How do you improve voter turnout?

[gmbteach]

1. Stop character assassinations. Play the ball, not the man.

awww but the current idiot is well... an idiot..

2. Acknowledge that people sometimes make mistakes

They all do that... but you have to admit the current idiot is making monumental ones.

3. Have decent, logical, coherent policies

Does he have any apart from steal from the poor to pay the rich?

4, Be truthful (seems to be the hardest to do)
5. Don't make outrageous claims about yourself, your policies or your opponents

I don't think he has kept a single promise yet - has he?

6. Remember it's not your money you are playing with
7. Don't believe ridiculous, outrageous claims (one for the electorate)
8. Don't complain if you vote for x and they get in, then suffer buyers remorse (caveat emptor). I told you so (another for the electorate)

I didn't vote for the idiot.

9. Compulsory voting - force them to be free.
10. Sometimes the other side gets it right (I didn't say that, really I didn't)

 

[lpetrich]

Anyone who wants to can do so. But if you do so, you'll have a problem. You'll have to finance your campaign.

Furthermore, there's a certain problem with first past the post, as sociologist Maurice Duverger has shown. He noted that fear of spoilers causes convergence on two parties. He also noted that proportional representation is much more friendly to multiple parties. Two-ballot, delayed-runoff elections produce intermediate results.

 

[dx713]

Anyone who wants to can do so. But if you do so, you'll have a problem. You'll have to finance your campaign.

Unless you introduce rules about campaign spending and public financing of campaigns. Then, you can lower that problem.

 

[lpetrich]

I should have been clearer. One has to reach out to potential voters without becoming a lackey of some big campaign contributors, and that seems difficult to do. But Seattle councilwoman Kshama Sawant has been able to do it, so it may be possible.

 

[Underseer]

Increasing voter turnout is a bad thing. If more people vote, then it will be harder for a small group of people to overrule the will of the rest of the population, and anything that is potentially bad for the aristocracy makes us all less free and must be opposed. For freedom. [/facetious]

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

People vote for two reasons, duty and incentive. I've generally voted out of a sense of duty but nothing really changes, even though my vote is a demonstration that democracy is still alive and that's probably good enough.

But considering all the slackers out there who should vote and don't, fine, let them sit on their asses and stay away. But provide an incentive and a reward for persons who take the time. A hundred dollars isn't a lot of money, but if you could deduct this from your taxes owed on your next filing many more people would go to the polls. You wouldn't be making anything mandatory and you wouldn't be punishing anybody.

 

[Blahface]

People vote for two reasons, duty and incentive. I've generally voted out of a sense of duty but nothing really changes, even though my vote is a demonstration that democracy is still alive and that's probably good enough.

But considering all the slackers out there who should vote and don't, fine, let them sit on their asses and stay away. But provide an incentive and a reward for persons who take the time. A hundred dollars isn't a lot of money, but if you could deduct this from your taxes owed on your next filing many more people would go to the polls. You wouldn't be making anything mandatory and you wouldn't be punishing anybody.

I don't want to give incentives for people to vote just for the sake of voting. If you do that, there are going to be a lot more people voting who don't know anything and don't care and will just vote for the guy with the biggest name recognition. This would make the problem with money in politics much worse. As I already said in a previous post, I think it would be better to have a 5% ignorance tax. In order to be exempt from it, you'd have to pass a test about civics and general politics.

 

[laughing dog]

That suspicion reveals more about your mindset than those people. Increasing turnout helps to make the election outcome appear more valid - regardless of the outcome. It gives the winner - regardless who it is - a stronger mandate. This is well-recognized effect around the world.

But does it? If you win with only 20% of the people voting or you win with 90% of the people voting, you're still the government for the next X number of years and you still have just as much power and authority. Your opponents may whine and complain about how you don't have a strong mandate, but you still enact the exact same plans in the exact same way.

For many people it does. I know I would think that someone who wins with a 90% turnout has a stronger mandate than with a 20% turnout even if I didn't like the winner. And it possible a winner with a 20% turnout might modify or be less forceful in his/her plans.

