.

Gonna be like this every election year from here on out.

Yeah, anyone who doesn’t agree with me is a Russian bot.

Because real, reasonable people can't disagree with this? Many people would say that this doesn't go far enough as it doesn't condemn third party voters for just "throwing their vote away."

Imagine thinking that the only people who hold a position you don't like are Russian bots and not real people who actually believe shit.

If you're really that convinced that everyone who doesnt like genocide joe is a russian bot, then you're far too immature to be using any website other than reddit.

Except it’s a primary where he’s running against himself basically.

That’s the point. It’s a primary, it’s not the general election. They’re showing up and saying “we’re your voters and you know what our message is.”

I tell our kids to turn in an empty ballot if they don’t want to vote. To at least do that is a minimum.

I agree with your stance, but would take it a step further.

If one refuses to participate, rather than being unable to for what ever reason (we do realize that voter supression happens and that alone is a complicated subject that im not going to dig into for this hot take), one gives up the right to complain about politics until the next election cycle. Showing up and turning in a blank ballot is a valid protest, being loud from the side lines without putting in a minimum of effort is not.

Although in the US where its been "the lesser of two evils" for my entire life, a blank ballot is statistically in support of the greater evil.

If possible I prefer voting for a small party / candidate even if they have no chance at winning. That way it actually takes away votes from the big options, while blanks are just ignored in the reported results. At least that's how it works here, the first thing ignored are the non-voters, next invalid / blank votes, and the only thing that matters and gets reported on are valid votes.

France is slowly descending into fascism. Every five years they have the choice between liberals and the far-right, like in the US. Voting liberals is empowering the far-right, since nazis are feeding on poverty brought by liberals.

That's just stupid with extra steps...

Low turnout consistently favors republicans, that's why they do all they can to make it harder to vote, not going out to vote is basically for the republicans, who are at this point, basically a Fascist party.

The Democrats go further to the center no matter what, but they only win when they run to the left. Obama ran as a radical leftist that was going to deliver universal healthcare and hold the banks accountable, but jettisoned that as quick as he could. The truth is they just want to be in the center, and they'll justify it no matter the turnout or outcome of the election.

These other third party guys have no chance, like always.

Also they aren't serious candidates. You can tell because they just crawl out of the woodwork for presidential elections and cause problems. They don't run for any offices further down the hierarchy and demonstrate that they have good ideas and build up public trust enough to merit their becoming president. They just go on vanity tours and fuck around the serious candidates who are willing to put in the work.

Yeah, it's absolutely ridiculous how easily people just accepted that primaries are just a joke, that the DNC can hold them when they want to and just decide on their own when they don't. Telling people to vote for Biden now, when he is not yet by any stretch an official candidate, is to forfeit a democratic right. They openly say they're ready to rubber-stamp a decision of party oligarchs.

We need ranked choice voting. First past the post virtually guarantees a two party system.

There it's indistinguishable from being uninterested in politics. And politicians have no incentives to cater to those that seem unlikely to vote. Null and blank votes are better at showing disaproval of the system, and at making politicians rethink their strategies

That is only true in the undemocratic 2 party system of the US.

I think that's pretty clearly who this post was targeted at.

To be fair, coming from one of those places, I do not want to vote either. The socialists party is crony as shit with multiple corruptions affair, and the only other options are the liberals. Guess I'll vote far-left, but I don't really like them either for they are statists.

Nobody refuses to acknowledge this. It comes up in every single one of these goddamn threads.

There are just too many people who are a little bit lazy and think this gives them an excuse not to show up at all. A way to feel self-justified about it: well both sides are bad, so I'll go jack off some more. Downballot? I don't know what that is because I've never seen a ballot. Because I do this every election.

so that your intent is 100% clear.

And worthless.

I really wish election day was a holiday and voting was mandatory.

Could vote "none of the above" but had to hand in a ballot.

as is spoiling your ballot paper

Could you elaborate?

The Wavy Gravy Plan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody_for_President

Here (the Netherlands) you can simply turn in a unmarked ballot and it will be counted as a blank vote.

I don't really understand. Suppose democracy as we know it is dismantled and we have an autocratic supreme leader eternal... will it be helpful to "explain to people that those in power do not have popular support"

voting for lesser of two evils and voting for absolute support is also indistinguishable.

This is also a flawed premise, as though casting a vote is supposed to be an expression of your self and your personal desires on path to utopia... it's not. You're voting for which asshole you want to be POTUS. That's it. There is no lesser of two evils or tepid support or partial agreement. Do you want Chocolate, or do you want Strawberry.

Let it burn.

This is inconsistent with the preservation of democracy, as it allows a third party to confirm exactly who you voted for, and reimburse or punish you for it.

Mainly you'll have to tweak point 3, to use existing E2E.verified voting approaches which are only tangentially related to asymmetric encryption (and private keys).

We might use asymmetric encryption and private keys for some parts of identity verification, but you wouldn't sign your ballot with it.

Point 7 is straight-up an unconstitutional poll tax. So is putting the key on the drivers license as another person commented unless we're giving them to people for free without requiring a drivers test...at that point it basically stops being a drivers license and becomes a voter id card which negates the benefit of using the drivers license to begin with.

