Election Vote
- Thread starter IndigoSensor
- Start date
Tuesdays are too busy a day for me, so I went home and voted early on Friday afternoon.
At about 12:30 today my confirmed real life INFJ friend posted the facebook status "DON'T VOTE!"
This girl is an anarcho-capitalist, but I've never heard her say anything opposed to exercising the right to vote before. She was a big supporter of Ron Paul, and was excited about the Rand Paul campaign. She still considers Kentucky her home, although she moved away when she was 5 years old and has only visited a few times in the 20 years since then. We definitely disagree on some things, but I still value her opinion and was wanting to call and discuss candidates before voting. She was too busy to pick up the phone last week though.
Her status had been deleted without a trace by the time I got back to my apartment this evening. It could be that someone hacked her account and she removed it once it was discovered.
My suspected INFJ real life friend who moved back to Chicago (well, a suburb thereof) a month ago has had in the little box below her facebook profile pic this:
"I like it when you vote:
http://www.sos.georgia.gov/mvp/
http://www.cookcountyclerk.com/ELECTIONS/Pages/default.aspx "
(This girl volunteered for the Obama campaign and I believed was a paid employee of the democratic party for at least a year before she moved.)
I found that the major party candidates tended to have much flashier websites but no real articulation of a platform. The Libertarian candidates seemed to take things more seriously. (This was most true in the race for School Superintendent, where the republican had the flashiest website with no positions or goals mentioned at all. He also looked somewhat like a pedophile.) I mostly went for the Libertarians, but not in every race where one was running. Their Lieutenant Governor candidate was clearly the worst choice, and the republican incumbent for that office did a much better job of clearly stating a reasonable platform than anyone else in his party. I went with the democrat for my district's state senator, as there were no third party candidates, the republican incumbent had a platform of empty platitudes, I liked his last name, and I vaguely recall that that friend of mine speaking well of him. I went ahead and voted republican for Public Service Commissioner because the candidate is a close friend of my father. It is hard to say who would have gotten my vote in that race otherwise, as I dislike the policies of all 3 candidates about equally.
Close to half of the races had one candidate running unopposed, which I refuse to support on principle. I did a write in for all of these. I know that there were no actual registered write-in candidates for these offices and that my write-ins won't count for anything, but it is the principle that counts. Most were judges, so my half brother who is an attorney got the most votes. My dad, a CPA, got a vote for tax commissioner. I voted for myself in for the Soil and Water Conservation District Chairman, as I have taken some classes on managing water resources. One unopposed candidate had his party listed as demcorat, so in that office I voted for Miss Spelling. Another unopposed candidate was names Al Wong, which sounds too much like All Wrong, so I instead voted for Al Wright.
At about 12:30 today my confirmed real life INFJ friend posted the facebook status "DON'T VOTE!"
This girl is an anarcho-capitalist, but I've never heard her say anything opposed to exercising the right to vote before. She was a big supporter of Ron Paul, and was excited about the Rand Paul campaign. She still considers Kentucky her home, although she moved away when she was 5 years old and has only visited a few times in the 20 years since then. We definitely disagree on some things, but I still value her opinion and was wanting to call and discuss candidates before voting. She was too busy to pick up the phone last week though.
Her status had been deleted without a trace by the time I got back to my apartment this evening. It could be that someone hacked her account and she removed it once it was discovered.
My suspected INFJ real life friend who moved back to Chicago (well, a suburb thereof) a month ago has had in the little box below her facebook profile pic this:
"I like it when you vote:
http://www.sos.georgia.gov/mvp/
http://www.cookcountyclerk.com/ELECTIONS/Pages/default.aspx "
(This girl volunteered for the Obama campaign and I believed was a paid employee of the democratic party for at least a year before she moved.)
