[debracleaver]

Hey everyone. Debra Cleaver here, founder of Vote.org. I am ready to answer all of your questions about voting in the US, as long as they are non-partisan. Partisan questions should be directed to your local political party. I'm especially keen to talk about ways we can use technology to modernize the election process. My current focus is how we can use electronic signatures to roll out online voter registration in states that don't have it, and for people who don't have driver's licenses.

[nickff]

Hi Debra,

Why do you want to increase turnout? Have you read some of the work on voter ignorance, which shows that voters have very little political knowledge, and are deeply influenced by various biases? This work shows that non-voters are have even worse prejudices and are less knowledgable than voters; how would getting these people to the polls help?[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter

[burkaman]

>This work shows that non-voters are have even worse prejudices and are less knowledgable than voters

Does that book discuss causation? Do people not vote because they aren't paying attention to politics, or do they not pay attention because they aren't planning on voting?

I think it's at least plausible that if voting became very widespread, people might feel more pressure to stay generally informed. And of course, politicians would be forced to communicate to everyone, rather than just to groups that are most likely to vote.

[nickff]

From what I have read, it appears that intelligent and informed people also happen to be the ones that vote (likely for social or ethical reasons). I have not seen evidence that mandatory (or strongly encouraged) voting leads to a more informed public; do you have any evidence of this?

[burkaman]

No I don't, I was just wondering if it was discussed in the book you linked. But again, you're talking about a correlation in this comment, and I'm wondering which way the causation goes. I don't know if there are any studies on this.

[whamlastxmas]

Why should their prejudices/biases not be represented? I mean, I personally probably disagree with them, but disagreement is sort of the reason for having voting.

[nickff]

The evidence shows that these uninformed and biased non-voters would take different views on a variety of important issues if they were less biased and more informed. Essentially, the voters represent the 'enlightened' views of the citizenry.

[whamlastxmas]

>more informed

by who, and in what way? Arguably the issue is people are informed, just by misleading information. Whether it be CNN, Fox News, reddit, or the Drudge Deport - they all have their own bias. By asking people be more informed, you're really just adding to their own bias and prejudices with the biases of a larger group of people. People tend to gravitate towards information sources that reaffirm their existing beliefs.

[nickff]

There is a great deal of statistical work that compares what people think and believe. Some of these works try to 'correct' for wealth and education, then measure the gap between the views of certain groups and what their view would be if they were more well educated. Other studies compare what people say in response to survey questions to objective truths, i.e. what are the branches of the US Government, who is the president, who is the chief justice of the supreme court. If you would like more information on how voters and non-voters differ, I suggest that you read some of the work on the subject; I cannot brief you on the subject in a few Hacker News posts, as there is simply too much information.

Citizens (, especially non-voters,) are ill-informed, biased, and lack any incentive to scrutinize their views, as the only change that could come about would be a painful realization that they have been wrong (which nobody wants). If you want to read a very revealing and well-written exposition on this subject, I recommend "The God that Failed" (edited by Crossman).[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_that_Failed

[labster]

I haven't read the book in question, but I wonder which causes which: does being more informed cause one to be a likely voter, or does choosing to vote cause one to become more informed?

[nickff]

It seems to be a "dreaded third thing". Wealth and education seem to be highly correlated with electoral participation, and both wealth and education are indicators of knowledgability and rationality.

[hnamazon123]

I strongly, strongly suspect that the primary motivation for this comes from the fact that higher voter turnout tends to favor democrats.

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/3/progressives-ne...

[antisthenes]

Not democrats, but liberal fiscal policy.

Although seeing as how there's no party in the US that would cater to social conservatives and fiscal liberals (and vice versa), your statement is mostly correct.

[hackuser]

> Not democrats

I'm pretty sure it favors Democrats.The GOP long has tried to suppress votes; what other motive would they have?

[marxmarv]

The drama of something to argue over with their Establishment sister party, perhaps?

It is plain that the Democratic Party doesn't want Sanders voters if they're going to demand Sanders policy outcomes. There's no drama in successfully helping people, and what kind of partisanship isn't made of drama?

It is plain that the GOP didn't want Trump voters until Trump more or less took over the ticket with the help of professional-class journalists looking for... drama.

[some-guy]

I think that it hurts the GOP more than it directly helps Democrats. In my mind a sudden large increase in voter turnout may give sway to candidates running as Democrats that may not be totally in line with the DNC as a whole. You're seeing a huge leftward push by Democratic voters in the presidential election, and while I don't believe it's as fragmented as the GOP currently is, I don't see any reason why this split won't continue.

[whamlastxmas]

Probably the most under-represented group is the youth vote, so 100% turnout would probably mean much more progressive, socialist results as well. I say socialist here without the negative connotation.

[hueving]

If that were true, why wouldn't the government try to push mandatory voting laws when it had leadership from the Democrat party?

