Egg?

but thanks for the tap on the shoulder anyways.

More like anyone under 30.

Voting should be
a. by mail
b. no postage required

Otherwise, people are "too busy".

My husband had an 8:00 to 7:00 shift yesterday with a 45 min. commute. PA has no early voting and no law making employers give people time off to vote. He could not vote. Multiply that by millions of working people. And (usually conservative) retired people have all day to vote. Another way the deck is stacked against us.

A man who works where I live has two full time jobs in Boston, one 7-3 (no lunch hour) and one 3 to 11 (no dinner hour). He lives several towns away. He simply cannot vote, so I have encouraged him to get absentee ballots from his city hall. He said he would. I don't know if he was flashing sunshine at me, but I can do only so much.

On second thought, maybe I will call and try to get them to mail him one at my building, or even to mail it to me.

too busy to save what little we have left?

I have worked MANY campaigns. We call D's and get, "I'm not interested." all the time. It is sheer LAZY SHIT. Don't vote? Then don't bitch! No excuses.

I'm amazed somebody alerted this. Even more amazed somebody voted to hide.

On Wed Nov 4, 2015, 07:38 PM an alert was sent on the following post:

The vast majority COULD vote. They just don't. Too lazy. Too apathetic. It's bullshit.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7316787

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

The B word is like the N word - Completely inappropriate in all uses.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Wed Nov 4, 2015, 07:41 PM, and the Jury voted 1-6 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: I'm not going to hide a post because he said 'don't bitch'. I do not think its anything like the N-word, and I have no problem with its use in this context.
Juror #7 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

very early or very late, there are long lines because everyone else who works is there at the same time too. A lot of us don't work close to our polling places, so running out to vote at lunch isn't an option. I always vote in important elections, but I admit I didn't make it yesterday. However I live in a very blue state and there were no races where any republicans had a snowball's chance in hell of taking any of our seats away,, otherwise I would have been there.

but only about 27% of the people voted and had their vote count:

https://info.kingcounty.gov/kcelections/ballotreturnstats/default.aspx

Very often here votes are thrown away. The official number is only 7%, but out of all of my friends I checked on, not a one had their vote counted this election. If you're in Seattle, you can see if your vote was thrown away:

https://info.kingcounty.gov/elections/ballottracker.aspx

a writer on the stranger whined about having to buy a stamp.

Disgusting. As usual, The Strange is correct. They are the only newspaper in the PNW.

Let me ask you to clarify: are you saying that a first-class stamp is a POLL TAX? and that I'm DEFENDING poll taxes?

I already said upthread that I think there should be no postage due on ballots, and that mail-in should universal to increase participation.

they should increase the volume of propaganda blaming the left for the party's inability to motivate voters.

The alternative, actually running candidates who motivate people to go vote for them, actually reaching out to the people who are not showing up to vote, is of course unthinkable.

It's been proven on this board again and again, beyond the shadow of any reasonable doubt. And the 2010 and 2014 midterms amply showed it. I don't know why you even mentioned it. Enough sh*t stirring meta on this board today already!

not exactly as you'd prefer?

Not so much a whine I think, as it is merely another unsupported allegation. But yes, the excuses are getting rather grade-school-ish.

I'm pleased at some of the initiatives that passed, but not too pleased about keeping our current mayor.

Of course, there was a media problem with that too: he was constantly referred to as "running unopposed" despite having FIVE people running against him

Three of the mayoral candidates joined forces and tried to use the ranked-choice method against him. The idea was to convince enough people to vote for the three of them, in any order, and hope that after all the rankings are calculated, one of them would be the winner.

It didn't work, but if you count only those votes that were cast on election day, it DID work. The problem was that half the votes were mailed in before this strategy had time to get the word out.

So if media they did that, that was key as well.

Boston is so blue, we didn't even have a mayoral primary by party last time. It was just one big primary with maybe a Republican pastor or other RWer running with lots of Democrats.

