The Baskin Robbins Birthday Club used to remind one to register for Selective Service on one's 18th birthday. Imagine the PR coup if they reminded one to register to vote.
I thought only property owners could vote.
Yes, God, yes, Becks. You'd think the system didn't want people to vote or something.
But then more 18 y.o. males would be able to easily register than 18 y.o. females.
Solution: everyone has to register.
2. White Male property owners, Adam. Don't forget that.
Solution: everyone has to register.
Maybe we should make everyone vote, too. That would be interesting.
4 - I thought of that. I think that would be a fair trade for not having to register for Selective Service.
Also, I trust girls to be somewhat more responsible with the whole driving-themselves-to-the-library thing.
4 - Oh, wait. You meant "everybody has to register for Selective Service", not to vote. I kind of think it is time that we made both sexes register for Selective Service.
How about if we made neither sex register for Selective Service? It doesn't look like the draft is ever coming back, and if it did it's not like the government couldn't figure out who's out there.
The Daily Show covered it as self-evidently absurd, but I'm not sure why the idea of incentivizing voting by having it enter you into a lottery (for something on the order of $5 million/state or maybe less than that in smaller states, or more in larger, I'm not that fixed on the amount) is a bad idea. My approval of it would depend in large part on whether some of these people who were incentivized to vote because of the possibility of winning money were also incentivized to find out something, even a very small amount, about the candidates for whom they were voting.
Maybe they should only get a lottery ticket if they can pass a literacy test.
11: It'd be more amusing if it were a statistics test.
If you buy a lottery ticket you have failed the statistics test, by definition.
But Leech, somebody's got to win the lottery!
Not to put too fine a point on it, but maybe someone who confuses Selective Service with voter registration isn't ready to vote quite yet.
That's kind of ridiculous, grackle -- understanding the mechanism of registration to vote is totally different from understanding the issues and candidates on the ballot. You could justify a polling-place literacy test by saying, someone who doesn't read English fluently isn't ready to vote yet; it would be equally nonsensical.
However, someone who confuses W. for a pious Christian, or a man of principle, or a bold leader, definitely isn't ready to vote yet, and may never be so.
Seriously, why don't high schools register people to vote? Most people turn 18 while in their senior year.
There's no room for a voter registration table, what with all the military recruiting tables.
So everyone agrees with a lottery, excellent.
Oh, I'm profoundly uncomfortable with a lottery. Not against one exactly, just appalled with the whole idea, if you catch the difference.
I was tempted by the Australian mandatory scheme, and then I thought that a lottery was in fact betterm so I decided a lottery wasn't so bad.
a--I'm against bribing the electorate in any way, and when you get down to it, entering a lottery by registering to vote is a form of bribe, really.
b-- It's unseemly for the state to be muscling in on local mob turf. "Hey, we're running the numbers round here!" This is the sort of thing that makes me sympathetic to doctrinaire libertarians, which really pisses me off.
c.--I fucking hating state lotteries in all forms, which really are, as my grandfather said, "voluntary taxes on the stupid." Yes, I understand that the point of the lottery system is to bring people who wouldn't otherwise bother. But I'm not convinced that votes coaxed in such a manner would be worth the pay-out.
I go back and forth betweem hating state lotteries, because on the macro level they are just highly regressive taxes, and thinking that the state providing them is better than any non-state entity providing them.
Instant, scratch-off lotteries are worse, and the incessant advertising for lotteries, both scratch-off and otherwise, is just utterly insane as state policy.
See, I'm not convinced that non-state entities would be worse for your average neighborhood numbers-player. Maybe the guys who get the big pay-outs tend to get their checks without so much of a hassle; they still have an overwhelming propensity to declare bankrupcy. Maybe there's less violence in the state-run numbers game, but according to the court clerk I talked to during my last jury duty, the number of non-state bookies hasn't exactly dwindled.
Oh, if state lotteries aren't substituting for some fairly substantial amount of non-state gambling then I'd favor a complete end to them, even if the main thing that end meant was a brisk business in NYC for NJ and Conn. lottery tickets.
I know that econ-type politicos have come up with a lot of rationally compelling models for state lotteries. It's just that I'd sooner see the state insure sex workers than run numbers, when it comes down to vices.
At least the sex trade is a rational business economy.
I'm already sorry to have written 30.
Free revenue is free revenue, though, and tax hikes, even to cover just basic services, are difficult to push through. Insuring those sex workers costs money.
I knew a guy who won six million bucks in the Virginia lottery.
It makes sense from a revenue point of view, but it's fucking depressing. Nothing like encouraging people to develop gambling habits, or at least helping them along, because we're too fucking cheap to fund our own public sphere. /rant
Free revenue, my ass. I'm sure you know all the arguments I'd muster about now, and beside which, I need to sleep.
Temporarily ignoring the sex workers, though to be sure it's difficult: Let's say the state provided some gambling in the form of a lottery but had it setup so that the house edge was, on average, only enough to cover the administrative expenses of running a lottery. Is this better or worse than no state provided gambling opportunities and no criminal laws prohibiting privately run, for profit, gambling? Obviously the criminalization + no state lottery option is also out there, as is the no criminalization + state lottery. What do you like?
It is bad, because a lot of people have serious gambling problems, and the state shouldn't fucking encourage them to throw money away.
North Carolina's lottery just started this year, after years of being just about the only state on the east coast without one.
37: All liquor in North Carolina is sold through the state ABC stores. Does the analogy extend?
For some reason it doesn't for me, no. I couldn't exactly say why. It could just be because I personally think gambling is stupid and boring. But I have a sense that in terms of cost/benefit, alcohol is less destructive and has some actual value to it?
Like, I don't mind sports betting: fine, I can see why people enjoy that. But lotteries? What's the fucking point, other than gambling for the sake of gambling?
I have a problem with a state monopoly on liquor sales, sure.
On a totally separate note, I just finished rewatching A History of Violence, which I haven't seen since it was in theatres, and I'm pretty sure that it's a really great movie. Does this just mean I'm a sucker for an artfully done action film?
