Why even bother voting?

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01 Nov 2012, 10:28 am

I really have no voice since I'm not from the US, but that doesn't mean I have no clue about what's going on down there. The Presidential election/debate has been the equivalent of slowly dying a miserable death from bowel cancer. Nothing but greed, hatred, stupidity and negativity. I don't get why people vote at ALL. Do they think it's their duty or something? You're not "American" unless you vote? What's the point, things never improve, they just get worse and worse. ALL the candidates and politicians are filthy, ugly, dirty crooks, I don't know how ANYONE can pick. It's hopeless. Hope-LESS. Thank god there's only about a week of this insanity left. Last night I read an article about some 4-year-old who was crying to her mother because she was so tired of the election, which was put on YouTube. Of course many people think it's fake. I don't know if it is, but it just shows how low the US has sunk and will continue to sink. Then we only have to worry about the zombies or all being killed before Christmas or whatever. :roll:

thewhitrbbit
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01 Nov 2012, 10:30 am

There's 3rd party candidates, and there are also local issues too.

For example in Maryland we have

A measure to give illegal immigrants in state tuition despite not paying taxes

A measure to legalize gay marriage

A measure to legalize table gaming

A measure to redistrict Maryland in such a f'ed up way it requires NASA scientists to explain.

visagrunt
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01 Nov 2012, 12:14 pm

If for no other reason that to demonstrate to elected politicians at all levels that the electorate matters.

That people are prepared to turn their attention to local and national interests at least one day every few years and to make a choice.

If you bother to go to the polling place and you choose the lesser of two evils this time, perhaps next time you might go to that polling place and choose differently. Roughly 25% of the US electorate can be counted upon to uncritically vote for one or the other of the two major parties. And the other 5% who bother to vote are the people that make the difference in the outcome.

But if that 45% ever decided to make their voice heard, the political calculus would have to change.

So that's why you should bother voting. To keep political parties frightened.

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Tequila
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01 Nov 2012, 1:04 pm

visagrunt wrote:

Agreed. If people actually voted as often as they should (and voted for what they truly believed in, rather than just for a rosette) politics would change massively, I think.

Pyrite
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01 Nov 2012, 3:23 pm

“If you don’t vote, you don’t get to b***h.” - Lewis Black

DarthMetaKnight
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01 Nov 2012, 3:25 pm

Pyrite wrote:

“If you don’t vote, you don’t get to b***h.” - Lewis Black

Voting doesn't work. Lewis Black is an idiot and an unfunny "comedian".

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hanyo
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01 Nov 2012, 3:27 pm

Pyrite wrote:

“If you don’t vote, you don’t get to b***h.” - Lewis Black

What if you do vote and yours wins? I guess you don't get to complain then either.

I don't know if I want to vote but I might. My voting place is a short walk away and I really don't like Romney.

Pyrite
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01 Nov 2012, 4:10 pm

thewhitrbbit wrote:

Actually regarding the first one, the ballot measure says:

Quote:

provided the student meets certain conditions relating to attendance and graduation from a Maryland high school, filing of income taxes, intent to apply for permanent residency, and registration with the selective service system (if required)

meems
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01 Nov 2012, 5:04 pm

I sometimes feel like it's pointless to vote because of where I live. The electoral vote will go to Romney either way so it feels like my vote won't count. I'll vote anyway. I feel better about voting in local elections.

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meems
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01 Nov 2012, 5:08 pm

I see abstaining from voting as a way to express your disapproval of every choice.

