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How Can We “Fix” The Vote?
Let’s face it. Voter turnout is still abysmal in this country. Ridiculously so.
Given that, how can we make it in the voter’s interest to turn out on election day?
Sean Aqui has a few ideas, and I like them all.
9 Responses to “How Can We “Fix” The Vote?”
Link seems broken.
I think the best way to encourage voter turnout is to have a lottery. 1 million dollars awarded to 1 voter in each of the 50 states, and a grand prize drawing to each of those 50 in a giant televised event for 100 million. Take them around Washington D.C. with their senator or house representative and show it on T.V. a la modern competitve reality shows.
States participate in lotteries already, and people spend billions to get in on the action there. Entry for this would be free, and get people who might not be motivated to just give it a shot and vote. Of course, then you might be getting people to vote who just pick candidates at random or whatever, but that’s the kind of people you attract anyway when you try to go after the percentage who don’t normally come out.
People don’t vote because they are fat and happy. When that changes they will vote with a ballot or for that matter a bullet. e.g., France last month and immigrants here today.
Hell, people don’t even have to be happy to vote. Dull-eyed slow-witted cattle. Just muching away on grass.
Argh, good god, having a lottery would actually proably increase the voter turn out… a LITTLE, they still have to register, show up at a polling center, or fill out a card and mail it in, that maybe too much work considering for a regualr lottery you don’t have to do much work, turn out would that much more do to too much work.
There’ll never be a revolution in America as long as people can get money out of banks, buy groceries, and pump gas (max rate to be determined)… and even then….
Ahh, glorious mondays.
While that may be true in some cases, it’s more assertion than fact as long as there are unnecessary barriers to voting. Let’s take some reasonable steps to make it easier to vote, and then you can confidently claim “fat and happy” for the nonvoters.
I don’t want to go too far and encourage ignorant “voting for the sake of voting” — we’ve got far too much of that already. So the lottery and pay-to-vote schemes don’t work for me. People still need to decide for themselves that they want to vote.
But there are plenty of people who are capable of forming an informed opinion, who for one reason or another find it difficult or inconvenient to vote.
Our site was down for a little while. Sorry about that.
Heh, I like the lottery idea. That’s the free market at work, eh?
I predict the GOP will plug the hot button issues that social conservatives love (gay marriage, death penalty, abortion) to get out the vote in the next couple of elections. They’re hoping to distract voters from the war and the high price of gas…..
Kritter, I must agree–immigration isn’t any different THIS year than it was LAST year, so why are we only hearing about it THIS (election) year?
Futurama did it best in a sign seen in the episode “A Head in the Polls”.
“First 100 voters get extra vote!”