I also don't know of any PKI implementation that provides the necessary trust services AND anonymity. Not to mention, it needs to be something even the elderly, disabled, poor, and technically challenged need to be able to access as well. Good luck walking grandma through OCSP. We haven't been able to secure our current CAs well enough, and a distributed system would be too open to fraudulent key issuance. I'd love the personal convenience if there were a digital OPTION for voting, but I can't say I'd inherently trust the system, which is a pretty big deal. Honestly, I think the current system works as well as any other I can imagine WHEN IT IS ADMINISTERED IN GOOD FAITH. A combo of in-person, mail-in, and ballot-drop boxes with a generous early voting window. When we start shutting down polling places, closing drop boxes, requiring missing work to vote on a weekday when lines can be 8-12 hours long or tying voting to an ID that isn't equitably available are the problems.

Sauce: I'm a software engineer, and I've been a poll worker for the last several years.

I'm with you almost 100% but add mandatory enrollment, and change the fine to be if you didn't vote. Even voting none of the above across the board should count as voting though.

I have questions.

What do you mean any time? What do you mean over the whole period and change your vote any time?

You seem to be suggesting that we'd vote for a government on (say) the 1st of May 2024, then if the 100 votes that made up the majority by which the government was elected changed their mind on the 5th of May 2024 they could cast a new vote and the government should change on the 6th of May 2024.

Now I am all for active democracy and getting people more involved (despite what I might have said about corrupt politicians and so on), but I think some sort of stability is necessary to run a country. Having a new government every two days......... that won't work.

Does the post tell you who to vote for? No, it just says voting is better than not voting.

I don't get why people keep getting confused over this. Vote for yourself, for none of the above, or anyone else. But do vote! That's all the post is saying.

Voting 3rd party in a FPTP electoral system means you voted for the most popular candidate of the 2 main parties. If you vote for the lesser of two evils of the 2 main parties, at least you stand a chance at keeping out the greater of 2 evils. In essence, voting 3rd party in a FPTP system is a wasted vote.

Yeah, that's it... lecture and gaslight the people who have seen what you refuse to admit - that's the way to get them back on your side.

So -- and I want to be clear about this -- to honour and respect those who fought and died for my right to vote, I should show up and put a cross next to the name of someone I think is a homophobic, transphobic, bigoted piece of shit just because she is less of a homophobic, transphobic bigoted piece of shit than the other person I could put a cross next to the name of?

To me that doesn't suggest I am showing any honour or respect to anyone. It just says that I am giving up every bit of my dignity, integrity and shame and that when I stand before my ancestors in the Halls of Judgement they will look at me and shake their heads in disgust.

One of the things I've found as someone who has moves between countries and continents is how different your exposure to news and issues is. I am not a fan of out of country voters and in this case I doubt they will make a difference, and there are plenty of them, retirees, who will just follow what Fox News tells them because they are the international propaganda arm that appeals to expats that are within a retirement bubble where they are not even directly affected by their vote.

But everyone in the US should be campaigning in the streets, putting out bulletins of how corrupt Trump is and how it was an issue before he even ran for president, and how corrupt he has continued to be and influenced by internal interests intent on weakening the US. If there are no ready to print bulletins, make them and post them for others to print and distribute. Specially in the Southern states, show how much of one of those big fancy snake oil salesman from the North he really is and just how much he has been fooling everyone. Tell them not to rely on those who are bought into the Trump diatribes so that lobbyists can get politicians on the tab, because they are really only interested in making products out of them for the next for years. Remind them of how 2020 ended up and what followed, how Trump's dissing and dismissal of the WHO had consequences, and how it was only after he was removed that actions were taken to avoid getting the US stuck in the same rut China still is. Tell them how just as he dismissed WHO, he will cause a disaster with NATO, an organization commanded and empowering the US, and how a Trump win will lead to a complete loss of US power to foreign invaders already setting their sights on US soil in Alaska.

Recognize their political inclinations and points out how even well-respected representatives like Mitt Romney have been driven out of their party by charlatans, and if they are ok with it, that they should see themselves in the mirror and how they've changed since 2012. I know this is tough, but the long lost art of critical thought involves seeing and appealing to things from their perspective even when you might disagree with them yet are far better than an orange authoritarian clown. Don't campaign for Biden if you are that really disillusioned with him, campaign against Trump and for the Trump alternatives that would have appealed to the voters and would have been candidates but no longer are capable of being because of how much his snake oil has rotted the party.

And I guess people from outside the US as well, since their bubbles will certainly by trying to get them to. Unless you want to vote for Trump, then your vote has already been preregistered so those nasty Dems don't fake them, don't worry about it :)

People died. So you could have a say.

Innocent people also died at the hands of the government that was voted in. Many people have died for amerika's imperial expansion and due to it. Many have been indentured and still are.

People should be disgraced and shunned for not voting.

What if the state bars you from voting because of past criminal history, regardless of time served? What if you are disabled and cannot make it to the ballot and you live somewhere that has heavily restricted mail in voting? What if you are unhoused and don't have a physical address? You are calling to have these people shunned? How democratic and fair of you.

your obligation in the social contract

As if the social contract is upheld by the people you vote in. We get lied to so they get the vote and then we don't even have recourse to sue or hold them accountable. All we can do is "vote them out" but then they tell us if we don't vote for them, the world will literally end cause the other guy is evil. As if to say democrats are a force for good. lmao

You are disrespecting the dead

you are disrespecting dead anarchists and communists by saying you need to participate in bourgeois virtue signaling instead of direct action for your fellows

Voting, not voting, and...?

And then consider why no one is currently doing them and then wonder why people think Trump winning would change that. Because it won't change.

Guy Fawkes had a lot of good ideas ...

If that were gonna work, third party candidates would get way more than they do, since that's effectively what voting for them is.