It's not obvious to me that higher voter turnout leads to better governance.
The assumption is based on the fact that young people have low turnout, and these turnout initiatives are almost universally about getting young people who lean/are left to go vote. Most "get out the vote" drives are not really about improving our democracy and are actually about supporting Democrat politicians and their policies, which is why they target specific demographics that are likely to vote the "right way" (Samantha Bee's audience being a blatant example here of people that would vote for Democrats).
Both Republicans and Democrats have GOTV strategies. Republican efforts have faltered of late, because they have trouble recruiting / enlisting volunteers, comparatively. You can see this in how campaign spend their money. Advertising vs doorbelling.
It now occurs to me that age may be a factor in campaign staffing. Whereas 10 years ago, Democrat rank & file were blue hairs. Think Vietnam war protestors, old school labor, academics. Now the party is much younger.
It's been a long time since I've been to Republican party events, so just from what I've read, their party rank & file hasn't seen that kind of turnover.
Higher than what?
Anyway, I think you’re projecting a lot of rationality where there’s just apathy.
In any case, low voter turnout tends to harm the democrats, as demonstrated by the ludicrous variety of ways various state republican parties have made voting difficult for working people, poor people, non-english speakers, felons, etc etc.
Also, statistically speaking, if the turnout is “representative” then high or low makes no difference with regard to what would occur with full turnout.
When people say we want high turnout, I think they really mean I want my side to have full turnout and the opposition very low turnout —as this is the only situation where this quest makes sense.
If you decide not to play, are you being more rational or more apathetic?
Calling it "just apathy" is unjustifiable maligning. How is it not completely rational to be apathetic to whether business interests A or business interests B win their contest? What you're doing is the equivalent of a sports fanatic insisting that someone pick a team to root for.
Give these "apathetic" people an actual choice (like say a pitchfork) and you'll see how they really feel. In fact, I'd posit that a primary mechanism by which elections are won is convincing people that "this time will be different".
If you don't care enough to pay attention, if you don't care enough to investigate the candidates, then I'd prefer that you also don't care enough to go vote. If you do go vote, you (you the hypothetical uninformed voter, not you, my reader) are going to vote for the candidate that had the most ads. I don't want elections being decided by voters who are making decisions that way.
I have only managed to vote twice in my life, in part because I don't want to pick a name at random and have been rather overwhelmed by events, yet I have had people give me a hard time about that, like it's my fault if bad candidates got elected because I didn't bother to pick a name at random.
And it always infuriates me to be told that I should vote anyway, even if it is random name picking.
That said, I don't think you are correct, at all, when you say that money is the only thing that matters. Votes matter. For example: The Nov 2012 Los Angeles elections. I voted in those elections. Mayor Garcetti won the election with only 5.4% of the city voting for him [0]. That means that I voted for ~20 Los Angelenos with my single ballot. Basically, I voted for half my homeroom in High School. You cannot buy votes nor stuff ballot boxes at the exchange rate I was able to affect with my single vote. And this was a presidential election, where turnout is typically higher. For the majority of local elections, I was voting for nearly my entire graduating class!
Another good example was Eric Cantor's primary election in 2014 [1]. Despite being the House Majority Leader, and despite outspending his opponent not just 2 to 1, not just 10 to 1, but 40 to 1, Cantor LOST. And it wasn't close, he lost 45% to 55%, a 10 point difference. Cantor resigned as Majority Leader on July 31st.
Money does not count.
Your. Vote. Counts.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_mayoral_election,_...
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Represe...
Even if you erased state boundaries (if you don't, the actual number goes up a bit), that would lead to a minimum of 8,143 members in the House.
You'd, IMO, actually do more to improve quality of representation and less to make the House unwieldy if you kept the current number of districts and made each district a 5-member constituency with STV or a similar candidate-centered proportional method of election.
But that's not what partisans do by and large outside a few key ones, because in the end for most partisans it's not about policy proposals or trying to steer the gov't, it's about identity.
Neither the cost of voter time, as you referenced, nor its value is the same across groups.
You'll find that efforts to increase voter turnout are emphasized in those communities where turnout is low.
- Extremely long poll lines, especially in underserved areas or those mostly populated by racial/ethnic minorities.
- Making people vote on a work day without federal holiday means that it's a financial obstacle, and employment risk. Again, this mostly hits the poor and underserved.
- No paper trail, and extremely hackable voter machines, not enough movement to fix them. [1]
- Voting Rights Act rollback: it was almost impossible to vote if you were Black in racist-run parts of the south (really, look at this [6]), and the protection against this got rolled back in 2013. There's been a bunch of voting law changes since [8].
