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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   4117 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 20, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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  1. The line between "acceptable" political campaigning and "unacceptable" ballot harvesting is hard to define.
  2. People will argue that systems which are already in place are enough to make coercion and vote-buying sufficiently difficult to pull off that there is not a need to restrict voting to secret ballots. The proper response is to argue that no, those systems are insufficient, but we will make up for the lost easiness of mail-in voting by something like establishing voting holidays.
  3. If the right argues that it is unfair for Democrats to go knocking on low-propensity voters' doors to try to get them to vote, the left will argue that it is unfair for Republicans to spread ideas like Qanon that are not believed in by the vast majority of Republicans who actually make policy but that can also be persuasive to low-propensity voters.

  1. It's easy for me. Have people vote in person, then we don't have to worry about this at all. Ballot harvesting is just a way for political machines to cheat.

  2. Agree, I'm in favor of these sorts of actual compromises.

  3. I don't know of anyone that argues that door-to-door campaigning is an illegitimate tactic. If you can get the idiots from your side, whether they're welfare slugs or Qanon to show up to the polls, more power to you.

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