Comment by sbhere | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sbhere | Hacker News Reader

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While the literalistic nature of your reply is correct, the parent delivers a valid observation. Although it's true that a journalist may edit content to direct the reader towards a conclusion, the subject of the article certainly appears to have delivered a biased message on her own.

The tagline of the article isn't accurate: > Vote.org wants to use your cell phone to radically increase voter turnout. Meet the woman behind the movement.

Four paragraphs in, the slant becomes clear and never abates: > A cluster of votes could be the difference between Trump accepting a concession and a several-year blowout over the presidency.

I had hoped that at some point the article or this YC-sponsored founder would even tip their hat towards the appearance of equal representation, or nonpartisan ideals, but the closest they came was more of and admission of blatant bias: > Long Distance Voter, like Vote.org, was technically nonpartisan. But many would argue that get-out-the-vote organizations inherently lean democratic, because the citizens most underrepresented in the voting process tend to be liberal.

So long as partisan efforts continue to pass themselves off as unbiased, the problems will continue to mount. If anyone out there really wants to make a difference in the electoral process of the United States of America, you must do so by truly serving the people, not your own interests.

F/d: Of course I have my own bias, but I'm a rampant supporter of neither party's candidate. I still haven't decided how to cast my vote, but I will be voting. You should too.

Well no, it isn't valid to call it a Super PAC. Especially given the availability of the word "partisan".

If we were just discovering that groups took sides a little bit of linguistic fuzziness would be acceptable. Not knowing what some jargon means and using it sloppily is just sloppy, again, especially in the face of a meaningful general term.

I did say I guess it would be more accurate to just assert that you believe they are partisan. in an attempt to make it clear that my comment was about the language.

As far as whether get out the vote is inherently a partisan activity, I think if you believe that voters skew differently than the general population, the test for partisan activity is that it skews in the other direction, not that it happens to skew less than the population of voters.

If it makes you feel better, I'm generally a crank. Here I am 6 months ago telling the founder of Vote.org that their tax status isn't an interesting defense of the activity:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11718069

Ah, I wasn't clear. I was citing the bias indicated by the parent, not the super PAC. You are correct in the definition.

My intent is not too harass you, but rather to encourage true public service to those out there with similar desires (increase voter turnout) willing to look past or work without blatant bias.

Apologies if I came across critical of your accurate statements.

> But many would argue that get-out-the-vote organizations inherently lean democratic, because the citizens most underrepresented in the voting process tend to be liberal.

I know you didn't pass that off as your opinion or conclusion, but I happen to agree. But for sake of argument, if we accept that premise, would it not follow that no republican would ever want to increase voter turnout, and anyone that would want to increase voter turnout, whether liberal or purely idealistic, would not really make a difference in their effort, because inherently it would drive up liberal votes?

I don't believe that the contrapositive statement you propose would be inherently true.

But whether it would be true or not, an individual (or organization) working to increase voter turnout without bias is something I would align with. The article references low voter turnout. If that's actually the problem they hope to address, then address that problem, without bias. (Insert note about racism/sexism/other discrimination here, and perhaps the argument becomes more convincing.)

Sure, I'm not arguing with you about them seeming biased. My point was rather; does their intent matter if their work is aimed at increasing voter turnout? If the result is the same regardless of bias, I mean.

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