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I don't expect elections to deliver the result I want, I want my vote to count
Although a lot of the other points deserve (more?) attention, I just want to share this because I never thought how hard this would feel.
I'm in my early 30s and come from a very apolitical family. About 1.5 months ago I voted for the first time in my life. At an embassy in the fraudulent Russian election.
Of course I knew my vote would not count. I always knew that every Russian election since I was a kid was a fraud. I did it for a statement and to partake in an event that resembled a demonstration, to do the limited thing I can do. But I would have never imagined that feeling that would hit me once I had actually voted.
After standing in line and passing the security checkpoints and ruining the bulletin (which in theory should count as a vote against everyone in the percentages). Once it was done. I was... furious, enraged, desperate. Much more than I thought. On a rational level I knew my vote didn't matter. The results were already calculated no matter what. Even before I got in line. No matter whether I had smuggled in my non erasable pen or not. But once I had actually voted for the first time, I didn't want anything more than this vote to count. Not to win, just for someone to acknowledge that bulletin. I felt so angry and helpless and I wanted to scream until my lungs would start to bleed.
So, yes, this freaking matters. I hope none of you will ever feel this way after voting. And for the love of God, if you have a passport of a country who has somewhat fair elections, please go vote.
I want more than this. I want a single person in LA's vote to count as much as a single person in Oklahoma. Right now, they don't; because of the electoral college, people in densely populated states' votes count for less in the general election than those in the bible belt.
I think your comment distracts from the point of theirs, but we're already here, so: the bigger issue is single seat representation and "choose one" voting. Single seat means that no matter who wins, a large fraction of the population won't have representation. Who do you go to if you're a Democrat but the Republican won? Choose one voting means the voters can't support everyone they like. There are lots of ways to fix these problems, but I like Sequential Proportional Approval Voting with 5 winners per district. It's impossible to submit an invalid ballot, and the voting technique can be easily applied to single seat positions like mayor. With 5 members per district, plus the decay property of the counting method, trying to gerrymander the map is functionally impossible and it's highly likely any given voter will have someone in office who is willing to listen.
Well, yeah. Changing from FPTP would be huge, and it's necessary to deal with the strategic voting issue, but we also have to get rid of the electoral college. Majority rule, popular vote winner wins. Then we get approval, ranked choice, or literally almost anything but FPTP and things start to look sane.
Who do you go to if you're a Democrat but the Republican won?
You mean your vote? At the risk of misunderstanding you, your vote goes into the Popular bucket with everyone else's, and whoever wins that vote wins. Why does it need to be more complicated than that? The voting itself can be more nuanced than FPTP, but ultimately there's (ideally) a mostly-Condorcet winner, and that's the winner.
I suspect you're thinking more about Congress than the single-seat Presidency, where There Can Be Only One. Or I'm utterly missing your point. That's easily possible. Give me three choices of topics, and I'll rank them in the order I think we're discussing.
PS, I tacked on to their comment because it was specifically about the second-to-last point, wanting their vote to count. I thought it fell a little short as it didn't address the fact that, if your live in a metropolis, odds are your votes mean less that others in rural environments. I hear you focusing on better proportional representation - anarchists getting a seat, however small, at the table with the Big Parties. I was focusing obviously on the fact that we do not have equal representation by virtue of 70 Oklahoman votes having as much weight as 100 Californian votes (I made those ratios up; I don't know the exact proportion).
Yes sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. I meant after the winner is found and is in office. If you're a Democrat and the Republican is in office, you can talk to them about your concerns, but they're unlikely to care that much since you've got very different opinions. With elections where there can only be one (E.G. mayor) this can't be solved, but legislative districts can and should have multiple representatives.
But yes, I agree, fixing the electoral college is also important!
Thanks man. There's too many people on this site telling one not to vote because of cocked up ideas of what america is and isn't. It may be a flawed democracy, but at least it's a democracy. I hope you live to see your vote count someday too
Thank you, I hope so too. The good thing about autocratic regimes is that they tend to die with their leaders, and Putin isn't going to live forever. It's a small consolation when you look at all the lives that are lost meanwhile, along with millions of people's lives being destroyed and their futures taken.
And yes, America's voting system is awful. But ffs please go vote. It's something. It's not great but it is something. It isn't nothing.
It's a democracy as long as enough people vote that the results are clear cut. If it's close, it's easier to hide undemocratic behavior to nudge the results.
Thank you for writing this, I'm glad to read it
Your country will get better with more people like you, I hope it happens in your life time.
Thank you. I also hope it will. It surely will.