No, I need movie recommendations b/c I just joined netflix.
I don't mind state control over liquor sales. It seems like a good idea to me--partly because, in fact, state stores tend to be way less flashy and attractive than most liquor stores, b/c they tend not to be open 24/7, and b/c it seems that removing the free market from alcohol sales isn't a bad thing. It's not like having fewer liquor stores in poor neighborhoods, or making it slightly inconvenient to pick up cheap vodka, is really a bad thing, socially speaking.
But I have a sense that in terms of cost/benefit, alcohol is less destructive and has some actual value to it?
Obviously this is an empirical question, but the answer is by no means clear. Alcohol does a hell of a lot of damage.
It does. But a lot of people, most, manage to drink without developing drinking problems or driving drunk. Whereas gambling of the lotto type seems to have zero redeeming social value whatsoever.
...which is not to say, of course, that state liquor monopolies are necessarily bad. B gives some good reasons for them in 42. Many actual state liquor monopolies, however, are quite poorly designed and implemented (Pennsylvania, I'm looking at you).
Whereas gambling of the lotto type seems to have zero redeeming social value whatsoever.
What about the value of whatever the state does with the money?
People (some of them) derive satisfaction from games of chance. There's the expected value of the prize, but there's also the fun of hemming and hawing over which items to scratch off, thinking about what you'll do with all of your winnings, and finally tearing the ticket in half, throwing it away, and cursing the gods when it turns out to be useless. Is that worth a buck? Maybe.
(Your use of "whereas" in 44 is confusing me. "X is not bad in all cases. Whereas Y has no social value." is non sequitur. Do you mean that alcohol has redeeming social value, that lottery tickets do not? Or that the average badness of lottery tickets is worse than alcohol?)
a lot of people, most, manage to drink without developing drinking problems or driving drunk.
I'm assuming that most people who buy lotto tickets aren't gambling addicts, either. Though it would be interesting to see if the rates are different for each.
An argument against state-run lotteries (really, gambling in general, either private or public) is that, almost always, you're paying money and not getting anything of value in return. It's not a question of peddling things that are bad for people, it's that it gets a little too close to cheating or swindling people out of their money.
I've never entered a state lottery, and I drink an appreciable amount, so I'm not trying to defend my chosen vices or anything. But this cost/benefit analysis zeroes out any person's individual enjoyment from consuming alcoholic beverages, right? Because surely people get a thrill from entering the lottery. It could still include some genuinely social benefits that alcohol has and the lottery doesn't. Something like celebrating rituals or achieving altered states, as a group. Maybe stress relief, if lotteries can't do that.
Just for what it's worth in re: 97: My limit at vegas-style gambling is around the $5 blackjack table, or the nickel slots. But I'm very cheap. The lotto at a dollar a play doesn't strike me as egregiously bad, and I wonder how perceptions of class feed into the relative percieved badness of the lotto vs. vegas.
I'm just baffled at why Americans accept the system they have. Too late to register almost a *month* before the election? In Canada, if your name isn't on the voters list (ie. if you aren't already registered to vote), you just need to bring some ID with you and sign an affidavit at the polling station...on *election day*, if you want.
And then, within 2 hours of the polls closing, all the votes have been hand counted, with scrutineers from all parties watching, and we know who won. Isn't that easy?
Blackjack odds are damn near 50/50 if you aren't cocky, though. Lotto odds are significantly lower than that. And I'd say most people think casino gambling is worse; it's why there are only two states with them (fully--there are a few more if you count the slots at racetracks in a few states), but lotteries are almost everywhere.
re: 47, not 97. And what 49 said. And if you read Bringing Down The House, you can't help but think that if you can command the labor of ten hand-picked, smart MIT kids and a couple of professors for a couple of years, getting $5M out of Vegas is not particularly impressive. You could probably get at least 10 times that from some quasi-legit venture. But getting $5M out of Vegas is much more appealing for some reason, and I think that the same reasoning applies to the lotto.
there are a few more if you count the slots at racetracks in a few states
And a lot more if you count Indian casinos, which you should.
Those aren't really under the jurisdiction of the states that they're in, though, right? I didn't think state government had any authority to allow or disallow them.
Blackjack odds are damn near 50/50 if you aren't cocky, though. Lotto odds are significantly lower than that.
Odds are not the right way to think about this. Think expected loss per unit of entertainment. In my experience, $40 buys me about half an hour at the cheapest blackjack table in a dodgy casino. Carefully counting cards could probably drag this out to an hour, but makes it much more like work than doubling down on 13 for the hell of it, and is less fun.
Re: Indian casinos, I think that the states can make life difficult enough for the Indians that it's worth their while to negotiate. Hard to run a casino if the road to your parking lot is permanently "under construction" and all that.
Indian casinos are indeed not under the jurisdiction of the states, so I suppose they're not really relevant to the point that casino gambling is considered less acceptable than lotteries.
Jake's right, though, that the physical presence of the casinos in states requires a certain amount of interaction between the tribes and the state governments.
I support unreservedly the de-analogizing of alcohol and gambling; the issues taken separately are a bit more complicated. State liquor monopolies suck overall; here in Oregon, they result in less choice, less convenience and higher prices. There may be some benefit to them in some circumstances, but they prevent me from enjoying many esoteric brands of gin (and they're nannying), so they're bad. Lottery revenues have apparently made up for some budget shortfalls, but there wouldn't be such severe funding problems if anti-tax fanatics didn't have such a stronghold in Oregon. Given how the gambling industry has metastasized around here, with video poker machines defiling our public houses and casino traffic clogging our roads, it seems like a Faustian bargain. My chief complaint about state-sponsored gambling is that it relies on a huge pool of losers to create wealth for a very few -- then again, so does capitalism, and I don't expect the state to disavow that anytime soon.
State liquor stores don't seem to advertise and promote the way state lotteries do.
