🙂

There is also an abstaining population. We’ll tell you we exist, you could count our numbers, and the media will still pretend we don’t.

i know y’all exist ’cause i can count some of y’all among my best friends. has anybody done a census of those who are purposely abstaining from voting? i’d be curious to know what the numbers are in the general population, as opposed to the percentage among the people i know.

[and i approve of protest actions, whatever their percieved accuracy]

That the media thinks what I do is wrong is one thing. The media is often wrong, and clearly it is self-serving of them to mourn that which is opposed to their hegemony.

There is an apathetic population, yes. I don’t know what its numbers are, they probably wouldn’t care enough to respond if you tried to survey them. There is also an abstaining population. We’ll tell you we exist, you could count our numbers, and the media will still pretend we don’t.

I’m likely to vote in 2008, certainly in the primaries. I am not ashamed of having not voted in a long time, in fact it’s something I am entitled to feel proud of because I did not enable or authorize this bullshit. I have been in opposition.

i’m torn on this issue. i always vote [help! i have opinions and can’t shut up!].

i prefer turning in a blank ballot to not showing up at all, but i agree with whig that voting shouldn’t be compulsory. on the other hand, i’m always happy to have the chance [though i seldom actually do so] to engage in civil disobedience, if voting were compulsory, staying home [and fighting the resulting fine] would certainly send a stronger message than it does now.

i’ve got much stronger reservations about using social disapproval against non-voters than i do about fining them, but i’m against using social disapproval for most things.

what i do like about our present system is that people who don’t vote would probably just vote frivolously if we forced them to physically go to a polling place. this way they can just stay home.

The problem is that we are parties to it no matter how unwilling. You can’t send a message by not voting, because they view not voting as acquiescing with the status quo, not a protest against it.

I disagree. The message I send is very clear and is intentionally misinterpreted and disregarded by those who do not want to acknowledge it. That we have blogs now means that we can speak for ourselves and not allow ourselves to be ignored. But it is false to say that you can’t send a message that someone else will pretend to view as acquiescence when it is actual rejection.

Don’t tell me how to vote please. You may make suggestions, and I’ll be glad to consider them. But I have no obligation to vote in the fashion you think I should, and I won’t criticize your strategy of using write-ins to protest even though I know poll workers who resented it when people did that and it was never reported on any media that I’m aware of.

The thing is that some of us never get our voices heard, especially when the Synod decides to steal our elections. I have achieved epic political martyr status by being a Florida voter in 2000. No other group has ever been so totally disenfranchised after winning the right to vote. 😈

You have to understand that those of us who don’t even get the minor sop of having a primary vote count, can get a little testy.

People in New Hampshire take their “First in the Nation” status very seriously because, as a liberal, elitist, urban East Coast state, our concerns would otherwise be ignored in favor of the Holy Heartland and Bible Belt. Nobody really cares who the folks in Dixville Notch vote for — the concerns of the average New Hampshire voter are not represented. The Primary is the only way we ever get our voices heard. The rest of the time, it’s just “Fuck you!” New Hampshire.

Imagine a country in which almost every male between 18 and 55 is a member of the National Guard and has a fully automatic assault rifle at home, but they have an extremely low crime rate and avoid wars. Perhaps it is the fact that every family will be affected if there is a war, that makes war a less than desirable option.

If you are looking for a contrast: a Swiss unit accidentally crossed the border into Lichtenstein. No one in Lichtenstein was aware it had happened, but the Swiss immediately apologized for the error.

The US has accidentally entered Mexico on multiple occasions, and has been taped doing it, but all you get is stonewalling.

Some countries know how to act in public, and others don’t.

Voting systems aside, every election I’ve experienced in Texas… even one in which we use the rightly criticized eSlate machines… has some method of entering a write-in vote. I’ve actually done a write-in vote on an eSlate; it’s messy but not all that difficult. whig, what objection do you have to Bryan’s approach? are you saying that there are offices for which not only is there no listed candidate for whom you would vote, but no legally qualified individual whatsoever for whom you would vote?

I have strong reservations about fining people. You cannot browbeat people into participating in the democratic process. I’d prefer to see such strong social disapproval of not showing up to vote (even if only to cast a symbolically blank ballot) that no qualified adult would even think of staying home. But I’m obviously in the minority… and not just on this thread… in feeling that way.