> COWEN: Isn’t it the voters you need to replace? Those people got elected, reelected.
> GRAHAM: Well, the reason San Francisco fundamentally is so broken is that the supervisors have so much power, and supervisor elections, you can win by a couple hundred votes. All you need to do is have this hard core of crazy left-wing supporters who will absolutely support you, no matter what, and turn out to vote.
> Everybody else is like, “Oh, local election doesn’t matter. I’m not going to bother.” [laughs] It’s a uniquely weird situation that wasn’t really visible. It was always there, but it wasn’t visible until Ed Lee died. Now, we’ve reverted to what that situation produces, which is a disaster.
He even goes as far to call this "broken" — it's literally democracy.
US presidential elections come to mind; the likely nominees of both major parties are viewed unfavorably by a majority in polls, but one of them is almost certainly going to win.
I guess it is the formal definition.
In Australia we have a slightly different version. We don't prevent the crazies from voting. Instead we insist everyone must vote, including the crazies. Turns out when you do that the non-crazy voters outnumber the rest by a considerable margin.
A weird thing happens when you make voting compulsory. Another bunch, which I now regard as crazy, insists they should be free to not vote. They get fined. (I have a vision of what would happen in the USA if someone proposed compulsory voting. It's far left and far right politicians who would be thrown out if the centre voted, inciting their following to riot in the streets, shouting "Freedom!")
It's kinda funny, because they are allowed to not vote. The actual requirement isn't to vote because it's impossible to police. The requirement is to turn up at the polling place and have your name recorded. You can write whatever you damned well please on the voting slip. After most elections the country gets to have a laugh at the insults and pornographic images that have been inscribed on those slips.
It's also funny because these crazies are insisting they have a right to not participate in the democracy. And they don't. Those that do participate then pass rules to fine them, and the non-participants get pissed off about that and demonstrate their now white hot anger by not voting again.
And I bet you thought I was being harsh for calling them crazy. It's like watching someone put their hand in a fire, and not remove it because it hurts.
And that is an excellent example of why compulsory voting works. The voices of the crazies literally get drowned out by the people who would otherwise be too lazy to vote. Or perhaps they just figure they are in the centre, know stuff all about the candidates, and most other people are reasonable like them so they won't change the outcome. But it turns out if most normal, reasonable, uninformed people remove themselves from machinery of democracy, what you get left with is crazies voting for crazies.
GRAHAM> … It’s all because Ed Lee died
Similar to Garry Tan in that.
For example in the US they have their elections on a Tuesday (in Australia it is a Saturday), this strikes me as suboptimal if you want the most people to vote then you should hold the election at a time that is convenient for the largest number of people, which is not in the middle of a regular working day.
Australia also has pre-polling (i.e. you can turn up to a polling station and vote before the nominated "election day") and Postal voting (both of which are to my understanding extremely controversial in the US).
I believe in the US you also need to register to vote and you have to take steps to maintain your registration. again that is an added barrier that creates more friction.
Australia also has Preferential voting, I do not believe US elections use this method.
Forcing the uninformed and uninterested to vote has never yielded better results by any measure.
Compulsory voting drives engagement. Representative democracy saves the public from themselves.
The vast majority of people vote for who they trust.
With all due respect, I find it hard to believe anyone with any knowledge of Australian elections would write your comment.
Most of the public is aware of this, and will probably continue to accept it as long as the general standard of living doesn't fall to much.
Citation needed. I live in a country with compulsory voting, and I don't see any indication that it drives engagement. Lots of people only go voting because they have to. They simply vote for the man or woman they think looks best, or they have seen on TV and said something funny, or stuff like that.
> The vast majority of people vote for who they trust.
But in many many cases without really looking into who is trustworthy.
You can as well add 30% random votes, although those would be spread equally between candidates, not based on color of their hair, or random fake quote on the ineternet
> But in many many cases without really looking into who is trustworthy.
> They simply vote for the man or woman they think looks best, or they have seen on TV and said something funny, or stuff like that.
These two things are largely linked. If one believes that one can view the true nature of reality and divine the future then one is in for perpetual disappointment with politicians. Trustworthiness can only be known a posteri. A priori we only have heuristics. The reason for the existence of representative democracy is so that politicians do the work of politics.
One may not always agree with the electorate but my experience tells me that compulsory voting does drive engagement. It changes how political parties spend money and who they use that money to try and influence. Engagement in countries with compulsory voting is different to how it would be in the same country without compulsory voting.
The average member of the electorate possesses no expertise in any single field and is ignorant of everything. The average member of the electorate holds no single opinion. This is a good thing.
Whether people's beliefs are right or wrong is one thing but what you don't want is a bunch of radicals (of any persuasion) who have made the leap of faith which prevents them from reversing course. When large proportions of a society is radicalised to hold extremist and exclusive political opinions, that's when voters cannot be convinced. This rarely ends up good for society and occasionally ends violently.