<p>How would you determine who is “invested in the community” and “properly prepared to participate in the democratic process”?</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p>a. A student at the local university who lives in the town for eight or nine months out of the year for four years?
b. A non-traditional student who lives in the town year round for the four years that s/he is studying at the local university?
c. A visiting professor at the local university who will be in town for a year and then leave?
d. Someone having nothing to do with the local university who recently moved into the town, intending to live there for an undetermined amount of time?
e. A long term resident who rarely pays attention to local politics?</p>
<p>This is totally irrelevant. As long as we live in a democracy, each individual has the right to vote. If the individual wishes to choose how he votes by throwing darts, flipping coins, or any other random method, that is his right. In a democracy, it is unacceptable to impede such a person from exercising his legal right to vote. </p>
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<p>No such thing. The only “preparing” needed to participate in the democratic process is registering, showing up, and pushing a button. </p>
<p>Your ideas here are straight out of Animal Farm - all citizens are equal, but some are more equal than others.</p>
<p>To those who think students shouldn’t be able to vote at school, do you think the military and their families should not be able to vote locally when they know they are stationed temporarily?</p>
<p>During the last presidential election, several college students in my immediate and extended family had a terrible time voting. Either they didn’t get their sample ballot of where to go, or the absentee ballot arrived at the last minute - or not at all.</p>
<p>It shouldn’t be that difficult. Students are adults and should have a voice. Even when we disagree with their viewpoints. Ridiculous.</p>
<p>Absolutely ridiculous.
As many others have said, since when is having any kind of relevant knowledge a prerequisite for voting? And who’s to say the college kids will be less aware of local politics? So if there’s a 60-year-old guy who spends 9 months of the year in Durham and summers in Florida (not a year-round resident), and is retired (does not work in the Durham community) and never had kids (does not send kids to local schools), he shouldn’t be able to vote either, right?</p>
<p>Some people vote because they like the name of one candidate better. Some people have no investment in the communities in which they live. Some plan to move soon, some might have terminal illnesses. Etc. Doesn’t matter–that’s how democracy works. EVERYONE who’s a citizen of age gets to vote. Some of those votes may have been well-thought-out, some not so much–but for the government to determine who gets to vote based on how invested s/he is in his/her community, or how idealistic s/he is, or how informed s/he is runs completely antithetical to the values of American society.</p>
<p>But what do I know right? After all, I’m only 18–so I guess I’m uninformed and uncaring and naive.</p>
<p>And spideygirl, I think you need to learn to be a little–no, a LOT—less mean and snarky if you’re going to “maintain a civil and level-headed tone in order to respectfully participate in a debate.” Shame on you.</p>
<p>Representative democracy is flawed and ideally we would go the style of Athenian democracy (especially feasible with electronics, and with a broader definition of a citizen, of course), but the fact is, the measure is simply in the end an attempt to landgrab against the other party by dishonest methods.</p>
<p>Good gracious, this is the most nakedly anti-democratic sentiment I’ve seen publicly expressed in a long, long time. In the first place, college students are often FAR better informed about local issues in the communities where they spend 9 months, or in some cases 12 months, out of each college year, than they are about what’s going on in their parents’ distant hometowns which many do not visit even in summer. Second, if only the “highly informed” should be allowed to vote, where exactly do we draw the line? Go back to literacy tests? Require a high school diploma, or perhaps better, an undergraduate degree? Should newcomers to the community be allowed to vote only after 5, or 10, or 15 years of residency? Should tenants be denied the right to vote on grounds that a substantial fraction of them are “transient” and therefore likely not well-versed in the affairs of the community? What about senior citizens who may be home-bound and largely disengaged from civic life? Or active-duty military on extended overseas assignments who have no real opportunity to keep up with local affairs? Busy businessmen and businesswomen who spend most of their waking hours working outside the community where they live and vote, who as a practical matter have no time to engage in the affairs of the community and in fact may be less well informed on local issues than the average college student? How about those who, although they’ve lived in the community for many years, have never picked up a local newspaper, attended a city council or school board meeting, participated in a political gathering or meeting of a civis or community organization, or in any way intellectually engaged the pressing issues of the day in the community? And once we’re done excluding all those who clearly are “not informed” and therefore not qualified to vote—that is, 90 to 95% of us—why not simply entrust it all to a permanent class of Platonic guardians whose job it is to be well-informed and to look out for the best interests of the community in a way that the great unwashed are simply incapable of doing? Or better yet, how about a benevolent and enlightened monarch—a central repository of knowledge, a single and infallible source of wisdom—to relieve everyone else of the burden of knowing and deciding? Ah, that’s the ticket! The return of the Sun King, rule by the benevolent, ever-wise despot who acts solely in the interest of the community as a whole! </p>
<p>What is so frightening about absentee ballots? In some places, voting by mail is the only method used now (a remedy for problems with fraud, propagated by people with certain belief systems who also think bussing hundreds of ill-informed college students to local polls is a better idea). The pseudo outrage is amusing, as is the feigned belief that this issue has anything whatsoever to do with denying anyone a right to vote.</p>
<p>Please explain how using one’s permanent residency, the same address used on things like financial aid documents, denies anyone’s right to vote.</p>
<p>You are right about that, cartera45. There is no other rational explanation. But there is a very good explanation, and that is that some people think it is OK to break the rules when it comes to advancing their own philosophy. The ends justify the means. </p>
