QOTD

[redbird]

People ask how they can support us.

It's very simple.

Vote.

I don't care who you vote for, I just care that you do. Our deaths, our injuries, our sacrifices, are all payment for that concept of giving people a voice. We've given you a gift. We've paid for it already. We are here, and we will be here till the job is done. Yet there are people who say that the process is stupid, flawed, unnecessary. They may be right. But we're here for a reason, and every one hwo doesn't vote negates that reason just a bit.

People ask how they can support us.

Vote.

My ballot was not blood-stained, but that's because a truckload of them probably got blown up. I was using a generic ballot, not even the one I was sent. In order for us to vote, someone gave up their life. The Iraqis haven't seen a real election in thirty years. It's a brand new right for them, and some of them are willing to die for it. —ginmar, US Army Reserve, in Iraq

Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I intend to, and I will vote for the candidate who will support the troops (and knows that Sweden has an army).

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'd just as soon if people who intend to vote for Bush don't bother to show up at the polls.

This is the first election I've cared about, I'm not feeling very high-minded, and I suspect that partisanship is an altered state of consciousness. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with you, although I wish I didn't. I can't think of any politician I've disliked as much as this, except maybe David Duke.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Oh, and while I'm being a curmudgeon, I *don't* think high turnouts in an election in a stable democracy are especially a good thing.

The only reason this election is going to have a high turn-out is that these are very scarey times.

[allyson13.livejournal.com]

Oregon is all vote by mail.

Got my ballot on Saturday, the Ballot was in the mail on Monday.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Oregon is all vote by mail

Will you say more about that? Who counts the vote, and when, and how is that process audited?

K.

[allyson13.livejournal.com]

They don't start counting until the deadline (which is midnight of Election day).

And so far, no one has challenged a vote, though it does take longer since each voter sheet has to be scanned to record a vote (we use the fill in the bubble with a number two pencil voting card).

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

Oregon is all vote by mail.

Given how unstable the postal service is in both of the areas where I've lived (one in California, one in New Mexico) that sounds like a rather rotten idea to me.

[allyson13.livejournal.com]

You can also drop off your ballot at the library or other drop off points.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

All? As in, that's the only way to vote?

[allyson13.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's the only way to vote.

There are no voting booths, etc.

Must!

[nwl.livejournal.com]

This, in my mind, folds into Anna Quindlen's essay in the Oct. 18 issue of Newsweek on how Australia requires its citizens to vote. I've know about this for a while so it was no surprise. It was interesting to read another person's thoughts on this.

I tend to look at the nuts and bolts and wonder how one would go about setting up and enforcing requited voting in the U.S. Considering that our population is much larger than Australia, it would be a challenge, not to mention how the individual states would react. It would be interesting to know how it all came about in Australia and the steps they took to put everything in place. I don't imagine they just passed a law; implementing required voting probably took several years.

Voting

[amy-thomson.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Great quote.

I came across a quote in Making Light (http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005613.html#59523)that bugged the hell out of me. A person who will remain nameless posted the following quote by Forrest Bishop, Chairman, Institute of Atomic-Scale Engineering

Sometimes I'm asked why I'm not politically active. Sometimes I reply -- for the the same reason I'm not active in the mafia -- it's destructive behavior. Instead of taking a few minutes to stuff a ballot box, I prefer to
invest hours and years studying the System: what makes it tick? Why do we do what we do? How does this change? A vote is evidence of consent to the existence of the status quo: secretly balloting for how a gang of career bureaucrats should divvy up the spoils of their depredations (after taking a nice fat slice for themselves, of course). Once elected, or otherwise, the politician is free to break every promise he or she made, and usually does. This is not representation by any stretch of the imagination.

It's more comfortable in the short run to just go along to get along, not rock the boat and nod like we understand. I don't do this, though I usually keep to myself. The present case is reason to withdraw consent, now more than ever. There is still the possibility for a velvet revolution in the US.


Basically, the attitude that we shoiuldn't vote because things are not perfect really pisses me off. It's like a surgeon refusing to save someone's life because blood is so icky!

Democracy will never be perfect. It's messy and sometimes the patient dies on the table. But it's better than the alternative.

Re: Voting

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

I really like the idea of studying the background implications and real effects, and using peaceful methods other than voting to achieve persuasion. But .. It's been pretty well shown that voting has an effect, might as well use it.