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...by paying people to vote.
So before beginning this proposal, I need to come clean with the confession that I have never voted in a national election, and unless something similar to my proposal is adopted, do not intend to in the future.
I do so since I believe that my actions and my rationale with regards to voting are entirely independent of the actions and rationale of other registered voters. Therefore, the probability that my vote will influence the outcome of an election multiplied by the realized differences on my way of life (whether it be social or economic) is never worth the time it takes to drive out, wait in line, and vote, nor is it worth the money I would have paid somebody to fill out a form for me. This is even assuming I know which candidate's proposed policies are better for me and assuming I believe the candidate's positions on such policies. I honestly don't know anything about what either candidate in this year's Presidential elections stands for policy-wise other than brief talking points that get recycled over and over again on 24-hour cable news.
Anyway.... the intuitive problem that has become increasingly visible in recent election cycles is the decoupling of election results and popular sentiment. Such contests, whether as a cause or result of non-uniform voter turnout, devolve into ones where the victor is determined by the loudness of, rather than the number of, supporters [citation needed]. A pretty well-publicized example is Wisconsin's recent recall election, whose results demonstrated extreme disparities in voter turnout across age and other demographics. Other elections in recent memory, have elicited similar turnout disparities.
So all you students of political science (and economics and psychology) out there: What are the pros and cons of implementing a "voter's credit" to encourage people to vote in national elections?
How it would work:
1.) When you vote in a national election, either in a ballot box or absentee form, you will receive a confirmation receipt. You can attach your voter's receipt to your tax returns, just as you attach your W-2 or 1099s, in April and claim your "voter's credit."
2.) Shift tax day and election day to coincide. Included with every tax return form is an absentee ballot. If that ballot is folded up, sealed and attached with the tax returns, the taxpayer is eligible to receive a "voter's credit."
These two approaches are equivalent from an economics perspective, minus some minor present-value discounting and inconvenience in the first case, and will indubitably increase voter turnout. Since not all people are strictly rational and most people, in fact, display time-inconsistent decision-making behavior the second option gives people a more immediate reward (not a psychology student so I don't know why this is nor do I know of any sources to support this finding).
So the way I see it, for a relatively small fee, let's say $5 per voter every 2 years, we dramatically increase voter turnout and turn national political campaigns, which unlike voters tend to behave rationally toward the objective of getting the candidate elected, into ones that aim to educate and change peoples' minds instead of ideological circle jerks aimed at mobilizing a political base [citation needed on the circle jerk part].
Assuming transparent and efficacious implementation, benefits such as improved transparency, accountability, and representation would immediately follow.
The costs, however, are nontrivial. Even a $5 credit every two years is almost a billion dollars of tax revenue per annum. Furthermore, minorities who have been traditionally able to defend their interests by turning out disproportionately, would lose such an advantage.
Also poignant is the notion that voting is a right, not a privilege. "If people aren't going to vote that's their problem, not mine."
My take on this is that in order for democracy to work, at least theoretically, you need something approaching uniform representation. While the effect on actual decision-making by government is unclear, the effect on how political campaign are run would be obvious, as stated above.
Some invalid criticisms, however, would be:
"What about bums/illegal immigrants. They don't file tax returns." While this statement is true, it does not stop them from voting using traditional means. They simply will have a harder time collecting their $5. Illegal immigrants aren't really supposed to be voting anyway under current rules, either.
So let's not spout out nonsense here :p
TL;DR
This is a blog. Nobody is making you read it, lol.
  
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Problem: Politicians do not want the vast majority of people to vote. If they did voting could be done easily online.
Adding more people to the pool would change the demographics to such a degree that most of our politicians would not be re-electable, probably.
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People already do get paid to vote. Why do you think such a large portion of the population pays no taxes, draws benefits from others paying into the system, and are loyal to the party that keeps them oppressed ?
;]
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So bribery is your choice to fix democracy?
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Voting is a right.
Rights are enshrined privileges that we can choose to exercise, an incentive to vote invalidates the concept of a right. There should be no incentive to do so, just our own initiative.
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Yeah how did european countries and USA get into the debt problems? Because they voted for parties that promised extravagant benefits. The system works, people vote what they think is best for them and politicians do a lot of what they promise. Except the costs are externalised so they tend to run out of control.
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Not a bad idea in my opinion. More voter turnout would be a good thing, I think. Its disheartening to see how few people vote, though their justifications are valid. Providing a little incentive might be all it takes.
However, I have a hard time imagining something like this ever getting passed. Especially with the pathetic rhetoric that is always present these days
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Pay people to vote?
Watch the gas prices going down right now, that's as close to getting paid you're going to get in this current day.
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Money from the federal government to encourage people to vote?
As in the majority of whatever Congress voted for it keeps a popular majority indefinitely?
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Why not just combine all forms of government in one?
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On June 25 2012 12:01 DigiGnar wrote:
Why not just combine all forms of government in one?
No checks or balances?
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To me, the problem is that it's impossible to vote for one person or one group of people who have the capacity to do what is best for an entire country. It's an antiquated concept in the modern world. The fact you feel your vote is meaningless is part of that - there is no investment or responsibility at a national level - but at a community or regional level, there could be. In a nutshell I'm saying one set of laws and rules is never going to be suitable for a country of diverse people and communities.
I don't have a solid solution but I've been thinking about this for years... and I believe the future of governance is about giving local communities the power to create their own legislation, to ultimately have control over their own fates. This could be at a community level small enough that decisions made are actually relevant to the people they impact and the people involved are visible enough that people really know what they're on about rather than just seeting propaganda on television. As for the "national" governance it could really be stripped back to a kind of trading network with a few basic principles to uphold around human rights.
Like I said, I don't have a solid solution but the way we currently govern ourselves is absurd and meaningless. In saying that, you should vote. If you don't, that's fine, but you don't have any right to complain about anything at all the government does because you've given it up by not voting.
Another issue is that the people in control like things the way it is. It's easy for them to stay in power with the status quo, and a change of governance this radical would probably only come about by revolution. And that's pretty terrible in itself, because there was never a mechanic built into our current governmental systems to allow us to change to another kind. It was just assumed "this is the fairest way, and we will do this forever"...
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As much as in my ideal world we'd always have 100% voter turnout, if that turnout is coming purely for money and not having researched the issues before hand that would be terrible. The political game could quickly focus on the 'casual' vote with one or two big quick policy announcements and those who're completely disengaged are sure as hell not going to care what other issues are at hand, they're simply going to consider it a mild inconvenience in their day for a bit of cash. Serious concerns would, I think, be drowned out very quickly in results.
The solution is to make it easier to vote (and ensure if there's 100% turnout that can all be managed) and a system where politicians can be held to account by those they represent at any time with a right to recall any elected position, though I admit I'm unsure of a logistical solution to this at the time of writing. People don't vote because they don't care, don't believe it'll make a difference or they don't trust the people they're meant to be voting in. Paying might get them to vote, but it doesn't solve the underlying issues.
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Voting in local and state elections is more important than voting for president, because it is basically how your tax dollars that you have to pay are being spent.
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I basically agree with the thrust of what all of you have said.
On June 25 2012 14:14 Imabomb wrote:
Voting in local and state elections is more important than voting for president, because it is basically how your tax dollars that you have to pay are being spent.
State and local elections are often decided by just a handful of votes. Unless you're the <10% of Americans who live in a swing state, the same isn't true for national elections.
Except this guy:
On June 25 2012 11:57 Praetorial wrote:
Money from the federal government to encourage people to vote?
As in the majority of whatever Congress voted for it keeps a popular majority indefinitely?
This guy:
On June 25 2012 12:01 DigiGnar wrote:
Why not just combine all forms of government in one?
who appear not to have bothered to read the OP, and who I believe are operating on the false assumption that this is reddit and you get karma for posting, lol.
In response to
On June 25 2012 11:46 Praetorial wrote:
Voting is a right.
Rights are enshrined privileges that we can choose to exercise, an incentive to vote invalidates the concept of a right. There should be no incentive to do so, just our own initiative.
Just because something is a right doesn't mean we shouldn't incentivize it. Life is an inalienable right, for example, yet people commit suicide all the time. Should we get rid of mental health services and suicide hotlines? Maybe, but I think that failing to provide an incentive for people to exercise their rights, when that exercise is good for the social welfare by means of transparent governance, is inconsistent with insights from economics and psychology.
On June 25 2012 11:38 shinosai wrote:
Problem: Politicians do not want the vast majority of people to vote. If they did voting could be done easily online.
Adding more people to the pool would change the demographics to such a degree that most of our politicians would not be re-electable, probably.
I proposed using the tax returns and absentee ballot systems simply because they have been proven to work, and to implement voter's incentives on top of these systems would not introduce significant additional risk of fraud. Realistically, an electronic system is cheaper and more efficient, provided proper validation is implemented.
On June 25 2012 13:29 Iyerbeth wrote: Paying might get them to vote, but it doesn't solve the underlying issues.
I believe one of the underlying issues is that national political campaigns are circle jerks with the objective of mobilization rather than education or persuasion.
Even if this devolves into
The political game could quickly focus on the 'casual' vote with one or two big quick policy announcements and those who're completely disengaged are sure as hell not going to care what other issues are at hand, they're simply going to consider it a mild inconvenience in their day for a bit of cash.
such trivial policy debates would be a welcome step forward compared to the extravagant sideshow of politicians giving vacuous televised speeches to crowds of hardcore supporters that national politics have become.
Edit: Why do all my blogs have such terribly low ratings?
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
So more uninformed people would vote? The problem with democracy is that regular people are given a power to decide the country's future. But these people have no idea what's best for their country, they don't even know what are the outcomes of their voting decisions.
That's why USA's deficit gets bigger and bigger. No one wants their taxes raised or their benefits cuts. It's fine until you turn into Greece.
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On June 25 2012 14:49 T.O.P. wrote:
So more uninformed people would vote? The problem with democracy is that regular people are given a power to decide the country's future. But these people have no idea what's best for their country, they don't even know what are the outcomes of their voting decisions.
That's why USA's deficit gets bigger and bigger. No one wants their taxes raised or their benefits cuts. It's fine until you turn into Greece.
I'd argue that the way things are has uninformed people voting with a higher turnout than informed people.
I think you're stretching too far with your links of causality. Debt and loss of services as a result of insufficient revenue and inefficient expenditure aren't simply a result of too much representation. It's a general willingness by people not to bear the costs of externalities.
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On June 25 2012 12:01 DigiGnar wrote:
Why not just combine all forms of government in one?
