STUPID VOTERS?

[daidalos]

Don't they send you a sample ballot?  I study mine when it comes in the mail. 
I have the worst problem with Judges.  I don't know one from the other, and it's next to impossible to find out anything about them.

I understand what you mean about the wording.  It is confusing.

No to my knowledge Ohio doesn't send out sample ballots like that, at least not here. This year when I directly asked the woman at the BofE about the issues that would be on the ballot, I was directed to the site I posted here.

That site, only had the three statewide issues on it.

You raise another good point. And it's one which I think is in large part to blame for many of the crazy assed rulings we've seen in recent years.


I also think, it's why we wind up with judge's like this one:

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2015/09/04/tracie-hunter-motions/71661384/

[kroz]

There are multiple ways of educating yourself before an election. 

If you do not receive anything in the mail or news, go online and type in your County.gov.  You should find a copy of your ballot there.  There may be many different ballots in your county but you key in your precinct number and it shows your exact ballot.  Also, you can go to the poll on election day and ask for a sample ballot to take outside and read.

However, I find one of the best things to do is call the League of Women Voters and ask them about the upcoming election.  They will inform you of the issues and sometimes give you the condensed version of the complicated wording on propositions.  They can also tell you something about the Judges or refer you to websites to read.  They are a great resource.

But everyone needs to educate themselves thoroughly BEFORE walking into the voting booth!

[zewazir]

It's a matter of personal responsibility. It's the basic principle upon ANY type of government which puts the power in the hands of the people. Responsible people lead a functional, growing, successful society.  Irresponsible people place the responsibility on their leaders, who in turn bend them over and have their way with them.

STUPID voters?  Not really.  Uninformed?  Not so much.  MIS-informed - that is far more accurate. But being misinformed in the world of today, with immediate access to multiple sources of information which bypasses the propaganda institution we laughingly call the main stream media - that is the fault of the individual who is too lazy to bother informing themselves.  This nation has fallen to the age old pitfall of the successful.  We have become lazy and apathetic, thinking our success will continue without the traits which made us successful.

[mhughes]

You don't even have a say in County judgeship elections?

We elect the people who appoint the judges, so only an indirect say.

I'm perfectly fine in not having judges be elected.  As you can see from this thread, many people would just be checking off a box at random making the process worthless.  An appointment is no better or worse, but elections mean there are campaigns which require money and ends up in judges being bought just like our politicians.

[quiller]

We elect the people who appoint the judges, so only an indirect say.

I'm perfectly fine in not having judges be elected.  As you can see from this thread, many people would just be checking off a box at random making the process worthless.  An appointment is no better or worse, but elections mean there are campaigns which require money and ends up in judges being bought just like our politicians.

Oh hell yes, let OTHER people decide who sends you to prison! Phooey! What state is this that such ignorance prevails?

[walkstall]

We elect the people who appoint the judges, so only an indirect say.

I'm perfectly fine in not having judges be elected.  As you can see from this thread, many people would just be checking off a box at random making the process worthless.  An appointment is no better or worse, but elections mean there are campaigns which require money and ends up in judges being bought just like our politicians.

  Yet your not happy with the people that appoint them.  Do you also just randomly check a box for a worthless  congressman, representative or president?

[je_freedom]

Ya know, it's exceedingly hard to be an informed voter nowday's too.

Why do I say that, because of what happened here this recent past election.

I walk in, expecting to find three issues on the ballot.

But surprise, there was more than just the three I was aware of from the news. The thing that irked me the most though, was there was nothing about these "issues" in the local news, They didn't even have information listed about them, on the county board of elections website. And what was even worse, is that these things were written in such a convoluted way, it wasn't clear what it was exactly a person was voting for or against.

So I did the safe thing and voted no on everything! LOL

Trouble with that is, sometimes the ballot language is written so that no means yes.

In my local area, (I don't know about other areas)
the League of Women Voters publishes a tabloid insert for the newspaper
a few weeks before the election.
Copies are also available for free at public libraries.
It's not as informative as I would like, but it's something.

[mhughes]

  Yet your not happy with the people that appoint them.  Do you also just randomly check a box for a worthless  congressman, representative or president?

It's a broken system either way, neither is good. 

Think of it this way... it's best if the will of the people is represented in government.  I'll refer to that as "intent".

You can only have intent if you know about what you are voting for.
Most people vote for congressmen with intent.
Most people do not vote for a judge with intent due to lack of knowledge.