But once I had actually voted for the first time, I didn’t want anything more than this vote to count. Not to win, just for someone to acknowledge that bulletin. I felt so angry and helpless and I wanted to scream until my lungs would start to bleed.
I feel the same way after voting in Texas. Different method for caging and disenfranchising voters, but the outcomes are functionally the same.
I don't think presuming my vote will be traunched and kettled and rendered meaningless through statistical manipulation feels any better simply because I know it will be counted. Its still a rigged game. The outcomes are overwhelmingly predetermined.
What I want more than anything is for my city of Houston to go its own way. To be independent of the corrupt cesspool of bigotry and fear that dominates the capital building. I don't want to simply be counted in the minority. I want my independence.
Your vote is not just counted, but even meaningful. Shenaningans in Texas try to affect the outcome by playing with things to control the odds and making it more difficult for “the wrong people” to vote. It’s really an entirely different scale.
Texas Conservatives are manipulating the vote with “legal” actions and can only affect percentages. A likely result is very different than a predetermined result. A “legal” manipulation is subject to at least some checks and balances and can be changed, which is very different from something that can just be dictated by those in power
do you know anyone who'd choose joe biden? like honestly, if there was a better option?
do you know anyohe who'd choose Donald trump, other than brainwashed fanatical cultists who literally worship him?
over 60% of Americans, and even a majority of republicans, want, according to polls: single payer or otherwise socialized healthcare-no more insurance, federally legal cannabis, abortion access. I suspect the numbers are similar for: tax the rich, net neutrality (once explained), do something about climate change, stop all the bridges collapsing, gimme public transit(maybe), and 'don't give the military obscenely expensive shit they've literally said they can't use', maybe also 'stop cops killing randos in their homes while they sleep what the fuck'.
weird how none of that is happening and we have the precise opposite being done on most of that.
its not the same, you need to pretend more, but for me, sitting here? its not different enough that I can really throw stones.
Texas Conservatives are manipulating the vote with “legal” actions and can only affect percentages.
It goes beyond that.
PoC districts often get voting machines that don't work. Urban districts will have large pools of ballots that go uncounted because of deliberate delays in the vote count (similar to what Republicans managed in 2000 with the Brooks Brothers Riot). Judges remove candidates from the ballot for arbitrary reasons (Tom DeLay would routinely run uncontested because his opponents' petitions to fill would get "lost" or "misfiled'" by the country clerk).
This is only legal in so far as local allied politicians allow it to be.
almost like direct (action) democracy is the only thing that matters and all this bullshit is just tricks to tell us we already said our piece and were overruled, so we need to shut up and just do what most people want, which everyone agrees is a bunch of dumb and bad things if you ask them or look at polls.
from California, and I fucking feel you.
Send Gruesome Newsome my regards.
I'd rather send mine, after what he's advocating doing to unhoused people, but I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and I know it.
I already can guess it was Sunday and it was noon. Noon against Putin.
Exactly. It's great to hear that other people have taken notice of Noon Against Putin! So far I haven't met anyone on the internet or anyone apart from those who came to Berlin.
But I admit we got in line at 8:10 because we came from another city and we had an impatient toddler with us. This way we were done voting at 9:10. When we returned at noon, it was an insane line. Unfortunately our acquaintances who came at 11:30 didn't get to vote before the embassy closed down. The embassy had created an impressive bottleneck with the security checks and cloakroom. But they stood in line until the end.
Not that surprising if you open my profile.
Also youtube comment section counts as meeting on the internet. I'm pretty sure you opened at least one ACF/Navalny/Navalny Live/Popular Politics video in last... Year already?
True, your profile is also a gold mine for new communities to add, so thanks for that!
As for the youtube comment section - that's a valid point. I however never have written a youtube comment in my life, so I am not sure this outside perspective counts as "meeting".
which in theory should count as a vote against everyone in the percentages
Only if ruined in correct way: more than one boxes are ticked. Or no ticks, but we all know who will receive vote in this case.
Yeah I would not choose to leave all the boxes unticked.
in from California. its not quite as bad, but the electoral college means my vote is ~ 1/5-1/500th (depending on the specific thing) of someone in Missouri's vote (constitution said slaves count as 3/5), and the states presidential votes (where mine matters most; the 1/5th place) always count for whoever the blues run, even if I hate the bastard; my vote literally gets thrown away. first election I remember, 2000; they did count them, then appointed the loser after his friends threw a fit.
also, good job getting out. wish you luck.
the only times i feel my vote counts is for local legislation. I don't think my vote for people ever counted and I've been voting since 2000.