Does this plan make sense? v3

Do you think wyoming deserves to be a state? Every state gets the same representation in the Senate and I think that's fair. I don't think it's fair that the proportional side of the legislature isn't proportional anymore, though, and fixing that goes a very long way.

The Senate isn't intended to be a representative body, it's just two per state. They aren't doing things like setting funding/budgets. Congress (the house of representatives) is designed to do that, though that needs some tweaking.

There's no solution needed, since there isn't a problem to begin with. Individuals (should) have proportional representation in the House, and states have proportional representation in the Senate, which is how it should be.

Do you think Wyomingites deserve 66.7 times the representation in the Senate?

Yes.

Interesting, I never really thought about it, but of course that must be true for it to be legal anywhere.

Would you have commented on a post that just had an image of "* fix America"?

I think it would still encourage meme voting in retaliation for having to show up. "You can force me to do this but you can't force me to do this in good faith."

it keeps voter disenfranchisement politically difficult

Voter disenfranchisement, and mandatory voting are mutually exclusive concepts. One does not have the right to vote if they are forced to vote. Having a right encompasses the freedom of choice.

We swing between 93-95% participation

We alao make voting as easy as possible with voting opening 2-4 weeks in advance of election day, election day is always a weekend and as long as you vote before or on election day it's counted.

Also democracy sausages

I think such a high turn out makes our politicians a bit more honest with less empty promises since they can't dissuade anyone from voting.

You can not enforce new social norms like that. People, including voting ones, will revolt. They will call it undemocratic and a cash grab. You are just asking for trouble.

Yea I think I'll add this to the v4. Incentivize rather than punish. Just give people an extra $100 a month in their UBI for voting.

Here it’s a small fine

People will call it a cashgrab, that will mostly affect poor people(since the rich people both vote and also dont care about small fines).

it’s also a day off

Greek elections are always on Sunday and people can be given a day off if their voting location is far away(especially back in the day, when moving your voting location was hard).

Greece is a pretty failed state from what I’ve seen

I have been shitting on Greece for my entire life, but it aint cool when non greeks do it. Yes, Greece is fucked but i wouldnt really call it a failed state. It is a shithole but only greeks get to call it a shithole. It also relatively shitholey, in comparison to western european countries.

It just happens to be the worst "western" country. And yes, it is in the East, but the West/East thing was a Cold War thing and Greece was with the "West". Nowadays, many "eastern european" countries have reached and surpassed Greece.

In any case, take a look at the wikipedia map, which countries have compulsory voting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting

If you exclude Australia, all other countries are shitholes. And i am sure australians will be the first to tell you that Australia is also a shithole and politically fucked.

As for why compulsory voting, it helps moderate extremism and represents most of society as a whole.

It doesnt. If anything, it might do exactly the opposite. When a greek neonazi party was popular, a lot of "apolitic" greeks supported it not because they supported neonazism but because "fuck the system, at least they will go in and smash some heads". When clueless people are forced to vote, they might be clueless about what they are voting.

America's issue is the first past the post, winner takes all system. If the US had a more representative system, that allowed third parties and coalitions(like almost all other democratic countries have), things would have been better.

it helps moderate extremism and represents most of society as a whole.

thoughts on Selb and Lachat, 2009?:

In particular, the analyses suggest that CV compels a substantial share of uninterested and less knowledgeable voters to the polls. These voters, in turn, cast votes that are clearly less consistent with their own political preferences than those of the more informed and motivated voluntary voters. Claims that CV promotes equal representation of political interests are therefore questionable.

Are you seriously using Russia as a good example of democracy lmao

Have have three voting days - FRI to SUN - in Czechia aswell, for each voting. I imagine it is the same window in other EU countries, because it just fucking makes sense.

EDIT: I misremembered, we have only FRI and SAT.

A large portion of the states, if not the majority, do not have decent state governments.

I mean ours in India are decently spread out by disctrict and they're all holidays in that area.

And postal voting is a thing

It exists because there was a time when we needed buy in from states, not just people. The Senate was how that was accomplished.
It's a way of ensuring our democracy isn't too democratic.

You can understand the point of the Senate without thinking that we need to ensure that land is adequately represented in our government.

I can see the argument for credit card tips not being necessary, especially given that it puts the onus on the restaurant to be honest and distribute that tip correctly instead of just pocketing it (thanks subway).

But if I choose to give a server a dollar, that should be my right as an individual. Micromanaging who I'm allowed to give cash to is a step in the wrong direction.

Unfortunately, there is no perfect system when humans are involved. We'll either fuck it up or change our minds on what is perfect.

Yup. Exactly why you can bribe police in some poorer countries. They don't make enough money to say no.

I agree. Talking in such broad terms leaves a lot of holes. Since we're talking pie in the sky stuff maybe: have congressional service require divesting oneself of all past and future funds beyond X amount with the understanding that they have to have increased scrutiny in all financial matters- like no privacy. I can think of a lot of problems with this but could it be better than the current system? I don't see how it couldn't be a bit of an improvement over them making $174k and yet being hundreds millionaires from stock trading for themselves and family members over years of insider information.