Now, the big question... do enough people with intent vote for a judge to make it statistically significant so that it actually influences the outcome?   My guess is no.  I could be wrong.

Therefore, to have intent in your judges, you should let people who were elected with intent choose them.

[walkstall]

It's a broken system either way, neither is good. 

Think of it this way... it's best if the will of the people is represented in government.  I'll refer to that as "intent".

You can only have intent if you know about what you are voting for.
Most people vote for congressmen with intent.
Most people do not vote for a judge with intent due to lack of knowledge.

Now, the big question... do enough people with intent vote for a judge to make it statistically significant so that it actually influences the outcome?   My guess is no.  I could be wrong.

Therefore, to have intent in your judges, you should let people who were elected with intent choose them.

[mhughes]

Thank you for your well thought out critique.  Care to elaborate on which points you disagree with?

[walkstall]

Thank you for your well thought out critique.  Care to elaborate on which points you disagree with?

Why not just have your Governor appoint your congressman, representative or even the president.  That way you will only have to vote once in your state. 

You should let the Governor who was elected with intent choose them.

[mhughes]

Why not just have your Governor appoint your congressman, representative or even the president.  That way you will only have to vote once in your state. 

You should let the Governor who was elected with intent choose them.

The governor, congressmen, and representatives are likely elected with intent.

Perhaps I should have added something like "Direct intent from voters is better than derived intent" to my list of propositions.

[mhughes]

This whole idea as a math problem has been rattling in my head since I thought of it.  Maybe an example would help to understand why voting might not matter...

Picture a county, there are 100,000 people.

Let's say we were electing a Judge between two candidates, Alice and Bob.

Let's also say that only 2% of the population knew enough about Alice and Bob to make an informed decision, everyone else votes randomly.

And let's also say that, of the informed population, Bob is favored by a good margin, by 10 full points.

So we have 2000 informed voters who vote:
900 Alice
1100 Bob

If only the informed voters vote, Bob wins.  Voter intent successful.  Democracy wins.

But, everyone else votes too.  And they vote randomly.

I just made my computer flip a coin 90,000 times to represent the uninformed voters and got:
Alice: 49127
Bob: 48873

If we total them all up, we get
Alice: 50027
Bob: 49973

Alice wins, voter intent failed.


But hey... it's random.  How likely is it to affect an election like it did in this one example?  So I completely geeked out and wrote up a computer program to simulate 1000 elections.  In it,

Alice won 37.3% of the time.
Bob won 62.7% of the time.

Since purely random would be 50/50, people voting only affected the outcome in 12.7% of the elections.

If you vary the % of informed population, total population, or the point spread you'll get very different numbers.

Any fellow geeks can play with it:
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/13ad08b79bf46d43d375

[kit saginaw]

Rush's idea from last week is a viable solution...  Raise the voting-age to 25. 

Introduce it State-by-State as legislation.  Not as a ballot-initiative.

[redbeard]

This whole idea as a math problem has been rattling in my head since I thought of it.  Maybe an example would help to understand why voting might not matter...

Picture a county, there are 100,000 people.

Let's say we were electing a Judge between two candidates, Alice and Bob.

Let's also say that only 2% of the population knew enough about Alice and Bob to make an informed decision, everyone else votes randomly.

And let's also say that, of the informed population, Bob is favored by a good margin, by 10 full points.

So we have 2000 informed voters who vote:
900 Alice
1100 Bob

If only the informed voters vote, Bob wins.  Voter intent successful.  Democracy wins.

But, everyone else votes too.  And they vote randomly.

I just made my computer flip a coin 90,000 times to represent the uninformed voters and got:
Alice: 49127
Bob: 48873

If we total them all up, we get
Alice: 50027
Bob: 49973

Alice wins, voter intent failed.


But hey... it's random.  How likely is it to affect an election like it did in this one example?  So I completely geeked out and wrote up a computer program to simulate 1000 elections.  In it,

Alice won 37.3% of the time.
Bob won 62.7% of the time.

Since purely random would be 50/50, people voting only affected the outcome in 12.7% of the elections.

If you vary the % of informed population, total population, or the point spread you'll get very different numbers.

Any fellow geeks can play with it:
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/13ad08b79bf46d43d375

I just made my computer flip a coin 90,000 times to represent the uninformed voters and got:
Alice: 49127
Bob: 48873

If we total them all up, we get
Alice: 50027
Bob: 49973

Alice wins, voter intent failed.

Totals 100,000! Where did the other 10,000 unregistered tosses come from? This seems to have a democrat slant to it!!