this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2024
633 points (98.9% liked)

politics

19047 readers
4797 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Is it time to make Election Day a federal holiday? 🗳️ Some say it would boost voter turnout and align the U.S. with other democracies, while others argue it could create challenges for hourly workers and cost millions. Dive into the debate over whether a federal voting holiday is the best way to strengthen democracy or if there are better solutions. Check out the full breakdown!

https://ace-usa.org/blog/research/research-votingrights/should-election-day-become-a-federal-holiday-weighing-the-benefits-and-drawbacks/

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

IMHO, yes, but you have to bring proof of having voted the next work day for it to count. And the State should respond to mail-in ballots with "I Voted" stickers - mail in ballots have deadlines, so maybe It'd be enough time for a round trip. Or if you drop off the ballot at a post office, postal workers can hand you a sticker. More money for the USPS; it's a win-win. Change the I voted sticker each year; counterfeiting would be more work than it's worth.

There'd be forgeries, lax enforcement, whatever; the point isn't to have a hard enforcement, like money, but just to encourage people to vote.

We'll never be a country that mandates voting, like some do, but anything that encourages people to vote is a good thing.

P.S. if we can't convert to a 4-day work week country, I think we should slowly create more federal holidays that fall on specific week days, until we have 52 of them.

[–] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh I love this but let's make the incentives better.

  • Every company gets a tax deduction for each employee that votes
  • Each locality, county, state gets a tax bonus from the federal government for every election it has and for each person who votes
  • each person who votes is eligible to receive a tax stimulus the following year

All of this can be done today. Voter participation information is actually available at the local level. It's why I always get fliers for Republicans since I vote in their primaries. (My vote is more effective there than in the Democratic primary)

[–] sxan@midwest.social 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If this is your platform, I'll vote for you. Throw in a little RCV, and I'll canvas, too.

[–] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I want to get rid of FPTP voting but a recent veritasium video has me wondering if we should try something better than RCV.

Not saying I would vote no on RCV, but if we're going to change the voting method, let's do it in a way ensures that the people are best represented.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There are many better systems than RCV, but if has two things going for it:

  1. Already some momentum. It's already implemented widely (if not commonly) in the US and other countries.
  2. It's easy for people to understand, which is critical for trust, and possible to hand count if necessary.

With all due respect to Veritasium, perfect here is definitely the enemy of good. RCV is maybe the least good of many better-than-FPTP options, and has flaws; however, any argument for doing better than RCV based on "it has flaws" will always end up with arguing that we should use the Condorcet method, which would be impossible to approve and possibly impossible to implement.

The next best thing to RCV is far less of an improvement over RCV than RCV is over FPTP. I'd rather have STAR, but all of these options are broadly unknown, difficult to explain, and more complex to execute by hand than RCV. I'd rather have something, than stay stuck on FPTP.

[–] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't disagree one bit.

I just want people to realize that anything is better than FPTP but we shouldn't stop at RCV. We should relentlessly pursue democracy, ensuring that The People are represented in the most accurate way possible.

So yes, vote for RCV. But don't let it be the destination.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 1 week ago