They call that Tyranny.
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Just some questions from an outsider:
Why do you have to register to vote? Does make 0 sense to me.
Why are you not allowed to vote while in jail? Does also not really make sense to me.
Why are there so many "limits" to why/who can vote in the US?
In Switzerland it works like this:
If your Swiss:
Receive documents by mail.
Fill in your vote(s).
Send Mail back in the following weeks (or drop it into the urn).
/end.
But voters turnout is still pretty bad  .
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On June 25 2012 17:56 Velr wrote:
Just some questions from an outsider:
Why do you have to register to vote? Does make 0 sense to me.
Why are you not allowed to vote while in jail? Does also not really make sense to me.
Why are there so many "limits" to why/who can vote in the US?
Long story short, many politicians and interest groups don't actually want everyone to vote, just the people that would vote for *them*. So for example, as the poor Latino population (can't really speak for the affluent subsection) is unlikely to vote Republican, given the vehement anti-immigration stance of most of the Republican candidates, the Republicans have a large incentive to stop this group from voting. It's a simplification of course, but you get the idea.
Doesn't Australia have a system where you're penalized if you *don't* vote? I think that's somewhat similar to what's being proposed here. We could definitely do with a higher turnout in voting - some political/special interest groups certainly have an interest in having fewer and fewer people vote, and creating some incentive to vote (positive or negative) may help. Of course, it's not ideal, but you have to weigh the costs and benefits. Would you rather have higher civic participation (albeit with some doing it half-heartedly), or lower participation, though in theory representing a more spirited/passionate group?
I think a healthy democracy needs passionate voters, but it also needs lukewarm voters. The passionate ones (myself included) can sometimes we blind to other possibilities, or focus on one thing too strongly, losing perspective on the importance of their pet issues, and the more lukewarm voters *can* balance this. It varies according to different countries of course, but overall I'd be in favor of something penalizing people for not voting. Of course, ideally this would be coupled with something like changing the voting day to something more reasonable, and giving people a day off to do it. As it is right now in the States, there are many (mostly poor) workers who don't vote not because they don't care, but because they can't take the time off without jeopardizing their jobs.
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I don't like the idea of having to pay others to vote. The money for this would have to come from taxes, and you are essentially forcing me to pay you to vote and participate in politics. I don't think this is right, and we should look for another way to get people to participate.
I think there should be a focus in schools on civic empowerment so that the "loudest" people aren't just agreed with, and people take more active role in participation. Part of the problem is that there is a gap in civic empowerment that makes people not care as much about participating in politics from an early age. Once this mindset is engrained, it is hard to persuade them otherwise. This can be fixed, but it would require an overhaul of not only the education system as a whole, but specifically how civics is taught in classes (Levinson, No Child Left Behind).
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Punishment for not voting seems better.
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Voter turnout is not the problem. (It's a symptom.) If this worked (and it won't, for a number of reasons both philosophical and financial) then you would simply have a lot of people "voting" only to get the money or tax credit. And by "voting" I mean walking in, casting a ballot without any research or thought beyond "this guy sounds good", and then walking out to get their paperwork.
Informed voters, people that actually can think for themselves and make their own decisions without having their positions spoon fed to them by one talking head or another, are what we need. And there's not a whole lot of demand for it, because it's easier to just pick a side and go with it. The parties don't want you to think about things, they want you to support the party. Period. Redistricting is another word for "gerrymandering" to ensure that the party has the best shot of winning a race in that area, and both parties collaborate on this kind of thing. They also collude to ensure that there's only really the choice of Coke or Pepsi - which is a major disincentive for some when it comes to voting.
Quite frankly, there's not a whole lot of things that make people "excited" to vote. Especially when year after year after year, we keep getting a choice of bad or worse. And when we do manage to elect someone that might have a brain, the rest of the apparatus gets scared and locks the entire process down. Politicians don't like change.
umm. (/rant)
So yeah, TL;dr - paying people to vote is not going to work; and there are studies to that effect across a wide variety of mediums. It's like paying people for good grades - in the long term, it doesn't work.
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Problem is that America only have 2 parties. If both are douches, who would you vote for?
This is not a criticism of America, or either parties, just a mere observation. If no one is representing you, why would you vote for either?
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On June 25 2012 11:35 Gummy wrote:
the probability that my vote will influence the outcome of an election multiplied by the realized differences on my way of life (whether it be social or economic) is never worth the time it takes to drive out, wait in line, and vote, nor is it worth the money I would have paid somebody to fill out a form for me.
this is a complete falsehood. local elections are often influenced by a tiny margin of votes and every single national election has massive amounts of local elections and proposals that are voted on at the same time in the same place. it takes more effort to skip the national voting while voting for the local stuff than it does to put a mark on a piece of paper.
seriously, people need to learn what the fudge they are talking about before they try to justify laziness.
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On June 25 2012 23:29 sc2superfan101 wrote:
it takes more effort to skip the national voting while voting for the local stuff than it does to put a mark on a piece of paper.
So you say doing nothing demands more effort than driving somewhere and waiting to fill out a paper?
Tell me how that works. Thanks.
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On June 26 2012 00:17 Xiron wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2012 23:29 sc2superfan101 wrote:
it takes more effort to skip the national voting while voting for the local stuff than it does to put a mark on a piece of paper.
So you say doing nothing demands more effort than driving somewhere and waiting to fill out a paper? Tell me how that works. Thanks.
did you read the rest of my post?
ok, let me break it down:
in America, we have national, state, and local elections. state and local you also vote on propositions and other cool stuff like that. now, we could have a billion and a half different voting times and places for every little thing, but that would be dumb, so we've brilliantly come up with a solution: we vote on ALL of it at the same time (there are some exceptions which i will go over later) and at the same place.
what that means is that every single time there is a national election, you also vote on a whole slew of local and state-level stuff. local and state-level stuff is extremely important and is voted on at the exact same time, exact same place and on the exact same paper as the national stuff. in fact, the local/state stuff is usually if not always on the back of the paper, whereas the national stuff is on the front.
that means two things:
1) in order to vote on local and state stuff (which is often influenced by a tiny margin) you HAVE to drive to the polling place and get your ballot
2) in order to not vote on national shit, but still vote on local/state shit, you literally have to try to skip the national stuff, because they are on the same exact ballot as the local/state stuff.
so when the OP says it's not worth the drive to vote on national stuff, he is wildly misrepresenting the truth. the truth is that it is absolutely worth the drive to vote on local/state stuff as that is 1) more important than national stuff, and 2) is what really affects your daily life and also has a huge effect on national issues. the real assertion he would be making in that case is either:
1) that he refuses to drive out to vote on local/state stuff which is irresponsible and lazy
or
2) that the effort of putting a pen on a piece of paper is too much for the worth of casting your vote on a national issue. i think that is about as lazy a thing as i have ever heard if that's what he's saying (he's not but that is what the truth would be if he wants to assert that he does vote on local/state stuff)
basically, the OP is admitting that he has no clue how things work, or is trying to justify not voting on anything ever. im not one of these "get out and vote!!!!" guys. if you don't want to vote, or have no clue what's going on in the world around you, then don't vote. simple as that. but if you have any interest in doing you civic duty, than voting is an important part of that. if you're too lazy to find out what is going on in your community than i think you should definitely be too lazy to complain about any of it, unfortunately, the people who are too lazy to vote are often the people who spend hours trying to complain about it and justify not voting. the OP put far more effort into making his post than it requires to vote on national stuff.
edit: the exceptions are only state/local. sometimes there will be special elections where you don't vote on national shit but do vote on state/local stuff. also, aren't congressman considered part of the "national elections" and your congressman is decided by the people in your district. a couple of votes can be the difference between a majority in congress or a minority. it actually is a really big deal.
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Voter turnout is pretty low on the list of problems for Democracy in America anyways so it's kind of barking up the wrong tree.
The bigger problem is that not all votes are equal since corporations and the rich make up the vast vast majority of who's donating to a campaign. Only .22% of people donate >$200, yet that amount makes up 66.1% of the total donations.
Politicians are going to cater to those who help them win the campaign. In today's elections that's donators first, voters second. That's the problem.
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On June 25 2012 18:06 SCPlato wrote:
I don't like the idea of having to pay others to vote. The money for this would have to come from taxes, and you are essentially forcing me to pay you to vote and participate in politics. I don't think this is right, and we should look for another way to get people to participate.
I think there should be a focus in schools on civic empowerment so that the "loudest" people aren't just agreed with, and people take more active role in participation. Part of the problem is that there is a gap in civic empowerment that makes people not care as much about participating in politics from an early age. Once this mindset is engrained, it is hard to persuade them otherwise. This can be fixed, but it would require an overhaul of not only the education system as a whole, but specifically how civics is taught in classes (Levinson, No Child Left Behind).
There is no amount of education or civic empowerment that can get everybody to vote. A large proportion of the population rationally chooses not to vote as a result of the current system.
On June 26 2012 00:40 Logo wrote:
Voter turnout is pretty low on the list of problems for Democracy in America anyways so it's kind of barking up the wrong tree.
The bigger problem is that not all votes are equal since corporations and the rich make up the vast vast majority of who's donating to a campaign. Only .22% of people donate >$200, yet that amount makes up 66.1% of the total donations.
Politicians are going to cater to those who help them win the campaign. In today's elections that's donators first, voters second. That's the problem.
Yes it is barking up the wrong tree, but that's what this thread is about. Please stay on topic.
On June 26 2012 00:29 sc2superfan101 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 00:17 Xiron wrote:On June 25 2012 23:29 sc2superfan101 wrote:
it takes more effort to skip the national voting while voting for the local stuff than it does to put a mark on a piece of paper.
