Poll of the Day > attention, my fellow americans

(+) Yeah! (+)

no matter the outcome, the most important part of this election is that you voted.

i, and even president trump, received more votes than anyone else in the history of america. that's amazing. it shows that people finally care about their country, that they're willing to brave a crisis, a global pandemic, to exercise their constitutional rights.

im proud of each and every one of you, regardless of your political leaning.

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Role-playing aside, it is actually really good to see so many people voting. It's kind of sad that it took a president this egregiously inflammatory and divisive to get everyone out like this, but this turnout is nonetheless a very good thing.

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Yes, more voter participation is always something to be proud of! No matter how you vote, it is so important to do so. Let's set more turnout records in the next midterm elections!

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Now if we could just go ahead and ditch the electoral college we'd probably see even higher turnout.

Can't imagine how many conservatives in california, liberals in oklahoma, etc., don't bother voting because they know their vote won't matter once the electoral college takes over.

Also, like, can we get over this hard-on we have for the mythical first Tuesday in November? Just make all of October voting month and allow people to walk in whenever they want and vote. Trying to cram several hundred million people into voting booths in a 16 hour window and then fighting over whose vote counts and whose was late is just idiotic.

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^Wyoming is weird because you can cast your ballot any time from like June to election day. idk why the rest of the country isn't like that, it's crazy.

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papercup posted...

^Wyoming is weird because you can cast your ballot any time from like June to election day. idk why the rest of the country isn't like that, it's crazy.

Because back when there were only 13 colonies and the total population of the US was 2.5 million people the founders of this country thought it should be up to the states to decide how they handle the rules of a federal election. Which was probably a good idea until the country got literally geographically ten+ times bigger and we now have elections where the difference in popular vote count is greater than the total population was in 1776.

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man101 posted...

Now if we could just go ahead and ditch the electoral college we'd probably see even higher turnout.

Can't imagine how many conservatives in california, liberals in oklahoma, etc., don't bother voting because they know their vote won't matter once the electoral college takes over.

Eeyup. At the very least, the electoral college should operate on a county-by-county basis (or similar divisions) and not homogenize the entire state's votes. I really don't blame people for feeling apathetic about voting when their votes generally won't achieve anything.

man101 posted...

Also, like, can we get over this hard-on we have for the mythical first Tuesday in November? Just make all of October voting month and allow people to walk in whenever they want and vote. Trying to cram several hundred million people into voting booths in a 16 hour window and then fighting over whose vote counts and whose was late is just idiotic.

Indeed. It's really bothersome that Covid became such a political issue, because it could very easily have spurred the Republicans and Democrats to actually cooperate to develop a more convenient, safe, and secure way to cast votes than cramming it all into Tuesday. This has been very much a wasted opportunity (not that Republicans necessarily want it to be easier to vote, given that they tend to do worse with higher turnouts, but that's another issue).

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adjl posted...

not that Republicans necessarily want it to be easier to vote, given that they tend to do worse with higher turnouts, but that's another issue

Besides Trump more than likely barely losing, they did just fine with a record turnout. The country is pretty evenly split when it comes to the numbers of Republicans and Democrats. This falsehood that a large majority of the nation is liberal is spurred on by internet echo chambers and not on facts.

MartianManchild posted...

Besides Trump more than likely barely losing, they did just fine with a record turnout. The country is pretty evenly split when it comes to the numbers of Republicans and Democrats. This falsehood that a large majority of the nation is liberal is spurred on by internet echo chambers and not on facts.

Which makes it all the sillier that the GOP tends to be so fervently against making it easier to vote. There really isn't that much for them to lose, as this election is showing beyond a shadow of a doubt. Heck, if anything, there's actually a reasonable chance that Trump's anti-mail-in rhetoric is what has cost him the election, since there are absolutely people that would have voted for him that are concerned enough about Covid to avoid crowded polls, but who decided against advance voting because he convinced them he'd have those votes thrown out. It's thoroughly ridiculous that the party insists on acting like accessible, convenient voting is a bad thing.

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adjl posted...

Eeyup. At the very least, the electoral college should operate on a county-by-county basis (or similar divisions) and not homogenize the entire state's votes. I really don't blame people for feeling apathetic about voting when their votes generally won't achieve anything.

There is also that agreement between states, that when enough states sign the agreements, those states just give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

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Hard to believe rhetoric like "it doesn't matter just vote" when you got people remarking how problematic it is that Trump so many votes or he got votes from demographics that people think owe allegiance the other way.