I know at least one guy who lost his house to the lottery, and secondarily lost his wife (who was just barely able to keep the house by refinancing and spending 70% of her income on rent and utilities.) I think that gambling additiction is pretty common. I also know a guy who seems to spend about 10-20% of his income on scratch off. He'll gamble $100-200 in a night, though not every night. He always tells me when he wins, but the house cut is 40% I think so my guess is that he loses several hundred a month.
We should also de-link games of pure chance from mixed games like blackjack, poker, and backgammon. Skilled players beat unskilled players in these games. So with lottery, in the long run everyone loses 40%, whereas with poker etc., in the long run the poor players lose everything and better players win. ("Long run" isn't very long for poker, either -- probably 20 games.)
I'm totally against stupidity taxes and also against all restrictions on voting. There's been a long-term stealth campaign by Republicans to restrict and discourage voting by making it legally more difficult (as well as by encouraging cynicism). George Will believes in the XIXc restricted franchise (He doesn't talk about it, but he's quietly said so once or twice.)
Because of their great GOTV operation, plus the fact that more prosperous voters vote more often and vote more Republican (despite the populist BS), the Republicans republicans want voting to be as difficult as possible.
I'm just baffled at why Americans accept the system they have.
In Canada, if your name isn't on the voters list (ie. if you aren't already registered to vote), you just need to bring some ID with you and sign an affidavit at the polling station...on *election day*, if you want.
...To be clearer, in the US the situation is a hodgepodge of state regulations. A system much like the described Canadian one now exists in six states, and is gaining popularity. (A seventh, North Dakota, has no voter registration at all.) Other states, including Massachusetts, require registration in advance but have a later deadline (I think ours was yesterday). The most stringent voter registration requirements are often a relic of old racist legislation. Personally, I don't think you should have to explicitly do anything to register to vote, certainly not in advance; the state ought to have mechanisms for keeping an honest voter roll. But it's hard to reform the system in a country as federated as the US, where it's under state control.
Control of the registration and election process is usually in the hands of the state's secretary of state, who is usually an openly partisan, elected official. Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 were only the most spectacular examples of why this is a bad idea.
"spectacular" s/b "recent"
...Incidentally, the states that have adopted same-day registration are a mixture of conservative and liberal states that have only one thing in common: they're all in the northern tier of US states. I was recently wondering why that was so, but I think 3pointshooter answered that question: it's probably the influence of the Canadian system.
A seventh, North Dakota, has no voter registration at all.
Do you mean that any palooka who wanders into a polling station (me, for instance, not being an American citizen) can vote, or that there's nobody left there to register?
(Oops, not quite: one of them is Wyoming. But Wyoming borders on Idaho, which is in the northernmost tier and is another election-day-registration state. And there are actually seven of them now, because Montana's adopting the system this year.)
The North Dakota secretary of state's office has voting information online mostly in the form of videos, one of which I just suffered through to answer OneFatEnglishman's question...
The answer is that only citizens resident in the precinct for at least 30 days can vote, but they handle it a lot like same-day-registration states, except that you have to go through the eligibility rigmarole every time. You either bring ID that shows your eligibility (with a home address), or a poll worker who knows you can vouch for you, or you can vote on a challengeable ballot with an affidavit.
Seems like a somewhat more cumbersome system for the user than same-day registration.
This is the area of the US where populism was most successful up through the thirties -- populism had left and right-wing versions which in Minnesota only split around 1938 . There's also a strong Scandinavian and German influence. The cross-border areas of Canada were also populist, for the same kinds of reasons. Many of these states also have no death penalty.
The absence of a black population is another factor. There's not the idea that there's a large segment of the population which must be kept down. (Native Americans are treated badly, but they're not a big part of the population, 2-3% at most overall, maybe 5-10% in South Dakota.
OFE: these are mostly rural states except for Minnesota and Wisconsin, and strangers are immediately noticable. Even MN and WS are more rural than most of the US (30 % and 34% vs. 25%).
Maine is the most rural at 55%.
Concerning alcohol, there's an interesting question on the Mass. ballot this year that would allow more grocery stores and convenience stores to sell wine. Currently, some grocery stores can sell wine, but the number of licenses is strictly limited; most wine sales are through private liquor stores.
Of course, grocery stores are campaigning hard in favor of Question 1 and liquor stores are campaigning hard against it. I'm pretty completely undecided, though. Alcohol sales do a lot of social damage and it seems like a bad idea to make Night Train available at every convenience store, but the current law seems bizarrely arbitrary and determined by vested interests; and is it better or worse to require most people to go to liquor stores to buy wine?
See, I'm not convinced that non-state entities would be worse for your average neighborhood numbers-player.
Back to this, and it's been kind of covered, but state lotto is much worse for the player than the old criminal numbers were, just because the odds are so much worse. The old numbers rackets had a fairly small house percentage, which makes them, for a steady player, something like an erratic savings plan with a small negative interest rate. If you play a dollar a day for 1000 days, odds are that in that time you'll hit for, say, $950.
For poor people who have trouble saving, that's not a crazy thing to do; you put your money in, you can't 'withdraw' it or spend it, and the chances are you'll get almost all of it back in a lump sum, which will give you a shot at doing something to change your life for the better. Colin Powell's family moved out of the Bronx to the suburbs after a big hit on the numbers.
The state lotto doesn't work like that -- instead of a 5% house percentage, it's something huge. Anyone playing the state lotto for any reason other than that gambling and losing gives them a dollar's worth of pleasure each time is deluded.
And I'm thinking the Australian system of mandatory voting is the only way to go. You don't want to vote? Show up and put your little X in the box saying "I don't want to vote for any of these people." But if you're a citizen, you're goddamnit responsible for helping run things.
I'm just baffled at why Americans accept the system they have.
That would be because it benefits incumbents. Americans have no desire to change anything unless some well-known politician, i.e. an incumbent, is making a big deal out of it. Greatest country in the world, the model for all other democracies, you know.
Too late to register almost a *month* before the election? In Canada, if your name isn't on the voters list (ie. if you aren't already registered to vote), you just need to bring some ID with you and sign an affidavit at the polling station...on *election day*, if you want.