So you say doing nothing demands more effort than driving somewhere and waiting to fill out a paper? Tell me how that works. Thanks. did you read the rest of my post? ok, let me break it down: in America, we have national, state, and local elections. state and local you also vote on propositions and other cool stuff like that. now, we could have a billion and a half different voting times and places for every little thing, but that would be dumb, so we've brilliantly come up with a solution: we vote on ALL of it at the same time (there are some exceptions which i will go over later) and at the same place. what that means is that every single time there is a national election, you also vote on a whole slew of local and state-level stuff. local and state-level stuff is extremely important and is voted on at the exact same time, exact same place and on the exact same paper as the national stuff. in fact, the local/state stuff is usually if not always on the back of the paper, whereas the national stuff is on the front. that means two things: 1) in order to vote on local and state stuff (which is often influenced by a tiny margin) you HAVE to drive to the polling place and get your ballot 2) in order to not vote on national shit, but still vote on local/state shit, you literally have to try to skip the national stuff, because they are on the same exact ballot as the local/state stuff. so when the OP says it's not worth the drive to vote on national stuff, he is wildly misrepresenting the truth. the truth is that it is absolutely worth the drive to vote on local/state stuff as that is 1) more important than national stuff, and 2) is what really affects your daily life and also has a huge effect on national issues. the real assertion he would be making in that case is either: 1) that he refuses to drive out to vote on local/state stuff which is irresponsible and lazy or 2) that the effort of putting a pen on a piece of paper is too much for the worth of casting your vote on a national issue. i think that is about as lazy a thing as i have ever heard if that's what he's saying (he's not but that is what the truth would be if he wants to assert that he does vote on local/state stuff) basically, the OP is admitting that he has no clue how things work, or is trying to justify not voting on anything ever. im not one of these "get out and vote!!!!" guys. if you don't want to vote, or have no clue what's going on in the world around you, then don't vote. simple as that. but if you have any interest in doing you civic duty, than voting is an important part of that. if you're too lazy to find out what is going on in your community than i think you should definitely be too lazy to complain about any of it, unfortunately, the people who are too lazy to vote are often the people who spend hours trying to complain about it and justify not voting. the OP put far more effort into making his post than it requires to vote on national stuff. edit: the exceptions are only state/local. sometimes there will be special elections where you don't vote on national shit but do vote on state/local stuff. also, aren't congressman considered part of the "national elections" and your congressman is decided by the people in your district. a couple of votes can be the difference between a majority in congress or a minority. it actually is a really big deal.
Not sure why you can't keep this discussion civil. I believe the same principle should be applied to local elections too, but that would create some legal issues with states rights. I don't vote in local elections not because they don't matter, but because I haven't been able to call a single place home since I turned 18 and, therefore, do not feel obliged or qualified to vote in such elections in a location I just happened to be when I turned 18, and the effect of my decision may effect other peoples' lives.
On June 25 2012 19:45 felisconcolori wrote:
So yeah, TL;dr - paying people to vote is not going to work; and there are studies to that effect across a wide variety of mediums. It's like paying people for good grades - in the long term, it doesn't work.
I'm pretty sure that more recent studies "paying" people for good grades suggest that it is the implementation of incentives rather than the incentives themselves that have prevented their success in the past. See http://www.edlabs.harvard.edu/
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you're focusing on the results not on the cause of the problem. people don't vote because either they are happy with how the government is doing (or certainly not bad enough to bother to go to the polls) or they don't think their vote will matter ( eg, both parties are corrupt/inept etc) In fact, as a capitalistic society, we should be happy that people choose to maximize their utility whether that could be reached by voting or not voting.
and besides, paying money to vote? the poor and uneducated would be the first to vote. $5 would simply be too little an incentive to motivate the middle class and even if your plan works and everyone votes, all we would be doing is increasing the money supply and decreasing purchasing power.
and if you read freakonomics, you would know the voter turnout would actually decrease because they would see the penalty as a fair way of not voting. most people vote not for financial incentives but for the satisfaction. if you put a dollar amount to this "sacred" duty, it will actually lose value.
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On June 26 2012 02:08 Gummy wrote:
Not sure why you can't keep this discussion civil. I believe the same principle should be applied to local elections too, but that would create some legal issues with states rights. I don't vote in local elections not because they don't matter, but because I haven't been able to call a single place home since I turned 18 and, therefore, do not feel obliged or qualified to vote in such elections in a location I just happened to be when I turned 18, and the effect of my decision may effect other peoples' lives.
what is uncivil about what i said? you were misrepresenting the facts and i called you on it. you may not have been misrepresenting them on purpose, but you were doing it and people outside the country or people who haven't voted may not be able to realize that you were. you (and anyone else) not voting has nothing to do with the cost of driving and waiting.
so you don't vote at all? okay, then where do you get off asking for someone to pay you to vote? and if you don't vote because you don't live in the area long enough, then why should we pay you to vote...? the reason you aren't voting has nothing to do with a cost-benefit analysis which means the cost-benefit is completely irrelevant.
for other people who do not vote, they cannot claim a cost-benefit analysis as their reason, as local/state elections are plenty important and voting gives plenty of benefit to account for a fifteen minute drive and a wait in a line. cost-benefit has nothing to do with why people don't vote. people don't vote because people are lazy. it's that simple. that's not an insult, it's just how it is.
edit: basically, it's not legit to separate local/state voting from national voting, because they are not separate actions. and for that reason it is not legit to claim a cost-benefit reason for not voting in national elections, because the benefit of voting in local/state is high enough to account for the drive and the wait, and voting in the national elections takes no effort if you vote in local/state elections.
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On June 26 2012 02:30 dongmydrum wrote:
you're focusing on the results not on the cause of the problem. people don't vote because either they are happy with how the government is doing (or certainly not bad enough to bother to go to the polls) or they don't think their vote will matter ( eg, both parties are corrupt/inept etc) In fact, as a capitalistic society, we should be happy that people choose to maximize their utility whether that could be reached by voting or not voting.
and besides, paying money to vote? the poor and uneducated would be the first to vote. $5 would simply be too little an incentive to motivate the middle class and even if your plan works and everyone votes, all we would be doing is increasing the money supply and decreasing purchasing power.
To see why your logic is faulty, consider an extreme example. The cost of voting is sufficiently high, the population binning is sufficiently coarse, and the consequences of the election are sufficiently minor. 99.99% of people in a voting situation, with individual rationale, believe that it is not worth their time and energy to vote. The .01% of people, who for the sake of argument always have an opposite set of interests as the 99.99%, make all the decisions.
Now you could say "now if somebody knows they are part of the 99.99% why don't they go and vote?" This is tricky though... Just because you feel that way doesn't mean anybody else will feel that way. And unless you can get a particular 0.01% of the population to vote with you, (which requires a very very large amount of effort since in the United States that's 30,000 people), your initial evaluation is entirely correct, as is the other 99.99%'s.
Thus, with a poorly designed incentive system you get an outcome derived from everybody being able to
choose to maximize their utility whether that could be reached by voting or not voting
that is worse for 99.99% of the population.
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I cannot possibly see how this could ever be abused by politicians. This plan is just so perfect that it can't fail, because elections are like ESPORTS - the more money you pump into them, the better they get! We should also pay people to not commit crimes and obey the law! OH MY GOD, GENIUS. THINK ABOUT IT. People would be motivated to uphold the statutes of the law because they'd have an incentive to do so now!
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On June 26 2012 02:53 ninazerg wrote:
I cannot possibly see how this could ever be abused by politicians. This plan is just so perfect that it can't fail, because elections are like ESPORTS - the more money you pump into them, the better they get! We should also pay people to not commit crimes and obey the law! OH MY GOD, GENIUS. THINK ABOUT IT. People would be motivated to uphold the statutes of the law because they'd have an incentive to do so now!
Your sarcasm is misplaced. There are already incentives not to commit crime. A carrot and a stick are the same thing, with regards to game theory, minus a constant. I suppose there are psychological differences involved, but that's missing the mark. The majority of violent crimes or theft occur as a result of desperation, passion, or psychosis. Other crimes, such as insider trading, drug trafficking, tax evasion, etc... are committed systematically with the knowledge that enforcement is lax enough such that the probability of getting caught does not outweigh the payoff.
The process of logical analysis is often one of simplification, but you need to be careful not to simplify out the most salient characteristics of the problem.
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I'm all for a greater interest in elections and citizen participation in governing their own country, but I don't want stupid and or lazy people voting in order to earn a few bucks. We already have the right to leave our job in order to vote, to cast ballots ahead of time etc., I think that's plenty.
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On June 26 2012 02:52 Gummy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 02:30 dongmydrum wrote:
you're focusing on the results not on the cause of the problem. people don't vote because either they are happy with how the government is doing (or certainly not bad enough to bother to go to the polls) or they don't think their vote will matter ( eg, both parties are corrupt/inept etc) In fact, as a capitalistic society, we should be happy that people choose to maximize their utility whether that could be reached by voting or not voting.
and besides, paying money to vote? the poor and uneducated would be the first to vote. $5 would simply be too little an incentive to motivate the middle class and even if your plan works and everyone votes, all we would be doing is increasing the money supply and decreasing purchasing power. To see why your logic is faulty, consider an extreme example. The cost of voting is sufficiently high, the population binning is sufficiently coarse, and the consequences of the election are sufficiently minor. 99.99% of people in a voting situation, with individual rationale, believe that it is not worth their time and energy to vote. The .01% of people, who for the sake of argument always have an opposite set of interests as the 99.99%, make all the decisions. Now you could say "now if somebody knows they are part of the 99.99% why don't they go and vote?" This is tricky though... Just because you feel that way doesn't mean anybody else will feel that way. And unless you can get a particular 0.01% of the population to vote with you, (which requires a very very large amount of effort since in the United States that's 30,000 people), your initial evaluation is entirely correct, as is the other 99.99%'s. Thus, with a poorly designed incentive system you get an outcome derived from everybody being able to Show nested quote +choose to maximize their utility whether that could be reached by voting or not voting that is worse for 99.99% of the population.
But consider the next election. 99.99% will realize that they have to vote because the controlling power will do the opposite of what they want. the 99.99% also realize that, as you realize, it becomes a prisoner's dillema. they have no way of knowing how other people will act. some may believe that enough people will vote and some may not believe that enough people will vote.a lot of people will have this hope that they will be the 1 vote that tips the scale in their favor however improbable that may be and those people will go to vote. I'm sure "you" will go and vote because you believe my logic is faulty. if i can get enough people like you then no problem. Meanwhile, people like me believe people like you will vote and don't have to worry about 0.01% taking over.
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I don't like the idea of having to pay others to vote. The money for this would have to come from taxes, and you are essentially forcing me to pay you to vote and participate in politics.
I like thinking about it in this way. You pay a tax which pays people to vote, and then you get the money you paid for the tax right back. It's completely meaningless!
Even forgiving that tho, I think it just encourages people to make uninformed decisions (not that they aren't basically already that way). If your incentive to vote is to get money, and you woudn't have voted otherwise, chances are that you're not going to research that vote very well.
If you wanna talk about why people aren't voting tho, it's probably disillusionment. Either because you don't care which candidate gets elected since none of them represent your concerns or they're too similar. In a lot of cases your life remains more or less the same no matter which party gets elected and it's all just an expensive show to you.
