[cheeseomlit]

>We need to do everything possible to increase participation in the democratic process

Do we? Participation should be made easy for those eligible and inclined to do so, but I don't see the benefit of encouraging participation from people who can't be bothered to put some effort into it, or are ignorant of the issues and candidates and are easily swayed by trashy campaign ads. I've seen the statistic thrown around that less than half of americans can even name the 3 branches of government, and if that's true I think those people have a civic duty not to vote.

[mariusor]

That's what democracy is though. If only the right people are allowed to vote then you have a problem because their definition can change on a dime.

[cheeseomlit]

I'm not advocating that people not be allowed to vote, I'm just pushing back on the dogma of more voter participation = better, IE. just because you can vote doesn't mean you should if you dont understand what you're voting for and don't really care enough to learn.

Seeing the constant barrage of campaign ads every couple years made me think about it- Why does campaign financing matter, how do they turn money into votes anyways? The answer apparently is ads, but I see these bottom-of-the-barrel slop political advertisements and wonder how that trash could possibly have a measurable effect on the outcome of an election. But it must work, otherwise they wouldn't spend so much money on it. And the fact that elections can be meaningfully influenced by the amount of ads a campaign can run is a signal to me that the democratic process is broken in some fundamental way. The votes of well-informed constituents are drowned out by the more numerous cohorts of partisans, reactionaries, and the apathetic just going through the motions to fulfill their 'civic duty', so it seems to me that increasing voter participation without changing anything else is only going to exacerbate the problem

[throwa9876]

> And the fact that elections can be meaningfully influenced by the amount of ads a campaign can run is a signal to me that the democratic process is broken in some fundamental way.

That's probably rational ignorance. It's hard to get people to investigate the details of policy and their consequences when theirs is just one vote out of millions. It's too much work. But that leaves the voters susceptible the kind of ads you mention.

Or stated more simply: getting informed doesn't scale, but mass advertising does.

Athenian-style democracy might handle this problem better. Randomly select, in some unbiased manner, a smaller number of people who then decide. But I suspect sortition is a little too unusual and feels a little too chancy for people to accept as a serious proposal.

[mariusor]

Wouldn't banning political ads, and large sum political spending, and PACs and lobbying (I assume you're from the US based on the comments) be a better solution than whatever the f*ck "don't vote if you don't understand" is?

Democracy means that everyone gets a vote, uneducated, bigoted, communist, fascist, everyone. If you don't accept that, you don't accept democracy.