The fundamental tenet of a working democracy is voting. Everyone should have a vote and everyone should exercise their right to vote. To that end we have been seeing posts attempting to shame/mock or otherwise influence people not to vote. While this is a meme community, the idea that people shouldn’t vote goes against the fundamentals of a democracy by the people and for the people. To that end, we are adding a new rule that disallows posts that discourage or shame people from voting. This doesn’t mean that you can’t address how people vote, but even those who don’t agree with you and your political views should still vote. We all should. Everyone. Part of the reason we are in the mess we are in now is because participation in democracy is abysmal. Posts discouraging people from voting are essentially propaganda and will be removed.
PoliticalMemes is a community for having fun at the expense of our political hellscape we find ourselves in. People not voting is a big part of why.
We are taking feedback on this change, please let us know if you agree or disagree in the comments and why.
Informed voting is what’s important. Voting in-and-of-itself doesn’t contribute to a healthy democracy. To the contrary, mindless voting almost killed democracy multiple times recently.
To that end, I disagree with the notion that everyone should vote: filling your ballot on name recognition or in accordance with some preacher’s orders or some shit is dangerous, and if that’s you, then you absolutely should not vote!
Dig. Get at least some basic info on the people on your ballot. Consider the secondary and tertiary effects of any proposed policy; consider how it could back fire, etc. Once you actually understand what you’re voting on, THEN vote. But if you won’t take the time to do that, just showing up isn’t doing any kind of civic duty.
It’s not misinformed voting that caused Trump’s ascension to power. Participation was abysmally low (55% of the adult population). I don’t think Trump, or any other far-right lunatic, can win an election without voter apathy.
Do not reinforce stereotypes that some people should not be allowed to vote because they’re too stupid. It is sterile and dangerous.
True, but the undemocratic idea that voting should be left to “informed” people (who decides who’s informed, or how do you make sure people are impartially informed, anyway?), is still dangerous. The idea that a part of the population is too dumb to take part in democracy is a core motivation of eugenism.
Don’t discourage people voting against their interest from voting. You need their vote to dislodge autocrats. You need to convince them instead. If you believe in democracy, that is.
Your right maybe we should have a test that you have to take before you can vote. But that might accidentally disinfancise people who are competent to vote, so to be safe if your family has a tradition of voting you probably learned about it at home, so if your grandfather could vote you don’t have to take the test. This is a good and original system you have created.
To vote answer this question.
Snow is the same color as:
- -flower
- -grass
- -skin
- -roses
Aight I thought the other guy was just trolling, so I didn’t bother with a reply, but it looks like you reached the same conclusion, so maybe I didn’t make myself clear.
No where in my post did I say uninformed voters shouldn’t be allowed to vote; I said they shouldn’t vote. That might sound pedantic, but it’s an important distinction.
My issue is with the cultural notion that “It’s your civic duty to vote!” cuz no, it isn’t. Voting is a tool, and like any other tool it can be used in a dangerous way if you don’t take the time to understand how it works.
If you’re not sure how to operate pneumatic hammer, you shouldn’t do that either; but I’m not saying you should be disallowed from handling one or face legal consequences for trying; I’m saying YOU should have the sense to recognize the potential for harm from misuse of the tool in question, and YOU should choose to abstain from trying until you’ve done some homework.
If you are asking people to self select not to vote, only informed voters will self select out. The vast majority of poorly informed or misinformed voters don’t know enough to identify their knowledge gaps. Like a voting Dunning-Kruger asking people to abstain from voting if they are uninformed will actually result in an overall less informed voting population. If you want informed voters then get everyone to vote and increase voter education.