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On June 26 2012 03:01 Gummy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 02:53 ninazerg wrote:
I cannot possibly see how this could ever be abused by politicians. This plan is just so perfect that it can't fail, because elections are like ESPORTS - the more money you pump into them, the better they get! We should also pay people to not commit crimes and obey the law! OH MY GOD, GENIUS. THINK ABOUT IT. People would be motivated to uphold the statutes of the law because they'd have an incentive to do so now! Your sarcasm is misplaced. There are already incentives not to commit crime. A carrot and a stick are the same thing, with regards to game theory, minus a constant. I suppose there are psychological differences involved, but that's missing the mark. The majority of violent crimes or theft occur as a result of desperation, passion, or psychosis. Other crimes, such as insider trading, drug trafficking, tax evasion, etc... are committed systematically with the knowledge that enforcement is lax enough such that the probability of getting caught does not outweigh the payoff. The process of logical analysis is often one of simplification, but you need to be careful not to simplify out the most salient characteristics of the problem.
I disagree, and maintain that my sarcasm is placed appropriately. Paying people to vote would not "fix" a democratic process, because the monetary incentive probably wouldn't be substantial enough to motivate people to vote, and this line of thought is especially flawed by thinking that adding numbers to the active electorate would somehow improve the way politics functions. People don't go to the polls often because they feel like their individual vote is not significant enough to have any influence over an election that is largely predetermined during the race, and having a monetary incentive would not change this point of view. They would still view their vote as insignificant, regardless of the pay-out they would receive for voting. Additionally, if more people from lower socio-economic backgrounds were added to the voting pool, this would add to the number of misinformed and uneducated voters.
Also, consider this:
Let's say your idea works, and 200,000,000 people vote in the next election.
To pay each person $5 would cost a billion dollars. No problem, right?
The average American makes about 27,000 dollars per year. The average tax rate is about 22%.
22% of 27,000 is 5,940 dollars. A billion dollars is one one-thousandth of a trillion dollars. $5.94 is one one-thousandth of $5,940 dollars, so I would be essentially paying myself to vote. In fact, I would be losing money.
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On June 26 2012 02:08 Gummy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2012 18:06 SCPlato wrote:
I don't like the idea of having to pay others to vote. The money for this would have to come from taxes, and you are essentially forcing me to pay you to vote and participate in politics. I don't think this is right, and we should look for another way to get people to participate.
I think there should be a focus in schools on civic empowerment so that the "loudest" people aren't just agreed with, and people take more active role in participation. Part of the problem is that there is a gap in civic empowerment that makes people not care as much about participating in politics from an early age. Once this mindset is engrained, it is hard to persuade them otherwise. This can be fixed, but it would require an overhaul of not only the education system as a whole, but specifically how civics is taught in classes (Levinson, No Child Left Behind). There is no amount of education or civic empowerment that can get everybody to vote. A large proportion of the population rationally chooses not to vote as a result of the current system. Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 00:40 Logo wrote:
Voter turnout is pretty low on the list of problems for Democracy in America anyways so it's kind of barking up the wrong tree.
The bigger problem is that not all votes are equal since corporations and the rich make up the vast vast majority of who's donating to a campaign. Only .22% of people donate >$200, yet that amount makes up 66.1% of the total donations.
Politicians are going to cater to those who help them win the campaign. In today's elections that's donators first, voters second. That's the problem. Yes it is barking up the wrong tree, but that's what this thread is about. Please stay on topic. Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 00:29 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 26 2012 00:17 Xiron wrote:On June 25 2012 23:29 sc2superfan101 wrote:
it takes more effort to skip the national voting while voting for the local stuff than it does to put a mark on a piece of paper.
So you say doing nothing demands more effort than driving somewhere and waiting to fill out a paper? Tell me how that works. Thanks. did you read the rest of my post? ok, let me break it down: in America, we have national, state, and local elections. state and local you also vote on propositions and other cool stuff like that. now, we could have a billion and a half different voting times and places for every little thing, but that would be dumb, so we've brilliantly come up with a solution: we vote on ALL of it at the same time (there are some exceptions which i will go over later) and at the same place. what that means is that every single time there is a national election, you also vote on a whole slew of local and state-level stuff. local and state-level stuff is extremely important and is voted on at the exact same time, exact same place and on the exact same paper as the national stuff. in fact, the local/state stuff is usually if not always on the back of the paper, whereas the national stuff is on the front. that means two things: 1) in order to vote on local and state stuff (which is often influenced by a tiny margin) you HAVE to drive to the polling place and get your ballot 2) in order to not vote on national shit, but still vote on local/state shit, you literally have to try to skip the national stuff, because they are on the same exact ballot as the local/state stuff. so when the OP says it's not worth the drive to vote on national stuff, he is wildly misrepresenting the truth. the truth is that it is absolutely worth the drive to vote on local/state stuff as that is 1) more important than national stuff, and 2) is what really affects your daily life and also has a huge effect on national issues. the real assertion he would be making in that case is either: 1) that he refuses to drive out to vote on local/state stuff which is irresponsible and lazy or 2) that the effort of putting a pen on a piece of paper is too much for the worth of casting your vote on a national issue. i think that is about as lazy a thing as i have ever heard if that's what he's saying (he's not but that is what the truth would be if he wants to assert that he does vote on local/state stuff) basically, the OP is admitting that he has no clue how things work, or is trying to justify not voting on anything ever. im not one of these "get out and vote!!!!" guys. if you don't want to vote, or have no clue what's going on in the world around you, then don't vote. simple as that. but if you have any interest in doing you civic duty, than voting is an important part of that. if you're too lazy to find out what is going on in your community than i think you should definitely be too lazy to complain about any of it, unfortunately, the people who are too lazy to vote are often the people who spend hours trying to complain about it and justify not voting. the OP put far more effort into making his post than it requires to vote on national stuff. edit: the exceptions are only state/local. sometimes there will be special elections where you don't vote on national shit but do vote on state/local stuff. also, aren't congressman considered part of the "national elections" and your congressman is decided by the people in your district. a couple of votes can be the difference between a majority in congress or a minority. it actually is a really big deal. Not sure why you can't keep this discussion civil. I believe the same principle should be applied to local elections too, but that would create some legal issues with states rights. I don't vote in local elections not because they don't matter, but because I haven't been able to call a single place home since I turned 18 and, therefore, do not feel obliged or qualified to vote in such elections in a location I just happened to be when I turned 18, and the effect of my decision may effect other peoples' lives. Show nested quote +On June 25 2012 19:45 felisconcolori wrote:
So yeah, TL;dr - paying people to vote is not going to work; and there are studies to that effect across a wide variety of mediums. It's like paying people for good grades - in the long term, it doesn't work. I'm pretty sure that more recent studies "paying" people for good grades suggest that it is the implementation of incentives rather than the incentives themselves that have prevented their success in the past. See http://www.edlabs.harvard.edu/
Yeah, the numbers that choose to "rationally" not vote are not high. There are far more who are basically just disenfranchised. I guarantee that if civics was emphasized more in school that voting turnout would be significantly higher. 100%? of course not, but that doesn't mean that you can't make real improvement from where we are at now.
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On June 26 2012 03:51 ninazerg wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 03:01 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 02:53 ninazerg wrote:
I cannot possibly see how this could ever be abused by politicians. This plan is just so perfect that it can't fail, because elections are like ESPORTS - the more money you pump into them, the better they get! We should also pay people to not commit crimes and obey the law! OH MY GOD, GENIUS. THINK ABOUT IT. People would be motivated to uphold the statutes of the law because they'd have an incentive to do so now! Your sarcasm is misplaced. There are already incentives not to commit crime. A carrot and a stick are the same thing, with regards to game theory, minus a constant. I suppose there are psychological differences involved, but that's missing the mark. The majority of violent crimes or theft occur as a result of desperation, passion, or psychosis. Other crimes, such as insider trading, drug trafficking, tax evasion, etc... are committed systematically with the knowledge that enforcement is lax enough such that the probability of getting caught does not outweigh the payoff. The process of logical analysis is often one of simplification, but you need to be careful not to simplify out the most salient characteristics of the problem. I disagree, and maintain that my sarcasm is placed appropriately. Paying people to vote would not "fix" a democratic process, because the monetary incentive probably wouldn't be substantial enough to motivate people to vote, and this line of thought is especially flawed by thinking that adding numbers to the active electorate would somehow improve the way politics functions. People don't go to the polls often because they feel like their individual vote is not significant enough to have any influence over an election that is largely predetermined during the race, and having a monetary incentive would not change this point of view. They would still view their vote as insignificant, regardless of the pay-out they would receive for voting. Additionally, if more people from lower socio-economic backgrounds were added to the voting pool, this would add to the number of misinformed and uneducated voters. Also, consider this: Let's say your idea works, and 200,000,000 people vote in the next election. To pay each person $5 would cost a billion dollars. No problem, right? The average American makes about 27,000 dollars per year. The average tax rate is about 22%. 22% of 27,000 is 5,940 dollars. A billion dollars is one one-thousandth of a trillion dollars. $5.94 is one one-thousandth of $5,940 dollars, so I would be essentially paying myself to vote. In fact, I would be losing money.
Your calculations, first of all, are grossly misinformed. 27 is an estimate of the median, not a mean, for one. Secondly, you introduce the number "1 trillion" out of thin air. Then you make a conclusion that does not follow from your math. But I think your point is a valid argument against my proposed implementation. I don't think it's a valid argument against the concept, or my second proposal to 2.) Shift tax day and election day to coincide. Included with every tax return form is an absentee ballot. If that ballot is folded up, sealed and attached with the tax returns, the taxpayer is eligible to receive a "voter's credit."
People here who are saying that you are paying yourself to vote are essentially correct. On a macro scale, however, you are more accurately penalizing people who do not vote. But again, in game theory the difference between a carrot and stick is only a constant.
On June 26 2012 03:20 Chef wrote:
If you wanna talk about why people aren't voting tho, it's probably disillusionment. Either because you don't care which candidate gets elected since none of them represent your concerns or they're too similar. In a lot of cases your life remains more or less the same no matter which party gets elected and it's all just an expensive show to you.
On June 26 2012 03:53 SCPlato wrote:
Yeah, the numbers that choose to "rationally" not vote are not high. There are far more who are basically just disenfranchised. I guarantee that if civics was emphasized more in school that voting turnout would be significantly higher. 100%? of course not, but that doesn't mean that you can't make real improvement from where we are at now.
