Cards Against Humanity campaigns to encourage voting, expose personal data abuse The troublemakers behind the party game Cards Against Humanity have launched a campaign demonstrating how easy it is to buy sensitive personal data about American voters, while simultaneously encouraging those Americans to plan how to cast a vote in the upcoming presidential election. The "Cards Against Humanity Pays You to …
From the article:
"..."We formed a Super PAC and bought the personal voting records of every American citizen from a data broker we found on the internet," the game publisher wrote. "We got your partisan lean from the same data broker who sold us your voting history. You wouldn't believe how easy it was for us to get this stuff."..."
Call me naive, but I have always been under the impression that a person's vote, in the USA at any rate, was secret...and that particular brand of secrecy is / was sacrosanct.
How would a 'data broker' get anyone's voting history, unless that 'anyone' had not indulged in that national and world-wide all-consuming full-time pastime (now) of blabbing one's guts out to anyone and everyone on Facebook...about anything and everything.
In this context, "voting records" means which elections a person voted - not who they voted for. Separate to that is a guess at who they voted for based on things like what news they read, social media posts, age and education. If you act like a monster raving loony data brokers will record that as your political lean even if you regularly vote for the Party Party.
Indeed! In at least one state, certain uses of voting records are criminal (RCW 29A.08.740 in Washington). I have a feeling that the activities of a Super PAC are viewed as being inherently political enough to allow the data broker to hand that information over without any real risk.
While I think there's a need for this kind of information to be available to the public for auditability purposes, data brokers give me the same kind of heebie-jeebies as patent trolls.
The system may also link if you're registered as a Republican/Democrat/Independent and give that weight which "assumes" you voted for your registered party.
This is also how a lot of polls in America work to get their base numbers.
If you act like a monster raving loony
Over here in Blighty, we have the "Official Monster Raving Loony Party" - but these days, the MRLP membership are positively sane compared to some of the mainstream party membership/leading figures
In the US, your vote is secret, but the fact that you voted (and where and when) is public information, and for good reason. Imagine the possible abuses if it was not: No way to know if the number of ballots counted equals the number of voters who cast one; No way to detect if someone voted in multiple jurisdictions.
is public information, and for good reason
In other countries, with different information regimes, there is space between "public" and "secret". Most countries record the names of voters without making that information "public".
In France, every time I vote I go through the same procedure. I bring my voting card (sent regularly by the government), present my voting card to the first town official who looks me up in his database - which is a sheaf of printed papers with all the people allowed to vote in that town. When he finds me, he has me sign in (with a pen) in the empty space next to my name.
Then the second town official gives me my voting envelope (which is empty) and I can go to the table where the ballots of all available candidats are waiting for me to pick up (one ballot per candidate). I look over the choices, pick more than I intend to use (because I protect my voting anonymity that way), and I go into the voting booth to place my chosen ballot in my envelope. I could also have brought my ballot with me, because a week or so before the vote I am always sent an official, nominative envelope with all the candidate's ballots in it.
When I exit the booth, I go to the voting box where a third town official verifies that I have placed my envelope in the box, saying "a voté !" (has voted) when I'm done.
Then I go to the fourth and last official who gives me back my voting card and I am free to leave.
So my name and signature are properly registered on a piece of paper which is undoubtedly stored somewhere, but who I voted for will never be known unless I say it.
Here in the UK it's similar - you register to vote with the local government in the month(s) before the election - this then forms the "voter roll" which dictates who may vote on a voting day. At this time you may choose to register for a postal vote or a proxy vote (in which case you permit someone else to vote on your behalf). If you choose neither of those you will be mailed a voting card in the weeks before the election which details the date and place of the election centre for your area, and the times during the day that it opens.
When you arrive on the day you either present the card to the first official or you give them your name (and now your ID thanks to the last Government), they check you off against the list and hand you a blank ballot form (with a serial number on it which they record) which lists all of the candidates for that election. You then go into a voting booth and mark your chosen candidate's box - they provide pencils because they're cheap and don't leave a mark if you have wet ink on a ballot form when you fold it in half. You are free to write/draw anything you like on the form with ink or pencil or crayon or whatever (no bodily fluids though as they're a health hazard) as long as it's clear who you voted for and you only vote for one candidate.
Once you have chosen your candidate you fold the form in half so no one can see your mark, and put it into the voting box. You then leave the building and that's it.
People really can write anything they like on the form to vote - the candidates (or a nominated representative of theirs) all gather to review the unclear ballots during the vote count and if they agree who was voted for on the form then it counts as a vote for that candidate.
Some previous examples of votes which have been decided as valid are:
1) A voter drawing a penis on the ballot sheet but drawing a drop of ejaculate in one of the boxes, thus "marking" a single box
b) a voter writing "c@%t" next to each candidate except one, who got "less of a c@%t" written next to their name - the candidates agreed that the vote was cast for the single exception
I don't like that because it means that they can tie your name to who you voted for.
That, IMO, is a violation of the right to vote and a clear path toward rounding up everyone who voted "wrong" and making them pay for it.
In France, any ballot with anything written on it is considered null and not counted. The UK system opens you to this kind of ridiculous shenanigans.
