Uneducated voters have disturbing effects on elections

[sunflower]

WHILE READING THROUGH THE VARIOUS THREADS, I CAME ACROSS THIS ONE. I REMEMBER WHEN I FIRST READ IT, I DISMISSED IT. HOWEVER, THIS WEEKEND, I MET A "VOTER" RIGHT HERE IN LACKAWANNA WHO CONFESSED THAT: (1) SHE'S REGISTERED, BUT DOESN'T REMEMBER WHICH PARTY SHE'S REGISTERED WITH BECAUSE SHE'S FLIP-FLOPPED SO MANY TIMES; (2) SHE RARELY VOTES BECAUSE "ALL POLITICIANS ARE CROOKS AND LIARS"; (3) SHE DOESN'T READ THE FRONT PAGE, DOESN'T READ "SPEAKUPWNY" (NEVER EVEN HEARD OF IT); AND (4) DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE MARTIN ROAD SUBDIVISION, THE CITY-OWNED PROPERTY CONTROVERSY, THE CITY BOND ISSUE, ETC.

BELOW IS THE POST I AM REFERRING TO:


"...The author wrote that it isn't easy to become discouraged when you speak to neighbors and co-workers about their choices and commitments in the elections. "In essence, ignorance and superficiality have taken a stronghold. People are voting without knowing what they are voting for," the author concluded.

Individuality is crucial in situations like elections. Consider this: if every 4th person you know votes the same as one of his friends or bases their vote on one mindset ("I ALWAYS vote Democrate..." or "My grandfather had a fight with his grandfather in 1948...") and that is a constant throughout the city, then a
4th of the city is essentially VOTING BLIND..."

THE POINT I'M MAKING IS THAT IF IT'S TRUE THAT "EVERY 4TH PERSON YOU KNOW VOTES THE SAME AS ONE OF HIS FRIENDS OR BASES THEIR VOTE ON ONE MINDSET"...THIS LACKAWANNA MAYORAL RACE IS IN DEEP, DEEP TROUBLE, MY FRIENDS! BECAUSE I'M READING POSTS THAT JUST BY LINKING A CANDIDATE WITH A CERTAIN NAME (I.E., MINGERILLI, MAKEYENKO, WARTHLING, POLANSKI, ETC.) SOMEHOW AUTOMATICALLY EITHER ELIMINATES THAT CANDIDATE OR "GUARANTEES" A VOTE. TALK ABOUT BEING
AN "UNEDUCATED" VOTER!!!!

[Linda_D]

Uneducated posters should learn MB etiquette. Typing in ALL CAPS is the equivalent of shouting.

As for your concerns about "uneducated voters", that's part of the price of having a democratic form of government: every citizen who meets age and residence requirements can choose to register to vote, and then gets to choose whether he/she will actually vote in any particular election. It's called "universal suffrage", and the alternative, having some kind of "test" to determine who can vote, is repellent because such tests are invariable used to prevent certain groups from having a say in their own governance -- and keeping the groups who devised the tests in power.

The US adopted the concept of universal suffrage in the 1820s and 1830s (Jacksonian Era) when most states abandoned property qualifications for voting and extended the vote to all white males. In the 1960s, the last vestiges of limiting suffrage based on tests, aimed at keeping African Americans in the South from voting, were finally removed.

[sunflower]

First of all, I used caps because I WAS SHOUTING...because I was freaking out.

Secondly, nowhere in that post did I say that people SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO VOTE. What I was trying to say was that there are "uninformed" and "uneducated" voters out there who don't read the Front Page and who don't read this blog and who don't attend City Council meetings or School Board meetings. It was just an observation...just a thought...maybe something for the mayoral candidates to "chew on" and ponder as they strategize their next move.

Thirdly, what in the world does my post have to do with "keeping African Americans in the South from voting..."?????

[WNYresident]

It has nothing to do with what happened in the south.

Uneducated on the people who they vote for.

Just like in cheektowaga. Let's educate the people who will pay the cost of services with the "labor contract" that Jeff and crew are working on. All in the family and friends for years... They will grandfather as much as they can and bull**** our town residents stating there will be cost savings for future and sacrifices were made. Only sacrifices are new hires while they try to grandfather as much as they can in. Technically they are not lying.. but... I want savings NOW not 20 years from now.

