USA Tired of it

[Ruth]

Sounds like a plan, I want Bernie

Bernie would have made a good president. He is honest, sincere, and genuine!

 

[MoreCoffee]

Bernie would have made a good president. He is honest, sincere, and genuine!

He may be honest and sincere but he didn't seem likely to make a good president.

 

[psalms 91]

He is a lot better than our choices now

 

[MoreCoffee]

He is a lot better than our choices now

but he is not among the choices now.

 

[psalms 91]

Unfortunately

 

[MoreCoffee]

Unfortunately

To vote or not to vote? That is the question

 

[psalms 91]

I will vote simply because I dont want Trump to win and it is a civic duty asw ell as a right

 

[MoreCoffee]

In Australia voting is a civil responsibility - like jury duty - so when there is an election every eligible person is required to vote (unless something prevents them from doing so).

 

[psalms 91]

That sounds like a good thing

 

[MoreCoffee]

That sounds like a good thing

Yes, I think it is a good thing - at least in a democracy with genuine choices for who is to be elected.

 

[Stravinsk]

In Australia voting is a civil responsibility - like jury duty - so when there is an election every eligible person is required to vote (unless something prevents them from doing so).

And because of this, donkey voting abounds.

 

[MoreCoffee]

And because of this, donkey voting abounds.

Our USAn friends may not know what that term means - donkey vote[SUP]1[/SUP]. But the truth is that votes of that kind may not be very common. If the 2016 federal election only 5% of votes were informal, However because donkey votes are formal the only information about the number of donkey votes in the 2016 election are estimates made by the political parties based on anecdotal evidence from party scrutineers.

1 - A donkey vote occurs when an elector simply numbers the ballot paper from top to bottom (or bottom to top) without regard to the logic of the preference allocation.
A donkey vote is counted as a valid vote because it contains a number “1” and has numbered every square in sequential order.

1 ALP
2 Liberal
3 One Nation
4 Democrats
5 Greens​

Example donkey vote

1 ALP
4 Liberal
5 One Nation
3 Democrats
2 Greens​

Example valid logical vote (meaning that the voter has a definite left leaning view and voted logically according to his/her view.​

 

[MarkFL]

We don't get a lot of donkeys voting here, but we do have a lot of the deceased managing to vote somehow.

 

[MoreCoffee]

We don't get a lot of donkeys voting here, but we do have a lot of the deceased managing to vote somehow.

 

[tango]

Yes, I think it is a good thing - at least in a democracy with genuine choices for who is to be elected.

It's only a good thing if people are informed about their chosen candidates.

I'd really like to see qualified voting introduced, where you choose your candidate by selecting them on the screen and then select which headline policies are theirs. If you can't correctly identify their headline policies your vote is discarded. At a stroke you'd lose the kind of silliness associated with, say, the Obama-McCain election where some were saying "it's about time we had a black president" and others were insisting they "don't want no (racial slur) in the White House". You'll never get rid of that kind of thinking completely but anything that helps prune out some of it can only be good. So in the Trump-Clinton election this November anyone who voted Clinton and then said she was in favor of a wall between the US and Mexico, paid for by the Mexicans, would have their vote discounted.

 

[psalms 91]

It's only a good thing if people are informed about their chosen candidates.

I'd really like to see qualified voting introduced, where you choose your candidate by selecting them on the screen and then select which headline policies are theirs. If you can't correctly identify their headline policies your vote is discarded. At a stroke you'd lose the kind of silliness associated with, say, the Obama-McCain election where some were saying "it's about time we had a black president" and others were insisting they "don't want no (racial slur) in the White House". You'll never get rid of that kind of thinking completely but anything that helps prune out some of it can only be good. So in the Trump-Clinton election this November anyone who voted Clinton and then said she was in favor of a wall between the US and Mexico, paid for by the Mexicans, would have their vote discounted.

Like it or not everyone can vote and that is as it should be. By doing what you say it would eliminate a lot of voters who are not well educated and create a class of exclusion

 

[tango]

Like it or not everyone can vote and that is as it should be. By doing what you say it would eliminate a lot of voters who are not well educated and create a class of exclusion

So do you think someone who votes for Hillary because they like her hair style should carry the same weight as someone who had considered her policies against her opponents and decided she is the better candidate? I know that's how it is at present, I just think it's stupid.

You don't need to be a genius to get an idea of what the candidates stand for, and if you want to vote it doesn't seem like it's asking much to get just a little informed.

 

[MoreCoffee]

It's only a good thing if people are informed about their chosen candidates.

I'd really like to see qualified voting introduced

Who would be deciding what qualifies and testing to see who is qualified? It appears that such a system would be far more open to abuse than the current one where all (except for non-citizens and some criminals) are able to vote.

, where you choose your candidate by selecting them on the screen and then select which headline policies are theirs. If you can't correctly identify their headline policies your vote is discarded. At a stroke you'd lose the kind of silliness associated with, say, the Obama-McCain election where some were saying "it's about time we had a black president" and others were insisting they "don't want no (racial slur) in the White House". You'll never get rid of that kind of thinking completely but anything that helps prune out some of it can only be good. So in the Trump-Clinton election this November anyone who voted Clinton and then said she was in favor of a wall between the US and Mexico, paid for by the Mexicans, would have their vote discounted.

 

[tango]

Who would be deciding what qualifies and testing to see who is qualified? It appears that such a system would be far more open to abuse than the current one where all (except for non-citizens and some criminals) are able to vote.

I think I made that pretty clear already. If you're voting for a candidate but don't know what they stand for your vote is discounted. If you've taken the time to go and vote but haven't taken the time to know at least the headline policies of your chosen candidate why should your vote count at all?

The idea is to weed out votes based on arbitrary issues (like the people who voted Obama because it was "about time we had a black President", or the people who don't want Hillary because of the - ahem - things she and Bill must have been doing), it would weed out the tribal voters who don't know one candidate from another but can see that one has an R by their name and the other has a D, and the like.

I guess in a system where over 100% of registered voters can vote and it isn't deemed worthy of consideration, non-citizens can vote and apparently dead people can vote as well, there are probably bigger fish to fry than this. Sometimes it seems like we should have electoral observers from some other nation that's better at it than over here. Somewhere like, oh, maybe Iraq.