- - - Updated - - -

Why would we want to necessarily increase turnout? Do we really want people who are uninterested in politics and/or too lazy to bother voting deciding who will govern us?
I'd go in the opposite direction and institute some sort of test in order to be able to vote using basic questions like the ones from the US citizenship test.
If you don't know who the president/VP, your Congressman/Senator are or basic facts about US political system then i am not sure you deserve to vote.

I suspect that the people who advocate this assume that an increase in voters would result in their political position winning more at the poles.

That suspicion reveals more about your mindset than those people. Increasing turnout helps to make the election outcome appear more valid - regardless of the outcome. It gives the winner - regardless who it is - a stronger mandate. This is well-recognized effect around the world.

In the Western world voting is not difficult. In my state of Washington we vote by mail and get our ballets two weeks before the election day - yet voter turnout for the last election was 36%. My mindset is that a person's decision not to vote is just a valid as the decision of a person to vote. If people choose not to vote, that is a valid demonstration that these people are disenchanted with the politicians or party. Why is a politician or party owed a mandate? Giant Douche or Turd Sandwich?

Notice that is not logically tied to your claim that people who wish for a higher turnout do so because they think their side will win.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Bribery

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I keep toying with starting a new party down here in Texas, the None Of The Above Party. Let 'em all know how you REALLY feel.
Finally, a party whom you can feel proud to waste your vote on.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Stop voter suppression.

Making voting day a holiday.

Nah. Require businesses provide time and transportation for any workers who are working during voting hours unless the working situation is too remote for this to be reasonable.

Also, you can vote at any voting location (like we now do with early voting.)

 

[gmbteach]

Stop voter suppression.

Making voting day a holiday.

Nah. Require businesses provide time and transportation for any workers who are working during voting hours unless the working situation is too remote for this to be reasonable.

Also, you can vote at any voting location (like we now do with early voting.)

Vote on a Saturday. It's what we do here. We also use well known places such as schools, libraries, council buildings, hospitals etc as polling booths.

 

[Tigers!]

I keep toying with starting a new party down here in Texas, the None Of The Above Party. Let 'em all know how you REALLY feel.
Finally, a party whom you can feel proud to waste your vote on.

Perhaps some more creativity with party names would help.

For years in the UK the Monster Raving Looney Party with Lord Screaming Sutch as it's candidate was a perennial face of elections.

In Canberra I seem to recall the Sun Ripened Tomato Party and the Party, Party Party were on a couple of ballots.

- - - Updated - - -

awww but the current idiot is well... an idiot..

2. Acknowledge that people sometimes make mistakes

They all do that... but you have to admit the current idiot is making monumental ones.

3. Have decent, logical, coherent policies

Does he have any apart from steal from the poor to pay the rich?

4, Be truthful (seems to be the hardest to do)
5. Don't make outrageous claims about yourself, your policies or your opponents

I don't think he has kept a single promise yet - has he?

6. Remember it's not your money you are playing with
7. Don't believe ridiculous, outrageous claims (one for the electorate)
8. Don't complain if you vote for x and they get in, then suffer buyers remorse (caveat emptor). I told you so (another for the electorate)

I didn't vote for the idiot.

9. Compulsory voting - force them to be free.
10. Sometimes the other side gets it right (I didn't say that, really I didn't)

I compare the current occupant with the previous two and I wish we could just forget those three and start again.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Stop voter suppression.

Making voting day a holiday.

Nah. Require businesses provide time and transportation for any workers who are working during voting hours unless the working situation is too remote for this to be reasonable.

Also, you can vote at any voting location (like we now do with early voting.)

Vote on a Saturday. It's what we do here. We also use well known places such as schools, libraries, council buildings, hospitals etc as polling booths.

And nothing is open on a Saturday?? A day where nobody is working is not a realistic option, thus we should make a system that works with this reality.

 

[bleubird]

Yes,a lot of people work an Saturday,but it is still better than Tuesday.
Vote my mail is a good step.

 

[Blahface]

Yes,a lot of people work an Saturday,but it is still better than Tuesday.
Vote my mail is a good step.

It can help increase voter turnout, but it eliminates the secret ballot. I'm not sure that is a reasonable trade-off.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Stop voter suppression.