Under normal circumstances such "informal" votes are set aside under seal and only counted if the margins are close enough that they'll matter, otherwise they're discarded (source: returning officer in the family. Informal votes are usually separated into "clear intention" and "needs interpretation" categories to speed things up if they're needed later)
Yes a serial number can be linked to a name but under normal circumstances these records are kept well-separated and when counting votes or doing anything else with ballot papers the serial numbers are explicitly NOT recorded (In New Zealand they are covered with a tamper evident sticker once recorded and before being handed to the voter)
They exist for auditing purposes if accusations of ballot box stuffing, personation or multiple voting occur
If ballots need to be stored for archival purposes past the cutoff for voter challenges, in most jurisdictions the serial number part of the ballot is chopped off and destroyed, to preserve voter anonymity. More usually the entire ballot is destroyed once all counting/challenge periods are ended
The amount of "voting fraud" at polling stations is generally countable on one hand across an entire country at any given election. Postal votes are an entirely different matter and a lot of effort has been put into trying to tackle this issue
It's worth noting that most countries have government appointed auditors who go out and interview random voters in between elections - usually "little old ladies" because it's far more likely that any admissions will be freely made to them - there are a surprising number number of postal voting fraud cases kicked off with "oh, I just let my husband take care of all that stuff" responses to interview questions - and a couple of quite major ones where you can s/husband/CommunityReligiousFigure/ - such admissions are highly unlikely to have been made to a man in uniform, etc
Sorry for the guardian link but an interesting note on ballots post count
The papers were transported by truck from the Hayes warehouse to be incinerated in the North London Waste Authority plant at Enfield. During that process we witnessed dozens of sacks splitting and many hundreds of spent ballot papers spilling for all to see. This adds weight to the conspiracy theory that security around the election documents is very lax, and that the vote-tracing procedure has been used to identify people voting for fringe candidates. Votes can be traced by matching the numbered ballot paper to its similarly numbered counterfoil; the numbered counterfoil also bears the voter's registration number from the electoral register which is hand-written by the Polling Clerk when the ballot paper is issued. As all the ballot papers for each candidate - including fringe candidates such as Sinn Fein, communists, fascists, nationalists, etc. - are bundled together, anyone having access to those documents can speedily trace the name and address of every voter for such candidates if they wish. In 1981 Gordon Winter - a former agent of BOSS, the South African Secret Service - writing in his book, Inside Boss, claimed that the South African government knew the identity of everyone who voted for the Communist Party of Great Britain - thanks to British intelligence using this simple vote-tracing procedure.
https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1051,00.html
> including fringe candidates such as Sinn Fein
The quoted article appears to refer to elections in England. I don't believe Sinn Fein have ever stood for election in England.
The article also mentioned councils - in Northern Ireland however councils do not run elections, it is handled by the Electoral Office of Northern Ireland (EONI), an independant body.
Therefore votes for Sinn Fein would only occur in Northern Ireland and so be handled by EONI. Perhaps NI election ballots etc were in the past "deposited with the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery" but I suspect not. Whether they were "examined" elsewhere is a different matter.
Finally, regarding the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, according to Wikipedia: "...historically received all ballot papers and ballot stubs after the election was complete though they are now kept locally by the registration officer for each area (and retained for a year)". That appears to refer to changes introduced (in England?) by the Representation of the People Act 1983.
That's not a good reason, why even have an electoral system that allows voting in more than one place in the first place?
Making it all public and expecting someone to collate all that data and report someone who voted more than once (a data broker doesn't care about that) is absurd.
In the UK at least, students can register to vote both in their home constituency and the constituency of their university. In this way they are not disenfranchised or forced to vote by post regardless of when the election is held. However, they are only permitted to cast a vote in one of the two locations; the other ballot must go unused.
In which case the post-election checking that such names have only been ticked off once will show it up
The number of accusations of such activity are usually 10-20 times higher than it actually happening, but every accusation is investigated no matter how many times the accuser has already been shown to be a foaming looney
When it does happen, it's almost invariably multiple voting for the conservative/rightwing candidate - but more to the point the number of occurences is so low that it makes no difference to the result. Additionally: It's almost always detected by the system working as designed rather than any 3rd party accusations
As I pointed out elsewhere, postal voting fraud is an entirely different kettle of fish, but it's fairly clear that the loudest accusers of such behaviour are trying to distract from postal voting issue because they're projecting their own behaviour onto other groups as a deflecting tactic
In both New Zealand and Australia, one can vote in ANY polling station in any part of the country and it's been this way since before I was born. There's no such thing as an "assigned polling station" for a voter and the expectation is that you can rock up to any station in your district (and usually the neighbouring ones) without having to cast a "special vote" (which is cast as normal but put in a sealed envelope and sent to the returning officer for the district in question after voiting closes. If there is a question about voting eligibility(*) the same procedure is undertaken - the vote in question is placed in a sealed envelope and the question of eligibility sorted out AFTERWARDS (if eligible, the envelope is opened and counted, If not, it's destroyed unopened)
(*) Such questions usually revolve around correct entries on the roll. It's mandatory to register in most countries and not being on the roll on the day doesn't preclude being allowed to vote if it's determined that someone should have been on the roll (ie: was eligible)
Americans are amongst the worst for active voter suppression activities - something that's usually only seen in tinput dictatorships elsewhere in the world and mostly advocated by fascist wannabes who are afraid they might be kicked into the weeds if everyone who should be voting CAN vote
Don't forget: Hitler and co never managed to exceed 30% of the votes cast even when they were the only party on the ballot
For your amusement: One university I attended used to have "No confidence in any candidate" as an option in student body elections. That was removed the year after "No confidence" managed to get twice as many votes as every other candidate combined. It's made me muse about setting up a political party with that name and see what happens
Part of the reason is that how you vote differs depending on where exactly you are. If you're in a place where you can't easily or at all get a postal ballot, and the polling stations are only open for one day (a Tuesday) for twelve hours, then you might need the ability to vote at more than one of them. The one near your house might not work if you need to work far from that house for enough of the day that the stations will be closed by the time you get back, so they will usually let you vote at one near your workplace. Different states try to resolve that in different ways, but that is part of the reason why there isn't generally a single correct polling place for every voter. Clearing this up with public records is not very useful, though.