And then, within 2 hours of the polls closing, all the votes have been hand counted, with scrutineers from all parties watching, and we know who won. Isn't that easy?
See, that wouldn't benefit incumbents.
You know, last night I was going to post a comment, wondering why the hell we need to register to vote given that they don't do anything beyond ask to see a bill and some photo ID when you register, but I didn't because I figured everyone would think I was very dumb for not knowing why registration was important.
If Cala is very dumb, then so am I.
I would also very much prefer the Canadian voting system described in 51.
In Britain you register by sending off a form on which you write the names of the people in the household. One person in the household has to sign it. As a security measure it's beyond laughable, particularly as they then use that information to send you ID to vote with.
Of course if they catch you putting fraudulent information on the form, you can go away for a long time, but how they would catch you is another matter.
The American system is a voter-discouragement system deliberately put in place to reduce voting by "the dangerous classes". Race has a big part of it. Voter-discouragement is a major part of the Republican camoaign strategy, and includes both negative politics and legal changes making voting difficult.
As the Democrats get more middle-class, you'll hear more of them saying "Some people just shouldn't vote". But voter discouragement works for the Republicans.
I had a survey of voters and non-voters once which I lost in a computer crash. The gist of it was that poor non-voters didn't vote because of problems (transportation problems, work conflicts, etc.) while richer voters didn't vote because of complacency or because they were having too much fun. And the richer people are, the more often they vote, and this still does work in the Republicans' favor.
On a totally separate note, I just finished rewatching A History of Violence, which I haven't seen since it was in theatres, and I'm pretty sure that it's a really great movie. Does this just mean I'm a sucker for an artfully done action film?
Kind of, but there's nothing wrong with that. You should totally see The Departed, if you haven't already, w/d.
The phenomenon of OTB is the weirdest one for me. The Broadway composer Jule Styne supposedly went to the OTB every day of his adult life.
Surely the real reason for OTB to exist is to make the Wire possible (the long con, not the TV show).
I've played Why can't the Canadian all my life, with no results at all. The odds are worse than Powerball. That somebody else, however similarly situated — and most people don't believe in similarity anyway, remember the spurious differences Americans attributed for Canada's lack of gun violence in Bowling For Columbine? — has a better way appears to have no persuasive power at all, and seems to inspire resentment. This is true of the next state, let alone the next country or, God forbid, Europe.
Speaking of the election, would this be a good place to go on record as saying I still think the Republicans are going to win? Or at least, not lose?
84: Yes, and I for one fear you might be right. All the public "Oh noes, we're going to lose!" from Republicans. makes me veeeeeeeeeeeeerrrry nervous.
As good as any. I'm in a state of complete unknowingness. Looking at the polls, and what people are saying, and the whole 'gerrymandering can give you more seats than your support entitles you do, but it does it by spreading that support thinly. When things flip, they flip hard,' argument, I think that the Republicans are going to lose a whole lot of seats in the House. When I think that for my entire political life, I've been thinking that Democrats were going to win because no one I know would vote for a Republican, and I keep on going into elections happy and confident and coming out crushed, I'm with you. And I can't figure out which of these opinions makes more sense.
No, we're all spooked, afraid of getting our hopes up, leery of their ability to operate under the radar, trying to avoid the evil eye.
84: Sounds like battered wife syndrome to me, Joe. On the other hand, we still haven't seen this election's Osama tape (he puts one out every election cycle and I expect this time will be no different), and they've conveniently timed Saddam's death sentence to be announced two days before our election (odd coincidence, huh?). So, maybe. Nobody's ever gone broke betting on the gullibility of the American citizenry.
I mean, if we win, then we still have a democracy. I'm not saying Democrats won't get more votes. I'm just saying that I think they've had the last 6 years to rig it. This will be the election where we see if we still have a democracy or not.
Of course, the press will just turn around and talk about the remarkable comeback of the Republicans again.
89. Joe, can you see the black helicopter through your tinfoil hat?
Man, you're clever. Howzabout you go back to contemplating the fact that having had a crush on Reagan as a kid means that you can never again think rationally about politics?
I have thought about it, LB. If you will remember, the question was why go with party A over party B, when on issue #1 the parties are equally unserious. Refering to the posting on Drum's site, I mentioned early impressioning, which seemed like a better answer than "Cuz I'm a dumbshit".
Mmmm. Given the facial plausibility of the latter possibility, calling other people irrational seems to leave you open to comment, don't you think?
I'm sorry, I think there's a big difference between "We only lose because they cheat" and "I'm loyal to guys that I don't have complete confidence in anymore". It could even be, that statement #2 is what happens in the voting booth, not #1.
My position is that
A) If they possess the ability to do so, the national Republican party will cheat in order to win elections
B) They possess the ability to do so.
Therefore, I expect cheating to take place.
Leech, if you want to make a reasoned argument about how election fraud is a silly thing to worry about because that sort of thing couldn't possibly happen, you go right ahead. People will talk to you, and many of them will be nice about it.
When you act like an asshole by calling people who generally make a bunch more sense than you do irrational, on the other hand, don't be surprised that it inspires me to point out that you describe your own voting behavior as irrational, in a bizarrely helpless "Sure I know the way I vote makes no sense, but what do you expect me to do about it?" sort of way.
The tone's up to you. If you want to talk, be civil. If you want people to make fun of you until you get bored and frustrated and go away, be unpleasant.
95. Ok, that's your position. Explain the 2004 WA Governor's race.
Well, it's sure never happend at any other time in U.S. history, so he may have a point.
For some reason, I'm feeling really hopeful. If we win one or both Houses, then we win, and we can start getting the country back on track. If we lose, the crazy part of the Republican Party will be strengthened and will behave even more crazily. They'll run the country deeper into the ditch. It'll suck for a while, but, either way, I've convinced myself that we're on the precipice of a long period of Democratic dominance.
I'm not sure that this will help much on proactive policy proposals, like UHC or labor issues. But I mostly want a non-crazy country, and Dem dominance should at least make that possible.
