The right to vote in America

[Docfeelgood]

Actually spanish was not the language being used in the ballots.

Chinease, Vietnamees and Pakastani.sp/?


English is allmost the universal language of the world anyway.


Look at all you guys from different lands and you speaking english here.

Question? Why do/did you guys learn english to begain with?

My hat off to you guys because you can speak more than one language.


BTW

Someone made a comment about PR: they are taught english because PR is U.S. territory.


look back at my earlyer post:


ONLY citizens can vote.
To be a citizen one must be able to read, write and understand American english.


If they had to learn english to git there citinzship then why the ballots in non english?


Don't make any sense to me.

Redundant

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Docfeelgood



ONLY citizens can vote.
To be a citizen one must be able to read, write and understand American english.


If they had to learn english to git there citinzship then why the ballots in non english?


Don't make any sense to me.

Redundant

That is because your basic hypothesis ONLY APPLIES to new immigrants. It does not apply to native born Americans. Anyone born in America is a citizen including any children of Embassy personel for instance. There are still some people that are raised in Spanish speaking homes and a surprisingly number of people still speak local Creole languages. Go to Arizona and you will see Navajos that don't speak English till they get off the reservation.

That last happens in Britain as well. At least it used to be anyway that some Welsh were still learning Cymru as their first language. Actress Sian Phillips didn't learn English till she was 17.

I am ambivalent on this issue. English is rapidly becoming the dominant world language. It is foolish for anyone living in the US to not learn English as quickly as possible. Those that don't are not really interested in becoming active in American politics anyway. While I think that most things need to be in multiple languages I really see little use for ballots in multiple languages. If a person is so turned inwards towards a local community that hasn't learned English they really don't know what the heck any election is really about.

Literacy tests however have been shown to be an exceedingly bad idea in practice. It was used in the South for the specific purpose of disenfranchising black americans. The gimmick was to have voters interpret a passage from the constitution. Not a single passage for everyone but one chosen by those giving the tests. Whites they wanted voting were given straight forward sections to read and interpret. Blacks were invariable given obtuse and hard to interpret sections and it really didn't matter if they got it the same as a Supreme Court Justice did, they were usually denied the vote no matter what they said. This crap was one of the things that was overturned in the 60's. Its was yet another of those things where oppressors were yelling for States Rights so they could deny human rights to Americans.

[Sava]

As a descendent of a naturalized citizen, I fully agree with the notion that this is ludacrous! If you can't speak the language, you shouldn't vote. But if it you can speak English, and just feel more comfortable in a system in a language in which you are more familiar with, then I would be for multi-lingual ballots.

Hmmm... after thinking about it, I'm not so against it. You need to be able to speak English to become a naturalized citizen. I see no problem with multi-lingual ballots because you need to be a citizen to vote.

David, suppose you go to CHina and learn the language. Wouldn't it be easier to still vote in English? What's the harm in having multi-lingual ballots? I think that we should do everything in our power to make voting and politics in general easier and more honest for everyone. Case in point, you have tons of rural strongholds voting for Bush because the people are under the assumption that he represents their interests, when in reality, Bush represents the interests of corporate America and the richest 1%. And considering 2000, I think the voting system in general needs an overhaul to avoid having more leaders in power that lost elections.

[Jon Miller]

Yuor statement that Bush lost the election is wrong. It was a statistical tie.

As such, the key point is that neither won.

Jon Miller

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Ron Jeremy
In Hispanic communities that ain't the case. Besides, if people make an economic choice to learn a language that's a very different matter to being forced to do so. I daresay that one who only speaks Spanish would get along fine in most of the areas in the States where they don't marry their sisters.

That depends on what you mean by "getting along fine". However well they end up getting along, they could always do better for themselves by learning english.

English is the language of success in america.

[Drake Tungsten]

David, suppose you go to CHina and learn the language. Wouldn't it be easier to still vote in English? What's the harm in having multi-lingual ballots? I think that we should do everything in our power to make voting and politics in general easier and more honest for everyone.