In most of the world they can manage to vote in a single day. The US just makes it overly complex with the huge ballots and silly computers. If you were not voting for 50 different things in the same day it would go 50x faster. Although we are talking about the country that invented the DMV!
But I don't understand why the poling stations can't stay open longer. The UK gets from 7am to 10pm to vote on the day. Combined with only having to vote on 2 or maybe 3 things you are in and out in a matter of a couple of minutes.
"But I don't understand why the poling stations can't stay open longer. The UK gets from 7am to 10pm to vote on the day. Combined with only having to vote on 2 or maybe 3 things you are in and out in a matter of a couple of minutes."
It appears, in certain States and/or smaller jurisdictions like counties or cities, to be a politically motivated thing. Reducing the numbers of polling stations, being careful where they are located and the hours they are open for appears to be a "good" way to reduce the possibilities of certain demographics casting their votes. The funniest bit is holding the vote in November than allowing 2 months for all the votes to be collated and counted and the results to be sent by horseback. It's almost as if there is no newer technology available yet! Even in the most outlying and rural parts of the US, I very much doubt in this day and age it really should take more than a few days at most to have a final result.
Are you REALLY trotting out that tired old line?
You do realise that white liberals making claims like 'they don't have ID' or 'they don't know where the DMV is' is incredibly patronising? But then this is the country where the leaders have made such statements as 'poor kids are just as smart as white kids' or 'kids in the bronx don't know what a computer is'.
The US has a stupid and broken election system as you have to carefully fill in a pissy little oval without going over the lines but also making sure it is sufficiently filled in. And then you have to do it another 20 times for all the other things on the ballot.
It is often written this way - "...personal voting records of every American citizen..." and what is actually meant is the record of whether you did or did not vote in X election. WHO or WHAT you voted for is, still, not public information, and while I can't speak to every state or jurisdiction, in most cases the way the vote is recorded makes it practically impossible for even an insider to determine WHO or WHAT you voted for.
And actually all they are probably able to determine is "did the person check in at their polling place for X election", as in most cases you could go check in and then "vote" a blank ballot, making no choices at all.
It's really frustrating that this is described as your "voting record" as it feeds the (incorrect!) idea that your actual voting choices are recorded along with your name somewhere.
I'm not sure why the record of whether you checked in at the polling place is considered public info, but it generally is.
Who you voted for is secret, but the fact that you participated in any given election is public record. Along with everything the election secretary knows about you: name, address, date of birth, phone, email, party affiliation, etc. And of course any political group you ever donated to.
Some states use a fig leaf of privacy purporting to restrict release of the records to officials, candidates, their campaigns, their supporters, anybody who hollers election fraud, etc; data brokers, unsurprisingly, have no trouble obtaining the records en masse.
Yes, something that gets brought up frequently. But evidence of it actually happening seems to be very, very thin on the ground. It would take a ral and significant concerted effort by a large number of people to have any real effect. True, there have been elections where local candidates need a multiple recounts because there's only a very few votes between winner and loser, but swaying that mean knowing in advance that that is where you want to try it. And in the larger scheme of things, that one local vote probably won't matter nationally. SO I repeat, it needs a large and coordinated effort with lots of people. The sort of numbers where there will always be someone who is either an infiltrator or simply gets squeamish and the game is up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election_recount_in_Florida
The Florida vote was ultimately settled in Bush's favor by a margin of 537 votes out of 5,825,043 cast when the U.S. Supreme Court, in Bush v. Gore, stopped a recount that had been initiated upon a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court. Bush's win in Florida gave him a majority of votes in the Electoral College and victory in the presidential election.
Just 537 votes cemented George jnr’s presidency.
Most states record one's party registration, for primary elections are typically restricted to members of a particular party. (This is not so in Virginia, and I think a few other states.) One's votes in those or any other election are not public information.
"You wouldn't believe how easy it was for us to get this stuff."
No, actually I would. If they had been paying attention to the mechanics of the political process and not snarking about it, they would have known this long ago.
WTF are "primary" elections and why are they restrictied to "membesr of the party?"
It sounds like the USA is one of those shitty tinpot authoritarian states they keep raving about - which is what you'd expect out of narcisssitic projection
They're not always. The US is big and everything varies depending on where you are. But to clarify, primary elections, at least the kind you're thinking about, are elections to figure out who the party is going to support as their candidate in the general election. You don't have to run as a party candidate, but it really helps. Only members of a party can vote in those elections because they're not government-supported elections. They're entirely internal to the political parties, which are independent of government control.