I agree entirely with what you are saying, but am using a slightly different term for it. In my model, disillusionment IS rational. To summarize my model from the OP, it is worth voting in a bicameral national election only if if the probability of your vote making a difference multiplied by the net benefit of policies to be pursued by the two candidates is greater than the cost of voting. Disillusionment, or specifically "not caring which candidate gets elected," falls squarely within that model.
That being said, the main thrust of the argument in favor of voter incentivization is that if people vote by default instead of not vote by default, the higher voter turnout will force political campaigns to focus on education and persuasion as opposed to mobilization.
The former leads to moderation and consensus building, which are key to informed policy-making in a bicameral government. The latter leads to disruptive selection toward more extreme viewpoints.
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On June 26 2012 03:54 Gummy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 03:51 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 03:01 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 02:53 ninazerg wrote:
I cannot possibly see how this could ever be abused by politicians. This plan is just so perfect that it can't fail, because elections are like ESPORTS - the more money you pump into them, the better they get! We should also pay people to not commit crimes and obey the law! OH MY GOD, GENIUS. THINK ABOUT IT. People would be motivated to uphold the statutes of the law because they'd have an incentive to do so now! Your sarcasm is misplaced. There are already incentives not to commit crime. A carrot and a stick are the same thing, with regards to game theory, minus a constant. I suppose there are psychological differences involved, but that's missing the mark. The majority of violent crimes or theft occur as a result of desperation, passion, or psychosis. Other crimes, such as insider trading, drug trafficking, tax evasion, etc... are committed systematically with the knowledge that enforcement is lax enough such that the probability of getting caught does not outweigh the payoff. The process of logical analysis is often one of simplification, but you need to be careful not to simplify out the most salient characteristics of the problem. I disagree, and maintain that my sarcasm is placed appropriately. Paying people to vote would not "fix" a democratic process, because the monetary incentive probably wouldn't be substantial enough to motivate people to vote, and this line of thought is especially flawed by thinking that adding numbers to the active electorate would somehow improve the way politics functions. People don't go to the polls often because they feel like their individual vote is not significant enough to have any influence over an election that is largely predetermined during the race, and having a monetary incentive would not change this point of view. They would still view their vote as insignificant, regardless of the pay-out they would receive for voting. Additionally, if more people from lower socio-economic backgrounds were added to the voting pool, this would add to the number of misinformed and uneducated voters. Also, consider this: Let's say your idea works, and 200,000,000 people vote in the next election. To pay each person $5 would cost a billion dollars. No problem, right? The average American makes about 27,000 dollars per year. The average tax rate is about 22%. 22% of 27,000 is 5,940 dollars. A billion dollars is one one-thousandth of a trillion dollars. $5.94 is one one-thousandth of $5,940 dollars, so I would be essentially paying myself to vote. In fact, I would be losing money. Your calculations, first of all, are grossly misinformed. 27 is an estimate of the median, not a mean, for one. Secondly, you introduce the number "1 trillion" out of thin air. Then you make a conclusion that does not follow from your math.
The federal revenue from income taxes in 2012 was $1.14 trillion dollars.
You would be spending about 1/1000th of that on election incentives.
1/1000th of the average tax payer's income taxes is more than 5 dollars.
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On June 26 2012 02:38 sc2superfan101 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 02:08 Gummy wrote:
Not sure why you can't keep this discussion civil. I believe the same principle should be applied to local elections too, but that would create some legal issues with states rights. I don't vote in local elections not because they don't matter, but because I haven't been able to call a single place home since I turned 18 and, therefore, do not feel obliged or qualified to vote in such elections in a location I just happened to be when I turned 18, and the effect of my decision may effect other peoples' lives. what is uncivil about what i said? you were misrepresenting the facts and i called you on it. you may not have been misrepresenting them on purpose, but you were doing it and people outside the country or people who haven't voted may not be able to realize that you were. you (and anyone else) not voting has nothing to do with the cost of driving and waiting. so you don't vote at all? okay, then where do you get off asking for someone to pay you to vote? and if you don't vote because you don't live in the area long enough, then why should we pay you to vote...? the reason you aren't voting has nothing to do with a cost-benefit analysis which means the cost-benefit is completely irrelevant. for other people who do not vote, they cannot claim a cost-benefit analysis as their reason, as local/state elections are plenty important and voting gives plenty of benefit to account for a fifteen minute drive and a wait in a line. cost-benefit has nothing to do with why people don't vote. people don't vote because people are lazy. it's that simple. that's not an insult, it's just how it is. edit: basically, it's not legit to separate local/state voting from national voting, because they are not separate actions. and for that reason it is not legit to claim a cost-benefit reason for not voting in national elections, because the benefit of voting in local/state is high enough to account for the drive and the wait, and voting in the national elections takes no effort if you vote in local/state elections.
What is uncivil is that you are first and foremost claiming that I am misrepresenting facts without pointing to any particular statements as being misrepresented. A very large number of local and national elections do not coincide as you readily admit.
Even if every election coincided, you are still failing to address the 2 key points here:
1.) Incentivizing voting results in increased voter turnout.
2.) That the net benefits of increased voter turnout is worth the cost of this incentive program.
Your argument is basically, if I am understanding it correctly:
People who care vote in local elections, and if they care enough to vote in local elections they will by default vote in a large number of national elections. "People who don't are lazy" with the implication that these people shouldn't have a voice in government.
A valid criticism I can take from your argument is that "because voting in local elections and voting in national elections are often the same action, the effect of your proposed measure on voter turnout will likely be less significant than you suggest" but you seem to have more interest engaging with the person making the argument than the argument itself.
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Imo a major problem with democracy isn't that people don't vote. It's that stupid (to be less crude "uninformed") people vote. No need to aggravate an already defunct system ruled by passion and ignorance rather than reasoned choice. Why would we want to flood the ballot system with even more votes based on absolute ignorance?
They should put an easy multiple choice test related to the vote on every item. It'll be 3 questions that anyone informed of the issue can answer. If you get less than 2/3, then your ballot choice for the tested vote is automatically voided.
Obviously I'm joking with the above suggestion, but to get back to OP paying people to vote won't fix democracy. Even disregarding the stance that it's a "right", this payment measure will basically undermine the very thing it's trying to protect. Let's get disinterested people to vote solely for remuneration instead of genuine interest in the substantive issue. I'm sure that won't skew results at all.
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On June 26 2012 04:11 ninazerg wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 03:54 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 03:51 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 03:01 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 02:53 ninazerg wrote:
I cannot possibly see how this could ever be abused by politicians. This plan is just so perfect that it can't fail, because elections are like ESPORTS - the more money you pump into them, the better they get! We should also pay people to not commit crimes and obey the law! OH MY GOD, GENIUS. THINK ABOUT IT. People would be motivated to uphold the statutes of the law because they'd have an incentive to do so now! Your sarcasm is misplaced. There are already incentives not to commit crime. A carrot and a stick are the same thing, with regards to game theory, minus a constant. I suppose there are psychological differences involved, but that's missing the mark. The majority of violent crimes or theft occur as a result of desperation, passion, or psychosis. Other crimes, such as insider trading, drug trafficking, tax evasion, etc... are committed systematically with the knowledge that enforcement is lax enough such that the probability of getting caught does not outweigh the payoff. The process of logical analysis is often one of simplification, but you need to be careful not to simplify out the most salient characteristics of the problem. I disagree, and maintain that my sarcasm is placed appropriately. Paying people to vote would not "fix" a democratic process, because the monetary incentive probably wouldn't be substantial enough to motivate people to vote, and this line of thought is especially flawed by thinking that adding numbers to the active electorate would somehow improve the way politics functions. People don't go to the polls often because they feel like their individual vote is not significant enough to have any influence over an election that is largely predetermined during the race, and having a monetary incentive would not change this point of view. They would still view their vote as insignificant, regardless of the pay-out they would receive for voting. Additionally, if more people from lower socio-economic backgrounds were added to the voting pool, this would add to the number of misinformed and uneducated voters. Also, consider this: Let's say your idea works, and 200,000,000 people vote in the next election. To pay each person $5 would cost a billion dollars. No problem, right? The average American makes about 27,000 dollars per year. The average tax rate is about 22%. 22% of 27,000 is 5,940 dollars. A billion dollars is one one-thousandth of a trillion dollars. $5.94 is one one-thousandth of $5,940 dollars, so I would be essentially paying myself to vote. In fact, I would be losing money. Your calculations, first of all, are grossly misinformed. 27 is an estimate of the median, not a mean, for one. Secondly, you introduce the number "1 trillion" out of thin air. Then you make a conclusion that does not follow from your math. The federal revenue from income taxes in 2012 was $1.14 trillion dollars.You would be spending about 1/1000th of that on election incentives. 1/1000th of the average tax payer's income taxes is more than 5 dollars.
I see what your saying but the way you're calculating it is overly complex and largely incorrect. When you multiply the median by the number of items you don't get the total. You're thinking of the mean.
A simpler and more precise model would be the following:
Have a voter credit of $m for the (p*n) people who decide to vote in yearly national elections, where p is the proportion of people who vote and n is the total population of eligible voters. Raise $(p*m*n) of revenue across n persons to fund the program.
Each of the n persons pays $(p*m). If you vote, you get a net benefit of $(1-p)*m. If you do not, you are out $(p*m).
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On June 26 2012 04:24 PassionFruit wrote:
Imo a major problem with democracy isn't that people don't vote. It's that stupid (to be less crude "uninformed") people vote. No need to aggravate an already defunct system ruled by passion and ignorance rather than reasoned choice. Why would we want to flood the ballot system with even more votes based on absolute ignorance?
They should put an easy multiple choice test related to the vote on every item. It'll be 3 questions that anyone informed of the issue can answer. If you get less than 2/3, then your ballot choice for the tested vote is automatically voided.
Obviously I'm joking with the above suggestion, but to get back to OP paying people to vote won't fix democracy. Even disregarding the stance that it's a "right", this payment measure will basically undermine the very thing it's trying to protect. Let's get disinterested people to vote solely for remuneration instead of genuine interest in the substantive issue. I'm sure that won't skew results at all.
I agree with this totally. I'm starting to wonder what the OP's political views are.
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On June 26 2012 04:24 PassionFruit wrote:
Imo a major problem with democracy isn't that people don't vote. It's that stupid (to be less crude "uninformed") people vote. No need to aggravate an already defunct system ruled by passion and ignorance rather than reasoned choice. Why would we want to flood the ballot system with even more votes based on absolute ignorance?