[dragonwriter]

> If that were true, why wouldn't the government try to push mandatory voting laws when it had leadership from the Democrat party?

Because the Democratic Party prefers to expand voting by expanding access (making it easier to register, and easier to vote by expanding times, methods, etc.) rather than by personal mandates and threats of punishment.

[justinlardinois]

Never mind that at the end of the day, the federal government has very little control over elections.

[dragonwriter]

The Democratic Party doesn't just exist in federal government, so I'm not sure how that's relevant, whether or not its true.

[dexterdog]

What does that say about people who can't be bothered to register and/or vote?

[laxatives]

Maybe this is or isn't non-partisan, but here's a shot: I'm 25 years old. I've never voted and never will vote as long as there is a two party system. There has never been a situation where I can agree with either party or individual enough to support them in an election. How do you intend to get people like me to vote?

Also, if you did you get everyone to vote, wouldn't every vote turn in to a popularity contest? In other words, why wouldn't every candidate attempt to win their elections by appealing to the lowest common denominator?

[dragonwriter]

> Maybe this is or isn't non-partisan, but here's a shot: I'm 25 years old. I've never voted and never will vote as long as there is a two party system. There has never been a situation where I can agree with either party or individual enough to support them in an election. How do you intend to get people like me to vote?

In most places in the US, there are plenty of downballot elections, many of which are nonpartisan. There are also ways to be involved in the selection of party nominees (including, but not limited to, party primaries, which are in many places open to both members of the parties and those in no party, and in some places you can vote in primaries irrespective of party. Or, in California -- aside from Presidential elections -- the "primaries" are non-partisan first-round election from which the top two vote-getters proceed.)

[hackuser]

> In most places in the US, there are plenty of downballot elections, many of which are nonpartisan

I'll add that your vote has much more power in these elections. Usually very few others vote, and the districts are much smaller (your local city council member might have hundreds or thousands of constituents, compared with the President who has 310 million); you vote might be one of several hundred.

[scottkduncan]

If you are interested in political participation one place to start would be state and local races - you are more likely to find unconventional candidates at those levels that don't fit neatly with either party.

I also find it much more plausible that a third party would make inroads at the state and local level and build momentum from there, rather than a third party candidate emerging out of nowhere and taking the presidency outright.

[hackuser]

> I also find it much more plausible that a third party would make inroads at the state and local level and build momentum from there, rather than a third party candidate emerging out of nowhere and taking the presidency outright.

For example, and independent in Vermont could become a mayor, then Governor, then Senator, and then have a shot at the White House.

[burkaman]

>wouldn't every candidate attempt to win their elections by appealing to the lowest common denominator?

I think that's sort of how democracy is supposed to work. Politicians win when they can convince more people than anyone else. It's like that famous quote: “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others”.

Yes, everything would be better if countries were run by benevolent geniuses who always implemented the right policies even if they weren't popular. But failing that impossible paradise, democracy is the best option. And if only some people vote, and everyone knows in advance roughly who is going to vote, democracy won't work as well. The government should reflect all the people it serves.

[valvar]

Why exactly is democracy the best, or shall we say "least bad", option? Have you, or has Churchill, evaluated all of the alternatives? And how does the belief that you air in your last sentence, that government should reflect all the people it serves, rhyme with your belief that the ideal (but admittedly in your opinion impossible) form of government would be one run by benevolent geniuses who always implement the right policies, even if they are not popular?

If I may, it does seem to me that qualitative and quantitative government are two quite distinct concepts - one might even go so far as to say that they are fundamentally opposed. Increasing voter turnout certainly increases the quantitative, most purely democratic, aspect of democracy - but what should someone who is more interested in the qualitative aspects of government have to say about that? And if one, as a supporter of democracy as the least bad option, recognises the inherent problems of popular government as a necessary trade-off, would it not make sense to try to mitigate as much of those to the greatest extent possible? I'm not sure if increasing voter turnout to absurd levels would be in tune with this latter category of mindsets, but I'd be curious to hear what you or others of a similar opinion think about that...

[dragonwriter]

> Why exactly is democracy the best, or shall we say "least bad", option?

Because government is fundamentally, inalterably whatever the citizenry decides to accept. Providing feedback on what the citizenry is willing to accept through elections and aligning government with that minimizes the frequency and degree to which the feedback from the citizenry on what they are willing to accept is provided through violent and/or destructive means.

[davekinkead]

To address your first question, the actual quote is:

> Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

So it's not a claim that democracy is the least worst simpliciter, but an empiric claim of history (and compared to 20th century alternatives like national socialism, fascism etc, is backed by evidence). None of that however, justifies the claim that democracy is the best form of government compared when compared possible alternatives.

[sverige]

Correct. The very best form of government is a good king with final say on all matters of importance to the state. The problem with that is that there have only been a handful of good kings over the last few millennia.

[burkaman]

Well, you've raised some questions that I think are much bigger than an HN comments section, and I think there are many books and essays that will give better answers than I ever could.

