Did you vote yesterday?

Its a small price to pay to allow the idiots the vote and it sure beats the alternative

No Im not, since youve expanded your position to align with mine. As I said to MZ, allowing the idiot vote is small price to pay for universal suffrage. No?

Let me respond to the "cumulative intelligence" thing (since we have bumped heads on this idea before and I still disagree).

Democracy is about self-representation, equal rights and liberty. It is not about cumulative intelligence.

I think that most of the "cumulative intelligence" idea is hogwash. It does work in one circumstance-- when there is a filtering mechanism, meaning that people with more information have more of an effect on the result on people with less information. This is why prediction markets work-- people with information or knowledge are more confident and are willing to put more money into the system.

In voting, there is no reason to believe that a decision with lots of participants (voters) will be any more intelligent than a decision with fewer participants.

It may be the opposite since when their are fewer voters... the odds that each vote represents an interested informed party may be higher. This would be an example of the filtering mechanism that has some mathematical merit.

No, you are missing the point.

The word you are using is "allowing". I have never suggested that we shouldn't "allow" anyone to vote. The words I am using are "pressuring" and "encouraging".

These "idiots" should be allowed to vote... but they shouldn't be pressured to vote.

I support Universal suffrage the same as you do.

People should choose not to vote if they aren't going to take the time to understand the issues beyond a 30 second sound bite. This is nowhere near a rejection of Universal Suffrage.

No one said you should not allow them the vote. Just don't encourage them.

wandel did you make that up?

No, seriously, there were no offices up for election where joefromchicago and I live.

Yes. I voted.

But to be fair, the comptroller and public advocate positions both were uncontested.

My vote for Mayor, Bill Thompson, lost to the billionaire incumbent, Mike Bloomberg, though, I'm not too disappointed he's returning for another term. I'm not like those bitter New Yorkers who felt betrayed by the Mayor's flip flopping on the strict 2 term limits law issue.

And I begrudgingly voted for Peter Vallone Jr., my district's incumbent city counselor. Sometimes, I think he has these oddly misplaced Yuppy/NIMBY based priorities. But the alternative, the Green Party candidate seemed like an obnoxious 1 note candidate: all environmentalism all the time.