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Comment by mdorazio | Hacker News Reader

I agree, but it's important to note that many people don't vote in the US because they simply don't have the time to leave work/school and go to a polling place, or won't get paid for it if they do [1]. More mail-in ballots could potentially alleviate this, but a lot of people prefer to vote in person. Also due to our two-party system, gerrymandering, and the way congress works, many people don't vote because they feel it doesn't make a difference, not because they are poorly informed.

A broad approach of better voter education, a national holiday on election day, and replacing FPTP with something else that actually favors more than two parties (I like STAR myself) is needed in the US.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/us/politics/election-day-...

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many people don't vote because they feel it doesn't make a difference

This is actually the case in many areas. For example, casting a vote for a Republican Presidential candidate in California is a pointless endeavor. This sentiment doesn’t arise from lack of voter education, but rather from voter education - people understand the political makeup of the areas in which they live, and in those that are overwhelmingly partisan, can correctly conclude that their vote won’t make a difference.

That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Kinda like millenials complaining about boomers voting for things they don't like, while simultaneously not turning out to vote even though as a group they outnumber the boomers and could actually effect change if they bothered to show up.

This effect could easily be counteracted by paying attention to polls and voter registration numbers. If you're in a competitive area, sure, go ahead and vote. But if the numbers are clearly lopsided, as they are in places like California and New York, Republicans are free to vote, their vote just won't do anything except waste their time.

The reverse is true in places like Texas, but Beto came respectably close to winning.

I agree that changing the voting system would help a lot in shaking up the stratified two-party dynamic we have in the USA.

STAR seems like an interesting method, but one potential issue with it is that it's more complicated than methods like approval voting (more bubbles on the ballot, harder to explain to people). Approval voting seems like the simplest fix to our existing voting system. It would encourage third parties and more diversity of positions, while also reducing the extreme polarization that we see between the Republicans and Democrats.

Yeah complexity may have been a problem for it. About 70,000 people voted for it in Lane County, OR, with 78,000 against it.

> they simply don't have the time to leave work/school and go to a polling place, or won't get paid for it if they do [1]. More mail-in ballots could potentially alleviate this, but a lot of people prefer to vote in person.

That's already solved. People can vote early in-person or mail-in ballots.

Many places have limited early voting and do not offer no-excuse mail voting.

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