Yeah. You have to wonder about what makes the prospect of election fraud impossible now -- human nature has fundamentally changed, so that while in the benighted past, people wanted to steal elections, but now everyone is just better than that? Or election security and procedures are just so much more secure than they ever have been in the past?
TLL: The parties aren't equally unserious. Your belief that they are is the problem.
I'd rather change your mind by some other means than convincing you that you're a dumbshit, but you seem to want to play the game that way. You've contributed twice to inflicting the worst president in American history on us, and the country may never recover, and you're still strutting around saying bullshit like #90.
96. LB, election rigging has a long and storied history in the US, from both parties. It is to Nixon's credit that he did not challenge the returns from Illinois, esp. Cook County, in the 1960 election. I mentioned the WA Governor's race. But the scope of the conspiracy required to rig a national election is not credible on its face. If I didn't want to engage in civil discourse, I would post on other sites. Gentle ribbing was the intent.
TLL, rib someone you've interacted with before. I don't believe we've met, you and I.
Elections have to be close to be stolen. It's interesting watching the appeal, now that the campaigns have gone to attack ads.
Here in Northern Illinois, there are two seats in play. Melissa Bean is trying to hang on, and Tammy Duckworth is seeking to replace the retiring Henry Hyde. The attack ads against each, one run right after the other, that I saw during the morning news today, are remarkably similar, from the same source. A very unattractive, fat-looking picture of each woman is run continuously, while their refusal to mobilize the National Guard on the boarder with Mexico, to stop illegal aliens, or moderation about denying illegals services or protections, is howled about. And both would vote to raise taxes. The ad against Bean, running in the more exurban and conservative district, has her morphing into Nancy Pelosi, or rather keeps the fat picture of Bean in a too-tight suit in the background, while Pelosi looking like a witch appears in the foreground.
Duckworth's ad against her opponent, Rostrum, has a fairly flattering picture of him while a librarian complains he's for banning books. Altogether too nice in this cycle, at least.
But the scope of the conspiracy required to rig a national election is not credible on its face.
That's a strange thing to say in a paragraph suggesting that Nixon really won the 1960 election.
It is to Nixon's credit that he did not challenge the returns from Illinois, esp. Cook County, in the 1960 election.
No it's not. He waited a long time before he made up his mind, and the reason he decided the way he did is that the Democrats had some Illinois cards in their hand too. It would have been a wash.
No harm, no foul -- I took it as nastier than it was meant.
It is to Nixon's credit that he did not challenge the returns from Illinois, esp. Cook County, in the 1960 election.
Wasn't that a deal he made in exchange for Kennedy not challenging the returns from downstate?
I'm going to be completely unsurprised if we gain a couple of seats and otherwise nothing changes. I'm also not going to view this as evidence that everything was rigged. People are herd animals, and they spook easily. I think Bush probably won legitimately in 2004 and he did it because people who otherwise wouldn't consider him a human being were convinced he wouldn't think twice about killing someone he considered a terrorist and that made some part of them feel better.
On the other hand, my parents' experience of being pushed from very centrist to center-left to plain ol' left continues unabated. This weekend I learned my father, once a staunch anti-unionist who sympathized with labor over management but felt unions stripped individuals of the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to excel, has abruptly become pro-union in the face of decaying retirement benefits despite a taken-care-of-for-life promise he was given when he retired.
Also, I have no problem with state lotteries. I get the whole "tax on the stupid" angle, but it's voluntary. Nobody put a gun to anybody's head and made them buy a lotto ticket. I think it is morally preferable for me to pay $1/week (which is what I'm currently paying to have two draws a week with a set of numbers a co-worker and I pick) if the alternative is to raise, say, the sales tax, which would adversely and unequally affect those who have less to spend in the first place. Yes, yes, I've just confirmed that I'm a moron for many of you, I'm sure. Yawn. The laughs said co-worker and I have had over what we'll say if we ever win and get to call our boss to quit are worth the $5 I've spent so far.
102: "Black helicopters" isn't gentle ribbing.
Elections have to be close to be stolen.
Tell it to Ukraine.
Look, let's say I were a Republican. And I'd engaged in some unethical and probably illegal shit. And it was an open secret. And most of my colleagues did as well. I'd do anything and everything I could to make sure that the other party didn't get the power to investigate. At this point, it's not about Republicans making sure they're still boss. It's about Republicans making sure they don't get sent to prison. Self-preservation is a much more powerful motivator than an evil lust for power.
The laughs said co-worker and I have had over what we'll say if we ever win and get to call our boss to quit are worth the $5 I've spent so far.
Eh, doing it for entertainment is reasonable. But if you had an old-school numbers runner you'd get the same laughs, and a better chance of winning your money back.
I guess I mean elections have to be close to be stolen where I think we are now; I don't think we're Ukraine yet. But somebody's always last to get the message, maybe it's me.
I agree about the desperation to hold power, and also I worry, thinking about that Now, With Bill Moyers last night, about media concentration, that corporate interests now have a huge stake in Republican Power. Maybe the checkbooks are being whipped out as we speak. Before the K Street project, they weren't as invested. This is part of the plan.
104 gets it right,in my opinion. We wouldn't have ever worried about Florida in 2000 if Gore had carried his home state. Florida was always going to be close. Exit polls are not the same as vote tabulations. For the record, I would love to see a paper trail along with electronic voting. And as for madatory voting schemes or lotteries as incentives, do we really want people who are so unmotivated to vote? Do you think this new voter will be the least bit informed on the issues? If you think campaign ads are bad now, how do you think they would be to attract that last voter? It would be like a "Head on" commercial.
Also, it's worth noting that it doesn't take a massive conspiracy to rig a national election these days. It takes one guy with a computer and a password.
But it's probably just coincidence that the Republicans have blocked all efforts to mandate a paper trail for electronic voting machines. I'll bet it's because they hate to waste paper.
And as for madatory voting schemes or lotteries as incentives, do we really want people who are so unmotivated to vote? Do you think this new voter will be the least bit informed on the issues? If you think campaign ads are bad now, how do you think they would be to attract that last voter? It would be like a "Head on" commercial.