If you are interested in mitigating the issues of high voter turnout by discouraging turnout, you are not a supporter of democracy. I don't say that as a value judgment, just by definition, democracy means everyone voting for a government that reflects the whole population.

If you support democracy, then you should support other efforts to solve these problems. Improve education to increase voter quality. Design the government so some crucial positions are somewhat shielded from popular opinion (judges, generals, etc.). Modify term limits to protect politicians from potentially unpopular decisions. I don't know, I'm sure there are plenty of other ideas. We could ask Belgium and Turkey and Sweden what they do to combat the threat of irrational and uneducated voters.

I have not evaluated all the alternatives to democracy, but I would say history has. That's not a perfect answer, but in practice democracy is clearly at least as effective as any other government system, and by many measures clearly the best option.

When I say that a benevolent genius would be better, I don't think that contradicts my other points because all real governments are run by humans, and all humans are flawed. But when a dictator or a small group of ruling elites screws up, they have incredibly strong motivations to hang onto power anyway. This is a bad thing. In an ideal democracy, there is no long-term way for any one person or group of people to remain in power unless they govern in a way that benefits their whole country. I don't think this is true for any other system of government.

Finally, if you don't consistently make decisions that your people support, they will overthrow you. It doesn't matter if you know what's best for them. There is no point in trying to design a government that doesn't reflect the people, because it won't last, regardless of how great its policies are.

[st3v3r]

"Why exactly is democracy the best, or shall we say "least bad", option?"

Because it does allow for choice. It makes the leaders accountable to the electorate, as they can always vote them out next election. Most other forms of government do not allow for the government to be changed easily.

If you have a better form of government in mind, I'm sure we'd like to hear it.

[Retric]

One of the more interesting ideas I have rarely seen in fiction is an actual benevolent and wise AI taking over. Closest is probably the Culture novels which shows up as a very odd society.

[maxerickson]

It's basically the theme of Asimov's later works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Daneel_Olivaw#The_Foundatio...

[Aloha]

a wise and benevolent AI would likely do things unwise for the long term survival of humanity

[__s]

But that'd contradict the 0th law of robotics

[DrScump]

Check out the Twilight Zone episode "The Old Man in the Cave" for one example.

[maxerickson]

Government should be aiming to hit the lowest common denominator.

It's a tragedy that candidates get 51% of the votes (representing 25% of the electorate) and then start blubbering about their mandate.

[Retric]

Voting for 3rd party's often has a larger impact than voting for the top 2 party's. Remember in a 2 party system each side wants to minimize the perceived differences. But, if a 3rd party gains support one of the major party's will generally add those ideas to the platform.

Most recently is probably Libertarian > Tea Party. Not that they really had much impact, but people paid lip-service to the ideas.

[darpa_escapee]

If you vote Socialist or Tea Party, the Democrats / Republicans lost your vote and have the stats to back it up.

Even if you disagree with the system, vote for whoever is most aligned with your values. Someone will want your vote and your decision may impact future campaigns.

[dragonwriter]

> If you vote Socialist or Tea Party, the Democrats / Republicans lost your vote and have the stats to back it up.

The Tea Party isn't an actual party that fields candidates, its a right-wing grassroots (or astroturf, depending on who you listen to) organization that mostly backs Republican candidates, and mostly serves to push the Republicans on certain issues. If you vote for a Tea Party-backed candidates, a Republican has won your vote, not lost it.

[hackuser]

> Remember in a 2 party system each side wants to minimize the perceived differences.

I don't know that I agree. In practice, it's hardly happening (look at the Republicans and Democrats; at Trump and Clinton), and I don't see why it would happen.

[Retric]

Trump and Clinton are basically still at the primary stage where people have actual choices. You can expect a push to center fairly soon. They don't want to give voters issue whiplash so they generally transition though to more centrist message.

Ideally candidates want to avoid alienating their base, but they also can't pick up more voters by pandering to them. So, everyone tries to appeal to independents and not energize their opponents base. The other strategy to to fight dirty which tends to suppress voter turnout, but that can easily backfire in a presidential election.

This also often results in coded language. Which lets you target messages to people that care about an issue without generally annoying other people.

[hackuser]

> How do you intend to get people like me to vote?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11715896

[sqeaky]

People like you are quite rare. Most people will vote for the lesser of two evils once they hit some level of disgust.

If you read their methodology, they are trying to reach a large group first. I seems someone as rare as you doesn't matter when thousands of easy votes are still out there. Even then they may fix something else on the way to voter turnout of 80% or 90% that may be appealing to you.

[ggggtez]

So, you're asking if democracy is a popularity contest? Are you suggesting it's not?

[danieltillett]

Stop voting for someone and start voting against someone. Pick the least worst candidate and give them your vote.

[laxatives]

No that isn't a solution or comprimise I'm comfortable with. I'm not saying itst my responsibility to cut losses and do what's best for everyone. I'm saying this system is broken and I won't be a part of it.

