Hacker News Reader

Comment by rgbrenner | Hacker News Reader

I don't agree that voting on a cell phone is the right solution here. I live in Colorado, we get mail-in ballots and a book describing each of the issues.

I got mine last week. I sat down read over each item, did some research on the internet, and filled in my vote. It was a long ballot (2 legal-sized pages front and back), and took about an hour. Mailed it in earlier today.

How does doing that on a cell phone improve this? In fact, it sounds more frustrating, because my phone is tiny, may need to be charged, internet connectivity issues, etc.

And really, if we're going to talk about how flawed our system is, this is like one of the more minor points. If you want to get to the root of it, let's talk about how to get rid of the 2 party system, and allow more diverse parties and ideas. That's the real problem.

View on HN

> And really, if we're going to talk about how flawed our system is, this is like one of the more minor points. If you want to get to the root of it, let's talk about how to get rid of the 2 party system, and allow more diverse parties and ideas. That's the real problem.

I agree. People will put more effort into voting if they were more motivated, but voting for the "lesser of two evils" is hardly a motivator.

I'd say the electoral college, where it's winner-take-all per state, also plays a large role in keeping people home on election day. If you're in a heavily blue or red state, it's pretty hard to convince yourself that your vote matters.

The article is not about voting on a cell phone. It's about sending text messages to people to try to convince them to go vote.

The key takeaway is probably that they think the cost might come in at $8 per voter, compared to $20 for more traditional methods of voter encouragement.

> let's talk about how to get rid of the 2 party system

If you live in Maine or have friends there, they have a ballot question on implementing Ranked Choice Voting.

https://ballotpedia.org/Maine_Ranked_Choice_Voting_Initiativ...

Colorado is also a very nice place to experiment with new ideas, at least assuming amendment 71 doesn't pass this year!

> let's talk about how to get rid of the 2 party system, and allow more diverse parties and ideas

Especially tricky when both parties tend to be against those sorts of proposals, for obvious reasons.

Taking a closer look at Amendment 71, I'm actually thinking it is a good idea. The state constitution is the foundational document that sets the course for how the state government works, and isn't something to be altered trivially. I'm surprised that it wasn't already required for signatures to be collected from all districts.

It's not like Amendment 71 is getting rid of the ability to put statute proposals on the ballot, and IMO, most new idea experimentations should probably be done at the statute level anyway. Put in a sunset clause that limits the new statute, and if it turns out to have been a bad idea, it can be allowed to expire -- no additional round of constitutional amending needed to undo it.

The issue with Amendment 71 is it tightens the wrong side of the funnel. It makes it harder to propose amendments. Once proposed, they remain just as easy to pass.

The correct (in my opinion) approach here is to keep proposals easy, more ideas are always better, but to make the passage of proposals require a supermajority, or something near that. As it is written now, 71 effectively allows those with the money to continue to propose amendments far easier than the rest of us.

It adds a requirement that amendments pass with a 55% super majority.

Because not every state is like that. I live in Pennsylvania. I don't even know what the ballot issues will be. Hell, I don't even know who is running locally.

I also can't vote by mail just because I want to. I have to be out of town on official business to "qualify" for a mail in ballot. Being on vacation isn't even an apparently accepted reason (on mobile but I'll get a link)

Edit: Link to PA absentee ballot application: http://www.dosimages.pa.gov/pdf/AbsenteeBallotApplication.pd...

Relevant parts:

Section A: I declare that I am eligible to vote absentee at the forthcoming primary or election since I expect that my duties, occupation or business will require me to be absent from the municipality of my residence on the day of the primary or election for the reason stated below; and that all of the information which I have listed on this absentee ballot application is true and correct.

Section B: I declare that I am eligible to vote absentee at the forthcoming primary or election due to the illness or physical disability stated below; that the information required to be listed pertaining to my attending physician is correctly stated herein and that all other information that I have listed on this absentee ballot application is true and correct.

You can probably access a sample ballot (a quick search has PA counties doing that). That takes care of the information difference.

Perhaps it's time to move to a state that helps rather than hinders voters?

Deleted comment

Just going to leave this here: https://www.nvotes.com

https://go.nvotes.com/booth/64/vote

(last link should be mobile-friendly)

If you opt to vote by mail, California's process is similar! The voter booklet was actually very helpful to me because it contained some candidate statement that weren't online (for local municipal positions).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com