You don't get to encourage every vote then disparage people for their vote. It's bull.

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Well said Joe, we are very proud of this country. God bless the America!

Veedrock- posted...

You don't get to encourage every vote then disparage people for their vote.

Sure you can. That's just the nature of having an opinion: if you express it, that gives people the opportunity to disagree. That doesn't mean it's wrong to express it. If anything, that means it should be expressed for the sake of allowing discussion and compromise around it.

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MartianManchild posted...

Besides Trump more than likely barely losing, they did just fine with a record turnout. The country is pretty evenly split when it comes to the numbers of Republicans and Democrats. This falsehood that a large majority of the nation is liberal is spurred on by internet echo chambers and not on facts.

Trump barely lost the electoral college**. The popular vote is not even close.

Also from what I understand based on polls of citizens (not people who bother to show up to vote, just anyone at all) most people are left of center politically, especially on social issues. So the archetype republican platform that you would think of is not at all representative of the proportion of congress they consistently control. It's only because of things like the electoral college and the number of small, red states, and the structure of the Senate that they often have half or more of the power.

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man101 posted...

Also from what I understand based on polls of citizens (not people who bother to show up to vote, just anyone at all) most people are left of center politically, especially on social issues.

This is what really bothers me about most Conservative parties. There is plenty of merit to being conservative in terms of finances and policies and whatnot, and I think every country can benefit from having a mix of progressive and conservative leadership to balance progress with sensible restraint. Quite simply, you can't always spend more money to make the country a better place with no regard for where that money will come from, and it's conservative philosophy that provides that restraint. Being socially conservative, though, so often consists of being absolutely terrible to innocent people for no reason, and so many Conservative parties insist on incorporating that into their policies. It makes it terribly hard to support them when a more conservative policy approach might be suitable.

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adjl posted...

This is what really bothers me about most Conservative parties. There is plenty of merit to being conservative in terms of finances and policies and whatnot, and I think every country can benefit from having a mix of progressive and conservative leadership to balance progress with sensible restraint. Quite simply, you can't always spend more money to make the country a better place with no regard for where that money will come from, and it's conservative philosophy that provides that restraint. Being socially conservative, though, so often consists of being absolutely terrible to innocent people for no reason, and so many Conservative parties insist on incorporating that into their policies. It makes it terribly hard to support them when a more conservative policy approach might be suitable.

Yep. Far left economic perspective insists everything is the result of a power imbalance and money must be forcibly rearranged. Far right economics insists everything is on the individual and wealth or poverty is entirely dependent on one's work ethic/lack of good decision making.
The answer is obviously somewhere in the middle.

But if you fall even slightly to the right fiscally you pretty much have the choice to go along with some crazy brutal and heartless social policies or. . . Vote libertarian or something I guess.


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Veedrock- posted...

Hard to believe rhetoric like "it doesn't matter just vote" when you got people remarking how problematic it is that Trump so many votes or he got votes from demographics that people think owe allegiance the other way.

You don't get to encourage every vote then disparage people for their vote. It's bull.

At the end of the day, I prefer a voter to a non-voter. We can get into disagree on policy and moral differences all day, but I was raised to always vote in every election I could, and I think it's a shame that the US voter participation rates aren't higher. I try not to disparage people for their voter preferences, but as adjl said, people are obviously going to have opinions on said preferences.

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Joe_Biden posted...

the most important part of this election is that you voted.

why do people keep saying this...

Voting is not really all that essential to the democratic process

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Eh, I'd rather people that don't put in the time and effort to learn about the candidates and policy just not vote. An uninformed vote is worse than no vote. This one election being a bit of an exception because of how overtly dangerous trump is during covid times, which is probably why the turnout is so high.

This is the first time I've voted and I very well might not next time.

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YoukaiSlayer posted...

Eh, I'd rather people that don't put in the time and effort to learn about the candidates and policy just not vote. An uninformed vote is worse than no vote. This one election being a bit of an exception because of how overtly dangerous trump is during covid times, which is probably why the turnout is so high.

This is the first time I've voted and I very well might not next time.

Uninformed to you is informed to someone else. I consider all the conspiracy theory trumpists uninformed, but they think I'm uninformed because I don't drink the koolaid.

I'd consider both you and the qanon nutters to be relatively informed. A good half the people voting know basically nothing about either candidate in any given election and vote based on feel which is dangerous and stupid. A politicians whole job is to make you feel like they are better for your interests than they actually are.

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