[dragonwriter]

As long as you don't leave, you are a part of it. If you aren't acting within your power to.mitigate the problems in it, you are not only part of the system, but a willing contributor to the problems.

If you aren't comfortable with the set of options, actively work to improve the set of options to one you are more comfortable with in the future. But, today, do the best with the options you have.

[fosco]

correct.

If you are paying taxes you are paying for this system, by not voting, you are simply having money stolen from you to have other people do as they see fit.

pretending that your abstainment from voting is somehow going to do anything but give ignorant people more power is senseless for anyone who understands how business/government works.

[chiaro]

>I won't be a part of it.

You are though, mate. You don't have a choice in the matter.

[sverige]

Yes, I do have a choice to not participate by not voting.

In Soviet Union, party crush people like me since hurts lie that all support them.

[chiaro]

...and in Capitalist America, party ignores people like you since indistinguishable from apathy and laziness.

[danieltillett]

Unless you give up your citizenship and leave the country you are part of the political process. Yes you might believe the system is broken, but by not voting you are saying you don’t care and you are effectively giving half a vote each to the top two candidates. I am sure this is not what you intended to do.

If all the choices on offer are so bad that you can’t choose a candidate to vote against then write in a candidate. In my experience it is very rare that both candidates are equally bad and you can’t choose the least worst option.

[sverige]

To address your first assertion, I am a citizen whether I vote or not. By not voting, I am consciously choosing not to be part of the political process, at least that part of the process where I vouch for a politician by giving them my vote.

And I can't name a single person I want to associate my name with by voting for them.

[danieltillett]

I think you have a very unusual idea of what voting means. You are not vouching for a politician by voting for them nor are you associated with them in any way. All you are expressing is you rate them higher than their opposition.

[hueving]

It's sort of the train switch moral question. If you hate them both but hate one slight more, voting for the lesser hated one makes you morally responsible for the shit they cause in some peoples' view (as opposed to being a bystander).

[danieltillett]

No by not voting you are implicitly giving them half a vote each. You don't get to opt out of the decision of who wins by not voting.

[choward]

Let's say hypothetically your two options to vote for have the same motives but take different stances on relatively unimportant issues. The issues that actually matter aren't discussed. The only issues that are discussed are the ones that stir up people's emotions. By voting you are just supporting this system and saying everything is okay. "Oh, look. 90% voter turnout. Everything is great."

I'd much rather not have my vote counted then vote for someone I despise. "Hmm, 10% voter turnout. Something must be wrong."

Encouraging people to vote for a person they don't like just because they don't dislike them quite as much as the other person sets a very bad precedent.

[dragonwriter]

> I'd much rather not have my vote counted then vote for someone I despise. "Hmm, 10% voter turnout. Something must be wrong."

Empirically, low turnout as a signal that something is wrong which provokes some kind of change to correct it doesn't work very well.

> Encouraging people to vote for a person they don't like just because they don't dislike them quite as much as the other person sets a very bad precedent.

Encouraging people to not vote because eventually that will signal that something is wrong and produce positive change is a lot worse.

Vote-for-one voting is still a ranked-preference method, its just one with only two ranks, and a restriction that only one candidate can be put in the first rank. It provides some (though often less than you'd like) input into social decisionmaking.

Abstention, in any voting system, is simply expressing absolute indifference between the available options -- it doesn't mean that you dislike them all, you could just like them all equally. It provides no useful signal into social decisionmaking. If you are actually indifferent, that's fine, but signaling indifference when what you really want to say is that you are not indifferent, but also not happy with your choices, is probably not what you want.

If you don't like the choices you get at general elections, there are ways to signal that that are far more effective than not voting. (The weakest and most basic of which is voting in primary elections or whatever the equivalent is.)

[danieltillett]

Encouraging people to vote for a person they don't like just because they don't dislike them quite as much as the other person sets a very bad precedent.

The alternative is the worse candidate get half your vote. If you really are indifferent to which ever candidate wins (i.e. they are both equally bad) then don’t vote. If you do think one is worse than the other then you need to vote to express this opinion.

[laxatives]

No it really isn't. This is some very basic math that you are getting completely wrong for the sake of an argument. I'm not increasing either candidates popularity by not voting. If anything, I'm implicitly decreasing both of their popularities.

[danieltillett]

No really you are getting the maths wrong. Try looking at it from the perspective of the politician. What do they think. This is what matters.

[LionessLover]

> It's sort of the train switch moral question.

No it isn't.

[LionessLover]

> It's sort of the train switch moral question.

No it's not. You are stupid.

[dang]

Personal attacks like this aren't allowed on HN. We ban accounts that do this. Please read the site guidelines and post civilly and substantively, only:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

[Animats]

Well, first you have to make your site work. Your site says that I'm not registered to vote in San Mateo County, California. But San Mateo County's site, "https://www.shapethefuture.org/MyElectionMaterials/default.a..., says that I am.

