pudge's Journal: Stupid People

There are a lot of ridiculously stupid people who vote.

There was a measure on the Washington statewide ballot this year, Senate Joint Resolution 8207, which modifies how members of the Commission on Judicial Conduct are selected.

I am not saying you are stupid if you voted for it, or against it. I don't care about that. But I heard not one word about it on TV or radio, saw nothing about it online, and saw barely anything about it in print. So I can't imagine that many others knew much more about it than I did.

Yet, it is passing overwhelmingly, so we have hundreds of thousands of voters voting for something they don't really know anything about, which isn't uncommon, except that this is a Constitutional Amendment. People are voting to amend the Constitution and they don't even know what they are voting for.

It's maddening. I'm ... well, not speechless, but close to it. People are so incredibly stupid.

Moo

[Chacham]

That why, when i vote, i try to get a sample ballot beforehand to read and discusss everythingon the ballot.

Re:Moo

[RailGunner]

That, and you can't trust a newspaper to be forthcoming and truly objective. In fact, you can almost count on newspapers to be dishonest about an issue. [slashdot.org]

And that's just their news stories. Editorials are even worse. [slashdot.org] (Warning: The BS word is used in this link. And I don't mean Barbara Streisand.)

Re:Moo

[Chacham]

Thanx for the link and the warning. :)

You make a good point in the first link.

Re:Moo

[John Harrison]

The problem is that ballot propositions are purposely written with language that masks their true intent and aims to appeal to everyone, even those that would oppose the initiative if they understood what it meant. There should be a requirement that the things are written in language that a fifth grader can understand. Most of the come across as "this will do good, all the time! Confusing thing 1, confusing thing 2, confusing thing 3." If there is no discussion of the issue in the media you won't even kn

Re:Moo

[Chacham]

That is true, which is why i discuss it with people.

As for making the language easier, that would require making it wordier, and the more the words, the more the actual meaning could be twisted.

Perhaps a law or amendment could be associated with an attached explanation, or reasoning, which wold not be part of the law itself, but set the tone and context for future understanding.

Re:Moo

[John Harrison]

Maybe a third party could be appointed to write these things in an understandable way. They aren't unclear because they're complex. They're unclear because it is an advantage at the voting booth.

wrong!

[bryanthompson]

The minute you start blaming the 'stupid voters' you will turn into a democrat. Democrats think that the people are too stupid to know what's best for them, so they have to lie and distort. I'm not sure what to think about this whole deal yet. It stinks, but it's not the end of the world. What it says to me, is that our R leadership needs to start kicking some pansy liberal asses, giving McCain the finger, and actually growing some testicles. They won because they've still been able to control the medi

Re:wrong!

[pudge]

The minute you start blaming the 'stupid voters' you will turn into a democrat.

No. In this case it is true. There's no possible way hundreds of thousands of people knew what was in this Amendment.

another reason for an informed elctorate

[NeMon'ess]

Even if we had no propositions and state legislatures doing their jobs, the people would still have to elect representatives. An uninformed elctorate will not know how the candidates will vote, or how the legislature has been passing laws that impact them. Those voters are more likely to chose a candidate based on their party, and their telegenic appearance instead of their positions and political history.

For two weeks, the SF Chronicle gave half a page of it's opinion section to the pro and con side of t

A friend of mine pointed out

[Degrees]

that if you don't know what a Proposition means, Just Vote No. If it was such a good idea in the first place, your local congress critter would have passed that law already and played glory hog for a day.

Of course, there are times when a measure is too sensitive, and your congress critter won't touch it. But those are the types of measures that need careful reading anyway.

So it makes sense to me, that if I don't understand an issue, I vote against it. Either the people putting the measure on the ballot ne

Re:A friend of mine pointed out

[pudge]

I usually simply don't vote if I don't know. But for Constitutional Amendments, I vote against.

I wonder...

[Sheetrock]

Do you think some of the problem is being caused by voters not realizing they can leave an item blank?

I've seen this happen before with a survey. One item on there was something that those surveyed could not possibly express an informed opinion about; it was left on the form by accident and concerned a service that was not actually offered by the company and, therefore, could not be ranked.

If I recall correctly, it was the majority that had something other than "Don't Know" circled. I don't remember h