<p>There is a lot of drama on this thread. Where is really coming from? I am confident that the source is pure frustration when folks are not allowed to “win” by any means necessary. Rules cannot be changed arbitrarily just because we are frustrated with the way the political pendulum is moving. </p>
<p>I am quite sure the very same folks who find it an outrage to adhere to rules about voting where one permanently resides also think it is OK to undermine change brought about democratically by voters in Wisconsin (another issue directly relevant to education). You go to the polls and vote, and then the entire democratic process is completely thrown out the window when certain elected officials leave the state to avoid doing their job. The very same folks who are so outraged about following established rules for voting probably think this is a good thing as well. Why even go to the polls when the rule of mob trumps election results?</p>
<p>Communities have a right to use the democratic process to go the polls and cast votes to improve their lives, including schools. No one has a right to undermine that process, no matter how much outrage they feign. At some point people need to grow up and realize that voting rules and voting results are things that we all have to abide by, not just some of us. We can jump up and down, scream, and call names. We can point the finger and act all outraged. Still, undermining the democratic process while hiding behind the guise of protecting anything is wrong (particularly when the motive is so obviously one of manipulation to advance a particular agenda).</p>
<p>People in favor of manipulating permanent residence addresses instead of using absentee ballots probably also think it is OK to leave little school children in crummy educational settings (with awful chances of graduating and attending college) just so it can be all about the adults and teacher’s unions.</p>
<p>and then asks why people find voting by absentee ballot so frightening, well, res ipsa loquitur. </p>
<p>Some students will vote by absentee ballot at their parents’ address because they’re invested in their home town issues. Some will do it because they’re lazy and couldn’t be bothered to reregister at their college address. Other students will switch their registration to their college town because they had a registration form put in front of them out in front of the dorm, or because they become invested in the college town issues. And you find this objectionable because…why?</p>
<p>To those who think students shouldn’t be able to vote at school, do you think the military and their families should not be able to vote locally when they know they are stationed temporarily? >></p>
<p>And what about people like my military husband, who votes absentee in a place that he hasn’t lived in 30 years because that is his permanent residence? I did the same until I had to change my residency for college tuition purposes (before the national law came about giving military kids in-state tuition as long as they remain students.)</p>
<p>I think a bigger issue is the disparity with how early voting and absentee ballots, etc are handled. I am currently registered to vote in VA. They only had a few days of early voting and you had to sign that you were going to be out of town or what not on the actual election day in order to vote. Yet other areas have early voting for weeks beforehand and no disclaimers involved. So in effect, those people have way more chances to vote than Virginians. </p>
<p>I absolutely loved WA’s vote by mail only balloting. No standing in lines, no trying to get there around work schedules, etc.</p>
<p>This tone is quite aggressive and needs to be toned down. Let’s stick to the issues and not attack personally. Let’s let accusations of what is shameful be directed towards what the subject is about, and that is disenfranchisement. Personal attacks directed at individual posters will not hide that this is the goal.</p>
<p>Jonri, none of what you quote falls under the category of “personal attack”. In this case, I think you should practice what you preach.</p>
<p>Why not continue the debate and just share your insights on the issues instead?</p>
<p>Faking moral outrage is a very real and powerful tool used for manipulation. It is a legitimate issue, and an important one to bring into the light of day.</p>
<p>I think that when you suggest someone has reading comprehension issues, that’s a personal attack. I think when you suggest that those who say that they are morally outraged by your plan to limit people’s voting rights are “faking” it, that’s a personal attack. I think when you say that someone has veered off into “the land of drama,” that’s a personal attack.</p>
<p>I don’t believe you think any of that was a personal attack, not for a minute. But I do appreciate you providing yet another classic example of feigned outrage.</p>
<p>Suggesting that someone revisit clue words in order to improve the comprehension of a passage which was clearly misread is fair advice, particularly since that misreading amounted to mischaracterizing another person’s viewpoint.</p>
<p>Pointing out that someone’s participation in a debate has deteriorated into drama is perfectly reasonable and completely applicable in this instance (I believe a metaphor about spitting in people’s faces was used – if that isn’t drama, I don’t know what is).</p>
<p>Lastly, if faking moral outrage were not a ubiquitous method of shutting down the democratic process, you might have a point. Since it is however, it is fair game to point it out in a debate where that smoke screen is launched. </p>
<p>None of these things are “personal” attacks, unless the definition of a personal attack is completely changed. I am not willing to do that for you, Jonri.</p>
<p>Recall that the words of mine, which you are zeroing in on, were in response to the following statements made by frenchcoldplay:</p>
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<p>Since you failed to express any outrage over an accusation of slander (more drama), as well as age discrimination and racism, and instead chose to pick apart my well-within-bounds response to it, I can easily assume that you certainly do not really believe I engaged in any personal attack. Instead, this is clearly an example of feigned outrage (the technique used to advance one’s agenda). Had I not caught you, it would have been well played.</p>
<p>I made no personal attacks; you made sweeping generalisations about my peers that were far more disenfranchising. I did not certainly propose (except satirically) to strip older generations of their voting rights based on stereotypes; my stereotypes were but rhetorical counterpoints to your preconceptions, which were truly heartfelt.</p>