Washington State To Allow Voter Registration Over Facebook

An anonymous reader writes "The Associated Press reports that the state of Washington will soon have an application available on its Facebook page that will let residents register to vote. Washington and other states already allow online registration, but this is the first time it will be allowed over Facebook. The state's co-director of elections, Shane Hamlin, said, 'In this age of social media and more people going online for services, this is a natural way to introduce people to online registration and leverage the power of friends on Facebook to get more people registered.' Facebook won't have access to the State's database, and Hamlin says Facebook won't collect any of the personal information with which it interacts."

Re:Lovely

[jpate]

The people who will go to an election no matter what are the radicals.

"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal" —Emma Goldman

Re:Getting people out to vote in the US is a good.

[acidfast7]

What is this, the 1600s again, every citizen (within reason) has a RIGHT to vote, it's not a PRIVILEGE reserved for those not disenchanted/disenfranchised. People have the RIGHT to vote based on nothing of substance. Personally, I think every citizen has a RESPONSIBILITY to vote.

Voting gives people a chance to feel that they have the power to make a difference in who makes decisions ... and that makes all the difference because it holds the elected accountable. Low voter turnout suggests to the elected that they need only cater to a smaller portion of their constituents to be re-elected. Low voter turnout, and having an outdated two-party system with a similarly outdated electoral college, has caused a lot of problems with the policy of the US government. For example, having a few Pirate Party members in Senate/House would prevent a lot of the "copyright-based" complaints on ./

Re:Getting people out to vote in the US is a good.

[vlm]

I think every citizen has a RESPONSIBILITY to vote.

I don't think forcing people at gunpoint to throw a dart and select a random crook is the goal you were aiming for. Also voter intimidation for no candidate is only slightly less reprehensible than voter intimidation for a specific candidate.

Voting gives people a chance to feel that they have the power to make a difference in who makes decisions

Key word is "feel". No REAL impact. The aristocracy will select two of its own princes, as a prole you get to "feel" you can "make a difference" by selecting one crook or another. Maybe that'll "feeling" will stop you from rioting. If so its done its job of being the opiate of the masses.

You can probably learn a lot about your opposition by going to google and searching for "why I do not vote". A typical example and some tasty quotes, not the best, by far not the worst:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff224.html [lewrockwell.com]

"The Constitution has no legitimate authority over me. I have never signed off on it."
"I do not wish to endorse a system that has produced and continues to produce what I think are evil results"
"I get no psychological satisfaction from identifying myself with a party or candidate."

Now watch the haters descend with idiotic sophistry. I wonder how many logical fallacies we can find to oppose my/this viewpoint. "he sucks" "you suck" "everyone should have to follow my irrational belief because I say so even if at the point of a gun", etc. A real logical argument would be nice but I'm not expecting very much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Logical_fallacies [wikipedia.org]