Also, you collected my email address. That's mandatory before you do the registration check. Why? I don't want to be "onboarded", and if I was, I want to be "offboarded". I just wrote to "[e-mail]" about that.

From your terms:

We may use Personal Information:

To send you informational communications that we believe may be of interest to you.

To send you marketing communications that we believe may be of interest to you.

...

We may use Flash LSOs and other technologies to, among other things, collect and store information about your use of the Services.

So this is really about building a mailing list you can spam, while tracking users to collect their behavior patterns.

FAIL

[debracleaver]

if by spam you mean send election reminders, then yes, we are spammers. we're a 501c3 nonprofit. that means we don't profit off of our work unless helping to build a healthy democracy can be considered profit. also, we use a third-party database to power that tool. this probably won't shock you, but aggregating and normalizing voter roll data from 10,000+ election jurisdictions is messy and hard. there will always be the occasional false negative, which is why we encourage you to check again with your state if you think we're incorrect.

as for the privacy policy: it's too heavy on the legalese. our law firm wrote it ages ago, and we haven't had time to update it. we're not spammers. we're election reformers

[hackuser]

> we're not spammers. we're election reformers

I support what you do. However, that comment's blase-looking dismissal of privacy and spam concerns, rather than a serious attempt to address them, doesn't give me good feelings or confidence.

[maxerickson]

I went and looked up the 990s for Long Distance Voter and you are manifestly not drawing a large salary, but it's quite possible for a 501c3 nonprofit to be a pretty swell deal for the people operating it, even if they have to pay income taxes on all the benefits they receive from the work.

Which I apologize for not finding a more elegant way to phrase it, but the distinction between dividends, capital gains and ordinary income is not really that interesting, it's a detail of taxation.

[strommen]

Do you know of studies or other hard data that tracks _why_ people don't vote? The article claims it is the difficulty of the process, but I would have guessed the top reason is voter apathy (which isn't really a technology issue).

Here's one thing technology could help with: identify which polling places are facing long delays on Election Day, so additional resources can be allocated to speed them up. Without being "partisan", I've noticed that areas with lots of college students and minorities tend to have much longer delays than affluent mainly-white areas (I wonder why that is...)

[debracleaver]

oh sure. there are a wealth of studies out there. it's hard to say why any particular person doesn't vote, but there are some trends that show when voting is easier, more people vote. Colorado, Washington and Oregon all moved toward vote-by-mail systems, in which a ballot is automatically mailed to a voter's house, and saw an immediate increase in voter turnout.

Honestly, I'm waited to see the outcome of Oregon's automatic voter registration efforts on turnout. My guess is that Oregon will continue to lead the way with high turnout. I could be wrong, of course, but there's nothing that suggests that making voting easier would decrease turnout.

[pjc50]

The UK increased postal voting, and found greatly increased fraud: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26520836

I'd be concerned that some of the increased turnout aren't real voters...

[tehwebguy]

That article is just the opinion of Richard Mawrey QC.

Here is the Electoral Fraud Review report from the Electoral Commission in 2014. Mawrey seems to strongly disagree with the findings of the report.

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file...

[notahacker]

The Electoral Fraud Review report concludes that banning postal voting (in specific areas or altogether) would be a "disproportionate" response to allegations of voter fraud.

It also quite explicitly states that limiting postal votes would reduce the risk of voter fraud (p34) and acknowledges some evidence of systematic voter fraud in some regions of the UK exists.

[debracleaver]

it's hard to draw conclusions cross-country. right now i would say that we are very much in a position of denying actual citizens the right to vote, and we need to address that stat. postal mail is one way we can do that. making voting easy in general is the goal here.

[Twirrim]

My wife absolutely loves the mailed ballot approach in Washington (I'm not eligible to vote). Particularly because Washington appears to have votes of some description every quarter.

The information booklet that comes with it has been great for kickstarting investigation into the candidates and their policies, and the various other proposals that are up for the vote (booklet has both for and against arguments from different interest groups) so that she's been able to be a lot more informed as she prepares to vote.

[vanattab]

Am I understanding you correctly? Is the washington state GOVERMENT mailing out ballots with a "pro/con" booklet or are they being sent out by some poltical nonprofit that is just printing off the standard ballot. It would disgust me if it was the election board compiling an "unbiased" pros/cons booklet that is included with every ballot.

[dragonwriter]

I don't know about Washington, but California has:

(1) Candidate statements from candidates (there are requirements for being allowed to submit a statement), and (2) Pro/con statements from the official proponents and registered opponents of ballot measures (identifying the sources for both) as well as financial estimates for ballot measures (for statewide measures, these are prepared by the state Legislative Analysts Office.)

[steven777400]

Yes, it works great. The Secretary of State's office solicits a pro and con opinion from interested groups. At the bottom of the opinion is a laundry-list of groups that co-wrote the statement. That list is often more informative than the contents of the statement itself. The booklet also includes a candidate statement submitted by the candidate for each position.

