Election Day In Houston

[Cheerful Charlie]

Today was election day in Houston. Only one thing on the ballot. A vote to stop the GOP - Right from removing money from the Houston Independent School District. Part of the right's ongoing campaign to destroy public education in America.

At about 3:15, the polling site was empty. The poll workers stated that almost nobody was bothering to show up. Me and my Brother were apparently the only voters who showed up in hours.

I am so disgusted. Where were the outraged Democrats? The concerned progressives?
Not in the voting booths. This is why everything is going to hell. Apathy and lack of attention to the important details of politics that hurts us all.

I need a drink.

 

[repoman]

hmm. a lot of news cycles getting eaten up on other topics - like looking back at Clinton and Russia if you are on the left instead of looking ahead. Politically left, right or center - people are getting stretched with their focus on all the media available and working and commuting and trying to have free time.

Did the local news not push this election on purpose? Who owns them?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

hmm. a lot of news cycles getting eaten up on other topics - like looking back at Clinton and Russia if you are on the left instead of looking ahead. Politically left, right or center - people are getting stretched with their focus on all the media available and working and commuting and trying to have free time.

Did the local news not push this election on purpose? Who owns them?

We have one paper, The Houston Chronicle, which is dying and I don't keep up with it any more. I suspect few people do around here.

We have the usual NBC, ABC, CBS, and of course cable, but most cable doesn't do much local. Since I don't watch TV, I don't know what, if any reporting there was, but I suspect little. Most news radio here is heavily dominated by far right crap.

Except for hot presidential races, turnout here is low and elections like this are usually abominable as far as turnout. The GOP dominates radio and so the right usually turns out better than the Democrats or Independents. I will have to wait until tomorrow to see how this vote turned out.

Since I do vote, I got some campaign literature urging me to turn up, which is why I knew about it. and as usual, this was all a complex dog's breakfast of a campaign issue, designed to confuse and create FUD.

Bahhhhhh!

 

[LordKiran]

hmm. a lot of news cycles getting eaten up on other topics - like looking back at Clinton and Russia if you are on the left instead of looking ahead. Politically left, right or center - people are getting stretched with their focus on all the media available and working and commuting and trying to have free time.

Did the local news not push this election on purpose? Who owns them?

We have one paper, The Houston Chronicle, which is dying and I don't keep up with it any more. I suspect few people do around here.

We have the usual NBC, ABC, CBS, and of course cable, but most cable doesn't do much local. Since I don't watch TV, I don't know what, if any reporting there was, but I suspect little. Most news radio here is heavily dominated by far right crap.

Except for hot presidential races, turnout here is low and elections like this are usually abominable as far as turnout. The GOP dominates radio and so the right usually turns out better than the Democrats or Independents. I will have to wait until tomorrow to see how this vote turned out.

Since I do vote, I got some campaign literature urging me to turn up, which is why I knew about it. and as usual, this was all a complex dog's breakfast of a campaign issue, designed to confuse and create FUD.

Bahhhhhh!

Your problem then is media presence (Or a lack there of.)

You gotta hand it to the repubs, they've sewn grass roots seeds for decades with local and national radio and it bore fruit.

 

[repoman]

Oddly enough, you might be surprised that I still watch Sam Seder's radio/youtube show about 3 days a week. He was on Air America way back. I agree with a lot of what he has to say except for immigration (I am to the right of Bannon on it) and a few other minor topics.

 

[LordKiran]

Oddly enough, you might be surprised that I still watch Sam Seder's radio/youtube show about 3 days a week. He was on Air America way back. I agree with a lot of what he has to say except for immigration (I am to the right of Bannon on it) and a few other minor topics.

The problem with youtube is that it has trouble reaching the less developed parts of the nation where internet access can be a decade or more behind, in truth it's no real replacement for local radio.

 

[bilby]

The concept of quorum seems to be missing from large scale democracy.

In a committee, boardroom, or other voting body, a minimum proportion of eligible voters must be present, or the vote is invalid.

If people hear that their school district has been de-funded, and their response is "Well I voted to keep the funding", then that's life in a democracy. But if their response is "Wait, what? There was a vote? I never knew there was a vote!", then that's not democracy at all.

Perhaps the rule should be that no measure passes if turnout is below 50% (with an option to abstain, so that your vote can count towards turnout without being counted on either side).

And seats in the legislature should remain vacant for districts with less than 50% turnout of eligible voters.

If people can't be bothered to vote, then that should be represented by their district not having representation in the legislature. A representative elected with 13% of the eligible vote on a turnout of 25% is not truly representative of his district, and shouldn't be able to enact laws.

Of course, this would either lead to some big changes of attitude amongst voters, or some very sparsely populated legislatures. But I'm not sure either of those would be worse than the status quo.

 

[dismal]

This data point just reinforces my fear that not enough people outside the Hollywood acting community fully appreciate that Trump (like Romney before him) is literally Hitler.

They go on about their dull, humdrum, pedestrian (probably racist since you're in Texas) lives not realizing that Trump has begun rounding up the Jews, partitioning Poland and/or made tweets about Andrew Jackson being able to stop the Civil War.

Perhaps they will wish they had voted when they realize it was the last vote ever.

 

[Rayschism]

Replace the l in election with an r and what do you get.

 

[Elixir]

Replace the l in election with an r and what do you get.

Electron?