jonathan-cunningham:

abaldwin360:

eaudaria:

Ugh, no. I’m sick of the local Democrats piling this bullshit on me and people like me; They only do it because they know we’d vote Democrat because there is no better option. Frankly, I’m sick of not having a better option, which is why I do grassroots organizing and participate in the direct democracy that’s happening now. Being given 2 party options that are equally scumsucking corporate puppets, at the local and national level, does not make for voting as a “powerful weapon.” At this point, to me, voting is a tool of the State to make plebeians feel like they’re “participating” in democracy, when the State agenda will be pretty much met regardless.

And the electoral college DOES make my vote entirely useless in a presidential election, because of where I live.

So, no. You can’t shame me into voting unless I feel like voting.

No one is trying to “shame” you into voting, actually organizing on a grass roots level is a powerful tool as well as is direct democracy.

Voting on a local level is more important (IMO) than at a national level, I don’t understand why everyone is getting so defensive about this.

In order to have a democracy function properly it’s citizens have to try and make their voices heard, and the easiest way to do that is on a local level, working to get alternative candidates into office.

It’s ALL part of the process.

I’d agree that local voting it more important, but perhaps more poignantly and less related to our opinions, voting in local elections is much more powerful than voting in national elections. In national elections, your vote counts for approximately 1 in 307,006,550 (perhaps more if you live in a low population state, or less if your state is large and ‘winner take all’). In local elections, however, your vote is a much larger percentage of the voting populace. Think of local elections as shaping the culture of your area, which in turn helps to shape the USA’s collective community.

There is nothing intrinsically powerful about voting. Voting itself is about a sample of the population offering an expression of their preference over a set of candidate choices. Those expressions are then calculated in order to determine a winner among the candidate choices.

First, ballot access laws are written by Democrats and Republicans to make the process grueling for challengers in most areas. Further, media are happy to give coverage to Democrats and Republicans while reflexively dismissing challengers as inevitable losers. The media doesn’t cover inevitable losers—or their causes.

The US loves its archaic voting system for single-winner positions. That would be vote-for-one-and-shut-up Plurality Voting. And Plurality Voting has it all:

• Vote splitting: check
• Spoilers: check
• Squeezing out Centrist candidates: check
• Nonexpressive: check
• Vote against your favorite: check
• Show artificially low support for new challenger candidates: double check

Of course, there’s a better single-winner system that is incredibly simple. It’s just like what you’re used to but you can vote for as many as you want. It’s called Approval Voting. Its checklist is much nicer:

• No vote splitting: check
• No spoilers: check
• Centrist candidates are favored: check
• Expressive: check
• Always vote your favorite: check
• Give accurate support for challenger candidates: double check.

But our “single most powerful weapon” is even worse. The US loves single-member districts even when a seat is part of a larger body such as a legislature or council. Now we get gerrymandering. The people in charge draw the lines to determines who elects them next.

Of course, there are ways to avoid gerrymandering by using at-large districts. The US does this, too. But it does it in the worst way possible—called Multi-Member Plurality. Voters get votes equal to the number of seats and can vote a max of one vote per candidate. Sound fair? It isn’t.

With this system (popular with city councils) a majority group can determine all the seats. Does your ideology represent 40% of the voting population? That’s not good enough to get a single seat—even if your council has 10 seats available.

The best way to elect legislatures and councils is through proportional systems. Why? Because they’re fair. Your ideology makes up 40% of the voting population? Congratulations, you get 40% of the seats. This is called proportional representation and it’s been around for centuries. The US even used it in numerous cities for decades but major parties got rid of it once it elected minority groups and minor parties. The major parties wanted ALL the elected positions and to shut out any challenging voices.

So, voting is not our single most powerful weapon. As it stands, voting in the US is a rather shitty weapon. But it CAN be a powerful weapon. Regardless of your cause, everyone needs to educate themselves on proportional representation for multi-winner elections like councils and Approval Voting for single-winner elections like mayor and governor. This is a decent place to start learning: The Center for Election Science.