They should put an easy multiple choice test related to the vote on every item. It'll be 3 questions that anyone informed of the issue can answer. If you get less than 2/3, then your ballot choice for the tested vote is automatically voided.
Obviously I'm joking with the above suggestion, but to get back to OP paying people to vote won't fix democracy. Even disregarding the stance that it's a "right", this payment measure will basically undermine the very thing it's trying to protect. Let's get disinterested people to vote solely for remuneration instead of genuine interest in the substantive issue. I'm sure that won't skew results at all.
It may very well skew the results. But it will certainly skew the rhetoric of national political campaigns.
Overall, I believe you are overestimating the value of "genuine" interest. Material interest is enough for many if not most.
On June 26 2012 04:27 ninazerg wrote:
I agree with this totally. I'm starting to wonder what the OP's political views are.
My political views are basically irrelevant, and I don't think my political views affect my defense of this proposal. But fyi, I would consider myself a limited libertarian. I'm socially liberal and fiscally conservative, though I do believe certain infrastructure investments and services are better for everybody if they are either financially supported or mandated by the federal government.
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On June 26 2012 04:26 Gummy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 04:11 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 03:54 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 03:51 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 03:01 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 02:53 ninazerg wrote:
I cannot possibly see how this could ever be abused by politicians. This plan is just so perfect that it can't fail, because elections are like ESPORTS - the more money you pump into them, the better they get! We should also pay people to not commit crimes and obey the law! OH MY GOD, GENIUS. THINK ABOUT IT. People would be motivated to uphold the statutes of the law because they'd have an incentive to do so now! Your sarcasm is misplaced. There are already incentives not to commit crime. A carrot and a stick are the same thing, with regards to game theory, minus a constant. I suppose there are psychological differences involved, but that's missing the mark. The majority of violent crimes or theft occur as a result of desperation, passion, or psychosis. Other crimes, such as insider trading, drug trafficking, tax evasion, etc... are committed systematically with the knowledge that enforcement is lax enough such that the probability of getting caught does not outweigh the payoff. The process of logical analysis is often one of simplification, but you need to be careful not to simplify out the most salient characteristics of the problem. I disagree, and maintain that my sarcasm is placed appropriately. Paying people to vote would not "fix" a democratic process, because the monetary incentive probably wouldn't be substantial enough to motivate people to vote, and this line of thought is especially flawed by thinking that adding numbers to the active electorate would somehow improve the way politics functions. People don't go to the polls often because they feel like their individual vote is not significant enough to have any influence over an election that is largely predetermined during the race, and having a monetary incentive would not change this point of view. They would still view their vote as insignificant, regardless of the pay-out they would receive for voting. Additionally, if more people from lower socio-economic backgrounds were added to the voting pool, this would add to the number of misinformed and uneducated voters. Also, consider this: Let's say your idea works, and 200,000,000 people vote in the next election. To pay each person $5 would cost a billion dollars. No problem, right? The average American makes about 27,000 dollars per year. The average tax rate is about 22%. 22% of 27,000 is 5,940 dollars. A billion dollars is one one-thousandth of a trillion dollars. $5.94 is one one-thousandth of $5,940 dollars, so I would be essentially paying myself to vote. In fact, I would be losing money. Your calculations, first of all, are grossly misinformed. 27 is an estimate of the median, not a mean, for one. Secondly, you introduce the number "1 trillion" out of thin air. Then you make a conclusion that does not follow from your math. The federal revenue from income taxes in 2012 was $1.14 trillion dollars.You would be spending about 1/1000th of that on election incentives. 1/1000th of the average tax payer's income taxes is more than 5 dollars. I see what your saying but the way you're calculating it is overly complex and largely incorrect. When you multiply the median by the number of items you don't get the total. You're thinking of the mean. A simpler and more precise model would be the following: Have a voter credit of $m for the (p*n) people who decide to vote in yearly national elections, where p is the proportion of people who vote and n is the total population of eligible voters. Raise $(p*m*n) of revenue across n persons to fund the program. Each of the n persons pays $(p*m). If you vote, you get a net benefit of $(1-p)*m. If you do not, you are out $(p*m).
The amount of oversight required to run such a program would create an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy for a frivolous program where people pay themselves to vote.
Furthermore, the way I'm calculating the expense per person is essentially low-balling, because the average per capita income of persons in the United States are higher than 22,000 dollars. The average median income is even higher; about 45,000 dollars per year.
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On June 26 2012 04:38 ninazerg wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 04:26 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 04:11 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 03:54 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 03:51 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 03:01 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 02:53 ninazerg wrote:
I cannot possibly see how this could ever be abused by politicians. This plan is just so perfect that it can't fail, because elections are like ESPORTS - the more money you pump into them, the better they get! We should also pay people to not commit crimes and obey the law! OH MY GOD, GENIUS. THINK ABOUT IT. People would be motivated to uphold the statutes of the law because they'd have an incentive to do so now! Your sarcasm is misplaced. There are already incentives not to commit crime. A carrot and a stick are the same thing, with regards to game theory, minus a constant. I suppose there are psychological differences involved, but that's missing the mark. The majority of violent crimes or theft occur as a result of desperation, passion, or psychosis. Other crimes, such as insider trading, drug trafficking, tax evasion, etc... are committed systematically with the knowledge that enforcement is lax enough such that the probability of getting caught does not outweigh the payoff. The process of logical analysis is often one of simplification, but you need to be careful not to simplify out the most salient characteristics of the problem. I disagree, and maintain that my sarcasm is placed appropriately. Paying people to vote would not "fix" a democratic process, because the monetary incentive probably wouldn't be substantial enough to motivate people to vote, and this line of thought is especially flawed by thinking that adding numbers to the active electorate would somehow improve the way politics functions. People don't go to the polls often because they feel like their individual vote is not significant enough to have any influence over an election that is largely predetermined during the race, and having a monetary incentive would not change this point of view. They would still view their vote as insignificant, regardless of the pay-out they would receive for voting. Additionally, if more people from lower socio-economic backgrounds were added to the voting pool, this would add to the number of misinformed and uneducated voters. Also, consider this: Let's say your idea works, and 200,000,000 people vote in the next election. To pay each person $5 would cost a billion dollars. No problem, right? The average American makes about 27,000 dollars per year. The average tax rate is about 22%. 22% of 27,000 is 5,940 dollars. A billion dollars is one one-thousandth of a trillion dollars. $5.94 is one one-thousandth of $5,940 dollars, so I would be essentially paying myself to vote. In fact, I would be losing money. Your calculations, first of all, are grossly misinformed. 27 is an estimate of the median, not a mean, for one. Secondly, you introduce the number "1 trillion" out of thin air. Then you make a conclusion that does not follow from your math. The federal revenue from income taxes in 2012 was $1.14 trillion dollars.You would be spending about 1/1000th of that on election incentives. 1/1000th of the average tax payer's income taxes is more than 5 dollars. I see what your saying but the way you're calculating it is overly complex and largely incorrect. When you multiply the median by the number of items you don't get the total. You're thinking of the mean. A simpler and more precise model would be the following: Have a voter credit of $m for the (p*n) people who decide to vote in yearly national elections, where p is the proportion of people who vote and n is the total population of eligible voters. Raise $(p*m*n) of revenue across n persons to fund the program. Each of the n persons pays $(p*m). If you vote, you get a net benefit of $(1-p)*m. If you do not, you are out $(p*m). The amount of oversight required to run such a program would create an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy for a frivolous program where people pay themselves to vote. Furthermore, the way I'm calculating the expense per person is essentially low-balling, because the average per capita income of persons in the United States are higher than 22,000 dollars. The average median income is even higher; about 45,000 dollars per year.
The layer of bureaucracy would be unfortunate. The actual calculation of who gets what, however, is entirely trivial as I have just provided a concise algorithm laying out per-person revenues and liabilities for the program. You are misinterpreting your statistic in a very obvious way. One of those is for households, for example, which on expectation include strictly more than a single person.
Furthermore, your statistics are entirely irrelevant and such an approach is just not correct when estimating the income and dues of a particular government program.
Plug in some numbers for m n and p in my model and see how it works out:
Let p = 1/2, m = $10 and n = 1000
Total liabilities = $(p * m * n) = $5000
Net cost per nonvoter = $5
Net benefit to voter = $5
Add a factor of 30% for bureaucracy.
You now get:
Total liabilities = (1.3)* $5000 = $6500
Net cost per nonvoter = $6.5
Net benefit to voter = $3.5
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On June 26 2012 04:50 Gummy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 04:38 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 04:26 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 04:11 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 03:54 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 03:51 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 03:01 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 02:53 ninazerg wrote:
I cannot possibly see how this could ever be abused by politicians. This plan is just so perfect that it can't fail, because elections are like ESPORTS - the more money you pump into them, the better they get! We should also pay people to not commit crimes and obey the law! OH MY GOD, GENIUS. THINK ABOUT IT. People would be motivated to uphold the statutes of the law because they'd have an incentive to do so now! Your sarcasm is misplaced. There are already incentives not to commit crime. A carrot and a stick are the same thing, with regards to game theory, minus a constant. I suppose there are psychological differences involved, but that's missing the mark. The majority of violent crimes or theft occur as a result of desperation, passion, or psychosis. Other crimes, such as insider trading, drug trafficking, tax evasion, etc... are committed systematically with the knowledge that enforcement is lax enough such that the probability of getting caught does not outweigh the payoff. The process of logical analysis is often one of simplification, but you need to be careful not to simplify out the most salient characteristics of the problem. I disagree, and maintain that my sarcasm is placed appropriately. Paying people to vote would not "fix" a democratic process, because the monetary incentive probably wouldn't be substantial enough to motivate people to vote, and this line of thought is especially flawed by thinking that adding numbers to the active electorate would somehow improve the way politics functions. People don't go to the polls often because they feel like their individual vote is not significant enough to have any influence over an election that is largely predetermined during the race, and having a monetary incentive would not change this point of view. They would still view their vote as insignificant, regardless of the pay-out they would receive for voting. Additionally, if more people from lower socio-economic backgrounds were added to the voting pool, this would add to the number of misinformed and uneducated voters. Also, consider this: Let's say your idea works, and 200,000,000 people vote in the next election. To pay each person $5 would cost a billion dollars. No problem, right? The average American makes about 27,000 dollars per year. The average tax rate is about 22%. 22% of 27,000 is 5,940 dollars. A billion dollars is one one-thousandth of a trillion dollars. $5.94 is one one-thousandth of $5,940 dollars, so I would be essentially paying myself to vote. In fact, I would be losing money. Your calculations, first of all, are grossly misinformed. 27 is an estimate of the median, not a mean, for one. Secondly, you introduce the number "1 trillion" out of thin air. Then you make a conclusion that does not follow from your math. The federal revenue from income taxes in 2012 was $1.14 trillion dollars.You would be spending about 1/1000th of that on election incentives. 1/1000th of the average tax payer's income taxes is more than 5 dollars. I see what your saying but the way you're calculating it is overly complex and largely incorrect. When you multiply the median by the number of items you don't get the total. You're thinking of the mean. A simpler and more precise model would be the following: Have a voter credit of $m for the (p*n) people who decide to vote in yearly national elections, where p is the proportion of people who vote and n is the total population of eligible voters. Raise $(p*m*n) of revenue across n persons to fund the program. Each of the n persons pays $(p*m). If you vote, you get a net benefit of $(1-p)*m. If you do not, you are out $(p*m). The amount of oversight required to run such a program would create an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy for a frivolous program where people pay themselves to vote. Furthermore, the way I'm calculating the expense per person is essentially low-balling, because the average per capita income of persons in the United States are higher than 22,000 dollars. The average median income is even higher; about 45,000 dollars per year. The layer of bureaucracy would be unfortunate. The actual calculation of who gets what, however, is entirely trivial as I have just provided a concise algorithm laying out per-person revenues and liabilities for the program. You are misinterpreting your statistic in a very obvious way. One of those is for households, for example, which on expectation include strictly more than a single person. Furthermore, your statistics are entirely irrelevant and such an approach is just not correct when estimating the income and dues of a particular government program.