That is the rule. Here are some exceptions. Some states have mandated that parties run their primaries in certain ways, for example allowing every citizen to vote in them. Usually, in that case, any citizen who wants to vote must choose which one they will vote in. They don't have to be a member of a party, but they can't vote for all parties' primaries. That information can be tracked. The power can also be abused. For example, both parties have been subject to voters supporting the other party intentionally voting in the other primary for candidates they think are crazy and therefore destined to lose. Elections where you might benefit by voting for the worst option are not a good design choice.
Another thing is sometimes called a primary election but should get a name that clearly distinguishes them from the other kind. I refer to the first round of a two-round election. These are government-run elections and generally take the form of a first round with all the candidates followed by a second round between the top two or three candidates.
WHO you voted for, is secret
THAT you voted, is not
This information is freely available along with all the other details on your electoral roll unless you're on a "closed" roll - which is still fully available to political entities and anyone who rocks up to the local library, etc (A closed roll is not made available to advertisers and data brokers but they have their ways around that restriction which makes presence on that roll somewhat moot)
a "PAC" should not be able to obtain closed rolls, but I'll guarantee that American law allows them to do so, given the way that the USA has legalised and formalised most forms of political corruption
This post has been deleted by its author
Every answer an opinion poll? Provide any demographic information? Then they have a pretty good idea which way you vote.
"I am happy to give you my opinion, but I will not provide any demographic or identifying information." Click, they end the call. They don't really want your opinion, they want your demographics for their profile - which they sell to the highest bidders. Don't give it to them.
Yes, threatening disinheritance to force someone to vote a particular way would be illegal. You cannot in any way try to MAKE someone vote a particular way, or MAKE them vote at all, or make them publicly support a candidate, through any threat, force, intimidation or coercion including paying them or withholding what they would otherwise get. Of course nobody is legally entitled to you leaving them money in your will, but the moment you say it will be taken away if he doesn't vote or vote a certain way, you've broken the law. (And with enough implication, you don't technically need to SAY it in those exact words for a jury to find you guilty.) And yes, it would be foreign influence, making it even worse.
Also, if you actually proceed through the steps with your son's number, you'd be committing fraud. Just getting the information about him might not be illegal, but by submitting the forms to get the money and promising to vote you'd be claiming to be him. Even putting his number in to see what it reports about him COULD also be fraud, depending on the terms of the form and what information it asks for. If they actually start out with words like "by clicking this button I attest that I am this person", then you are claiming to be that person. Since it's down right now I can't see what it looks like.
I seriously doubt that it's illegal, in an exacting examination of the wording of the law, to pay someone to simply make a statement that they will vote with no enforcement behind it, versus doing something to ensure that they vote. I don't think the DOJ calls up and warns you that you broke the law but it'll be fine if you stop now (not regular people anyway). However other people may have given them the impression that they were going to push the issue which could have caused enough problems that CAH couldn't deal with it. Perhaps they'll bring it back once they get more assurance that it's okay.
Just remember, she wouldn't change anything she did with Joe, Bidenomics works, Build Back Better works, she was pivotal in key decision making and policy yet she not Biden, we can't have 4 more years of this and she will fix all the problems on day 1.
And while one candidate was chugging a beer on live TV the other was housing critical workers in their hotel.
So vote Trump!
MAGA maroons are great. They sit around mutally backslapping each other but in the process encourage undecided voters (who are the ones that REALLY hold the power) to vote for anyone but MAGA
A reminder: MAGA and "America First" were slogans of Pre WW2 fascist groups. Many (such as Charles Lindbergh) with direct and provable funding links from the German Nazi party
The USA house committee investigating unamerican activities - despite the McCarthy-era stuff - was setup to investigate Nazi interference with American politics and found plenty of it
Trump's dad was heavily involved in the USA Nazi movement. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree oin this instance
Make America Great Again was used by Reagan, too. It's on video of him saying this at speeches. Vaguely recall him being pretty popular.
Trump is something of a knob. But he is still more appealing than Kamala, with a better track record, which says a lot. I miss when politics had at least one quality candidate. Even George W is appealing compared to these two.
- the original AC in this thread
That is the most non-sensical reasoning. What you did in the primary has nothing to do with who you vote for in the general. Yes, in some states if you register Democrat you can only vote in the Democratic primary and not the Republican, but you can still vote for Republicans in the general election. Primaries just narrow down who will be the party candidate in the general election and then we choose between the two (or sometimes 3, and legally it could be more, but it's always at least those 2). The fact that you chose to register Democrat and vote in the Democratic primary has nothing to do with voting straight Democrat other than you CHOSE to vote straight Democrat automatically rather than considering each candidate's position and picking the candidate that is best instead of based on party.
And why would you "change back"? You want to vote Republican, but you registered as a Democrat and now feel you're forced to vote straight Democrat by primary laws that are not applicable to the general election? The laws have nothing to do with what you're doing here. You're either very confused or very lazy so you've never made even a cursory review of how this works. Or you're just brainwashed and accepted whatever someone told you without checking for yourself. The laws that prevent you from voting in either primary aren't a horrible thing. Political parties in this country are a weird protected entity and some states just give them the power to exclude voters who might be trying to "spoil" the primary election by voting for a "bad" candidate that they think will lose in the general election. The rules are valid, you're just interpreting them incorrectly.