This is offensive.
102- It is where I come from, John, but that's a different demographic. I humbly apologize for offending.
Yeah. Can we have baa, GB and Idealist back arguing for the other side please?
And as for madatory voting schemes or lotteries as incentives, do we really want people who are so unmotivated to vote? Do you think this new voter will be the least bit informed on the issues?
What's your basis for thinking that people who don't vote now will make worse choices than those who do? Voting, as plenty of economists will tell you, is an irrational act. You expend effort to do something that almost certainly won't make any difference, individually -- the odds that you are the 50% + 1 voter are essentially zero. People who don't vote are those for who it is more costly and troublesome, or who have, for whatever reason, rationally decided that it is too costly and troublesome. That doesn't make them stupid or irresponsible.
Oh, I started jumping on the Leech, and he was rude and unpleasant, but he's generally reasonably goodhumored. Not that I'm in charge here, but I'd be happier if there weren't a pileon.
118. I don't know that they would make worse choices. But the impediments to voting right now are pretty low. Capturing that last voter would have an enormous payoff for the politician, but getting there worries me. Call me an elitist if you want, but democracy as consumer product, even more than it currently is, is not my ideal form of government. I favor the federal republic that we currently have, but I'm used to it. Which is not to say that I am in favor of poll taxes or literacy tests, just a little motivation to get off your ass and vote.
Spoken like a man who doesn't have any trouble getting off work a little early to make it to the polls before they close.
Honestly, you look at the ads you see now and worry that expanding the electorate is going to debase them further? I doubt it's possible.
But the impediments to voting right now are pretty low.
False, ignorant, and ill-intended.
122: Bossy. It's entirely different.
just a little motivation to get off your ass and vote.
In Oregon, we have precisely the opposite in the form of the "double majority" rule, a ten-year-old provision of state law requiring 50 percent voter turnout for property tax measures -- so an overwhelming majority of voters can approve of a school bond, say, but their votes don't count if enough people just stay home (or as it is these days, don't mail in their ballots). I don't know nuthin about lawyerin, but why this rule hasn't been eliminated through a constitutional challenge is utterly beyond me.
121. I vote after dropping my kids off at school, but point taken. And as for the marginal utility of casting votes, it always surprises me why that there is a larger turnout for a Presidential election than for municipal elections, where an individual vote actually means something.
I think the rationally calculated utility of voting is low enough in any election that the difference between municipal and presidential elections isn't enough to get anyone voting. It's a costly civic duty, and people who vote are the ones who can afford the cost. Presidental elections involve a lot more publicity reminding people to do their duty than local elections do.
1127. I see, and that makes sense to me. Voters are stakeholders. The larger your stake, the more inclined you are to vote. So the key to increasing voter participation is to increase their"stake" in the outcome, either by promising some gain, or by reducing some pain. Which is why someone like me has no problem making the effort, but someone less invested in the system, it is not worth their time.
Just popping in to say that most of the places that have mandatory voting have a none-of-the-above option, so while there would be increased pressure to get the undecideds who now have to show up, it wouldn't necessarily be a race-for-the-bottom.. Plus, quite a lot of the people who don't vote now aren't presumably only the undesirable types that TLL is worried about running amok with democracy. Plenty of the educated smart people don't vote, either.
But the impediments to voting right now are pretty low.
Really? In RI this year, they've decided to close the schools on Election Day. Think that might suppress turnout of women voters?
For the record, I would love to see a paper trail along with electronic voting.
I've been wondering this for months, and I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer. Can someone please describe the problem that is solved by electronic voting?
Plenty of the educated smart people don't vote, either.
Really? In RI this year, they've decided to close the schools on Election Day. Think that might suppress turnout of women voters?
Spoken like a man who doesn't have any trouble getting off work a little early to make it to the polls before they close.
The point TLL had is unaffected by these cases. People who have rationally calculated the cost/benefits of voting, or can't leave because they are taking care of kids or working, they will not suddenly race to the polls for a lottery ticket with a $0.50 expected value.
The lottery serves as an incentive, but only for those who already had the time and ability to get to a polling station, and only needed 50 cents to get off their ass. Those aren't necessarily the people we all like to think are deciding our democratically empowered leaders.
Can someone please describe the problem that is solved by electronic voting?
Cheating is pretty easy to prove with paper ballots. Go full digital with no paper trail and—poof!—problem solved.
132: Well, yeah. I meant a problem that a politician would admit to. The other one I thought of was, "Diebold doesn't have enough money."
130- It was the whole chad thing- punched or not punched? Electronic voting was supposed to to away with that.
Seriously? There are plenty of alternatives to punch cards that don't have the problems of electronic voting.
Sure, but ask why we have punch cards in the first place. Ease of tabulation by machine. And every precint does not have punch cards. I think some still use the old mechanial booths.
I've been wondering this for months, and I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer. Can someone please describe the problem that is solved by electronic voting?
To take it straight: TLL's right about the selling points -- it was supposed to make it impossible to cast an ambigious vote. (You could still, of course, cast a vote that wasn't what you wanted to cast if the process was ill-defined or malfunctioning, but the resulting error would be an unambiguous vote for someone you didn't want to vote for, rather than something untidy looking.) I also have the impression that it's very difficult to satisfy the disabled-accessible requirements of HAVA by any means other than an electronic voting machine; while I don't clearly understand the requirements, I think both a blind voter, and a voter who can't, physically, write, have to be able to vote unassisted, and that really cuts down on your options.
Because I'm a nasty unpleasant conspiratorial thinker, I suspect the disability-access provisions of HAVA to have been drafted with the goal of forcing electronic voting machines for Apo's reasons.
(I do think punch-card voting is an awful system. Did it once in Chicago, and I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd screwed it up.)
The problem solved by electronic voting is one of serving voters who are not able to deal with traditional paper ballots due to eyesight, illiteracy, other disabilities preventing them from writing the line on a NC-style scan ballot, pulling the little levers in one of LB's machines, etc. As it stands now, in a paper-only system they have to have someone (a relative, a friend, a pollworker, whatever) in the booth with them.
