Why we don't vote - Tuesday was an election day in Toledo for some districts. Only 6.5 percent of registered voters went to the polls. Some reasons we don't vote: "...verified again and again, that citizens are ignorant. It is not that they are stupid, but that they are not paid to think about politics, and rationally they choose to think about other things."
"How many know their government? If politicians talk about sewers, bus service, prisons and parks, lots of us don't listen. If they talk about abortion, guns, the flag and the Ten Commandments, we are more likely to listen — but the real work of government goes unexamined."
"We complain that we are manipulated by money, which we are. Whose fault is that? We have asked our government to control billions of our dollars and not bother us with the details."
"Voting is not the only system of decision-making. Business has its own system. Instead of a right to vote, the marketplace offers a right of 'exit' — the right to cancel a contract, to quit a job, to refuse an offer. That right works better than the right to vote, because it is not winner-take-all. It does not require that we understand a theory, or an issue or anything much. The market lets us choose what we want, and otherwise remain ignorant — which, generally speaking, is what we do. Many things government does would be better done in the market."
"Meanwhile, we vote. We have all been taught to believe in voting, which has one good effect: When a decision is announced, the losers accept it. That is not true in much of the world, but it is true here. We reach decisions peaceably. Whether they are smart decisions is another matter."
posted by jr to politics at 10:46 P.M. EST
(2 Comments)
Comments ...
One of the reason people may not be voting is that they do not know WHERE to vote. Yes, this was published in the Blade and people are sent notices however, today is voting day and we have students AND teachers that wanted to vote on their way to school or going home. BUT they not longer have their card instructing them where to vote. We have been on the computer for 40 minutes trying to find a web site that lists prescints and we are not able to find such information. Why is that? Even the Bd of Elections does not list this info - or much else. Under VOTER INFORMATION there is nothing!! When these people leave their job and are tired they just may not bother to vote as it will be too much trouble to locate their place of voting. Why does not such a list pop right up on the computer? We have tried dozens of web sites related to voting and nothing!! Even the Blade only has articles regarding voting but not WHERE to vote. This is a problem!
posted by Guest at 11:17 A.M. EST on Tue Nov 04, 2003 #
I had a similar issue. The Lucas County website contains a nice lookup feature to find where a person is suppose to vote. I should have posted this on the home page of ToledoTalk, but I just found out about this feature this evening.
You enter your house number and street name, and the website will list your voting location and precinct.
For future reference, the site is http://www.LucasCountyOH.gov.
Then down a bit on the left side of the home page, there's a link for Board of Elections, which will contain the latest news for this category.
The vote location lookup feature is called Poll Locator.
Lucas County is also providing election results on their website.
posted by jr at 09:07 P.M. EST on Tue Nov 04, 2003 #
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