I found that the major party candidates tended to have much flashier websites but no real articulation of a platform. The Libertarian candidates seemed to take things more seriously. (This was most true in the race for School Superintendent, where the republican had the flashiest website with no positions or goals mentioned at all. He also looked somewhat like a pedophile.) I mostly went for the Libertarians, but not in every race where one was running. Their Lieutenant Governor candidate was clearly the worst choice, and the republican incumbent for that office did a much better job of clearly stating a reasonable platform than anyone else in his party. I went with the democrat for my district's state senator, as there were no third party candidates, the republican incumbent had a platform of empty platitudes, I liked his last name, and I vaguely recall that that friend of mine speaking well of him. I went ahead and voted republican for Public Service Commissioner because the candidate is a close friend of my father. It is hard to say who would have gotten my vote in that race otherwise, as I dislike the policies of all 3 candidates about equally.
Close to half of the races had one candidate running unopposed, which I refuse to support on principle. I did a write in for all of these. I know that there were no actual registered write-in candidates for these offices and that my write-ins won't count for anything, but it is the principle that counts. Most were judges, so my half brother who is an attorney got the most votes. My dad, a CPA, got a vote for tax commissioner. I voted for myself in for the Soil and Water Conservation District Chairman, as I have taken some classes on managing water resources. One unopposed candidate had his party listed as demcorat, so in that office I voted for Miss Spelling. Another unopposed candidate was names Al Wong, which sounds too much like All Wrong, so I instead voted for Al Wright.
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cuz hes a REBEL!!!!!!
me too. I chose not to register etc. I mean, one vote isn't going to matter. I don't care when people say "but if everyone said that..." well I'm not anyone, I am Sam. And I, am not voting. If it really came down to one vote, after years of recounting, then the Supreme court etc. would decide on it.
I do not time, nor frankly the will, to become education on both sides of the political equation. And thus, I will not vote, nor speak out against either side, since I would just be shooting blanks in the dark.
- Nov 12, 2008
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GOP took the house 
Dems keep the senate
Christine O'Donnell melted
Sharron Angle turned to dust
Rand Paul got a seat
Meg Whitman got kicked in the pants
Alaska looks like a shitshow
Colorado is having technical diffuculties and typos :boink:
Overall, not how I want it to be exactly (cause of the house), but it could have been far worse
Dems keep the senate
Christine O'Donnell melted
Sharron Angle turned to dust
Rand Paul got a seat
Meg Whitman got kicked in the pants
Alaska looks like a shitshow
Colorado is having technical diffuculties and typos :boink:
Overall, not how I want it to be exactly (cause of the house), but it could have been far worse
GOP took the house
Dems keep the senate
Christine O'Donnell melted
Sharron Angle turned to dust
Rand Paul got a seat
Meg Whitman got kicked in the pants
Alaska looks like a shitshow
Colorado is having technical diffuculties and typos :boink:
Overall, not how I want it to be exactly (cause of the house), but it could have been far worse
I am happy to report that it looks like Lisa Murkowski's write-in campaign worked as the early results say write-in counts for 41% of the votes compared to Miller at 34%. Miller is an absolute prick and I'm sure he is going to challenge this any which way he can.
Voting is the supreme feature of a democracy/republic, and its a shame that while other countries undergo bloody civil war to gain it, some people are perfectly content to ignore their duty of maintaining their democracy by going all apathetic. Its fine if you don't know, now, but you should try. I consider voting a right in such that refusing it is surmount to attempting to forfeit you democracy/republic. if you care that little about having a voise, you might just end up in a place where you don't have one.
In Australian it is mandatory to vote. [Note: not to vote for the current gov't don't get all tyranny-alarms-bells on me, just to vote at all]
thank god the tea party scared the crap out of the Rs and turned them back into economic conservatives again, there was actually people worth voting for this cycle. And thank god the socialists lost their super majority, not that they were capable of using it effectively anyway. Obama looks like a moron on TV right now, "i gotta do a better job, just like everyone else in washington" Yeah, thats one way of putting it, the average american being sick to death of your socialist big government monster you were trying to build and have rejected your policies.
Election 2010: America's latest mood swing.