The reason this is legal is because they aren't "coercing" anyone to do something they don't want to do (or threatening or forcing or intimidating) by voting. The "don't want to do" is a critical part of the definition of coercion, and while they may be paying you to vote, they aren't using money in a way to make it something you don't have a real choice about. They also aren't telling you that you'll only get paid if you vote for who they want you to vote for, though they are obviously saying who they prefer. And the requirement of posting about Donald Trump is technically a separate action, which you're free to do just to get the money and then publicly say "I only said that to get this money" and still vote for him. (The fact that you voted is public record. WHO you voted for is not.) I can't actually step through the process to see if they might cancel your order/payment if you delete your post or repudiate it, because the function is down for maintenance.
Seven states led by Republican attorneys general initiated a legal challenge in September to prevent the Biden administration from moving forward with a new student loan forgiveness initiative. Dubbed “Plan B” as a second attempt at mass debt relief after the Supreme Court blocked Biden’s first program, the initiative would provide sweeping debt relief to at least 25 million borrowers.
> everyone sperged out about him buying votes.
For clarity, this poster's definition of 'everyone' here is: a single post on X, which was quickly debunked.
A candidate personally handing cash to people while campaigning is blatantly attempting to buy votes. A campaign giving people money while saying "Mr. Trump sends his regards" would be attempting to buy votes. A governor running for re-election giving cash refunds on taxes because there was a temporary budget surplus but still plenty of debt that could be paid off is, ethically, blatantly attempting to buy votes (and worked in some cases that I am personally aware of, with that being the sole factor in the decision) but apparently not from a legal standpoint. A third-party handing people cash and saying "just say you'll vote at all but not for anyone specifically, and that you don't like this candidate but we're not going to check" is not attempting to buy votes. It's not the widest of differences, but it's also not a thin line between them. A third-party handing out cash to sign a petition and refer someone else to sign it is a complicated way to skirt the law but is even less like attempting to buy votes since it doesn't even mention a candidate or a party directly and just happens to be likely to attract a lot of voters from one party.
In both CAH and Elon's case, there's really nothing to stop people from just taking the money with no intention of voting the way that is hoped by the organizers.
However it seems that CAH has decided to back down from the campaign. The site now just redirects to their page about their lawsuit against Musk about the land that he's destroyed, with a mention at the top that you can buy the special card pack and they'll use the money for the PAC, but only in a generic way to get blue-leaning non-voters to vote. The pledge to pay people for it is gone now. They haven't mentioned that anywhere apparently because I couldn't find any news articles about it and there's nothing on their Twitter account.
"A candidate personally handing cash to people while campaigning is blatantly attempting to buy votes"
In the video Trump doesn't talk to the lady in question, just says 'this should cover it' to the checkout person and walks away. There was no 'vote for me and I'll pay your bill'. Maybe its all confusing as it wasn't all staged and pre-planned like Kamala's publicity stunts. I do hope someone actually did pay for the coffee...
I'd guess you are the sort who got all bent out of shape about the 'ban' on handing out water to people waiting in line to vote?
There is no need to explicitly say those words. He is a presidential candidate, so his behavior is held to different legal standards. He was making a campaign stop and handed cash to someone. That is an attempt to buy their vote. Just walking down a street and giving some cash to a panhandler would be okay, until he says "Hi I'm Donald Trump" or has people around him with campaign signs. Again, there are different standards for people in different situations.
And yeah, a lot of the bullshit that the right is pulling to prevent people from voting, like keeping them hydrated while they wait in long lines, are, well, bullshit. Every law that gets pushed through is a blatant attempt to make it harder for people to vote who are more likely to not vote Republican, not to protect the voting process. Handing out water to people standing in the sun for hours is simply being a good person, it's legal to campaign more than 150 away from the polling places, and they handed out water and food regardless of party affiliation or who people were going to vote for so they weren't buying votes. The fact that most Republican organizations are not made up of the type to be humane and generous to others doesn't mean that no one should be allowed to, except in the minds of Republicans who know that the people who would be most affected would probably vote Democrat so it would be good to make them abandon the line.
I knew you would have fallen for the no water hoax. It was campaign staff for one candidate handing out the water that caused a problem. I'm sure if it was trump staff handing out trump brand water bottles you would have been screeching about them trying to influence the voters.
The poll staff can still supply water to the people queueing. That is legal.
Maybe the US needs to fix the problems that caused huge queues rather than hiding the issue being silly issues designed to rile up the low information types into thinking that somehow the other side is the one taking their rights away.
In the UK any campaign activities are basically banned while voting takes place. The politicians and activists have to stfu for the day.
"Maybe the US needs to fix the problems that caused huge queues rather than hiding the issue being silly issues designed to rile up the low information types into thinking that somehow the other side is the one taking their rights away."
The fact that you would make such a silly statement, when one party specifically is throwing up those road blocks, says volumes about your stance. I didn't know there MAGAts in the UK.