- ID requirements that have been researched thoroughly and demonstrated to do almost nothing to reduce fraud but virtually always lower turnout, usually to minority populations. [7]
Aside from the topic of voter turnout itself, there are many other ways the democratic ideal is attacked by policy, such as gerrymandering[2], or the fact that we often refer to political parties as "half the country" when in reality only ~26% of the electorate voted for the current president[3], it was a single-digit percentage that voted for each of the eventual candidates in the primaries[4], and even "the electorate" is a lot smaller than our adult working population because felons aren't allowed to vote and we imprison more adults (mostly from poor and underserved populations) than any other industrialized nation. [5]
All this to say, yes, there's a lot of understandable apathy in our system, and we shouldn't judge their lack of desire to vote as some kind of moral failing. But there are many people who would love to participate in a democratic process but there are many concrete (and solvable) factors (with evidence and history beyond "an assumption") preventing participation, and the end result almost always favors a small group of people who don't represent the general population and already have a lot of power.
[1]: https://www.deconstructconf.com/2018/elle-vargas-primary-directive-on-elections-interference
[2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/01/this-is-the-best-explanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-ever-see/?utm_term=.58b2297c703c
[3]: https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/11/politics/popular-vote-turnout-2016/index.html
[4]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/01/us/elections/nine-percent-of-america-selected-trump-and-clinton.html
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate
[6]: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28/voting_rights_and_the_supreme_court_the_impossible_literacy_test_louisiana.html
[7]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/04/new-evidence-that-voter-id-laws-skew-democracy-in-favor-of-white-republicans/?utm_term=.5ddefa4ccf27
[8]: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/welcome-to-the-first-presidential-election-since-voting-rights-act-gutted-179737/That's the thesis of the book Democracy for Realists. http://a.co/d/hg6wfUy
TL;DR: People vote based on identity.
It's a painful, illuminating read.
--
The only consistent way to boost turnout is competitive races. While I'm for universal, automatic voter registration (mostly for election integrity reasons), I acknowledge that it's just nibbling around the edges.
Big, sustainable increases in participation would come from switching to approval voting (or proportional representation, as appropriate) coupled with fair redistricting. Pretty much any measure to improve competitiveness will boost turnout.
And that has never been the intent. High voter turnout leads to Democratic victories and rain on the election day leads to Republican ones.
If someone is building an app to create technology to make it rain on the election day for whatever reason, you can probably guess the real reason behind it.
"You can take Trump supporters and put them in two big baskets. There are what I would call the deplorables—you know, the racists and the haters, and the people who are drawn because they think somehow he's going to restore an America that no longer exists."
Can you explain why white Trump supporters have chosen this as a banner to rally around rather than reject those elements and that ideology from their platform or their identity? Why is it wrong to deplore racism and hatred?
Though what they mean by that is that Russia hacked the DNC servers and exposed illegal or quasi-illegal action by those at the top causing mass disillusionment with the DNC among those on the fence.
In addition they (russia) apparently spent less than $300,000 on facebook/social media ads. (For context, the DNC and hillary spent over 1/2 billion on ads/commercials and trump spent a little more than $300 million.)
Trump won the election because his message resonated with the voters where it mattered. Clinton won the popular vote because all the people who voted for her live in the same 4 states.
All of that is likely true, but to what degree is a matter of debate.
It does seem to be true that the Democrats tried to play it safe with Clinton and that she failed to connect with the same demographics that other Democratic candidates, or Trump, succeeded with.
It also seems to be true that there was some effort on the part of the Trump campaign (with or without his knowledge) to engage with Russian "covert ops" and that these efforts were at least somewhat successful, given the admission on the part of the DNC that the damage caused by Wikileaks was too great to overcome. Connect the dots between Wikileaks, Russia and Trump wherever you like... no one here can offer anything but conjecture on the matter.
I think a lot of it has to do with the simple fact that out of the entirety of the Democratic and Republican fields, Trump alone was the most charismatic and showmanlike and was most able to entertain and capture media attention. Modern elections are more about hype and the news cycle than competence and intellect. Clinton found herself a magnet for the disillusionment and impotent rage for which Trump provided catharsis and, in a close election, that was enough for him to squeak by.
You've got millions of American's one paycheck away from being homeless. [1] There's the insane cost of college, yet you still need a degree to succeed. The insane cost of healthcare. There's the wealth inequality. Wages are stagnate. And global warming is only getting worse. Etc.
Now there's three paths that I think are taken when this sort of thing happens. You've got the fix the problems route, or the scapegoating route, or a combination of the two. Hillary Clinton didn't really address these fears, she represented the status quo. Trump, on the other hand, was the clear scapegoat candidate. He was the candidate you vote for if you believe or feel all the problems stem from brown people, women, etc. opwieurposiu's comment above/below demonstrates this feeling, I think. People like him/her voted for Trump. Trump's slogan was "Build the wall". If you believe the problem is caused by minorities, you vote for the candidate that wants to great rid of minorities. So yeah, he'll probably win again unless the Dems run a candidate that actually addresses these problems, which isn't likely. As the problems get worse, I imagine the scapegoating will as well.
