I look up every person, read their political history, if they have any voting records take a peek at that. Then I look up every proposition look in to what the ask actually is, see who is paying for it and how it got on the ballot, and I decide on these factors. https://ballotpedia.org/ and https://www.govtrack.us/ are a really great resources for this.
In this election, I had to cast 50+ votes. Between the time my ballot preview is available and election day, I’m pretty sure doing all of those things for every candidate/proposition would essentially be a part-time job.
I do go through ballotpedia or vote411.org. I also try to find a voting guide from an organization I’m mostly aligned with to double-check my answers. Then I look more closely at races where my answers differ. Even just those steps can feel exhausting, and I can’t imagine doing this without the resources I’ve already found.
My ballot is 26 people and 15 issues. I only have to look up 15 of the 26, that was mostly for justices and I don’t know them by name. Most the other offices up for election I am already familiar with the candidates so there was no reason for me to look them up. I did read thru the voter guide handbook on the issues. That is where you can see what groups support the issues. I sometimes make decisions based only on who supports/opposes the issue, like if Uber backs it, that’s an auto no. I then search for quick overviews on the issues to make sure I really understood what the ask was and to also look for shadow supporters. Total I would guess about 2-3 hours over the course of a few days.
I get that is more than some people what to do and that is why voting feel overwhelming to some, but for me the time is worth it for something that is very important to me and only happens every 2 years.
What kind of responses did you expect from this vague, unanswerable post?
Yes
Different voters vote differently. This is really testing the limits of the sub IMHO.
How?
because it’s impossible to make general statements about how “people” in general vote; each voter has different motivations for voting
I ment general consensuses. And how does it test the limits of this sub? What rule?
It tests whether there really are no stupid questions.
Would you rather me ask why road signs are different shapes?
That’s because the different shapes kind of group the signs, so you can see at a glance whether the sign is a mandate, a warning or purely informational. Well, that’s how European signage works anyway. US signage shapes appear a lot less organized.
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In the US, a vast majority of people vote by party. They may not even know the candidates by name, and simply vote “straight ticket.”
But I was in line to vote a few years ago and overheard someone say something like “yeah I saw more signs for This Guy than for That Guy, so I guess I’ll vote This Guy.”
I have also heard it’s not uncommon for Americans to vote for candidates they think are more attractive, or have a name they like more.
Basically, we’re pathologically stupid
In California where we are faced with numerous complex ballot measures in addition to candidates, it’s very hard to get to the polls feeling completely informed about everything.
There comes an uncomfortable moment where you need to decide if you’re going to just not vote for certain things because you don’t know enough, or if you’d rather make the best hasty decision you can. In that latter case, I believe people are vulnerable to all kinds of bulllshit influences.
One influence I often go by is what people I know voted. I have a couple of friends that make it their business to be super informed, and I know we share values. I’m happy to give them my vote in that case rather than waste it.
Sometimes the ballot measures really are impossible decisions. One side says they’re raising money for schools that’s desperately needed for essential safety upgrades. Opponents say there is no details plan for how the money will be spent and the same group already did this just two years ago so where did that money go? How is a private individual supposed to penetrate things like this?
“Money for schools” and “allow new housing construction” are usually automatic approvals from me. I know there will be NIMBY naysayers and budget hawks complaining, but I think we need everything we can get on those two fronts.
yeah, basically the only way to vote informed is to spend several hours researching the candidates and their values, ballot measures’ implications, etc.
before the internet that shit must have been goddamn near impossible.
it’s a lot to ask of a population who is largely overworked, underpaid, and alienated from their communities to the point where having a few uninterrupted hours is a fucking luxury few of us have even occasionally. and usually we want to spend those hours with friends and family… so doing something boring like voter research is a hard sell
ironically, informed voting is one of the ways we could start to chip away at free time scarcity
I wish it were simply a matter of time and finding a few hours. I can do that. But the confounding factor is that while the internet makes information easily available, the downside is that the internet makes information easily available. The typical experience of trying to research any ballot measure is that you’ll find 40 different sources of information about it, all openly biased and directly contradicting each other.
Ultimately, many ballot measures are complex initiative proposals which need to be reviewed and approved by qualified professionals over weeks or even months, with multiple revisions being part of the process.
I don’t know how to evaluate building project plans and I really never will. Even assuming I have 3 hours for ballot research, there can be dozens of measures every time.
One of he reasons Trump won in the first place was probably that he was a celebrity
There are enough voters who don’t vote straight-ticket that it occasionally happens that different elections with the same electorate at the same time have different parties winning. For example in 2024, voters in Nevada elected a Democrat to the Senate, but gave the state’s electoral votes to Trump.
Funnily enough the issues people care about, rarely if ever have any impact on policy decisions.
People vote differently. I used to look up every person’s name, prop, measure to get a good look at everything/everyone. Nowadays I use dsa voter guide and look up everything/everyone they don’t cover.
Maybe I’m a sheep but I am dsa aligned so I would’ve voted for whoever/whatever they endorsed anyway so it just saves my time
Of course, I have already internalized several names off the top of my head from seeing their names around and already have strong feelings towards/against them so there’s that.
Platform.
- name recognitions says nothing about what they’d do, biased toward older candidates
- voting for issues tends toward single issue votes
- platform is how they tend to vote overall, how close they are to my values, and work for both senior and new candidates
Every single person does eenie meenie miney moe.
Yes, often it’s one of those two ways. There are also people who vote based on party affiliation, personal/organisational endorsement, religious affiliation/endorsement, looks/style/voice/charisma, and even some who choose more or less at random just to have participated.