Oh. Right, lol

It would very much be worth it. Imperial invites mistakes by using weird conversions and factional sizes. I often have to stop and think which factions of an inch are bigger or smaller than each other. When Australia switched from imperial to metric, it's estimated they save about 10% annually from having a lower error rate. Fewer things need to get fixed or replaced from measurement mistakes.

A kitchen-scale example: I once mixed up tablespoons and teaspoons when adding baking soda to my pancake mix. They turned out disgusting and we had to re-make breakfast because version 1 was inedible. Such mistakes are less likely to happen under metric.

Can't we just have both, and teach both? But like, in a more committed fashion than we currently do. Probably swapping out road signs and textbooks as they naturally need to be swapped out, to include both sets of measurements and the conversions between them.

There are also tons of machines and tools made to work in inches. As more things are becoming computer controlled, it's easier to convert between inch and mm on the fly, but every drill bit, end mill, and tool holder for the manual mill in my company's shop is in inch.

I'm also gonna disagree with you on the 12 better than 10 front. Just use a calculator if you can't do it in your head and round to the nearest mm. I bet you'll learn what 10/6 and 10/3 are faster than 12/5 too.

Legally, we adopted the metric system in the 70s, so more than "a few years" I'd say

fuck you DST FOR THE WIN

Well, I would want to see capital gains and dividends be included in the gross revenue calculation. If they bring in money, it is income regardless of where it comes from.

This is the only one i cant figure out.

That person didn't suggest it, it's in OP's list.

There's no benefit to that. Removing the limit on house representatives, that's huge and real, but merging Congress is dumb. There's a few dumb things on the list (eg "abolish gerrymandering" is like saying "abolish speeding"). Choose your favorite!

Edit: Now that I'm not trying to hurry to get ready for work:

Chapter One: the HoRs.

For those that aren't aware of how it works:

There's are two lawmaking bodies with two different purposes. The Senate is equally split among states. There are 2 senators for each state -- as a result, those seats are elected by their entire state (more people voting on each person), and the seats are more competitive (more people want to be elected to that seat). So Senators tend to be more serious politicians, more "universally appealing" (aka centrist). This also makes the Senate the one that gives smaller, or less populous states, more power, because both California and Wyoming get 2 senators, no matter what. These factors contribute to the Senate being a more deliberative body.

The House Representatives are determined by population -- so California has many more senators than Wyoming. They're elected in their district, which can be quite small, so the profile of voters in a district is often very different than in an entire state. (This is why all the crazies are in the House.)

There's a minimum, obviously -- the smallest state will always have at least 1? Or 2? I don't remember. But you can't have a state with no representation, that's not ok.

The problem is, our national population is very very different from what it was. The difference between New York and Maine is much more drastic than it was 200 years ago. But we haven't increased the number of Representatives. And there's a minimum. As the oopulation grows, and the House doesn't, it's becoming more and more unbalanced, in favor of smaller states.

Imagine trying to get smaller states to vote in favor of decreasing their power.

(Also: electoral college votes are on the same system. The electoral college was intended to give smaller states more power, but because there's a minimum, and we haven't reduced the total, it's become super imbalanced. It was a mediocre idea to start with, and now it's even worse. Abolishing the EC is pretty popular, but it might be easier/better to just follow the rules and increase the total number of EC votes. But, again, small states won't agree to it.)

The Constitution says we're supposed to increase the total number of Representatives (and EC votes) but at some point (1929 to be specific) Congress was like nahhhh

Chapter two: why we can't Abolish Gerrymandering.

First of all, it's already illegal.

Secondly, it's hard for outsiders to tell the difference between appropriate "gerrymandering" and actual gerrymandering. If you look at Chicago, where I'm from, there's a weird vote assignment on the west side of the city, it looks manipulated and weird. But if you live here, you know, there's a huge highway that cuts through there that's very hard to cross, so populations on one side are very different from on the other. One side of the highway is there a bunch of Latino immigrants and settled, and on the north side are more affluent (white) people.

(The fact that a highway cuts through a neighborhood isn't an accident, but that's just regular systemic racism, unrelated to Congress.)

If you made the voting map a simple grid, the Latino voters might be split up in a way that reduces their voting power. So the map is weird, but it's actually good that it's weird.

(This is why I said it's like speeding: one, it's already illegal, but two, it's something everyone is doing (and traffic would be super shitty if everyone followed the speed limit), but some people are taking it to an illegal extreme.)

If you look at a state, calculate a percentage of the minorities, and check that number (those numbers -- since there are more than one minority) against the number of districts that vote the way those minorities vote, then, that's what we've decided is "fine" -- and, for real, what else are you going to do.

Illegal gerrymandering is when those blocks of voters ("blocs," is you want to get into Gramsci), are intentionally divided so as to reduce their power. The voting rights act of 1965 made this illegal, and every ten years, after the census, districts are often redrawn. In 2010, we ended up with a lot of gerrymandering. Now,finally, were starting to see some corrections to badly gerrymandered maps, like Alabama, Florida, New York, Wisconsin, Georgia... Louisiana...idr the others, but it's a lot. 2024 is going to have a very very different House of Representatives than the one we have now.