[Frondo]

Former Oregonian here--they do that too, and it's extremely handy to have all that stuff laid out in one place. Many an afternoon I sat down with my ballot (everything is done by mail there) and the booklet and read up on the issues and voted.

[simantel]

The government mails out the booklet, but all of its contents are submitted by various "interested parties," and are labeled as such.

[smsm42]

Do you (or anybody else) track about how informed the voters that are captured by "easy vote" are? I understand there are a lot of partisan disagreements, but there are also basic facts both about how US government works and what positions of the candidates are, which unfortunately are unknown to significant number of people. If you just get those people to vote, they might vote based on whose name they heard on TV, or who is handsomer, or because they heard somebody said something good/bad about some candidate and they never bothered to see if it's true. Do you think getting such people to vote more would improve the state of democracy?

I am not saying people don't already vote while uninformed - but you may be making matters worse. I am also not saying people that vote only when it's super-easy are necessarily of this kind or even have more uninformed voters than in general - maybe yes, maybe not. But I think it is a reasonable hypothesis which would be nice to check before investing money in effort in something that very well may make matters worse, not better.

[cinquemb]

I'd also be interested in data about the why's as well. My personal reasons span somewhere from personally humorous contempt of the idealized process (and its manifestation in reality) to observing how well extra-democratic interventions work for influencing specific political goals/change (esp in "democracies") under the right circumstances.

Though I doubt there will be a poll/test that would allow for such description and provide it within a larger context of being available as dataset for the public. It's easier to cast blanket statement of "low information/access" and work from such basis and pat oneself on the back for token reforms to be cited in a pamphlet/resume somewhere.

[dexterdog]

Don't most areas with lots of college students just see lines at the post office to mail in absentees? When I was in school nobody I knew was registered locally.

[DrScump]

Why would one wait in line to drop something into a mailbox?

[dexterdog]

We're talking students. They need stamps and probably envelopes.

[DrScump]

All voting jurisdictions here use prepaid-postage mailers. Perhaps that is not the norm.

[dexterdog]

I went to school quite some time ago.

[xiphias]

Hey Debra,

have you thought of open sourcing the voting backend so that cryptography and security experts can help to make sure that the votes are fair?

Also technology is good enough to be able to prove cryptographically the number of voters and to prove that a signature was taken to account. There are many ways to do this, but a professional cryptographer is the best to help in designing a system like this, not me.

[debracleaver]

hey xiphias: we help people register, not actually vote, so we're pretty confident in the security. we're always looking for hackers to try to break it however. want to help out?

[cloudjacker]

As someone that is pretty content lobbying or going directly to a regulator to change a law, than through Congress or a local representative

Why do you think voter turnout is even worth spending energy on. Lobbying is way more likely to get your way and only marginally less passive. When Google got the FAA to change a regulation regarding blimps and skydiving, they didn't wait for the next Senate vote to put in their politicians, to nominate a more amenable chairman. They simply said "lets do it this way" to the FAA.

Its cute that people fought for the popular vote. But just cute.

[cloudjacker]

I read this article and I still don't see the "why". It says "because there are big problems people want changed", this doesn't answer why you want to increase voter turnout.

For example, in America, the will of the people only influences change when it coincidentally is aligned with special interest will. Every other time special interests are more influential than the voting public.

This would undermine a theory that voter turnout is even a solution.

[hackuser]

> the will of the people only influences change when it coincidentally is aligned with special interest will

I'm not sure what this means: If many people support something, is that a 'special interest'? Or won't there inevitably be a special interest supporting the same issue?

Also, do you have some research that supports this claim? I have seen research that lobbying's greatest power is to stop things from changing - i.e., to maintain the status quo.

[cloudjacker]

There is one paper worth reading, I was able to retrieve it from sci-hub:

http://sci-hub.bz/10.1146/annurev-polisci-100711-135308

tl;dr The most effective lobbying groups are typically supported is heads of large organizations acting independently of the rest of the organization or actual people. Estimating effectiveness has challenges in an empirical study but here are our attempts anyway.

There is another paper that shows the outcomes of public policy issues that stirred public interest. I want to find that one.

[burkaman]

Is it at all possible that the will of the people could influence change more often if more people were involved?

[notahacker]

Possible. I'd argue the reverse is more likely, given that people relatively uninterested in voting are disproportionately less likely to be partial towards a particular candidate or cause or otherwise interested in changing the status quo.

[etjossem]

Reasons for not voting vary. Uninterested voters are common, but other factors (didn't like the candidates, forgot to vote, too busy, transportation problems, inconvenient polling place) show up too.

The Census has good data on this: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/p20/577/... [XLS]

[cloudjacker]

No, a representative sample votes.

A shift in the demographics of voters influences change.

