In North Carolina we elect judges, all of the from the local traffic court to the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court.
They are not allowed to "run", big ad buys, etc nor are they allowed to state a party. The state Bar does not even put out a list of qualified persons running like they provide to the President for Federal Judges.
So, you go the poles and see a list of some twenty names running for traffic court judge and the instructions to vote for five. Talk about uninformed.
In Maryland, we always got a sample ballot and informational sheaf sent before all the elections. At least, I remember getting them multiple times. I also found the Washington Post's local election coverage to be wonderful--at least on the website, they had information and a self-written blurb and such about *every* candidate for *every* position... even things like Office of the Wills.
I was startled when I didn't get sample ballots and sheafs in New York; Bill said he never did. And I always end up missing at least *one* race entirely when I try to look up the candidates--this year, it was the Town Clerk. -_- (Better than 2012, where I managed to go in with the local information from 2010 by mistake. Seriously, where the heck am I supposed to learn about local candidates!?)
...anyway, I'd forgotten I was really frustrated about that. >_> Thanks for the venue!
This happened to me in 2012 in VA for the school board elections. Half of the people on the sample ballot weren't on the ballot for my part of town, and people for my part of town weren't on the sample ballot, so some of my research was in vain and some of the people I knew nothing about (so I didn't risk voting for them).
California sent out an enormous ballot primer in 2008. It was enormously helpful, especially for all the proposals, from Light Rail to Prop 8 to the one about giving livestock animals space to turn around. A lot of the laws you have to read before you vote because there's barely space for a blurb on the ballot (and they never seem to have a copy of the text in the polling site).
It's interesting that you mention elections as an alternative to tribal genocide above, because the rationale for these low information votes could be based on exactly that: tribal. At least it's not genocide. I came across this Reason article the other day which makes that point towards the end: http://reason.com/archives/2012/10/03/your-vote-doesnt-count... )
The more I study behavioral economics, the more I understand that people, at a fundamental level, are just wired to be tribal. Sometimes that takes the shape of all participating in a lovely charity. Sometimes that takes the shape of racism. (I ran across something a few years ago that said the people who gave most to charity tended to also be the most racist; because they're flip sides of the same coin. A major reason to tithe to your church is to strengthen your in-group
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They are not allowed to "run", big ad buys, etc nor are they allowed to state a party. The state Bar does not even put out a list of qualified persons running like they provide to the President for Federal Judges.
So, you go the poles and see a list of some twenty names running for traffic court judge and the instructions to vote for five. Talk about uninformed.
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I especially like when you can't even see an accurate sample ballot from your local election board either.
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I was startled when I didn't get sample ballots and sheafs in New York; Bill said he never did. And I always end up missing at least *one* race entirely when I try to look up the candidates--this year, it was the Town Clerk. -_- (Better than 2012, where I managed to go in with the local information from 2010 by mistake. Seriously, where the heck am I supposed to learn about local candidates!?)
...anyway, I'd forgotten I was really frustrated about that. >_> Thanks for the venue!
Reply
California sent out an enormous ballot primer in 2008. It was enormously helpful, especially for all the proposals, from Light Rail to Prop 8 to the one about giving livestock animals space to turn around. A lot of the laws you have to read before you vote because there's barely space for a blurb on the ballot (and they never seem to have a copy of the text in the polling site).
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