This last point is worth underscoring. The current Republican house majority is due to illegal distract maps. It is, technically, an illegal Congress. So all these ridiculous shenanigans the House Republicans are up to shouldn't be happening. (And, in fact, one could easily make the argument that the high percentage of insane and stupid Republican Representatives is because of the maps -- because the the "depressurization" caused by fair maps would have dialed Congress back to a more centrist stance.

If you want to learn more, check out Democracy Docket, which is a news source from a group of people (lawyers) who are taking bad maps to court.

None you lose thr checks and balance

You think the executive has power? Haha

No senate has powers beyond policy, inquiry committees to reviel corruption ect list goes on. Checks Nd balances

So instead of banning tipping you mean removing minimum wage exceptions for tipping.

Fwiw a lot of restaurants worldwide are starting to include an obnoxious 12+% "service charge" that can be "removed" if you have a complaint. Basically, enforced tipping that wouldn't be changed by your "ban tipping" plan.

I definitely agree hard with more emphasis on removal of after-the-listed-price fees

Tax credit for voting.

Yes. Or even better just cut a check or give cash or equivalent.

Make it count like a $50 charitable donation would.

No. That's a deduction, and it's worthless for the vast majority of people who have less in deductions than the standard deduction. Also doesn't reduce taxes by the full amount: a $50 deduction would be at most like an $11 credit (or cash) for most people, if it even mattered.

Man, the rich just fucking off away from society would be delightful. Things might actually function in society.

Yeah I just didn't have it in me and meant to go back for it lol.

That's exactly my point. There are people working hard to make these things happen and generally these are very well supported by the public, but without the plan behind them, theres no substance here.

The reason these don't get passed is because of the particulars of implementation. you can't write a bill with the only text being "universal healthcare" without a lot more to it. Once there's a lot more to it, then it gets picked apart and rejected.

Sure but what's the actual action there? Implementation of a wealth tax? What property counts for that? Is there some other technique he/you are talking about? Taking a loan will now count as income?

Oh no! Let's vote on which voting system to use to vote on which voting system to use. That way our vote about voting won't have vote splitting!

Condorcet is not either of those things but it’s better than some. V321 or STAR outperform all other voting methods by large margins, especially with resistance to strategic voting and manipulation. https://electionscience.github.io/vse-sim/

if you're going to require voting, give me a good fucking candidate to vote for, for fucks sake. This does nothing to prevent degradation of the candidacy.

thanks for this, provided a lot of insight. for those interested, $20 AUD = $13.06 USD.

i find that this change only might be useful in the US, especially if introduced gradually and after other measures such as a voting holidy (very important!) and vote by mail rather than all-at-once, but i think is less tenable as a position than in Australia due to the following differences:

• class: the USA generally has a significantly larger wealth gap than Australia; this directly relates to the fee and i agree with your assessment that any fines should be appropriately scaled; still a concern
• staus quo: the longevity of the policy indicates that the country has the voting infrastructure to handle a 100% turnout without unintentional disenfranchisement, long travel times or long wait times
• population distribution: this is a lot different in the US and again affects infrastructure. we already know that low income areas are subject to the worst of wait times, travel times, and environmental conditions while voting so it’s super important to be concious of what CV is doing for those populations. vote by mail aids this but is still a concern.

conclusion: compulsory voting, in my opinion, should not be on this list because it is nowhere near as effective nor feasible as the other election measures already listed.

my comment was a genuine question please respect that.

what is the method of enforcement? like if it’s prison, or even time in court. yeah that’s weird and it gives authoritarianism vibes.

if it’s a fine, what is the price point? what about those who cannot afford to travel to vote nor to pay? and what is stopping the wealthy from just paying the fine and skipping elections anyway?

or like what other options of enforcement are there? i just don’t think making voting mandatory is at all needed to ensure free and fair elections and it just has an icky vibe to it.

edit: also you say “every couple years.” are you aware that elections are held several times per year in most parts of the US? or are we just making federal elections mandatory?

edit 2: you say “10 minutes.” when waiting times for voting of 30 minutes or even an hour are not rare. so what is the solution there?

edit 3: what about individuals whose religious convictions forbid them from participating in polls? does this not violate their constitutional rights?

edit 4: doing my due diligence and found that…

We empirically explore the effects of a sanctioned compulsory voting law on direct-democratic decision making in Switzerland. We find that compulsory voting significantly increases electoral support for leftist policy positions in referendums by up to 20 percentage points. (Michael M. Bechtel, Dominik Hangartner, Lukas Schmid)

…which is cool and admittedly something i was unaware of. nevertheless i still find that the means of obtaining this end questionable.

And by the way, that 2 trillion dollar tax cut they got from their orange canary god would've paid for the US military budget 3 times and still had enough left over to solve world hunger, educate everyone, and end homelessness.

Foxconn is a supplier to Apple so their employees count for Apple. All numbers will have to be public.