Plug in some numbers for m n and p in my model and see how it works out: Let p = 1/2, m = $10 and n = 1000 Total liabilities = $(p * m * n) = $5000 Net cost per nonvoter = $5 Net benefit to voter = $5 Add a factor of 30% for bureaucracy. You now get: Total liabilities = (1.3)* $5000 = $6500 Net cost per nonvoter = $6.5 Net benefit to voter = $3.5
From which magic hat do you pull these numbers?
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On June 26 2012 05:12 ninazerg wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 04:50 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 04:38 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 04:26 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 04:11 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 03:54 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 03:51 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 03:01 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 02:53 ninazerg wrote:
I cannot possibly see how this could ever be abused by politicians. This plan is just so perfect that it can't fail, because elections are like ESPORTS - the more money you pump into them, the better they get! We should also pay people to not commit crimes and obey the law! OH MY GOD, GENIUS. THINK ABOUT IT. People would be motivated to uphold the statutes of the law because they'd have an incentive to do so now! Your sarcasm is misplaced. There are already incentives not to commit crime. A carrot and a stick are the same thing, with regards to game theory, minus a constant. I suppose there are psychological differences involved, but that's missing the mark. The majority of violent crimes or theft occur as a result of desperation, passion, or psychosis. Other crimes, such as insider trading, drug trafficking, tax evasion, etc... are committed systematically with the knowledge that enforcement is lax enough such that the probability of getting caught does not outweigh the payoff. The process of logical analysis is often one of simplification, but you need to be careful not to simplify out the most salient characteristics of the problem. I disagree, and maintain that my sarcasm is placed appropriately. Paying people to vote would not "fix" a democratic process, because the monetary incentive probably wouldn't be substantial enough to motivate people to vote, and this line of thought is especially flawed by thinking that adding numbers to the active electorate would somehow improve the way politics functions. People don't go to the polls often because they feel like their individual vote is not significant enough to have any influence over an election that is largely predetermined during the race, and having a monetary incentive would not change this point of view. They would still view their vote as insignificant, regardless of the pay-out they would receive for voting. Additionally, if more people from lower socio-economic backgrounds were added to the voting pool, this would add to the number of misinformed and uneducated voters. Also, consider this: Let's say your idea works, and 200,000,000 people vote in the next election. To pay each person $5 would cost a billion dollars. No problem, right? The average American makes about 27,000 dollars per year. The average tax rate is about 22%. 22% of 27,000 is 5,940 dollars. A billion dollars is one one-thousandth of a trillion dollars. $5.94 is one one-thousandth of $5,940 dollars, so I would be essentially paying myself to vote. In fact, I would be losing money. Your calculations, first of all, are grossly misinformed. 27 is an estimate of the median, not a mean, for one. Secondly, you introduce the number "1 trillion" out of thin air. Then you make a conclusion that does not follow from your math. The federal revenue from income taxes in 2012 was $1.14 trillion dollars.You would be spending about 1/1000th of that on election incentives. 1/1000th of the average tax payer's income taxes is more than 5 dollars. I see what your saying but the way you're calculating it is overly complex and largely incorrect. When you multiply the median by the number of items you don't get the total. You're thinking of the mean. A simpler and more precise model would be the following: Have a voter credit of $m for the (p*n) people who decide to vote in yearly national elections, where p is the proportion of people who vote and n is the total population of eligible voters. Raise $(p*m*n) of revenue across n persons to fund the program. Each of the n persons pays $(p*m). If you vote, you get a net benefit of $(1-p)*m. If you do not, you are out $(p*m). The amount of oversight required to run such a program would create an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy for a frivolous program where people pay themselves to vote. Furthermore, the way I'm calculating the expense per person is essentially low-balling, because the average per capita income of persons in the United States are higher than 22,000 dollars. The average median income is even higher; about 45,000 dollars per year. The layer of bureaucracy would be unfortunate. The actual calculation of who gets what, however, is entirely trivial as I have just provided a concise algorithm laying out per-person revenues and liabilities for the program. You are misinterpreting your statistic in a very obvious way. One of those is for households, for example, which on expectation include strictly more than a single person. Furthermore, your statistics are entirely irrelevant and such an approach is just not correct when estimating the income and dues of a particular government program.
Plug in some numbers for m n and p in my model and see how it works out: Let p = 1/2, m = $10 and n = 1000 Total liabilities = $(p * m * n) = $5000 Net cost per nonvoter = $5 Net benefit to voter = $5 Add a factor of 30% for bureaucracy. You now get: Total liabilities = (1.3)* $5000 = $6500 Net cost per nonvoter = $6.5 Net benefit to voter = $3.5 From which magic hat do you pull these numbers?
They're arbitrary. That's the nice thing about a model. You can plug in values and see what comes out. See my quoted post to see the precise model.
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I just like that the people who don't vote lose money. That just seems like the right way to fix Democracy.
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On June 26 2012 04:50 Gummy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 04:38 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 04:26 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 04:11 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 03:54 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 03:51 ninazerg wrote:On June 26 2012 03:01 Gummy wrote:On June 26 2012 02:53 ninazerg wrote:
I cannot possibly see how this could ever be abused by politicians. This plan is just so perfect that it can't fail, because elections are like ESPORTS - the more money you pump into them, the better they get! We should also pay people to not commit crimes and obey the law! OH MY GOD, GENIUS. THINK ABOUT IT. People would be motivated to uphold the statutes of the law because they'd have an incentive to do so now! Your sarcasm is misplaced. There are already incentives not to commit crime. A carrot and a stick are the same thing, with regards to game theory, minus a constant. I suppose there are psychological differences involved, but that's missing the mark. The majority of violent crimes or theft occur as a result of desperation, passion, or psychosis. Other crimes, such as insider trading, drug trafficking, tax evasion, etc... are committed systematically with the knowledge that enforcement is lax enough such that the probability of getting caught does not outweigh the payoff. The process of logical analysis is often one of simplification, but you need to be careful not to simplify out the most salient characteristics of the problem. I disagree, and maintain that my sarcasm is placed appropriately. Paying people to vote would not "fix" a democratic process, because the monetary incentive probably wouldn't be substantial enough to motivate people to vote, and this line of thought is especially flawed by thinking that adding numbers to the active electorate would somehow improve the way politics functions. People don't go to the polls often because they feel like their individual vote is not significant enough to have any influence over an election that is largely predetermined during the race, and having a monetary incentive would not change this point of view. They would still view their vote as insignificant, regardless of the pay-out they would receive for voting. Additionally, if more people from lower socio-economic backgrounds were added to the voting pool, this would add to the number of misinformed and uneducated voters. Also, consider this: Let's say your idea works, and 200,000,000 people vote in the next election. To pay each person $5 would cost a billion dollars. No problem, right? The average American makes about 27,000 dollars per year. The average tax rate is about 22%. 22% of 27,000 is 5,940 dollars. A billion dollars is one one-thousandth of a trillion dollars. $5.94 is one one-thousandth of $5,940 dollars, so I would be essentially paying myself to vote. In fact, I would be losing money. Your calculations, first of all, are grossly misinformed. 27 is an estimate of the median, not a mean, for one. Secondly, you introduce the number "1 trillion" out of thin air. Then you make a conclusion that does not follow from your math. The federal revenue from income taxes in 2012 was $1.14 trillion dollars.You would be spending about 1/1000th of that on election incentives. 1/1000th of the average tax payer's income taxes is more than 5 dollars. I see what your saying but the way you're calculating it is overly complex and largely incorrect. When you multiply the median by the number of items you don't get the total. You're thinking of the mean. A simpler and more precise model would be the following: Have a voter credit of $m for the (p*n) people who decide to vote in yearly national elections, where p is the proportion of people who vote and n is the total population of eligible voters. Raise $(p*m*n) of revenue across n persons to fund the program. Each of the n persons pays $(p*m). If you vote, you get a net benefit of $(1-p)*m. If you do not, you are out $(p*m). The amount of oversight required to run such a program would create an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy for a frivolous program where people pay themselves to vote. Furthermore, the way I'm calculating the expense per person is essentially low-balling, because the average per capita income of persons in the United States are higher than 22,000 dollars. The average median income is even higher; about 45,000 dollars per year. The layer of bureaucracy would be unfortunate. The actual calculation of who gets what, however, is entirely trivial as I have just provided a concise algorithm laying out per-person revenues and liabilities for the program. You are misinterpreting your statistic in a very obvious way. One of those is for households, for example, which on expectation include strictly more than a single person. Furthermore, your statistics are entirely irrelevant and such an approach is just not correct when estimating the income and dues of a particular government program.