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thewhitrbbit
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01 Nov 2012, 11:10 pm

meems wrote:

I have the opposite problem. Obama will win MD easily.

thewhitrbbit
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01 Nov 2012, 11:12 pm

Quote:

Actually regarding the first one, the ballot measure says:
Quote:
provided the student meets certain conditions relating to attendance and graduation from a Maryland high school, filing of income taxes, intent to apply for permanent residency, and registration with the selective service system (if required)

I'm not sure how you can file a return without an SSN or other ID number. I remember when they were passing the bill, they tried to include some checks to make sure the people applying where being honest, the Democrats voted down every check on the bill.

icyfire4w5
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01 Nov 2012, 11:50 pm

Um, let's say I'm anti-Obama. If I abstain from voting and Obama wins, people might ask me if I gripe about Obama, "Why didn't you show that you are anti-Obama through voting?" But if I vote Romney and Obama wins, at least I can tell people, "See, I'm unhappy that Romney didn't win the elections because he will make a much better President than Obama."

Pyrite
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02 Nov 2012, 8:12 am

thewhitrbbit wrote:

SSN doesn't seem to be required.

Quote:

Rodricks: Thousands of undocumented workers pay state taxes
Filing income tax returns a requirement of Maryland Dream Act

Under the Maryland Dream Act, students who want to attend our community colleges or public universities at the in-state tuition rate must have attended a Maryland high school for at least three years. They must prove that their families filed state income tax returns during that time, and they or their families must file returns each year that the student attends college.

Because the Dream Act was written for illegal immigrants, you might be wondering how this can be. Since when do such people pay income taxes? Opponents of the Dream Act tell us that "illegals" just suck money out of the U.S. economy and become burdens to taxpayers.

I've addressed this issue a few times over the years. But with the election just three weeks away, and the Dream Act up for a vote, I'll share what I've learned about it.

First stop: The Maryland tax collector's office in Annapolis. According to Joseph Shapiro, spokesman for state Comptroller Peter Franchot, thousands of undocumented workers obtain an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) from the Internal Revenue Service. The ITINs, in lieu of Social Security numbers, have been available since the 1990s.

Once they have the ITIN," says Shapiro, "their wages can be withheld by employers for Social Security taxes and they can file with the state for income tax. To file a tax return in Maryland, you must have a Social Security number or an ITIN. We have no way of knowing if an ITIN taxpayer is here illegally or not, and it's not our job.

"The only tax that our office can directly attribute to ITIN taxpayers is the personal income tax. Obviously, we have no idea how much they pay in sales taxes or really any other tax or fee."

From 2008 to 2010, about 20,000 ITIN workers a year reported taxable income in Maryland, and they paid around $11 million each year in state income taxes. Final figures for last year are incomplete, but the comptroller expects about $12 million in taxes on 2011 ITIN wages.

I reported earlier that, since ITINs were first made available in 1996, the vast majority have been snapped up by undocumented immigrants. So Franchot's numbers give us some idea about the amount of taxes being paid by this workforce.

And we can assume that some of these workers are parents of children who have been educated in Maryland public schools and who now seek to attend college while paying the same affordable in-state tuition that their citizen-peers pay.

But the state numbers only provide part of the picture.

At the federal level, tax revenues from undocumented workers are counted in billions, not millions. Some background, worth repeating:
......
By 2007, the Social Security trust fund had received a net benefit of upwards of $240 billion from "unauthorized immigrants." Two years ago, Stephen Goss, chief actuary of the SSA, told The Washington Post: "If we had not had other-than-legal immigrants in the country over the past, then these numbers suggest that we would have entered persistent shortfall of tax revenue to cover [payouts] starting [in] 2009."

Notes Sen. Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat and sponsor of the Dream Act in the Maryland General Assembly: "Because the IRS doesn't communicate with other federal agencies — Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security — there's no risk to immigrants of being deported simply because they chose to do the right thing and pay their taxes."

Memorably, a Sun reader groused about this in an email, arguing that the IRS and state comptroller had no business taking tax revenue from "illegal immigrants" who shouldn't be in the country to begin with.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-1 ... ales-taxes

visagrunt
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08 Nov 2012, 9:20 am

meems wrote:

I see abstaining from voting as a way to express your disapproval of every choice.

I see it as lazy and defeatist.

Casting a blank ballot is noble. Your view is lazy.

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