[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-americans-are-one-med...
Anyways, the shoe seems to be on the other foot today, as the Democrats appear to have convinced themselves that they're behind the eight ball on tech matters (a position I find silly, considering the massive advantage they have in potential recruits and sympathetic developers).
Despite all the changes wrought by technology, politics is still played more or less as it has always been. Charismatic politicians (Obama, Trump) carry their party, hiding its weaknesses and exposing the weaknesses of their opponents. "Social networking" is an extremely poor avenue for political organizing (as distinguished perhaps from political rabble-rousing). Politics is still a game of people and personality, and investments in internet technology can only perhaps have an impact at the margins.
If the Democrats can gain 20+ seats in congress without a “message” I’ll count that as a success.
My man Bernie had a simple message: free healthcare and college education. And love him or loathe him so did Trump: build the wall. Clear, to the point, and instantly everyone knew what they were promising.
Democrats are not convinced Republicans have an advantage in technical skill or available domestic technical workforce, they are convinced that there is an assymetry between parties in the willingness to partner with hostile foreign powers and engage in criminal methods of cyberwarfare in pursuit of electoral victory, which mitigates the advantage Democrats believe they retain in lawful use of technology.
Reading this made it seem to me that this tech can be extremely effective. By pinpointing exactly who was worth their time talking to (i.e. if husband of target answers the door you ask for target otherwise politely leave) the Koch brother's were able to overturn an initially very popular public transit bill.
I didn't mean in my original comment that technology is entirely useless. More that it's a distant second to the things that have always worked in politics, and that "our tech is worse than theirs" is the refuge of a losing party looking to cast blame for their losses.
I worked with a small core of friends to refine the app's features. I spent much more time than I should have building the website using some software called Freeway Express. I blogged regularly [2] and shared those links on various state/city subreddits. In the end, I spent about $100 on Reddit ads to get a total of 100 registered users and few endorsements. As not a designer, I recognized the app was not flashy, so it may not have been appealing to download. I also realize that the website doesn't do a good job in selling the app, and that I focused more on the ideas rather than the app itself. I wonder now how well a more polished version of this app would have played out in 2016 elections, although I recognize that the mix of politics and social media has gone downhill since 2016.
[1] - http://www.supervote.org [2] - http://blog.supervote.org
The problem isn't voting or lack of awareness (although I have an inkling on which side might think this is the root cause), the problem is polarization.
More aware you are of what goes on, more polarized you can be.
The problem which needs to be solved is to not get people hold opinions, but how to consolidate their opinions with the other side.
What code base did you develop the web app in? And do you have an android version? I'd like if there were a slicker web app and possibly android app that I could play with.
Maybe even I would help refactor this one day in the future.
What was the reasoning? Were you not getting enough use and participation? No downloads? Did you fail to execute the concept in some way?
edit: you would think 2016 would have taught the tech elite that they can't just downvote their way to an outcome...this is so typical of HN
Downvotes for comments like this are most likely due to lack of substance.
I think a more accurate narrative is that the Internet largely succeeded at what it set out to do: democratize information flow, communication, and social organization. And the consequence of that has been a shift in power from groups that previously had hegemony to new upstarts that previously never had a voice. If you aligned yourself with either one of the establishment parties (as most people writing the traditional news do), then the situation today sucks, because your star is clearly on the decline. If, however, you found that both parties of 1980s-America left you excluded and unrepresented, the Internet has been a godsend for finding like-minded people. Unfortunately that sometimes includes groups that we wish would stay excluded, like white supremacists.
Unlike areas like information, economic activity, or personal liberty, control of existing institutions is zero-sum. If your party controls Congress, that means the opposing party doesn't control it, and their agenda gets short shrift. If a new group (or 20) arises to challenge your control, that's a threat. That's the situation we're in now: there are dozens of different new tribes organizing for political power, and all of them are a threat to establishment institutions like existing political parties or the news media - hence the sense that the sky is falling.
The only true insight is the throwaway comment by the Virginia candidate for Delegate, where he lost by a handful of votes, and laments the Democratic party's increasingly obsolete and wasteful rules for advertising. Ironically, that has little to do with Silicon Valley, but there's real meat there that's worth exploring.
And of course, you have the profoundly amoral Mark Pincus and the hateful Samantha Bee spearheading this.
>> "The app, intended to be a kind of social network to spark political activity,"
Most of the big change in politics in the last decade has come from apps that make it easier to do good old-fashioned grassroots organizing. It's why the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) is making waves now. They usually just use Twitter for the social network part.
The rest of the article talks about other attempts at apps for political organizing, and the politics of political apps. Not a bad read if you're into the subject, but I expected a look at the technical failure it opens with given the title.