Coronavirus - are we all doomed? (3 Viewers)

[deletedT]

If you don't like any of the voting choices near the election time, can you successfully write in someone new and they get elected?

Just curious. What will happen if you vote to neither of them. I mean don't write anything and send in a white ballot.
Imagine half of those who vote do the same. Doesn't it ring an alarm for both side?

 

[deletedT]

You are entitled to your opinion, but then there is Joe Biden. So if you think Trump is deranged, Biden is even more deranged. Biden actually acts like a Trump wannabe. That should scare you even more.

To be true, I've seen it around lately too many times and most of them are saying the same. Because one is worst, I vote to the bad one. Personally I can't understand how one can escape from worst to bad. If it was me, I wouldn't vote at all.
But after all, it's me. Others have different logic on this.

 

[SurreyNick]

I see it, and it sucks. But his administration gets certain things done and keeps certain other things from being done, and we only have him and the liberals to choose from right now. Unfortunately if you want certain conservative policies to continue being implemented, then you only have one choice.
How does it work in the UK? If you don't like any of the voting choices near the election time, can you successfully write in someone new and they get elected? That's awesome! But we don't have that here.

Although the UK and US are two of the longest established democracies in the world there are stark differences and it’s quite difficult to answer your question without a long explanation however I will try and give you a short answer.

Our Prime Minister (PM) is not like your President insofar as the PM is just the leader of their party and it's the party that has the power not the PM, and yes, the PM can be changed even during the elected term of the government. The power of the party is also dictated by the size of the majority they have in parliament i.e. the number of constituencies they gained in the general election and therefore the number of MPs (Members of Parliament) they have.

Each or our political parties has a leader, elected by the party membership. The leader of the party in power (currently the Conservatives) is called the Prime Minister and the leader of the largest losing party is called the leader of the opposition. The leaders of the smaller parties are simply called the leader of the ‘name of their party’ i.e. leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Each party will try to field a leader who they believe has the best chance of winning a general election and get their party voted into power. The leader of a party only holds that position for as long as their party has confidence in them and that includes the elected leader (the Prime Minister).

The party leaders who lose in a general election will often resign from their post because it’s clear they didn’t have the confidence of the electorate or otherwise their party would have been elected into power (or at least done well in the election). A sitting leader (PM) will invariably also resign if they lose the support of their own party because they are politically ineffectual or because of some embarrassing revelation in their private or public life, and/or if they lose a parliamentary vote of no confidence in the government. A motion of no confidence in the currently elected government can be made by any Member of Parliament (MP), irrespective of whether they are a member of the elected government or not. If such a motion is agreed to all MPs vote on whether they have confidence in the government and if the government lose that vote (on a simple majority basis) then it is normal for the PM to resign and will most often result in the current government being dissolved and trigger a fresh election.

I hope this sort of clarifies things.

 

[Isaac]

Just curious. What will happen if you vote to neither of them. I mean don't write anything and send in a white ballot.
Imagine half of those who vote do the same. Doesn't it ring an alarm for both side?

I think the vote just won't count for anything.

 

[Isaac]

@SurreyNick
Thanks for the explanation! It's definitely a little more complex than here in terms of who is or isn't in power and just how that comes to be. Seems like it allows for things to be more fluid during a term.

@Tera
Certainly if there is a "bad" and "worse" option, I vote for the "bad" option, otherwise I am deliberately opening myself up to a greater risk that I will be ruled by a "worse" governor--and deliberately taking that extra risk makes no sense. People who don't vote because there is a "bad" and "worse" are just losing a little bit of control over their life - the little bit they might have (conceptually, anyway) gained from making the "worse" option less likely. Just my opinion.

 

[deletedT]

I think the vote just won't count for anything.

My point wasn't about being counted. I meant it can be a way to show your objection to both sides.

 

[Isaac]

My point wasn't about being counted. I meant it can be a way to show your objection to both sides.

Okay, I see what you are saying. Maybe, if we could take an action that effectively conveyed that objection and caused some actual impact (such that it would effect positive change), I'd be all for it. Unfortunately I don't think it has any effect other than to miss out on the making of the final choice. Who knows.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

@Tera - actively voting for "no-one" is disallowed. If you file an empty ballot, it is wasted because what counts is who gets the most votes from the population that voted. And a blank ballot means you didn't vote. There is no place on the ballot that suggests WHY you would turn in a blank. I actually agree that we need a "None of the above" choice on the ballot such that if the "NOTA" slot gets the majority, ALL of the persons who got fewer votes than NOTA should be barred from running for ANY political office for 10 years. Even from running for dogcatcher.

The problem is of course that our electorate is doomed by the "news" organizations that believe their editorial power should make the choices for all voters, so they slant articles and do a lot to influence voters. Net result, you hear things - bad things - about the "liberal" media. I cannot begin to tell you how GREAT it was to watch one liberal pundit after another get ashen-faced when they realized that Hillary was losing.

I will not tell you which way I am going to vote, but I can tell you that Joe Biden strikes me as potentially one of the most corrupt and dangerous men to run for president because of his malleability based on his handlers and based on the appearance that he is wracked by mental issues.. You don't see him debating anything because the Dems know he could debate with a mirror and lose.

 

[Darrell]

...and based on the appearance that he is wracked by mental issues..

Good thing the other guy is a very stable genius!!

The cartoon South Park ran a season based on the last election which was essentially called "Giant Douche vs Turd Sandwich" and although incredibly puerile, seemed an accurate analogy from afar. It would be interesting to see what they would come up with for this one.

 

[Isaac]

puerile

Thank you for inspiring me to learn a new word today!

 

[moke123]

Interesting website re: infection rates https://rt.live/
Good visual over the last few months.

 

[pbaldy]

Yuck, NV is not doing well. We may get locked down again.

 

[Isaac]

AZ is doing really bad too. But they seem to be forging ahead nonetheless.

 

[moke123]

I was glad to see Ma. doing the best.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Louisiana has deferred implementation of stage III by 28 days, so we are stuck in stage II. Which means no buffets just yet.

 

[Isaac]

Which means no buffets just yet.

Might not be the worst thing. The other day AZ reported 3,500 new cases in a single day. I keep wondering how long my luck will hold out.

(Then again, I probably shouldn't assume anything about my current or past status. Much is made of "testing" these days, but the one I'm really interested in is the antibodies test!)

 

[AccessBlaster]

Might not be the worst thing. The other day AZ reported 3,500 new cases in a single day. I keep wondering how long my luck will hold out.

(Then again, I probably shouldn't assume anything about my current or past status. Much is made of "testing" these days, but the one I'm really interested in is the antibodies test!)

Right? Either i'm real lucky or I have already had it. I live in a fairly dense population 3.176 million.

 

[Jon]

Have the riots increased Covid in the US? I mean can you look at when the riots took place and estimate when you would expect a spike infections from that? Symptoms show approximately 5 days after infection I think, so did infections start to go up 5 days after George Floyd? I am curious if the two are correlated.

 

[AccessBlaster]

One thing I know for sure, if Biden is elected in November the severity of the pandemic will shift. Just his appearance alone will have a miraculous effect on the way bad news is reported in general.

If I had to guess statues of Lincoln will be instantly replaced with Biden, he's that good!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Supposedly, there is a federal statute for U.S. monuments that requires the person must be dead to be eligible for commissioning of a statue. Doesn't, however, apply to cases of burning in effigy.