In New Zealand not only is campaigning prohibited suring the voting period but ALL campaign materials have to be removed from public display
The benefit is that there's very little electoral garbage floating around afterwards as it can result in candidates being disqualified and branded "corrupt individuals" - which bars them from standing in any subsequent elections anywhere for at least a decade
In the US campaigning is permitted on election day, with the exception that it must be a certain distance away from the polling stations, with that distance varying state to state but mostly being a relatively short amount, like 100 feet. I will admit that I still have difficulty figuring in imperial but that's, what, 30 to 40 paces maybe?
"Congress has passed a bill to ban foreign companies or apps from buying data that describes US consumers"
Surely they mean to ban US citizens from supplying info to foreign companies, or do they think foreign companies have to obey US legislation?
OK that's a rhetorical question, of course they do.
Felonmarmer,
Foreign companies with a presence in the US and who participate in the US market are subject to US law and can be punished for breaking it.
Ones who participate in the US market and don't have a presence there can obviously get away with breaking it - but would still be subject to it. Except if you want to get paid by US consumers or companies - you may be safe - but your revenue streams may not.
Depending how the law is written it may also apply to US companies and prohibit them from selling you such data - and obviously they're also subject to US law and at risk of penalties.
US companies operating in non-US markets also have to operate within the local laws too, even if or when the conflicts with US law, which they are also subject to. This is my multi-nationals operate as "different" and separate companies in other countries so that they are only subject to local laws. Or at least try to do so. The US in particular seems to very strong on claiming sovereignty over every US citizen no matter where in the world they may be and likewise over any company that may have links back to the US.
You could say the same about GDPR which applies to anyone holding certain data about anyone from the EU. Clearview AI is a good example - they've been fined €33M but the chances of collecting it look low. Clearview AI claim that as they have no place of business in the EU, and no EU customers, GDPR doesn't apply. The data protection authority would have to ask a US court to enforce payment of the fine.
"or do they think foreign companies have to obey US legislation?"
Ever heard of "long arm statutes" ?
GDPR is one. There's a lot of US legislation that applies worldwide if doing business with american companies or residents - the TCPA was used to take down a junk fax operator based in Britain at one point
"I do not believe the UK system registers if you voted or not."
It certainly does on the day of the vote. When you turn up to vote, there is a long list of names and addresses of people registered to vote and your name gets drawn through with a line on the list once you provide your id.
Before you had to provide id to vote (a very recent thing in the UK), it was simple to vote more than once: you turned up at the clerk's desk, and if you could quickly scan the printed list upside down that they had in front of them, you simply said you were Mr Miggins of 24 Acacia Avenue. Easier than it sounds because the list is in address order, so if you know your neighbours' names, you don't have to read them clearly, just spot one that hasn't been scrubbed out yet. Given that voter turnout is usually around 50% you won't have to look far down the list to find someone who hasn't yet voted. The flaw would be if the clerk (likely a local resident) knew you or Mr Miggins and could rumble you, or if you turned up too many times and got recognised.
I always wanted to try it, just out of curiosity, but never had the nerve once the moment came.
> Before you had to provide id to vote (a very recent thing in the UK)
Nope, voting in Northern Ireland has required ID for decades:
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_Fraud_(Northern_Ireland)_Act_2002
"The act amended the Representation of the People Act 1983 by strengthening the requirements in the electoral registration process and requiring photographic identification at polling stations."
and also from https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/voter-id
"In Northern Ireland, voters have been required to show ID when voting since 1985, and photo ID since 2003."
It not only registers if you voted or not, who you voted for can be determined.
It's 1 out of K anonymous. To find out how Joe Bloggs voted you'd have to look at on average half the ballots cast to find his vote. That's a small number of tens of thousands for a general election, and thus expensive and tedious. On the other hand, finding out who voted for a particular candidate is trivial (before the ballots are destroyed) because they've been sorted into bundles as part of the count(*). Back in the 60s and 70s (no idea about now, anyone with experience of recent counts?) the ballots of those who voted for the Communist Party were handed over to Special Branch after the count was done.
(*) In theory. In practice mistakes are made and politically motivated counters have been known to stuff extra votes into the pile for their preferred candidate, which is why you have other party activists watching them.
I do not believe the UK system registers if you voted or not.
It certainly does. When they hand you a ballot paper they note the serial number on the ballot paper next to your name - meaning that if you were found to have voted twice (e.g. in another constituency or doing something funny with a postal vote) they could pull your ballot paper back out.
This actually means they could go through and find out who everyone voted for.
In reality, this list is kept separate to ballots and is subject to strict privacy rules.
A list of "who voted" is not available for future candidates/campaigns/brokers to buy.
> > I do not believe the UK system registers if you voted or not.
In Northern Ireland it does and it is called the "Marked Register": https://www.eoni.org.uk/Register-To-Vote/About-the-electoral-register-page
> In reality, this list is kept separate to ballots and is subject to strict privacy rules.
>
> A list of "who voted" is not available for future candidates/campaigns/brokers to buy.
As can be seen from the link provided, the Marked Register can be "supplied free of charge to police forces and other law enforcement agencies" and also purchased by "elected representatives, constituency parties, registered political parties, candidates, government departments". So I wouldn't describe this as being subject to "strict privacy rules", rather as being subject to stricter privacy rules that the Open Register and Full Register.
I also think that the "local" Marked Register (i.e. the subset for a particular poling station) might also be available for candidates/parties to inspect (but not copy or perhaps hand-copy from) in each polling station during polling day.