[etjossem]

A representative sample doesn't vote, that's the problem. The people who show up tend to be white middle-aged homeowners. Youth voter turnout, for instance, is very low compared to the eligible population [1]

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...

[burkaman]

Do you know of any evidence that a representative sample votes?

Even if that's true, I think 100% voting is a worthwhile goal, because it removes any doubt. If voting is already perfectly representative, then nobody should have a problem with this initiative, because it would change nothing.

[cloudjacker]

for evidence we could start here: http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/demographics

are we aligned on the understanding that representative sample means a reflection of the random population? As in not a representative proportion of all subsets, but just what you might see in a random place in the country.

I mentioned to you or in another subthread that a shift in the voter demographics can effect change.

[cloudjacker]

It is a waste of energy. Yes it is quaint that people actually fought for this right, now logically, you should realize this is unnecessary duplication of efforts, and you have suggested that there should be no problem increasing that unnecessary duplication of effort.

Some people, and their entities, are more influential than others and will always be. The popular vote has limited utility.

This observation has nothing to do with alternative forms of governance. This observation is simply that here and now, there are better rules you can play by than even caring about the popular vote one bit.

[burkaman]

Ok, I think we understand each other. If you know of some study that shows the current voting population is representative of the total population, I would be interested in seeing it.

[hnamazon123]

The successes of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump would seem to contradict your thesis.

[LionessLover]

It only changes WHO is elected, not what's going to happen. Which thus far only is fantasy and speculation. I remember the last time that happened - before Obama. How much "change" did we see? And please - it does not matter if one thinks "it's all the Republicans' fault", assigning blame does not change what the outcome was (is).

[cloudjacker]

It doesn't contradict the thesis.

[hnamazon123]

I suppose the lizard people do in fact support Sanders and Trump.

[sethbannon]

Hey Debra,

Thanks for everything you're doing to increase participation in our democracy!

I know it's a bit far-sighted, but would love to hear your thoughts on electronic voting. Is it feasible? Desirable? What do we need to get there?

[Techbrunch]

Anyone interested in electronic voting, I would suggest reading the article: Internet Voting: A Requiem for the Dream in the last issue of Phrack. It was eye opening for me.

http://phrack.org/issues/69/11.html#article

[debracleaver]

seth, it's feasible, but not with existing technology. i'm off-hand, somewhat flippant rule of thumb is that this isn't something we can realistically discuss until we can go a single week without a major security breach. right now breaches are so common that they barely merit a news mention.

once we're there in terms of security, however, i am confident that we will see a radical increase in voter turnout.

[ohitsdom]

I get that security is a major, major concern but scanning headlines seems like a really poor metric for deciding when technology is "ready". There will always be bad/rushed/under-staffed developers and bad business decisions that lead to security breaches. That doesn't mean existing technology isn't capable of being secure.

[debracleaver]

we agree 100%. technology is capable of being secure, it just isn't secure yet. think of the stakes here. if a 16 year old hacker working out of his mother's basement in belarus could change the outcome of the US presidential election, we'd all be farked.

[labster]

Debra, how would you feel about an Australian-style fine for failure to vote here in the U.S.? I assume Vote.org work primarily on technological ways to promote voting, but will it also deal with social structural or institutional ways to increase voter turnout?

[debracleaver]

labster, compulsory voting would be amazing in the US. i might be in the minority here, but i consider voting a duty, not a right per se.

[harryh]

Compulsory voting would be a very clear 1st amendment violation and, hence, require a Constitutional Amendment.

[dragonwriter]

Which provision of the first amendment is violated by compulsory voting?

[harryh]

Freedom of speech.

[dragonwriter]

Requiring you to show up at a particular place and put a pair in a box, with the option to actually mark something on it (Australian style mandatory voting) hardly violates freedom of speech.

[nommm-nommm]

Amazing for who exactly?

[notahacker]

The people collecting the fines, and possibly the None of the Above Party

[bobwaycott]

It's pretty sad to see your statement downvoted. I, too, consider voting to be both a duty and right of citizenship, and wish more people felt the same.

[icebraining]

One may consider it an ethical duty without agreeing that it should involve coercion. And in the end, you can force people to put a piece of paper in a box every few years, but you can't force them to care about what they're doing.

[hackuser]

> i consider voting a duty, not a right per se.

Could you clarify? It's somewhat shocking to hear the Vote.org representative say voting is not a right in the U.S.

[chiaro]

A duty is stronger than a right, and implies an obligation, not just an option. Countries that implement obligatory voting (or rather, obligatory showing up to the ballot, there is no need to vote once there) are obliged in turn to make voting as accessible as possible. Voting in Australia, for example, rarely takes longer than 10 minutes on the day (a weekend) if you hadn't already visited an early voting booth or mailed your vote in.

[danieltillett]

Technical you don't have to vote here in Australia, you just have to put a ballot paper in the box at the polling station and have your name crossed off the roll. Of course most peopl (95%) do bother to vote once they are at the polling station.