Electronic voting machines have the potential to solve some of these problems; they can display names in a larger font, they can read the ballot to a voter via headphones, they can be equipped with other usability functions for the disabled like any computer, and so on and so forth, and in this way they can serve the needs of a voter without requiring that voter to rely on someone else to vote on their behalf in the way they would intend.
In an ideal use of these machines, the station would print a paper ballot which is then inserted into the ballot box and is what counts as the voter's vote; the data stored on the machine would no more count as their "vote" than does the pen I use to fill out the paper ballots in my district.
Now, there is an argument ready-made that if you can't read the old paper ballots you can't read the paper receipt that the electronic machine prints. This is quite true, but can be countered in various ways. The paper receipts could be printed in larger font for those who use the machine to vote with a larger font, or could be visually and confidentially certified by say a nonpartisan techie observer group at the voter's request before being placed in the ballot box, etc. There are new problems raised by their use, and potential solutions to those problems, and it is definitely all open to debate and opinion.
However, that specific issue - serving voters who cannot vote independently in an entirely paper system - is what they are meant to address.
(I realize that there are arguments to be made that electronic voting machines also make it faster, or could produce ballots less open to interpretation [viz. butterfly ballots], and so on, but the main public justification for HAVA seems to be aiding those who need it in the voting booth. If I'm wrong on that I'll be glad to be corrected.)
However, user error - such as being pwned and not checking during preview - is still a possibility.
but the main public justification for HAVA seems to be aiding those who need it in the voting booth. If I'm wrong on that I'll be glad to be corrected.)
I think this is right, and I think it's really suspicious that there hasn't been a public debate over the fact that what we're doing is giving up a great deal of reliability and security in voting results for a little additional privacy for disabled voters.
Probably 'cause no one wants to be the guy that would argue that it doesn't matter that much if blind grandma can vote.
141. Ok LB, I'll send some black helicopters you're way, too.
141: The one electronic machine at our precinct for the primary was off to the side, and from what I saw the drill was to ask people to come try it and then stand over their shoulders to show them how to work it. Not so much with the privacy.
143 convinces me that there should be a modified version of Godwin's Law.
Discouraging voters is a major part of Republican strategy. The lower the turnout, the better Republicans do. Democrats have not necessarily noticed while their throats were being cut, in large part because many of them are running chickenshit little personal operations which work for them whether or not the party does well.
Ok, that's actually a reasonable answer. Curse you, Robust McInformedPants!
Ok, so we're back to insisting on paper printouts from electronic voting. This -- the station would print a paper ballot which is then inserted into the ballot box and is what counts as the voter's vote -- sounds like the best thing.
114. I had no idea that the "black helicopter" thing is really that offensive. And, if I remember correctly, it is usually reserved for the right wing, one world government type of conspiracy, so in this context it would clearly be seen as a joke.
It's a costly civic duty, and people who vote are the ones who can afford the cost. Presidental elections involve a lot more publicity reminding people to do their duty than local elections do.
Hmm. I don't buy it. Jury duty is a costly civic duty, and the ones who do that are the ones who can't get out of it. I think that voting is actually useful, and the "but you aren't the 50%+1 vote" argument has a logical flaw in it that I'm not smart enough to explain.
You don't have to "buy it". The demographic evidence backs up LB's claim in spades.
143: TLL can go fuck himself. He's taking advantage of our reputation for comity. I don't give a shit if he feigns civility, as in 116, if he immediately returns to his vomit.
People here seem to feel good about themselves if they're tolerant of well-mannered assholes, but that's their problem and I have never understood why they feel that way.
The guy hasn't got anything to teach and he refuses to learn. Why continue the chat?
148: Can we leave it as, yes, it really is a conventional piece of nastiness often directed at leftwingers, and while I can accept that you didn't mean it that way, saying that sort of shit will make people treat you like a troll.
151: Seriously? Because having someone to disagree with keeps the conversation moving. For the best conversation, you'd want someone who agrees with you about almost everything -- goals, values, etc. -- but disagrees about the particular point under discussion, but I'll take the disagreement we can find.
"Democrats have not necessarily noticed while their throats were being cut" Or their wrists, with media-framing playing the role of warm water.
141: I think that would be a very valid debate to raise in the public sphere. I don't chalk its absence up to ulterior motives so much as the media and electorate's general tendency to fall snoring against the floor the second the technical details become the issue. It doesn't fit neatly into a soundbite the way "blind grandma" does, and I agree 100% with Cala that no one wants to be the person against whom the blind grandma soundbite is used. I am sure that there are people who advocate for electronic voting with no personal motive other than a desire to use them to rig elections, but I also am sure that most people who favor them do so out of a lazy ignorance of the pertinent risks and strategies for managing them.
148: I agree that there's no interpretation other than the joking kind, and I viewed it (as a 3rd party) as gentle ribbing with nothing more malicious than a little good humor behind it. However, it's election season, and I think some of us are deeply touchy at the moment.
154- I agree with this, which is why I continue to post. If I wanted to join a bandwagon, I'd post on LGF. And Emerson, I'm not here to learn or teach, unless the learning is about what the "other" side is saying.
I am sure that there are people who advocate for electronic voting with no personal motive other than a desire to use them to rig elections, but I also am sure that most people who favor them do so out of a lazy ignorance of the pertinent risks and strategies for managing them.
Don't forget the people who sell electronic voting machines but don't care about fixing elections.
There's an interesting story about how Texas Instruments helps people rewrite their math textbooks to use graphing calculators, all in the name of teaching kids how to do math better, and I'm sure the same thing is going on here. But who wants to be against helping granny vote? Or helping Johnny graph a function?
Well, yes, their staff would love to have electronic voting machines used everywhere whether they care to rig the election or not. I personally put them in the camp of "caring to rig the election," but only because it's safest to assume the worst of the people who would have the easiest time doing the rigging anyway. Almost all of the instances I've seen documented in which machines were accessed improperly prior to an election were instances of the machines being accessed by employees of the vendor during some period of time in which the certification process for the machines forbade said access.