I'm relatively certain that the Chinese government would never do anything as monstrously stupid as printing ballots in any language other than Chinese. The Chinese have far too much common sense to adopt such a stupid practice, so what does that say about us here in America?

edit: Just realized the absurdity of talking about democratic voting practices in communist China.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Yuor statement that Bush lost the election is wrong. It was a statistical tie.

As such, the key point is that neither won.

Jon Miller

Elections are NOT based on statistics. They are based on actual vote counts not on a statistical probability derived from a poll of a small number of people that may or may not actually vote as they tell the pollsters.

In FACT Bush did not get a plurality of the votes. In ANY other elected office in the entire Uniteds States of America he would not be the winner. He won based on the archaic Electoral College system that gives votes to a set of purely theoretical entities, the various States. There is no excuse for the US retaining this completely outmoded system. The President is the representitive of the The People and NOT the States. The States exist for the people and not the other way around. Each person should be equally represented and that is not the case at present.

Yes the Senate exists and probably should remain existing. The Senate is not elected by the People of the US as a whole unlike the President.

Oh and someone did win. The man who would have lost if the election had been like all others in the US. There is no excuse for contining with this foolishness in the future and I have even less respect for Bush on this than I otherwise would. He should be pushing for an Amendment to do away with the Electoral College. He should be EXACTLY the right person for the job. As usual he is without a clue on this.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

edit: Just realized the absurdity of talking about democratic voting practices in communist China.

What about the absurdity of having ballots in Chinese? There IS NO Chinese language. There are FIVE of them. They do all use the same ideograms though.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Ethelred


Elections are NOT based on statistics. They are based on actual vote counts not on a statistical probability derived from a poll of a small number of people that may or may not actually vote as they tell the pollsters.

In FACT Bush did not get a plurality of the votes. In ANY other elected office in the entire Uniteds States of America he would not be the winner. He won based on the archaic Electoral College system that gives votes to a set of purely theoretical entities, the various States. There is no excuse for the US retaining this completely outmoded system. The President is the representitive of the The People and NOT the States. The States exist for the people and not the other way around. Each person should be equally represented and that is not the case at present.

Yes the Senate exists and probably should remain existing. The Senate is not elected by the People of the US as a whole unlike the President.

Oh and someone did win. The man who would have lost if the election had been like all others in the US. There is no excuse for contining with this foolishness in the future and I have even less respect for Bush on this than I otherwise would. He should be pushing for an Amendment to do away with the Electoral College. He should be EXACTLY the right person for the job. As usual he is without a clue on this.

What I meant by statistical tie is something any good sceintist could tell you. The uncertainty in the count was such that it is impossible to say that one had more votes than the other. Many people do not understand this and when hearing that either could have won (like in Flroida) ask for a recount. Inr eality the uncertaintly in the recount is most likely higher than in teh intial count and the ammount that either candidate was ahead is probably meaningless (this was the case inthe florida recount).

One tihng I have noticed that many people lack and which could be given to them by any decent physics class is the notion of uncertainty in measurements and the meaning of that uncertainty.

By the way, your fact is not a fact. Bush lost teh overall plurity by a number that was small compared to the uncertainty in the votes so in reality it could be either way.

Jon Miller

[Drake Tungsten]

They do all use the same ideograms though.

Exactly. While there are various dialects of spoken Chinese that are unintelligible to speakers of other dialects, there is only one form of written Chinese that can be read by speakers of any dialect. So there IS A Chinese language, in written form. Even the spoken dialects, while very different, are still forms of Chinese.

[Jon Miller]

Hmm, I should add, that it is meaningless to even discuss who won when the differences are that small compared to te uncertainty.

Now I agree that we shold take measures to decrease the uncertainty, but basically we are just going to need a mechanism to deal cases where the winner is uncertain (like we do now) because it would be foolish and would not work well for revotes to be taken whenever the final numbers have a difference so small.