[getalife123]

MY FRIENDS! BECAUSE I'M READING POSTS THAT JUST BY LINKING A CANDIDATE WITH A CERTAIN NAME (I.E., MINGERILLI, MAKEYENKO, WARTHLING, POLANSKI, ETC.) SOMEHOW AUTOMATICALLY EITHER ELIMINATES THAT CANDIDATE OR "GUARANTEES" A VOTE. TALK ABOUT BEING
AN "UNEDUCATED" VOTER!!!![/QUOTE]

The point that you seem to be missing is that the candidates whether national, state or local feel that they need to reward those voters that supported them. The association of an elected candidate with a particular group usually lead to special favors. We have seen it a thousand times. Pretending that the elected candidate is an independent thinker is fantasy. How many times have you found that the elected official rewards family and friends with jobs or special favors while ignoring or displacing qualified unconnected individuals. The saying that you are judged by the company you keep holds true. How many politicians truly vote for what is most appropriate for the majority at the expense of their supporters wishes? Sometimes a voter has to vote the least of all evils. If a candidate belonging to a certain group has shown that it is more important to get JOBS for their friends and family then why would electing more of that group change the future outcomes. Being an informed voter can assure that they are given this opportunity by voting the groups candidate out. In a perfect world all our candidates would be independent thinkers that strive for what is essentially best for the city, state or country. Unfortunately this is the fate that the voters in Lackawanna fall into.

[mnb811]

Problem is most "uneducated voters" only vote for the endorsed candidate. They think something is wrong if your not endorsed. But yet they have no idea of the whats,hows and who does the endorsement. They don't care or give a crap has to how the system works. Then they wonder why everything is the way it is and blame everyone but themselves.

[getalife123]

Problem is most "uneducated voters" only vote for the endorsed candidate. They think something is wrong if your not endorsed. But yet they have no idea of the whats,hows and who does the endorsement. They don't care or give a crap has to how the system works. Then they wonder why everything is the way it is and blame everyone but themselves.

Nicely said. Like Einstein said, "contineously doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity".

[andreahaxton]

Nicely said. Like Einstein said, "contineously doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity".

"" Great Spirits Have Always Encountered Violent Opposition From Mediocre Minds! ""

And, boy oh boy did I run into some opposition when I tried to get their help to pass resolutions, etc. for a better Lackawanna! 4-1, 4-1 the rest is history and on them for blocking progress! Now they have the audacity to take ALL my ideas such as NO CITY VEHICLES and BLOCK CLUBS and run with them in their campaign rhetoric! Double ditto DUH!

Education will hopefully unlock the sealed door. They plot it all out and keep the voter uninformed, run a low-key, tell them nothing but ANYTHING they want to hear--slip in before they know it type of the old-fashioned, bar-room back-room politics that Lackawanna politicians have thrived on for decades! And generational!
How I tried and tried to get them to put it in the paper and do a wide search of the Third Ward selection process in Dec. 07' for a Council Rep. when Jaworski moved up to Council president! They fought me off and on the "recommendation of Fran W." put in you know who. All of it hidden and planned out.

" Oh I knew him when he was little; His Father was my paperboy; I babysat his Mother; I worked with his Grandpa in the Plant; His Uncle got my tree cut down "
Yes this stuff matters, but if these people past or current walked the talk instead of talk-talk-talk and nothing ever changes; then Lackawanna would be the cool and with-it community it should be!
Years ago when a politician rode into town he came on a bandwagon and if people liked him they jumped aboard.......It is proven, people love to jump on a bandwagon to feel part of a certain group. It is also a fact that the Communist and Socialist parties were alive and well in Lackawanna in 1936.....where do you think a lot of the self-serving mindsets came from...... Oh, Where oh where has all the money that the people think is meant for a better Lackawanna, gone?.........

Bandwagon effect
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The bandwagon effect, closely related to opportunism, is a phenomenon—observed primarily within the fields of microeconomics, political science, and behaviorism—that people often do and believe things merely because many other people do and believe the same things. The effect is often called herd instinct, though strictly speaking, this effect is not a result of herd instinct. The bandwagon effect is the reason for the bandwagon fallacy's success.

The bandwagon effect is well documented in behavioral science and has many applications. The general rule is that conduct or beliefs spread among people, as fads and trends clearly do, with "the probability of any individual adopting it increasing with the proportion who have already done so".[1] As more people come to believe in something, others also "hop on the bandwagon" regardless of the underlying evidence. The tendency to follow the actions or beliefs of others can occur because individuals directly prefer to conform, or because individuals derive information from others. Both explanations have been used for evidence of conformity in psychological experiments. For example, social pressure has been used to explain Asch's conformity experiments,[2] and information has been used to explain Sherif's autokinetic experiment.[3]

When individuals make rational choices based on the information they receive from others, economists have proposed that information cascades can quickly form in which people decide to ignore their personal information signals and follow the behavior of others.[4] Cascades explain why behavior is fragile—people understand that they are based on very limited information. As a result, fads form easily but are also easily dislodged. Such informational effects have been used to explain political bandwagons.[5]