However, the final time the late Mayor Menino ran, the other top two Democratic pollers started advertising they would serve together and one of them dropped out of the race. Menino won. When you hired most of the people in city jobs and hired all the city consultants. suppliers, etc., it's almost hard to lose an election. Aside from that, he did do an enormous amount for Boston during his historically long tenure, so no shade from me.

Last edited Wed Nov 4, 2015, 08:19 PM - Edit history (1)

Low turnout does not = only* progressives did not turn out. And it's almost never progressives who cross party lines to become Nixon Democrats or Reagan Democrats or 2000 Dimson Democrats, esp. in Florida, either.

So much bs, so little time.


*although I thought the original meaning clear, given what the OP says, apparently it wasn't, So, I added the word only. It may not show up as an edit because of timing, so I am adding this explanation.

R's vote better than Dems/liberals/whatever in off cycle years. That's the plain fact. PROVEN! Don't vote then don't bitch.

Yet, read the headline you wrote for this thread.

"Don't vote then don't bitch."

You create some very creative, though unsupported allegations...

yea no one turned out excpt all the libs and dems. when dems vote dems win

Low turn out is not only about progressives. Given what the OP said, my meaning should have been obvious.l Sorry it's wasn't to you, but I will edit

Funny you didn't attack other posters on this thread who posted similar things before I did.

Progressivism is about working to advance and improve societal wellbeing on a large scale, most often by organizing our resources through government action.

What's progressive about noninvolvement?

Any proof for that?

Of course, the exit polls showed otherwise but that doesn't stop the hippie punching.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2010-midterms-political-price-economic-pain/story?id=12041739

never hurts. Since some posters are fact resistant, I can't say it will help, but it never hurts.


I like to call it punching left, which is a favorite pastime on this board and in the entire party nowadays. More than hippies are left of center right, such as many Millennials. Many of all age groups, really. We are just not in control of the party at this time.

For those people, they might not have any alternative. There is no progress regardless of how they vote.

Toss the theory Texas is turning purple out the window. Maybe in 40 years.

We win. Or maybe not. We (progressive) don't need to be titillated, but we do need to be offered candidates who hold at least a couple values that allow us to tell them apart from Republicans. We have "Democratic" candidates at the state and national level who support the death penalty, advocate welfare "reform" that busts poor people, want to give tax breaks and special favors to large corporations by shifting the tax burden onto the middle class, favor an aggressive foreign policy that will almost certainly lead to an invasion, and so on. I guess they can call themselves liberals, since that has become a rather meaningless term, but progressive? Really? Yes, it is our duty as loyal Democrats to get out and vote for these candidates, and that's what I do. But I can certainly understand the fatigue and cynicism that causes many voters to just skip it. Want an example? Look at the way they had to water down Obamacare to get "Democrats" to support it. If progressive Democrats are expected to vote, the may require some evidence that doing so works in their favor.

"First, last night was very much a status quo election."

The millionaire tea-bagger who just won the right to run Kentucky straight into the gutter is a far cry from "the status quo", even for Republicans.

I think people who posts on forums like this tend to forget that not everyone is plugged into this shit year round. They perk up every four years, and only vote in Presidential elections. Not sure what can be done about it, but it's a matter of who wants it more. And evangelicals have proven time & time again that they want it bad.

Ay candidate to represent any progressive policies at all.

Blame the VOTERS the answer to all authoritarian failures of leadership

It was the uninspired by the choices people who see no difference in their getting screwed.

I voted and I'm far to the left of Bernie. Most of my "leftist" friends voted too.

The ones that didn't vote are the people at the bottom of any party attention and feel that both sides screw them.

31% turn out and the highest number TO vote ARE progressives. Still, they cannot win alone. Moderates are still the biggest part of the party and must show up to vote. That goes for conservatives that seem less inclined to vote no matter what year it is.

We can complain about lack of anything, as long as we actually did something about it. Voting counts. I don't know why people are so apathetic to voting in this country. Never will understand that.

Sorry, no excuses I already hear them all in my head playing out. Same words, different year. Get people to turn out at the voting booths, I do it is as simple as offering someone a ride.