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ChristianKl comments on 2013 Census/Survey: call for changes and additions - Less Wrong
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Comments (154)
"Do research before voting" seems like a strange formulation. It's has a ring of pulling an allnighter before an exam.
It's a good way to decide how to vote if you strongly believe you should vote, but you don't know much about the particular issue being voted on in advance. If the studying only affects your vote and not your other behavior, then why not put it off until the last moment before the election, when the most information is available?
But it doesn't only affect your vote. Democracy lives from people discussing public events. Reducing democracy to voting seems like cargo cult democracy.
There very little real information that's made available right before an election. If you want to judge whether to elect party A or party B, you have to look at the track record of those parties.
Judging politicans by the promise that they make the month before election instead of judging them for the track record that they have gives all the wrong incentives.
The track record is still available a month before the election.
It's a better strategy than never getting informed about politics at all, though.
Yes, but I wouldn't use that strategy as a measure of whether someone is politically active.
It strikes me as taking voting more seriously than than voting on the basis of a vague impression.
It might not be a measure of being politically active, though.
...or even not voting at all.
I'm curious about what proportion of LWers refrain from voting as a matter of principle, but I'm not sure whether this is worth putting in a questionnaire.
For that matter, I'm also curious about whether anyone was convinced to stop voting by arguments against it, as distinct from people who didn't vote and now had more reasons for not doing so.
Also, following the news on a daily or even weekly basis means that you're going to get a lot of repetition.
There may be a better way to phrase it, but different people certainly acquire varying amounts of knowledge before they vote.
I think twenty years ago the relevant question would have been: "Do you read the political section of daily paper?"
Today I'm not sure how to phrase the question.
Everyone does research before voting according to them.
My family members aren't familiar with even the most basic differences between the executive and legislative branches, and routinely make mistakes that would be cleared up with a 1st year understanding of government. They attribute blame/praise to one branch that they couldn't possibly be responsible due to how the separation of powers works.
But they've all "done their research, and [they] know a lot better than [I] do about who to vote for."