In the UK, it's the electoral register, and there are two versions - full and open. The full one lists names and addresses of everyone registered to vote. It can be viewed by anyone (but not, I think, in entirety) and is used for credit checks etc. when checking a person's name and address. The open version can be bought in entirety by anyone and is probably very useful to advertiser's, scammers etc. You can opt out of the open register but not the full one, otherwise, they are the same.
No, what I was saying clearly went clean over your head with a very sizeable air gap.
The UK electoral roll does not record your party affiliation. You are not required to 'register' as supporting a particular party in order to vote. It is just a list of names and addresses of people who are registered to vote in local and national elections. Unlike the US system where you generally _have_ to register as a member of a party or as an 'independent'.
Cos the US is not actually a democracy. It is a representative republic. The electoral college is a device that stops very populous states from dominating the political landscape. Here in the UK politics is dominated by London as it is very large. Everyone complains about 'London centric' policies. Without the electoral college the US would likely be dominated by a small number of highly populous states.
Also note that when you see politicians and TV opinion pundits touting the phrase 'our democracy' what they are actually referring to is keeping the existing corrupt oligarchical kleptocracy such that the donor class can keep buying politicians and that the politicians can keep taking the donors money and getting obscenely rich.
It is a representative democracy (you vote for someone to represent you) in a federal (the nation is made up of self-governing units) republic (no monarchy).
"Not a democracy" is a phrase used by Americans pushing a form of exceptionalism (which seems to be that they shouldn't be held to high standards of democratic representation)
Puerto Rico is not a fully fledged part of the USA and they don't generally pay federal income taxes like the citizens of the normal states.
The 'reducing the value of votes' is all part of the 'democratic process'. There is no way to get an even and happy distribution. If my person doesn't win then my vote was basically pointless. If someone wins 99% of the vote then the voters are represented differently compared to if the winner got 50.1%. There is ALWAYS some disenfranchisement with any system of voting.
If we simply had majority rule then those in the minority groups tend to get pissy. When a tiny minority get their way the majority get pissy as well.
Your vote is not "basically pointless" unless you live in an area which will overwhelmingly vote for one candidate whom you don't vote for. Otherwise, if you give the winning candidate a thin margin by voting for someone else that sends them a message that they have to listen to the other side else they'll lose next time.
The electoral college doesn't really stop populous states from dominating, certainly not in modern times but maybe long in the past. Each state gets a number of electoral votes based on its Congressional delegation size, which is based on the population of the state. Therefore, more populous states get more votes. Without it, in a purely popular vote, every vote would count equally regardless of the states. The candidates would still focus on particular states, because focusing on a populous state could possibly entice more voters with a single rally or ad or promise, but it would totally eliminate the concept of swing states. The electoral college simply changes which states dominate, because candidates feel like some states are a "lock", and they know they'll get the entire count of votes for that state, so they focus on the swing states where they can nudge the balance just enough to get ALL that state's votes. It makes everyone feel like their vote barely counts because it makes the whole state vote for one candidate when the combined votes from other states could have turned it the other way. With a direct popular vote, at least there's a better chance that your vote could add up with the ones from other states to turn the election to the side you want, instead of taking your vote and turning it to look like you want the same thing that the majority in your state want, and the true preference of the country overall is applied. Even if some large states did dominate more, at least that would mean that more of the population actually wanted that result.
The electoral college is almost a feudal system. It's an outdated system designed for a time when a popular vote was simply impractical in any reasonable amount of time. There was simply no way to tally the votes of every person in every state and then get those tallies to Washington DC without weeks of waiting. There wasn't even really a chance to campaign widely because of travel times. All most people got was some news reports and public letters and stuff (and candidates didn't dedicate an entire year to it back then). Instead they'd just designate a bunch of people in the state and let them chose, using whatever manner that state wanted. For the past 100 years we've had the ability to do it all within a couple of days, aside from a possible final recount with all the ballots brought to a central place. And now with it all done electronically, even on paper ballots, we could manage like 99% complete counts within a few hours of the polls closing, if there weren't inevitable complaints about the counts and required recounts and hand counts, and some groups that will simply delay and delay and delay in the hope that after 7 tries the results will change or they'll find a way to get rid of some votes or "find" some votes. There's simply no real, solid reason for the electoral college now. Just tradition, and fear of change, and the simple fact of some politicians knowing that it makes it far easier for them to push the results their way if they don't have to treat everyone equally. Unfortunately the boomer politicians who have that kind of outlook just keep living on and never getting voted out so it won't change.
Parliament, meaning the Commons, is supreme.
A constitutional monarchy means we don't have to go through the the process of choosing one of a number of politicians to be a figure head for the country. (the alternative being a president with powers who then grates up against the government of the day)
A lot of countries manage without a separate head of state. Either they have one who also has governmental powers or they don't have one at all and the leader of the current government fills in when something ceremonial is needed. Having a separate president with different powers is an option which some people prefer because of additional checks on the power of any one leader, but it is optional. If you didn't have a monarch, you wouldn't need to replace it with an elected president, either one with responsibilities or one appointed as a figurehead. You could manage with nothing additional at all.
