You can't win if you don't vote
There will be an Arizona initiative in the ballot this November that would turn the election process into a lottery: those who vote would be automatically entered to win $1 million. I think I'd prefer turning election day into a state or national holiday, but on the other hand, I can't quite think of any reason that the lottery is a bad idea. (via pw)
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Do you think people would just vote randomly, or just vote for the most celebrity-like candidiate in greater numbers than they already do?
I don't know, but I view the answer as irrelevant.
The argument against it is going to be that we're better off having an all volunteer election. It's kind of like having an all volunteer military. The people who are in want to be in and are better fighters because of it (this probably isn't true so much any more, but was five years ago). All volunteer elections similarly engage those who care and theoretically produce "better" results.
I'd actually be curious to see a study if that's accurate. Are better off having only the motivated vote, or everybody? What happens when the masses vote without logic?
I think I'm in favor of a state trying this just to see what would happen.
Maybe, you shouldn't be able to win the prize unless you vote for the winner?
> Maybe, you shouldn’t be able to win the prize unless you vote for the winner?
And people think elections are rigged now!
Maybe it sounds too libertarian of me, but government shouldn't be in the business of awarding cash prizes for a civil act that is pretty close to duty as far as I'm concerned. And where is the money coming from? Tax dollars? Right...
The good reason to vote should be that a candidate inspires and is someone we deem worth representing us. A quick survey of our Pong-playing House should tell us something is dead wrong there, and it's that media scrutiny and money are so hyper-participatory in our electoral system that few sane persons would ever want to subject themselves to the process. So we're left with the dregs, and they make us want to vote even less instead of voting them out, for some reason.
We are in a very distracted media culture and I'm not sure what it's going to take to shake people from those distractions. Oops, gotta go, American Idol's on.
I was trying to get at what Ingen said, except I'm not sure that a "draft" of voters would actually produce "substandard" votes.
In any case, essentially paying people to vote seems like attacking the symptom rather than the disease.
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