Casting the "Right" Vote
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
It is sometimes astounding how much -- and how little -- can be expected of us voters in today's mixed economy. On the one hand, our government illegitimately meddles in so many areas of our lives that it is basically impossible to be a "well-informed" voter, at least in terms of understanding the concrete ramifications of every possible stand on every possible issue of the candidates on a ballot. On the other hand, we have public advocates of "democracy" making headlines with the following worries:
Local and state boards of elections have launched education campaigns about the new voting machines, but advocates and some elected officials in New York City, where there are 4.6 million registered voters, said the efforts are far from adequate.That's right. We need to make sure that the voices of people who can't figure out how to operate a simple machine are nevertheless heard regarding issues of importance.
"Ninety-nine percent of the people do not know that this new system is coming," said Glynda Carr, executive director of Education Voters of New York, a schools advocacy group, following a demonstration of the new machine in Lower Manhattan yesterday.
"If they don't rev up and do a massive outreach in the next couple of weeks, you're going to have people that are going to walk away from the polls without voting," Ms. Carr said. "Democracy is too important to have a machine block the ability to send the right representatives to Albany." [emphasis added]
Not to defend a difficult-to-use voting system, but have these machines -- mandated by a law to make voting easier -- not been publicly tested? Are they not simple enough for a person of ordinary intelligence to operate, so long as he is paying at least some modicum of attention? Yes, they have been tested, and yes, they're easy to use. In fact, one story about such testing leads with the following quote: "It's very easy."
Only one question remains. What, exactly, does Glynda Carr really mean, in terms of a voter's rationale, when she speaks of picking the "right" candidate?
-- CAV
4 comments:
>We need to make sure that the voices of people who can't figure out how to operate a simple machine are nevertheless heard regarding issues of importance.
Ouch. But exactly right.
The "informed voter" problem is so true, in fact I ran smack into it just last night when I was trying to develop a personal position on the issue of land use in Colorado.
In a free society, the property owner would decide how to use their land, for example in deciding between conservation vs. energy development.
Nowadays, we are in the impossible -- and I mean that literally -- position of rationally deciding how to use land that is not ours. If a land-use issue comes to a ballot, I have to engage myself in a tug-of-war with others over what I think the land should be used for. I cannot say in advance what that might be. I want neither total 100% conservation nor 100% energy development. I'd literally have to steep myself in the minutiae of each case and decide which side is more worthy and what I personally want. I have no choice, besides abdication.
It's not that I'm lazy, but we should not have to be making such decisions. What will become of our society when every matter of importance is something everyone in society must decide? It's like running a business where each employee runs the company or a country where each citizen is president (or rather dictator)!
The issue isn't laziness, but being able to take proper advantage of the ability to think in terms of principles, which the welfare state is stripping from us.
We can rationally attend to (or delegate/divide labor) about any number of concrete things that interest us and that we have within our own lives because we know what our own interests are. We can't do that for everyone else or reasonably expect a public official (or bureaucracy) to do so either. And yet we're now having to make these decisions for everyone else (and guess what their decisions for us would be), when what we should be doing is figuring out who would best defend our lives and our right to be left alone (and mind our own business). In other words, come election time, we end up functioning as concrete-bound, ineffectual busybodies, rather than as rational men.
It can't be done, and that's leaving aside the numerous other ways the welfare state ruins our lives.
"Only one question remains. What, exactly, does Glynda Carr really mean, in terms of a voter's rationale, when she speaks of picking the "right" candidate?"
Oh, that's a no-brainer, as it were: A candidate who could only be chosen by someone so stupid he can't even operate a dumbed-down voting machine.
Not only was it a no-brainer, it was a rhetorical question!
Clearly, she wants to recruit busloads of people she can take by the hand, with orders on who the "right" choice is.
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