I wonder if people are ever going to reconcile their long-term and short-term perceptions. It's logical enough to vote against the incumbents if you think that they're screwing everything up. But if you were among those who voted in those incumbents in the last election in order boot out the previous incumbents (and especially if you were doing so on party lines), then it makes no sense to return to the party you so resented two short years ago.
It's an unfortunate symptom of the two-party system, I suppose. It's natural to break up the status quo when times are bad, but when the alternative is simply the status quo that came before the current one, switching your party vote back and forth is akin to alternating spoonfuls of lemon juice and sugar while never thinking to mix them.
I wonder if people are ever going to reconcile their long-term and short-term perceptions. It's logical enough to vote against the incumbents if you think that they're screwing everything up. But if you were among those who voted in those incumbents in the last election in order boot out the previous incumbents (and especially if you were doing so on party lines), then it makes no sense to return to the party you so resented two short years ago.
It's an unfortunate symptom of the two-party system, I suppose. It's natural to break up the status quo when times are bad, but when the alternative is simply the status quo that came before the current one, switching your party vote back and forth is akin to alternating spoonfuls of lemon juice and sugar while never thinking to mix them.
- Nov 12, 2008
- 14,153
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- INFJ
- Enneagram
- 1w2 sx/so/sp
Bipartisanship is not a good thing. Apartisanship is. Bipartisanship is often the two major parties collaborating together against the wishes of those less powerful and the well being of the nation.
We need to move away from a system in which two dominant parties pass power back and forth and unrelated issues become closely tied together through partisan polarization. The way to do this is to abandon plurality voting, and move to a superior system in which voters do not merely state a preference for the lesser fo two evils but rate just how evil (or not) they believe each candidate to be. I am a big supporter of Range Voting, but also would not mind seeing a move to Reweighted Range Voting to allow apartisan proportional representation in multimember districts.
I would also add that ballots should not contain a place stating party affiliation, but rather a section where each candidate may insert a short essay explaining his or her qualifications, platform, and reason for running. Party affiliations and endorsements could be listed here, but as they are for many these are but shorthands for knowing the candidate's platform actually listing the platform would be preferable.
The right not to vote is just as essential as the right to vote. It is the duty of a citizen to try to stay informed enough know how to vote, not to vote for the sake of voting. Voting when uninformed is a grave disservice to the country, as it dilutes the power of those in the electorate who have done their research. Furthermore, large voter turnouts provide politicians with too much political capital, allowing them to claim a much greater mandate than they really have.
We need to move away from a system in which two dominant parties pass power back and forth and unrelated issues become closely tied together through partisan polarization. The way to do this is to abandon plurality voting, and move to a superior system in which voters do not merely state a preference for the lesser fo two evils but rate just how evil (or not) they believe each candidate to be. I am a big supporter of Range Voting, but also would not mind seeing a move to Reweighted Range Voting to allow apartisan proportional representation in multimember districts.
I would also add that ballots should not contain a place stating party affiliation, but rather a section where each candidate may insert a short essay explaining his or her qualifications, platform, and reason for running. Party affiliations and endorsements could be listed here, but as they are for many these are but shorthands for knowing the candidate's platform actually listing the platform would be preferable.
The right not to vote is just as essential as the right to vote. It is the duty of a citizen to try to stay informed enough know how to vote, not to vote for the sake of voting. Voting when uninformed is a grave disservice to the country, as it dilutes the power of those in the electorate who have done their research. Furthermore, large voter turnouts provide politicians with too much political capital, allowing them to claim a much greater mandate than they really have.
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[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk"]YouTube - George Carlin Doesn't vote[/ame]
Yes, but no. I simply do not care as of this moment, trust me, as an infp (lol?) I am quite aware of the possibilities extrapolation will bring. But as this point in time, I do not care. I guess I will vote for president, but voting is aggravating to me, and incredible demeaning.
I thought it was demeaning to not be given a voice by people who claim to be superior to you?