The figurehead is appointed by Parliament by the way. The line has died out on multiple occasions since the restoration and each time a new monarch invited to take the position
Let's not forget that England tried the "non monarch" route and it worked so well that they switched back to having a king as being far less troublesome
The world has changed quite a bit since then. Socially, technologically. So many of our institutions are rooted in "traditions" that were established long ago under different circumstances that forced the behavior or just couldn't be fought against, usually because men would just kill anybody that disagreed, and when there were periods of change, it was just very difficult and easier to go back to the old ways. Changing and sticking with it would in many cases be much easier now, when we can communicate across the world with milliseconds of delay, and physically cross the planet in hours. Only human resistance to change, especially resistance from the powerful when those changes would take away that power, stops those things from happening. If we can avoid extending the lives even further of people who accumulated wealth and power and are mired in the old ways and holding us back, maybe the world will improve. Even having King William would probably make a dramatic change despite the lack of true power.
There isn't a rule defining when something becomes unequal enough that it's not a democracy anymore. When there is a monarch who theoretically has the power to affect legislation, would it still be a democracy if that monarch used that power as they liked, or would that eliminate it? If so, would it stop being a democracy just because that power is technically available to them?
The electoral college has the potential for all sorts of abuses and, in its current state, it causes quite a few problems. Far from giving extra power to small states, it gives almost all the power to states where the voter margin will be smallest. That seems like a big design fault and one that would be nice to fix. However, it doesn't act in an entirely antidemocratic way any more than parliamentary districts do in the UK. Theoretically, you could have more people voting for one party, but more seats won by a different one, because the votes are done by district and each district sends a candidate. For instance, there are fewer people per constituency in Wales, so you could make the case that Welsh votes are slightly more powerful than those from other parts of the UK. The President is selected in a similar way. If I could choose, I wouldn't do it that way, but it doesn't automatically make that country a non-democracy, it makes it a democracy with a design problem.
It's a fairly lousy system in the modern age but nevertheless there have been only four occasions since records of the national popular vote began in 1824 in which it differed from the Electoral College outcome: 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016.
For comparison I looked up how many times we've ended up with a PM despite their party not having won a plurality of the national vote, also going back to 1824. It's happened fifteen times: 1852, 1874, 1886, 1892, 1910, 1918, 1923, 1929, 1931, 1945, 1951, 1964, 1970, February 1974, October 1974. So fun fact: all three of the Heath vs Wilson elections of the 1970s ended with the winner of the national popular vote losing to the other.
So I'm really not sure that "executive leader after a national election aligns exactly with the national popular vote" is the test.
" So fun fact: all three of the Heath vs Wilson elections of the 1970s ended with the winner of the national popular vote losing to the other."
This kind of result is WHY campaigning for PR in New Zealand gained legs. It still took over 25 years to be achieved and needed 2 court cases (holding a political party to make good on campaign pledges and manifesto) plus _2_ referendums, with entrenched opposition from "the establishment" at every step along the way
The country recently had another referendum - on whether to revert to FPTP (an emphatic national "NO!") or change the type of PR (also an emptahic "NO")
The results in parliament have been marked - a complete turnaround from westminster/Washington style adversarial politics and ideological lurching to a greater emphasis on cooperation, concensus and "the national good" (I won't say "interest" because policies enacted on those grounds may not be good for the country in the long term)
Perhaps the popular vote would have been more effective during all those years if the electoral college hadn't been fouling things up. Perhaps more people would have voted if they felt like their votes counted, and maybe one side or the other would have been better represented. In every instance, it was the Democrat who won the popular vote (even carrying vastly more states in 1824) but the Republican won by carrying enough states with more electors. Perhaps things in general would have been very different if even that first time in 1824 the popular vote winner had become President.
But even if it doesn't happen often, the fact that it ever happens is ridiculous. It's just bizarre that the number of people who want a candidate has no direct relation to how many votes that candidate gets, and that they can focus on certain states while basically ignoring others because those states' electoral votes are "locked in" by die-hard voters who may be a majority in that state but not in the country overall, making it literally impossible for the other party's votes to count. If an equal percentage of the registered Democrats and registered Republicans in a big state were to vote, but there were more Republicans living there, that large state's entire contribution to the election is Republican, overshadowing 2 or 3 other smaller states' votes for Democrats even if the total number of people voting Democrat would be higher.
Ranked ordering by direct popular vote is of course superior, with multiple candidates instead of two, allowing more people to get "He's not my most preferred choice but at least he's not the worst one so I'm okay with it". Even if we just eliminated the barriers to multiple parties in elections that would help immensely. But until all the old people die out who are stuck in the past and hoarding power, none of that will happen.
“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
This post has been deleted by its author
You are, most definitely, a critically-thinking individual, else you would not be here.
You may not like either candidate, but surely you can decide between someone who you simply don't like, and someone whose attempts to gain and stay in power mean the destruction of the republic.
"...and I didn't vote in 2020."
Use those critical-thinking skills and VOTE!. The future of the country depends on your vote.
In the service of being a better critical thinker as well as a voter, you might consider reading
this, and
this, and
...as well as the overwhelming amount of other similar information on the internet, from almost every news organization you might choose.
"someone whose attempts to gain and stay in power mean the destruction of the republic."
Not just the republic. Kamala and her warmonger friends will drag the world kicking and screaming into WW3. Endorsement from the Cheney's is not a good thing.
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