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Re:Did You Vote? Now Your Friends May Know (and Nag You) by Spivak on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @09:30AM (#18391259)
If a vote was really completely uninformed then you have nothing to worry about since over a population they'll average out to very little effect other than making the turnout numbers look better.

I'm always skeptical about people who talk about uninformed voting since it's very often a thinly veiled attempt to weed out 'wrong voting'.

Re:Did You Vote? Now Your Friends May Know (and Nag You) by swalsh on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @09:47AM (#18391411)
I don't think that necessarily works out, because uninformed is the default. It takes a considerable amount of effort to become informed, at least to a point where you can properly articulate the pros and cons of each "side".

I'm not going to make assumptions about how the majority of people become informed, but from personal experience talking to friends, and friends of friends on facebook, I see people relying on heuristics such as who is funding which side more than putting forth an effort to read studies.

Re:Did You Vote? Now Your Friends May Know (and Nag You) by Spivak on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @11:49AM (#18392636)
For things like ballot initiatives you have a point but for choosing candidates there's really not much to be informed about. You usually get the choice between two well credentialed politicians whose beliefs are and policy directions are almost entirely aligned with their party. And the gap between the parties is wide enough that just about everyone will strongly align with (or be repulsed by) one of them.

So beyond the party heuristic it's not really surprising why people don't bother wasting the mental energy.

Re:Did You Vote? Now Your Friends May Know (and Nag You) by CompanionCuuube on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @12:38PM (#18393114)
If uninformed voters are so evenly distributed as you claim, then their absence in participation is not something to be concerned about.
Re:Did You Vote? Now Your Friends May Know (and Nag You) by Spivak on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @03:25PM (#18394615)
I recognize that is sort of a semantic argument, but my claim is that people who are actually uninformed or grossly misinformed would vote basically randomly at scale but the kind of people who use the term uninformed voters typically mean 'people who vote for reasons or have priorities that I think are wrong' or 'my nonexistent group of straw-men that I use to cope with election results I don't understand because I'm so deep in my social bubble.'
Re:Did You Vote? Now Your Friends May Know (and Nag You) by CompanionCuuube on Thursday November 08, 2018 @01:50PM (#18408796)
Then you should be aware of the disservice you do the debate by preemptively framing people who bring up the issue with being misinformed as those people.