If you're a Democrat in Virginia you can never go anywhere

[regexcellent]

How do you get to these retarded conclusions?

If people don't care about the election enough to vote, then presumably they're acting in their own self-interest because their vote's effect on the outcome of the election isn't worth the lost time to them.

[giblets]

I just categorically disagree with this.

What about people who are too young to vote? Don't bother trying to represent them either?

[snoopy369]

Yeah, sorry, no. Congress (or in general, representative bodies) should represent the entire district/whatnot they represent, not only a subset - however that subset is defined. That's the purpose of good government; governing for the welfare of all people, whether rich, poor, majority, minority, etc. Just like the government should respect the interests of those who are in the minority on an issue, within reason - tyranny of the majority is an awful thing - they should also respect the interests of those who don't vote.

Try to distance yourself from your political standpoint here, and forget which party is clearly going to gain if this were addressed.

If voting cost nothing (no time, no effort, simply occurred by thinking), everyone would vote, or pretty darn close to it. Very few people really don't want to vote. Nearly everyone who doesn't vote, doesn't because it's too hard. Sure, for some of those people, they're just lazy; but it's not always that way.

Think about the single mothers working two jobs. 6am-3pm at the diner, then 4pm-11pm at the Italian restaurant. When's she voting? 3pm-4pm is when she picks up her kids from the sitter and takes them over to her mom's. Even if she didn't, lines at her polling station are 45 minutes to an hour. Nope, not voting.

Think about the rural folks who live ten or twenty miles away from their polling station. Sure, they drive in to vote for Obama (or against him), but they're not voting every year; maybe they vote every other year, but some years it's too far a drive.

Think, for that matter, about people like me - if I were in Virginia. Fortunately in Chicago lines are very short, but from my friends in VA, it seems that's not always the case there (or at least, in some places). Wait in line for an hour? Where do I have an hour? I'm not a single parent, but my schedule is:

• Wake up 5am
• Feed kid, feed self, shower, get everyone ready
• Leave for daycare/work, 6:30am-7:00am
• Arrive at daycare and train station, 7:00am-7:30am
• Arrive at work, 8:00am
• Leave work, 5:00pm
• Arrive at daycare, 5:30pm
• Arrive home, 6:15pm
• Prepare dinner, 7:00pm
• Eat dinner, 7:30pm
• Put kid to bed, 8:30pm

Where in there do I have an hour to vote? Even once a year? Put a one year old to bed an hour late, you'll be paying for it for weeks. Sure, some people will do that math, figure out it's important enough, and vote; but a lot of people undoubtedly won't.

My point is, voting costs something. It in particular costs people who don't have a lot, because they are the ones who can't get the day off to vote. I'm lucky that way; if I wanted to work from home one day, I could. Lots of people couldn't. Moreover, the 'lots of people' is largely the poor. McDonald's employees can't work from home. Show up half an hour late to your job at Safeway, you might lose it.

So the state needs to do everything in its power to reduce that cost. Right now, I don't believe they are. If that cost is nearly zero, we'd have much higher turnout, and I'd not object as much. But since we don't, the state needs to think about that, and take it into consideration. The fact that people who are underprivileged tend to vote less is a bad thing, that needs to be corrected wherever possible; and any time voting turnout improves, it's a good thing. Even if that means your party is hurt by the results. Even if it means that dumb people are elected instead of smart ones. Unless you want to leave our democracy/representative government, and return to the old days of monarchy or something else, it's a good thing when turnout improves, and a bad thing when it declines.

Simply blaming people for not participating in elections, without regard to the cost to participation and the barriers lots of people face, is idiotic and malicious.

[Hauldren Collider]

You can vote absentee, snoopy, I do it every year, it is easy, takes no effort at all. Just print out a form and mail it. Five minutes. If you can't find time for that, you're lazy. I don't need your daily schedule to know that.

The cost of voting is not why people don't vote. It's because most americans don't care about politics, and I don't see the value in trying to make them care.

[rah]

care enough to vote does not equal better informed.
stupid people can be just as motivated as informed people.

[Hauldren Collider]

What about people who are too young to vote? Don't bother trying to represent them either?

It's up to parents to represent the interest of their children. Most parents are very interested in their children's future, so the edge cases where this isn't case are irrelevant.

[regexcellent]

care enough to vote does not equal better informed.
stupid people can be just as motivated as informed people.

It doesn't always mean better informed but it in the average case it does. That is to say, the information level of the people who do vote is greater than that of the population as a whole.

[giblets]

It's up to parents to represent the interest of their children. Most parents are very interested in their children's future, so the edge cases where this isn't case are irrelevant.

So a family of four should be given the same consideration as two adults with no kids? And if the parents don't manage to vote because they have less time available in their schedule than adults with no kids, then they don't matter at all? That doesn't seem right.

[Dinner]

I saw this. It was pretty shameful.

[DaShi]

Evidence please.

OMG! I can't believe you went there!

[DaShi]

Please quote the specific post where HC referred to his preference for political machines disappearing.

reg is so a mother hen.

[Aeson]

It doesn't always mean better informed but it in the average case it does. That is to say, the information level of the people who do vote is greater than that of the population as a whole.

Given that children don't vote, this is probably incorrect. Children rarely stoop to D or R partisanship idiocy, which makes them more intelligent (politically) than ~80% of the adult voters.

Your claims that government shouldn't protect the interests of children is monstrous and likely means you're part of NAMBLA.

[Sava]

here is a cat doing a kickflip

[Dr Strangelove]

Districts for the Represntatives in Virginia have been gerrymandered in favor of the Republicans for years. Take a look at the city/county breakdown of the voting in the last election. You'll see a vast sea of red through most of the state with blue over all of the cities except for Lynchburg and Covington, and red over the counties in the north, the very east and around Richmond. Virginia is now urban enough that the cities out-number the countryside. Representative districts though have been arrange so that chunks of the cities are matched with larger chunks of countryside in order to nullify city votes.

[kentonio]

You can vote absentee, snoopy, I do it every year, it is easy, takes no effort at all. Just print out a form and mail it. Five minutes. If you can't find time for that, you're lazy. I don't need your daily schedule to know that.

It's up to parents to represent the interest of their children. Most parents are very interested in their children's future, so the edge cases where this isn't case are irrelevant.

It's quite amazing how much you know about people living on low incomes and about child rearing. Did your nanny teach you this, or was it the butler?

More to the point, something as simple as printing out a form and posting it takes on a whole new significance if you say don't have a PC, not to mention that if you're working 14 hours a day the amount of time you have free to keep up to date with politics is pretty damn small. These are real people living under very tough circumstances and working harder than any of us ever will. Don't you dare suggest they don't deserve to be represented by their government.

It doesn't always mean better informed but it in the average case it does. That is to say, the information level of the people who do vote is greater than that of the population as a whole.

Not particularly true. While the most informed can usually be relied on to vote, so can the idiots whos political information comes purely from a single partisan source. Rousing that rabble is fairly trivial when you've spent years spoonfeeding them bull**** about the evil Kenyan communist about to take Americas guns and freedom.