Hey go vote

Sorry what are we voting for?

@cikame: One week from today are midterm elections in the US.

Since the Whitehouse isn’t on the line, most people don’t bother.

@nutter: this vote is super important. Go do it, but only if you are on the side of Justice and good in the world!

Hey don't tell me what to do.

I'm always curious when people post stuff like this on this kind of forum, with a demographic that can be reliably counted upon as being overwhelmingly likely to vote Democratic, or if, say, Abby tells people on Twitter to register to vote (which appears on the GB front page) — would the same people still tell people to "please vote" if it was a mostly conservative forum, knowing whose votes they would be encouraging?

I think I can guess what the answer to that is, as respectfully as possible. It just strikes me as a little disingenuous when you skirt around it instead of just telling people to please vote Democratic. Maybe I'm being too cynical about your commitment to civic participation.

@hnke: I'm willing to bet the Giantbomb community does have a decent amount of conservatives or right leaning folk. There's a lot of hostility between the two sides right now though so I wouldn't be surprised if most of them just kept quiet as to avoid drama.

I definetly think they fall into the minority of the user base, but I don't think it's an extreme minority.

Telling people to vote is important though regardless of your political affiliation. I think everyone doing so has the right idea.

@lokihellfire2008: I always vote, just saying most don’t.

I live in the second largest economic dumpster fire in the US (Connecticut: at least we’re not Illinois!), so I’ll be voting republican down the line to try to restore some balance to a state that was quite prosperous before the last quarter century of economic suicide.

I’m socially pretty liberal, as I think conservatives SHOULD be. But our economy is in crisis mode and our current political class cares as little as our voters...so I guess they’re doing their job...

It’s spitting in the wind in this state...Once the kids are done with school, I’ll probably split. I feel stupid for continuing to live here.

Please vote to remove republicans from the house and the senate and prevent Trump from doing any more damage than he already has. Don't let a climate of fear destroy this country's morals.

I agree, it's clear what their goal is. There are many more registered democrats than republicans, yet republicans are more involved than democrats. So any initiative to increase voter turnout will help democrats. We see a lot of campaigns to increase the coolness of voting to hopefully get younger or uninterested voters to vote.

I like to throw a voting party for all my friends to make sure everyone gets together and votes.

Sure, I love making uninformed and hasty decisions about important stuff!

Well, one party makes an effort to get as many people as possible to vote, and the other puts up as many barriers as possible to prevent certain demographics from voting. One of these is clearly more sinister than the other.

I use to be pretty skeptical about the call to vote because I would typically parse out a parenthetical call in there (as in, "vote how I would"). A few years down the line, I see these remarks as necessary, reminding the periodically disenfranchised and the young that their votes are essential in a democratic process. And that's without mentioning how more votes create a better aggregate of representation.

If you're young reader on this board, voting is just the start and is definitely not everything. But it is a decent charity if there is a cause you are willing to support (or prevent). Vote411 dot org is a decent resource to figure out what's on the ballot next week in your area.

I would hope anyone who wants to vote is actually paying attention and doesn't need to be reminded.

Of course, you should always confirm your registration a month or two before the election. Especially if you live in one of the states run by people who have a habit of purging voter rolls for highly questionable reasons.

There are democrats who want to encourage voting, which is a good thing. There are conservative who want to ensure only citizens vote, which is a good thing. Then there have been a small number of corrupt conservatives who limit voting access in minority communities, which is horrible. And there have been a small number of corrupt democrats who have had dead people and non citizens vote, which is also horrible. I refuse to suggest that the corrupt practices of organizations such as the DNC and RNC represent what the majority of people on either side believe.

@frytup: Yeah, the unspoken part of “get out there and vote” should be “if you’re paying attention.”

I think folks should vote, whether they agree with me on an issue or not. I also think while voting is a right, being informed (multiple sources, reading various viewpoints) is a responsibility for a voter.

As long as you’re paying attention, not just drinking the Kool-Aid served by your favorite bias-reinforcing news service or personality, I think voting is crucial.

Vote, and vote Democrat. I'm not going to talk around it. My British wife might get deported in January because of these dipshits and because "Extreme Vetting" doesn't look for proof, it looks for excuses to throw people out.

This.

This isn't a "both sides" issue. Find me the democrat equivalent of what republicans are doing in Georgia and we can talk.

I think they're saying... that certain demographics shouldn't have to jump through hoops in order to vote.

Prove it.

Early voted myself. Since the hurricane my schedule has been nuts so I didn't wanna leave it to chance.

Man, some real hot takes in this thread. Can we try to keep this nonpartisan and simply encourage everyone to take advantage of their civic right to vote, instead of getting into political bickering that could get out of hand?

@kmj2318: lol @ “small number of corrupt conservatives” I’m not gonna ever sit here and defend the Democratic Party, one of the most inept and pathetic political parties in the world, but voter suppression has a been a tentpole of the Republican Party for decades. It’s not a fringe issue, it’s a primary tactic of every Republican candidate in the country.

Shaking my head and holding my tongue at some of the ignorant and wrong statements here. Everyone needs to vote, even if it’s for the lesser of two evils, because it’s still lesser.

@hnke: I am a democrat and work for a democrat elected official. I voted for a republican senator because I have worked with him, vaguely know him, and judge him to be the best person for the job.

