site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   19147 thread views

USA Election Day 2022 Megathread

Tuesday November 8, 2022 is Election Day in the United States of America. In addition to Congressional "midterms" at the federal level, many state governors and other more local offices are up for grabs. Given how things shook out over Election Day 2020, things could get a little crazy.

...or, perhaps, not! But here's the Megathread for if they do. Talk about your local concerns, your national predictions, your suspicions re: election fraud and interference, how you plan to vote, anything election related is welcome here. Culture War thread rules apply, with the addition of Small-Scale Questions and election-related "Bare Links" allowed in this thread only (unfortunately, there will not be a subthread repository due to current technical limitations).

15
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The only people civic minded enough to turn out to run our elections are also 70-90 years old.

So it becomes a problem to have them do counting of ballots given their cognitive decline.

Where are you?

Don't people get paid?

In 2018 according to my gf's recollection she was paid 90 dollars to run a poll station for 12 hours as a volunteer. You're basically reliant on civic minded people to bother with it at that point I think.

civic minded people

And exceptionally politically "involved" people.

Oh, that's too bad.

I remember being paid like $300 for working as a vote counter (lowest at the totem pole) in Sweden during the 2009 EU parliament elections, so that was pretty attractive for me as one days work as a student.

That's wild. NJ is normally $200 for the lowest level volunteers for the day. The two times I did it during Covid, they paid extra, for $400 and $325.

Hahaha… oh wait you’re serious.

They either don’t get paid, or paid only a nominal amount, like jury duty.

The only people civic minded enough to turn out to run our elections are also 70-90 years old.

So it becomes a problem to have them do counting of ballots given their cognitive decline.

IME, 70-90 years olds in cognitive decline are typically challenged by computer-like machines. Why do we think that they are worse at manual counting than at everything involving the custody and machine tabulation of votes?

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats