we have compulsory “voting” in australia - i think that means you need to get your name crossed off or you’ll cop a fine. A lot of votes are informal and probably rising, if i do vote properly this time i’ll me making a compromise, i’d rather just not turn up.
That doesn’t bother me at all. I voted in the Quebec election five days ago and intend to vote on Nov. 6.
That said, I am unhappy with the choices. In the Quebec election there were three main parties. One purposefully appeals only to old stock French Canadians. The second is quite conservative and not really to my liking. The third is totally corrupt and needs a time out of power to cleanse itself–if that is possible. I voted for the second guy, although with no conviction. The third guy won easily in my riding, no surprise.
In Nov. I will vote again for Obama. Reluctantly. He has disappointed me in many ways, which I won’t go into here. If only it were Hillary. I was supporting her in 2008 until the “…as far as I know” crack, which completely destroyed her credibility in my eyes. Since I vote from IL, my state of last residence, this will be the third time I have voted for him.
Then who should I vote for? The candidate who’s better for America, or the candidate who’s better for my country?
When you vote in the US, vote for the person who is best for the U.S. When you vote in your country (notice that you didn’t think both were “your country”), vote for the person who is best there. Luckily, Obama is best for U.S. and Israel (if I recall correctly your other country) so the choice is easy.
QFT. One vote doesn’t matter. People go to vote either because they are wrongly convinced that their one vote might matter (it doesn’t) or because it gives them warm-and-fuzzies to vote. If the warm-and-fuzzies are not there, and the voter has thought about it and saw that one vote never matters, since it is below the error threshold of vote counting, then any reason to vote disappears.
Remind me again how many votes decided FL in 2000.
This is another reason I always chose not to vote. Everyone telling me (unsolicited) who I should vote for and why the other person is a liar*. It makes me uncomfortable when someone comes up to me and says (for no particular reason). “Geez, can we really handle another for years of Obama/Clinton/Bush etc” It makes me even more uncomfortable now when someone says "Oh, can you believe that [politician] did [thing] and I want to say “Well, actually, if you did a little more reading, you’d see that he didn’t. He did this other thing and it was just twisted around in the media” or "Actually, if you read the article that came out the next day you’d see that he didn’t do it, the bill was ‘on his desk’ and they said he was expected to sign it, but he didn’t. ". But instead I just nod and smile and move on with my life. If I’m talking to some that’s more open to hearing it, I’ll tell them this stuff, but if it’s someone that just likes to spew political crap, it’s easier to let them just spew it and go on their merry way.
*Yes, Kayaker, I know that really isn’t what your quote wasn’t meant to be, but I think it still makes a point.
More than one.
- Way more then my single vote. But who cares. If everyone voted, the election may very well have turned out the same way* anyways. I get off my ass and vote for Obama and someone else gets off his ass and votes for Romney. FTR, the wiki page I read suggests that if there had been a statewide recount, Gore would have taken FL by 100 votes and won the presidency in 2000.
*Yeah, I know, IIRC, it’s mostly dems that don’t vote
Also, since I ran across it, can someone tell me what the deal is with the oddball platforms I see when I’m reading about political stuff. For example, there’s this guy, that ran on the Natural Law Party three times. What’s the point? What’s he trying to accomplish? Is it like Ralph Nader? Just to give people that don’t want to vote for a republican, but can’t bring themselves to vote for the current dem running an outlet? It just seems like a waste of money. I mean he (both of them) has to know he’s not going to win. Is there some political or private or professional motivation behind it?
Or is he (the Natural Law guy) serious and he’s just trying to bring awareness to his party in hopes of slowly but surely getting a few people in office here and there. I think the Green party has a couple members in office, will there eventually be a Green president? Is that Nader’s ultimate goal?
You, or the people you’d be voting for?
I don’t recall that.
On the first question, why I don’t always vote - my state is very predictable, so my vote seldom “matters”. I will vote for a third party if the party I oppose is very likely lose, or not vote at all if there is no acceptable third party candidate. However, I do vote a lot because I think it is my responsibility.
I do vote when i feel lead to, but that is a spiritual guidance to vote and is far from every election.
The first thing I don’t like is anyone telling anyone they should vote, that is between them and God and you and your humble opinion should stay just that. After all this is one nation under God, and not one nation ruling over God.
Second is though we are a nation of hard and fast rules and laws that define what is proper and what is not, life is not that clear cut and there are many times where it is OK to violate the rules and be in the right, also to follow the rules and be in the wrong.
Third I see voting as a privilege of the state, not of the people. It is the people giving their vote of confidence into the state’s process. The state should serve the people, if the people don’t feel that way the state should not compel them to vote but look into their doings to improve things so people would want to vote.
Also, a few years back, I had a very insightful incident at the voting booth. There was a election where I didn’t like either candidate. I decided I wanted to exercise my right to vote to send a message that I didn’t like either. I decided to go into the booth, pull the curtan handle, not cast any vote, and push the handle to open the curtain. Casting a no-vote so to speak.
I tried to do that. But the handle would not open unless I cast a vote. I asked for assistance I was told that voting is ‘serious’ and I should no0t be playing around. I told them I was very serious in this vote I wanted to cast. I wanted it counted that I did vote but not for any candidate listed and I take that very seriously. They said I should have asked for a paper ballot for that, but now the machine is stuck and I had to vote for one or the other. I told them no I will not vote for either but I was willing to do a write in which I was able.
That incident told me clearly that people who are suppose to know about voting and the right and privilege don’t know squat about it except to get the people to vote for canidate A or B and tell them it is a privilege people have died for - No sorry that is not the reason people died for.
Wow, that’s just all kinds of backwards.
That came off as snarky but it wasn’t meant to be. ISTM some of your beliefs don’t really jive with the US Constitution. For example, voting is a right of the citizens not a privilege of the state. I’m not even sure what that means. If you didn’t want to cast a vote, why not just NOT cast a vote like all the other people that didn’t vote? Why take it out on some poor poll worker? The government knows exactly who the registered voters are that didn’t vote.
I think it’s the poll workers that did know about voting and you that didn’t know squat.
I’ve never voted. I find all politicians equally repulsive.
Maybe. That doesn’t change the fact that I can’t compartmentalize my loyalties like you suggest, and while I like America a lot, my loyalty is to Israel. Seeing as I consider it unethical to vote for a country I’m not loyal to, I refuse to vote in U.S. elections.
Cool.
So you’ll be refraining, then?
Hillary said, I think on 60 Minutes, that Obama was not a Muslim “As far as I know.”