Now there's a giant helicopter hovering outside my office and it's not making any noise. It says TLL in a stylized font down the side which, I must confess, simply drips of evil intent. Should I be concerned?
TLL understood that he had offended me and Drymala, and then he did it again. Sure, not everyone here was offended. Two were.
Seriously, LB. We're arguing on his terms. I am able to disagree with anyone here on something or another. Why argue with Republicans who have as much as said that they are not willing to listen? we're unserious, as he explained. It's just chat at that point.
I've said three times now that voter-suppression is a major part of the Republican strategy, and that would be an interesting topic, but the conversation keeps being diverted to topics more interesting to TLL.
I am quite capable of having interesting conversations with people I disagree with, but not all of them.
You're often right -- I just think that having someone to argue with (and I was offended as well by the 'black helicopter' crack) keeps the conversation from dying. Whether this is on his terms or not, I think getting out that the only advantage of electronic voting machines is some additional privacy for some disabled voters is a useful thing to talk about, and I don't think we would have gotten onto that without Leech here to snap at.
I think you're absolutely right about voter suppression being a Republican strategy; their voters are richer than ours, and so less easily discouraged. I don't know what else to say about it -- it seems obviously true to me.
It is, of course, utterly true that voter suppression is one of the biggest and best tactics of the Republican machine. Isn't that one of the things that they teach in their College Republican things? Tactics like 'move the voting for student government out of the cafeteria and into the basement of the library' are hallmarks of a strategy that is very easily transferred to later election experiences. I just have no idea how we counter it. They have figured out ways to game the system and we are either too honest or too dumb, overall, to game it back in our favor.
Certainly I'd be happier if TLL was at LGF with his friends. This would not become an echo chamber. There's still plenty to disagree about. We'd just have put a degree of definition on the conversational topics welcome here.
We seem to have gotten to the point in political threads where TLL's role is to parade through now and then wearing a "kick me" sign, which isn't all that productive. But he's not a bad guy, and he's admitted that he's on the verge of accepting truth, so best just to kick and move on.
Voter suppression and intimidation as a GOP strategy, you say? Perish the thought.
John Emerson- I don't have enough invested in this blog to care one way or the other, but I find it interesting that you're response to my posting is that you wish I would go away. I like reading what smart people write, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I agree with the point of view stated. You want to talk about voter turnout, fine, do so. This particular thread has wound around several topics. I take offense when Republicans are portrayed as evil bastards who can only win elections by cheating. That is obviously not the case. Bur I am not naive enough to miss the fact that some monkey business occurs. For example, I don't know that closing the schools in RI as mentioned in 130 is intended to surpress women's votes, it may very well be that the intent was the opposite. And it wouldn't matter if the RI Sec of State was R or D, intent is what matters. Neither party has a monopoly on virtue or vice.
but I find it interesting that you're response to my posting is that you wish I would go away.
Passive-agressive much?
166: Oh, I should update the post.
Punch-card butterfly ballots really are terrible; I used them once or twice in Cambridge, Mass. and remember actually having some trouble figuring out what I was supposed to do. In the past few elections I've voted in (Malden, Mass.), they've used the SAT-style optical bubble forms, which I find to be pretty easy to use, but I could see where there would be accessibility problems for some.
166. FWIW, I think that the Republicans, especially in California, are making a big mistake here. The "Latino" immigrant population is a growing constituency that has more affinity with the Republican platform, and this kind of shit will alienate future voters, much like Pete Wilson's stand on Proposition 89.
I honestly don't know why people get so pissed off at TLL. Idealist used to say the exact same kinds of things on the exact same topics (although he doesn't seem to anymore), and people didn't react like this.
As the Democrats get more middle-class, you'll hear more of them saying "Some people just shouldn't vote". But voter discouragement works for the Republicans.
I hear this from some Democrats already; you can see it in the grumbling about how Republicans get elected because the people are all stupid, and the popularity of the Mencken quote about how someday there will be a boob president to represent our boob nation. Never mind that it's usually Republicans working to discourage turnout and/or disenfranchise people, and the people who get derided as "too dumb to vote" are usually poor and/or black, traditional Democratic constituencies.
166, 171: Interesting that the candidate's name suggests that he's probably first or second-generation American himself.
Idealist irritated the hell out of me too. Maybe we're getting burned out. Maybe we've decided to quit talking to brick walls.
Maybe we're irritable old curmudgeons.
I think that's the result of steady exposure to the media repetition of 'why should stupid people be encouraged to vote?' Republicans push it, because it helps them, but you hear it enough that incautious people of any political bent might pick it up.
and 172: Some of that is phrasing -- Ideal is politically similar, but generally politer and cleverer. And he's a RL good friend of mine, despite the unfortunate politics.
172: Emerson used to get just as pissed off at Idealist, if I remember correctly.
Ideal is politically similar, but generally politer and cleverer
See, this is what I don't get. I see TLL being extremely courteous and often quite clever, even though I think much of what he says is totally crazy.
Well, I'm the wrong person to ask, because I'm actually fond of Ideal.
In all honesty, TLL's handle kind of sets my teeth on edge even before he says anything. But I try to ignore it, really I do.
Mmm. Although, come to think of it, it annoys me because I assume it's a lawyer joke, but I don't absolutely know that to be the case.
Commercial Real Estate Finance. I used to be a productive member of society when I had my orange rgrove, but that is a sad tale of woe best left to discussions of the estate tax.
TLL presents himself as open to being convinced by reason ('I'm the voter you want! Target meeeee!'), demanding that we convince him, and when offered reasons, retreats to platitudes about how Democrats are wimps/pussies/unserious/no worse than the people he has no good reason for voting. And fine, he's a diehard Republican, but doesn't sound as though he has any good reasons except 'Democrats are icky' for so doing. And again, fair enough, but don't pretend it's a rational decision at that point.
baa and Idealist I may disagree with, but they are better about articulating their reasons and engaging the points.
TLL has an awesome handle, though.