Making voting day a holiday.

Lots of businesses are open on holidays. The more blue-collar or lower the wage, the more likely that the day not be a holiday. This would really only help white collar workers and government employees.

 

[bilby]

One reason to make voting compulsory in Australia was to make it difficult for employers to restrain their employees from voting by rostering them to work on polling day.

Personally I am strongly in favour of enforcing attendance at the polls; once a voter has had his name ticked off, and been issued a ballot paper, it is then up to him to decide whether to cast a vote or not; but that decision is not being made on the basis of 'Would I rather sit on my arse in front of the TV' - it is a decision not to vote, not a decision not to show up.

The low number of informal votes in Australian elections suggests that, once at a polling booth, most citizens do choose to cast a valid ballot. Few people genuinely have no preference at all; they may hate all the candidates, but there is generally one they hate less than the rest; and a system that forces them to express that preference is, IMO, more likely to produce a democratic outcome than one that allows the apathetic to casually discard the franchise.

 

[Blahface]

One reason to make voting compulsory in Australia was to make it difficult for employers to restrain their employees from voting by rostering them to work on polling day.

Personally I am strongly in favour of enforcing attendance at the polls; once a voter has had his name ticked off, and been issued a ballot paper, it is then up to him to decide whether to cast a vote or not; but that decision is not being made on the basis of 'Would I rather sit on my arse in front of the TV' - it is a decision not to vote, not a decision not to show up.

The low number of informal votes in Australian elections suggests that, once at a polling booth, most citizens do choose to cast a valid ballot. Few people genuinely have no preference at all; they may hate all the candidates, but there is generally one they hate less than the rest; and a system that forces them to express that preference is, IMO, more likely to produce a democratic outcome than one that allows the apathetic to casually discard the franchise.

Forced attendance is a proposition that I used to support. I probably still lean that way, but not as much as I used to. The problem with making attendance voluntary now is that one side will have an incentive to make it as inconvenient as possible for the side they don't like to vote as the Republicans are currently trying todoing. My problem with it though is that once voters are forced to go out of their way to vote, they might feel like they have already paid a cost and may vote just so that they feel that they've gotten something out of it. This would be a problem with low information voters who would be more likely to be influenced by TV ads. This would in effect make the problem with money in politics much worse.

 

[Tigers!]

One reason to make voting compulsory in Australia was to make it difficult for employers to restrain their employees from voting by rostering them to work on polling day.

Personally I am strongly in favour of enforcing attendance at the polls; once a voter has had his name ticked off, and been issued a ballot paper, it is then up to him to decide whether to cast a vote or not; but that decision is not being made on the basis of 'Would I rather sit on my arse in front of the TV' - it is a decision not to vote, not a decision not to show up.

The low number of informal votes in Australian elections suggests that, once at a polling booth, most citizens do choose to cast a valid ballot. Few people genuinely have no preference at all; they may hate all the candidates, but there is generally one they hate less than the rest; and a system that forces them to express that preference is, IMO, more likely to produce a democratic outcome than one that allows the apathetic to casually discard the franchise.

Forced attendance is a proposition that I used to support. I probably still lean that way, but not as much as I used to. The problem with making attendance voluntary now is that one side will have an incentive to make it as inconvenient as possible for the side they don't like to vote as the Republicans are currently trying todoing. My problem with it though is that once voters are forced to go out of their way to vote, they might feel like they have already paid a cost and may vote just so that they feel that they've gotten something out of it. This would be a problem with low information voters who would be more likely to be influenced by TV ads. This would in effect make the problem with money in politics much worse.

In Australia the Electoral Commissions, both Commonwealth and state, are responsible to Parliament, not the government of the day. This means that any changes have to have bi-partisan support (in our 2 party system) which means the status quo will remains. Since the rules have barely changed since compulsory voting in the 1920s and they appear to work and are reasonable they will stay as they are.
However we have worrying signs of carelessness in our commissions appearing. The fact that the senate vote for the state of Western Australia must be repeated because of lost ballots (carelessness it seems rather than malice) is not a good look.