Jon Miller

[Al B. Sure!]

Lazarus:

Your responses make little sense to me but I'll respond to them SLOWLY...

Great. So Spanish-speakers in the US are the immigrants, right? Because there's no long history of the Spanish language in America, right?

Not just would immigrants be kept segregated from english-speakers but anyone who doesn't speak english, including people of Spanish descent who have been here for years. It seems pretty simple to me... Someone who don't know english can not buy a stick of gum from someone who knows only english and vice-versa. This results in segregation, where Spanish speakers, for example, can not communicate with (and thus, can not buy food from) English speakers. They are forced to only buy from Spanish speakers which means that all the Spanish people become segregated in their own community. That wouldn't exactly be a free democracy in my opinion.

I daresay that one who only speaks Spanish would get along fine in most of the areas in the States where they don't marry their sisters.

Oh they can get along fine but that doesn't mean much... someone picking cotton or cleaning a rich woman's clothes gets along fine enough. They dont starve after all... I want all immigrants to have a fair and good chance at succeeding in America and the fact is... it's far easier to succeed if you speak THE language of the country/the language that most people speak.

So you want to snoop, right? If the Spanish/Korean speakers wanted themselves to be understood by you then they'd make strenuous attempts to do so. I think they just don't like you.

Say what? What the hell do this mean? I want a at least somewhat democratic system to thrive and it can only survive if there is a free flow of communication between citizens. Different languages hampers this free flow of communication (tower of babel) and destroys a democracy. People should know enough languages to be able to communicate with each other. The thing is... we can either have every single American learn Spanish, Korean, and a horde of other languages or have the far less numerous immigrant speakers of these individual languages learn JUST english. Either choice would allow a republic to continue but which one's the easier and far more practical choice?

Getting paranoid about what your darker neighbours are saying?

Being of Arabic descent and having my father's family originate from southern Egypt, it's kind of hard for people to be my 'darker neighbours' unless their black and in that case, they all know english (minus a couple Haitians, Sudanese, and West Africans)

This just sounds like an attempt to restrict the numbers of Latinos and Koreans entering the country to me.

Are you just playing Mr.Fun like I did or do you truly believe this complete idiocy?


thanks

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Yup. 100%. Dress it up in all the faux social concern you like, but you still aren't drowning out the sound of marching jackboots.

If people see an advantage in learning English, they will attempt to do so. What they don't need is pubescent Goebbels wannabees attempting to restrict their liberties.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Jon Miller

One tihng I have noticed that many people lack and which could be given to them by any decent physics class is the notion of uncertainty in measurements and the meaning of that uncertainty.

A course in gambling odds would help just as much and there would be more incentive.

By the way, your fact is not a fact. Bush lost teh overall plurity by a number that was small compared to the uncertainty in the votes so in reality it could be either way.

Jon Miller

It was a fact. The stats don't enter in to it only the actual OFFICIAL vote counts do. Same for the census and that clearly has more uncertainty than the vote count counts do.


Do you even know what the uncertainty was for the nation as a whole? If you don't you don't then you don't have the facts. In many states the level of uncertainty would be quite low. Depends on the voting methods. Now in Florida I agree with you. There is still a level of uncertainty there and I am reasonbly sure the level of uncertainty is much higher than the difference between Dumbya and Gored.

All those people running and not one fit to hold office. One as dumb as a post and another that looks like he has a post shoved up him.

[Jon Miller]

You don't understand. For the nation as a whole the vote was within the uncertainty in the vote. I think I would suggest that you do some reading on statistics and uncertainty (this is different than a gambling course, what I am talking about is completely different, it has to do with measurements).

BTW, I do not recall the actual uncertainty in that election (The election was almost 2 years ago), but I do remember that all estimates that I had heard (And any reasonable estimate) showed the issues that I stated (and I think that the level of uncertaintty was underestimated as shown in Florida).

You seem to be missing many of the basics of error analysis, if it matters to you, I would reccomend some study.

Jon Miller