The best part of compulsory voting Australian-style is that it encourages people to show at least some interest in the political process since they know they will be voting.

[chiaro]

Yep, people who complain about political apathy here in Aus have no idea how bad it gets elsewhere.

[danieltillett]

Yes we manage to keep a much large percentage of the population involved in the political process by having everyone turn up at the polling station. Sure we have a lot of low information voters, but we also increase the percentage of the population that pays attention to the issues - at least around election times.

[davekinkead]

Hi Debra - (longish) question about the white labelling aspect of vote.org:

It seems like the implied value of vote.org is that increasing voter turnout can make democracy 'better' by making it more representative. This can only happen however, if the increase in or delta from voter turnout is itself representative of the community at large. If the increase in turnout is only from the extreme of one end of the political spectrum, then that doesn't seem to help democracy.

But if you are white labelling vote.org, then the organisations that use it will be far from partisan and therefore the delta from voter turnout wont be representative.

So if vote.org is used primarily by one side of politics, how does this help democracy? (assuming you can't show that side of politics is objectively better) And if vote.org is used equally by all sides of politics, how does the increased voter turnout change anything?

[mc32]

Could voting be "improved" if instead of higher turnout with the same outcome the focus was on informing voters on the issues better?

In other words, rather than let's say getting 100 yeas to 80 nays versus 1000 yeas vs 800 nays, on an issue, might it not be better to get 95 nays vs 85 yays on a material issue?

[sayhar]

Debra -- you're awesome. Thanks for doing this. (And congrats on getting into YC!?)

Question for you -- you famously have run the predecessor organization to Vote.org on a shoestring budget. Do you have tips on how to interact with "software volunteers" who want to help on civic projects like this?

[dak1]

Hi Debra,

Is your organization focused only on general elections, or on primaries as well? I couldn't find any information about primary elections on your site, even though many of the most consequential decisions are made then, when voter turnout is at its lowest.

[mordocai]

Not debra, but I would think that would fall under "partisan"

[maxerickson]

The fact that the parties have privileged access to the ballot is arguably not a partisan issue.

In many places, the support of a recognized party dramatically lowers the requirements for getting on the ballot. In my state, by as much as a factor of 3:

https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_access_requirements_for_polit...

[logfromblammo]

Not all primaries are partisan.

As a non-Republican, non-Democrat, when I voted in the last primary, there was exactly one referendum on my ballot, and nothing else.

I was also the only person on the nonpartisan register at that time of the morning. They had to crack open the shrink-wrap on the ballots just for me. I imagine that not many other people would bother to drag themselves in to the polling place for that one issue, were they not also choosing candidates for one party or the other.

[dak1]

I can think of non-partisan objectives, like pushing for open primaries in all States, and allowing for same day registration.

[joshdotsmith]

Hi Debra! Thanks for the hard work on Vote.org.

Have you thought about efforts to open up access to a nationalized voter file? As it stands right now, a one-time snapshot of all 50 states would cost approximately $144,000. This makes it difficult for get out the vote efforts, and for efforts to identify registration irregularities.

Also, have you thought about open sourcing your work at all? I know there are a large number of developers ready and willing to help efforts like this, particularly for a non-profit like yours.

[funkyy]

Hi Debra, is there any information on who donated to your cause, what institutions and personas? Are you funded by some pro-democracy circles?

[ruthienachmany]

What is your go to answer to people who say they don't vote because in the state they vote in, they believe the candidate they want to win will be elected without them making the effort of going to vote? I have a few I generally go with, but curious what you tend to use.

[Lukeas14]

Every election is about much more than just the presidency. There's always state/local elections, propositions and ballot measures. And these will often have a much more direct affect on you than the President of the U.S. Most local ballot measures aren't unanimous and the results are usually much closer to 50/50, otherwise the city council would've passed it already. So even if you're a Republican in California your vote will absolutely still count for something.

[hackuser]

> What is your go to answer to people who say they don't vote because in the state they vote in, they believe the candidate they want to win will be elected without them making the effort of going to vote?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11715896

[PhasmaFelis]

Also the reverse, where you believe the candidate you want will lose and there's nothing you can do about it.

[beatpanda]

I think this is a great project, but I don't think it will work without a strong political analysis -- that is, the installation of roadblocks to voting is an intentional political act. How do you intend to get states that are intent on suppressing the vote from certain populations to adopt technology that would make it easier to vote?

[csharpminor]

This is fantastic! Just wondering, how does Vote.org compare/contrast to TurboVote (https://turbovote.org/)?

[koolba]

How'd you get such an awesome domain?

[debracleaver]

Ok, don't laugh: I did a whois search, got the owner's contact info and sent an email. We spent the better part of a year discussing the sale. Both political parties had tried to buy it from him in years past. Ultimately he sold it to me because we are fiercely nonpartisan.

[judah]

FWIW, I appreciate the non-partisan stance.