Plug in some numbers for m n and p in my model and see how it works out: Let p = 1/2, m = $10 and n = 1000 Total liabilities = $(p * m * n) = $5000 Net cost per nonvoter = $5 Net benefit to voter = $5 Add a factor of 30% for bureaucracy. You now get: Total liabilities = (1.3)* $5000 = $6500 Net cost per nonvoter = $6.5 Net benefit to voter = $3.5
Help me to understand the algorithm. What do these variables mean?
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A simpler and more precise model would be the following:
Have a voter credit of $m for the (p*n) people who decide to vote in yearly national elections, where p is the proportion of people who vote and n is the total population of eligible voters. Raise $(p*m*n) of revenue across n persons to fund the program.
Each of the n persons pays $(p*m). If you vote, you get a net benefit of $(1-p)*m. If you do not, you are out $(p*m).
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On June 26 2012 04:23 Gummy wrote:
What is uncivil is that you are first and foremost claiming that I am misrepresenting facts without pointing to any particular statements as being misrepresented. A very large number of local and national elections do not coincide as you readily admit.
i repeatedly stated exactly which fact you were misrepresenting:
, the probability that my vote will influence the outcome of an election multiplied by the realized differences on my way of life (whether it be social or economic) is never worth the time it takes to drive out, wait in line, and vote, nor is it worth the money I would have paid somebody to fill out a form for me.
if you are already driving out to vote in the state/local election than this has nothing to do with federal elections. furthermore, you are now misrepresenting both what i said and the facts. federal elections ALWAYS, without exception, will coincide with local/state elections.
Even if every election coincided, you are still failing to address the 2 key points here:
1.) Incentivizing voting results in increased voter turnout.
2.) That the net benefits of increased voter turnout is worth the cost of this incentive program.
you have not shown how $5 in the form of a tax break would incentive anyone, especially those who do not pay taxes. yeah, you would probably incentive people to go vote the stupid bill (and any politician that supported it) out, but that's it.
furthermore, there would be absolutely no known benefit to having uninformed people voting.
Your argument is basically, if I am understanding it correctly:
People who care vote in local elections, and if they care enough to vote in local elections they will by default vote in a large number of national elections. "People who don't are lazy" with the implication that these people shouldn't have a voice in government.
no, my argument is: local/state elections have a benefit that is worth the cost and federal elections are had in the same place as local/state level elections. therefore, a cost/benefit analysis has nothing to do with people not voting. i don't care why they vote, or if they vote, or how they vote. lazy people or not, if they don't vote, i don't care. there is no implication that lazy people shouldn't have a say in government, though i'll tell you this right now: if you are too lazy to vote, you won't have a voice in government no matter what anyone wants. my whole argument was that you are kidding yourself if you think there is any reason not to vote in a federal election other than laziness, or that you're doing something else that day.
A valid criticism I can take from your argument is that "because voting in local elections and voting in national elections are often the same action, the effect of your proposed measure on voter turnout will likely be less significant than you suggest" but you seem to have more interest engaging with the person making the argument than the argument itself.
there is no real argument here. people who will not vote now are not going to go out and vote because you promise them $5 in tax benefits. most of them don't even pay taxes, so what does a tax break mean to them? furthermore, the reason they are not voting has nothing to do with cost/benefit. furthermore, there is no known benefit to having uneducated and uncaring people walk down to the voting booth and cast a vote for someone they don't know about and for positions they haven't researched. furthermore, there is no reason to penalize (which is what you're doing) the people who already take the time to go out and vote without needing papa-government to pay them for it. furthermore, you have not shown that the voting population would support this measure at all (they wouldn't)
yeah, i find it annoying when people pull stuff out of thin air as justification for their not voting. especially when there are plenty of young people and people in foreign countries that have no clue how the system works and can be convinced by the stupid cost/benefit analysis argument that is put forward by either 1) liars who know better or 2) people who don't know better and are just repeating something they heard. obviously you are of the latter, but that doesn't mean i shouldn't try to educate people that it has nothing to do with cost/benefit. the benefit is already there in the form of local/state elections and propositions. if the daily working of your government is not enough incentive for you, than why would $5, which is a much smaller incentive than what you already have, do it? and why the heck should i have to comp you with the $5 when I'm the one who actually goes out and votes because i'm not lazy?
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On June 25 2012 17:50 SCPlato wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2012 12:01 DigiGnar wrote:
Why not just combine all forms of government in one? They call that Tyranny.
I guess democracy isn't a form of government. I guess a republic isn't a government. People should actually learn to read, lol.
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On June 26 2012 06:24 sc2superfan101 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2012 04:23 Gummy wrote:
What is uncivil is that you are first and foremost claiming that I am misrepresenting facts without pointing to any particular statements as being misrepresented. A very large number of local and national elections do not coincide as you readily admit.
i repeatedly stated exactly which fact you were misrepresenting: Show nested quote +, the probability that my vote will influence the outcome of an election multiplied by the realized differences on my way of life (whether it be social or economic) is never worth the time it takes to drive out, wait in line, and vote, nor is it worth the money I would have paid somebody to fill out a form for me. if you are already driving out to vote in the state/local election than this has nothing to do with federal elections. furthermore, you are now misrepresenting both what i said and the facts. federal elections ALWAYS, without exception, will coincide with local/state elections. Show nested quote +
Even if every election coincided, you are still failing to address the 2 key points here:
1.) Incentivizing voting results in increased voter turnout.
2.) That the net benefits of increased voter turnout is worth the cost of this incentive program.
you have not shown how $5 in the form of a tax break would incentive anyone, especially those who do not pay taxes. yeah, you would probably incentive people to go vote the stupid bill (and any politician that supported it) out, but that's it. furthermore, there would be absolutely no known benefit to having uninformed people voting. Show nested quote +Your argument is basically, if I am understanding it correctly:
People who care vote in local elections, and if they care enough to vote in local elections they will by default vote in a large number of national elections. "People who don't are lazy" with the implication that these people shouldn't have a voice in government. no, my argument is: local/state elections have a benefit that is worth the cost and federal elections are had in the same place as local/state level elections. therefore, a cost/benefit analysis has nothing to do with people not voting. i don't care why they vote, or if they vote, or how they vote. lazy people or not, if they don't vote, i don't care. there is no implication that lazy people shouldn't have a say in government, though i'll tell you this right now: if you are too lazy to vote, you won't have a voice in government no matter what anyone wants. my whole argument was that you are kidding yourself if you think there is any reason not to vote in a federal election other than laziness, or that you're doing something else that day. Show nested quote +
A valid criticism I can take from your argument is that "because voting in local elections and voting in national elections are often the same action, the effect of your proposed measure on voter turnout will likely be less significant than you suggest" but you seem to have more interest engaging with the person making the argument than the argument itself.
there is no real argument here. people who will not vote now are not going to go out and vote because you promise them $5 in tax benefits. most of them don't even pay taxes, so what does a tax break mean to them? furthermore, the reason they are not voting has nothing to do with cost/benefit. furthermore, there is no known benefit to having uneducated and uncaring people walk down to the voting booth and cast a vote for someone they don't know about and for positions they haven't researched. furthermore, there is no reason to penalize (which is what you're doing) the people who already take the time to go out and vote without needing papa-government to pay them for it. furthermore, you have not shown that the voting population would support this measure at all (they wouldn't) yeah, i find it annoying when people pull stuff out of thin air as justification for their not voting. especially when there are plenty of young people and people in foreign countries that have no clue how the system works and can be convinced by the stupid cost/benefit analysis argument that is put forward by either 1) liars who know better or 2) people who don't know better and are just repeating something they heard. obviously you are of the latter, but that doesn't mean i shouldn't try to educate people that it has nothing to do with cost/benefit. the benefit is already there in the form of local/state elections and propositions. if the daily working of your government is not enough incentive for you, than why would $5, which is a much smaller incentive than what you already have, do it? and why the heck should i have to comp you with the $5 when I'm the one who actually goes out and votes because i'm not lazy?
You're failing to put together a cohesive argument here. You just seem to be pressing no other point than that "People already have all the incentive in the world to vote. No other means of increasing voter turnout are worth discussing." Unfortunately, so far as I can tell, this point of yours is supported only by circularity.
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Gummy, you're trying to get people to vote by offending them (eg calling them lazy) and
funnily I'd say that that is a better way of motivating people to vote than a $5 penalty
the fact of the matter is, voting just doesn't have enough tangible benefits. you may say those people are lazy,
but I assure you those lazy people will be running to the polls if they offered $1,000 for voting. what does it all mean?
the perceived benefit of voting is certainly less than $1,000. if they weren't voting because they were
lazy, wouldn't they not vote even at the face of such financial incentives?
and besides, the $5 penalty would never work because then people would perceive voting as a way of not paying a penalty
not a way of being patriotic, defending democracy, being american, etc etc etc. the better way of motivating people to
vote would be to have start a campaign that sends the following message: "giving up your vote is unamerican"
I'd say "people who don't vote are communist" would've worked fine in the 60s too. that oughta create an atmosphere
where people go around telling everyone they voted and anybody who doesn't vote don't deserve x and y and z
that would be a much better incentive for people to vote
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You're not voting for democracy these days. You're voting for the crook that'll be the face of the people ripping you off your whole life.
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Sometimes I wish that there was some sort of test that would earn you the right to reproduce and to vote.
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On June 26 2012 14:54 dongmydrum wrote:
Gummy, you're trying to get people to vote by offending them (eg calling them lazy) and
funnily I'd say that that is a better way of motivating people to vote than a $5 penalty
the fact of the matter is, voting just doesn't have enough tangible benefits. you may say those people are lazy,
but I assure you those lazy people will be running to the polls if they offered $1,000 for voting. what does it all mean?
the perceived benefit of voting is certainly less than $1,000. if they weren't voting because they were
lazy, wouldn't they not vote even at the face of such financial incentives?
and besides, the $5 penalty would never work because then people would perceive voting as a way of not paying a penalty
not a way of being patriotic, defending democracy, being american, etc etc etc. the better way of motivating people to
vote would be to have start a campaign that sends the following message: "giving up your vote is unamerican"
I'd say "people who don't vote are communist" would've worked fine in the 60s too. that oughta create an atmosphere
where people go around telling everyone they voted and anybody who doesn't vote don't deserve x and y and z
that would be a much better incentive for people to vote
Your first two paragraphs are agreeing with me. The money involved is simply an incentive engine. Its precise quantity isn't particularly relevant except to extremes.
Also you believe the proposal in the OP won't work because you define a system as "working" only when people patriotically defend American democracy. I define working as substantively changing the goal of political rhetoric from mobilization to persuasion.
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EPT