Hey, go vote. Be as informed as you can possibly be, but absolutely, 100%, if you agree with my political philosophies or not, educate yourself and vote.

@nutter: you should come to Oklahoma, our economic dumpster fire is only exceeded by Kansas. My dad is in CT and when he told me about the problems, I responded with a "sounds better than OK!"

And yes, please go out and vote Democrat, unless you're a nazi, alt-right, or like to post Memes like the MagaBomber had on his van, then don't vote, please.

To balance this stuff out vote and vote Republican

Then inform yourself.

It looks like this is already out of hand. Humanity as a whole seems unable to talk about politics without going at each other's throats whenever a disagreement comes up.

These days the political 'disagreements' are perhaps somewhat more existential than usual so I think one should forgive a little ..enthusiasm.

Would love to if I could make the time and energy for it. Life gets in the way pretty hard nowadays. But thanks for shaming me.

@ripelivejam: It takes time and energy to do a small bit of research on a computer?

Nobody shamed you.

Already did!

Not a political person, never have been. Seems like it takes a lot of work to get even a broad view of the issues at hand, and I don't think you want a fool like me walking in and making decisions about my state and our country's future. Last time I walked in knowing zero about the candidates and basically voted random democrats. I work 60+ hours a week and already have a lot of time devoted to trying to imrpove my knowledge in my current field as best I can and have also had to deal with a lot of personal stuff lately. And I'm generally an idiot, I guess. We'll see, maybe in the next slightly more than 7 days I'll scrounge enough of a passing overview of the election at hand to not feel like the whole thing is pointless for me to participate in!

@ripelivejam: Here's an easy place to start https://ballotpedia.org/

Democrats sometimes implicitly suppress voting by scheduling special elections on unusual days. Republicans explicitly suppress the vote by putting up "voter verification" barriers like voter ID laws, automatic removal from voter registration rolls. etc. which disproportionately affect minorities, the working class, etc.

America is so weird at the moment. It seems every conversation and space has a political edge to it. What happened over there?

@ripelivejam: There are a lot of people who would kill to not have to be "a political person" but they have to because of who they are or how they were born.

Your sarcastic comment just didn't make a lot of sense considering it's something easily fixable by anyone.

A celebrity con man is our president and nazis are a regular occurrence again.

Hey, you think all those liberal men caught up in the #metoo movement are going to say, "F it" and vote Republican! LOL Cause I'm thinking that's going to happen.

Impossible to answer without running through the entirety of American history, but if I could boil it down... the period from 1941-1990 was a bit of an aberration. Since the end of the Cold War, national unity has slowly given way to a re-airing of a long list of historical grievances exacerbated by basic problems with how the US government and political system were constructed. Combine that with modern social media, and here we are.

TL;DR - read the news.

(This wound up becoming a way more general post directed more at this thread and political discussions in general than you in particular and as such is way more aggressive reply than your post deserved. Sorry about that.)

I don't begrudge your enthusiasm. I'm all for it, actually, I want to see Trump and co. out of office.

But

The quickest way to push someone farther in the opposite direction is to make a hardline statement, especially one that insults their point of view or makes you look like you're putting yourself on a moral high ground. That sort of response, even a little bit, puts a huge wall between you and whoever you're talking to. When people have spent decades having the same responses to each other, these "walls" become ingrained in society and then you have a thread like this, one calling for a simple nonpartisan discussion about how you should exercise your right to vote quickly turning into a mayhem of finger-pointing and shit-flinging.

Or, to put it more plainly, if you call someone a racist dipshit for supporting Trump when they don't see themselves as racist dipshits, you will push them farther away. If you can find a way to turn the conversation into something productive where two people walk away with some stuff to think about instead of a bunch of anger at "that asshole", you'll find a lot more people coming into agreement with you (and those that don't were never going to anyway). You might find yourself convincing someone to think more critically about Trump and their own political opinions if you don't insult them right out of the gate.

I cannot recall any single moment where this has happened in regards to politics. It has, from my observation, always been a fucking shitshow of the aforementioned finger-pointing and shit-flinging, and even the politicians themselves - who are supposed to be grown men and women - cannot seem to get it together and discuss something. So as much as I hate it, I'll stand by comments like my one above and continue to avoid political discussion from anyone because all it causes is stress and headache, even though logically we should all be civilly engaged in it.

If you don't think you are informed enough just spend an hour or two researching the candidates/amendments on the internet(someone already mentioned ballotpedia, which is a great resource). If that's too much, you don't have vote for every field on the ballot, vote for the ones you are sure about. Remember that even if it doesn't directly impact you, these decisions can greatly impact a lot of other people in some extremely negative ways.

Nazis are a regular occurrence? Where? Have you ever seen one? Hyperbole like that does nothing but drive American politics deeper into a fruitless back and forth of inflammatory and manipulative rhetoric.

Have you...

Missed some news, perhaps some Notable Events in the last couple years?

Yeah.

My friend was even threatened by one. I have at least one friend who received threats from KKK members and nazis. She's been called the N word and has been told they're going to burn the hair from her head because she has an afro.

Personally, I've been told by a racist trump supporter at work that I need to be deported. Believe me if you want, I don't care. Thread's getting locked anyway.