The up side of this hotly contested race?

I can’t predict turnout, but as a member of the Obama campaign I can tell you that we have registered more new voters thus far this year than any other election cycle.

I think we are an international embarrassment.

I was born a few months too late, so I won’t be voting this election. However, I can promise that I will not be contributing to the “more votes for American Idol than for the presidency” crap.

We may have a higher turnout. All my 18+ friends are going to be voting.

I deeply hope we have a bigger turnout. I am worried about the level of apathy I read on this site and hear from other places.

I don’t see how anyone would not be energized to change the current regime during this awful financial crisis.

The upside may very well be higher voter turn-out. I, for one, am certainly motivated.

But if you think there’s a lot of apathy about politics now, wait and see what happens if McCain manages to win.

@ lefteh – I had read that there will be an unprecedented turn out of newly registered voters. And that that group, is also semi-responsible for some of the poles not being so accurate because of how they are run.

Right. Many of them rely on active voters in the past few elections.

I wish everyone would vote. And I hope lefteh is right. I hope more young people do vote. I have seen so many campaingn cycles where there is a big push to get young people to vote and when the rubber meets the road it seems like it all falls apart.

I have voted since I was 18.

People can vote more than once for American Idol, so it’s not really a fair comparison.

@Snoopy In Australia, you’re fined if you don’t vote.

@fieryspoon. I think that is a fantastic idea.

It drives me crazy when people don’t vote. I don’t even care if the vote the way I do….just VOTE.

I don’t. Compulsory voting leads to two things: uneducated or random voting, and informal voting. The latter means simply dropping a blank ballot.

@lefteh. I think that is a good point…..but I also think that there is an awful lot of uneducated voting now.

There is. But not nearly as much as there would be. There would be so many random votes…we might as well throw all of the candidates’ names into a hat and pick one.

Well I would hope it wouldn’t be that bad. Clearly, not something we are ever going to have to worry about…..

@fieryspoon How long has Australia done this? Have any of lefteh’s concerns come to fruition?

If the concern is that people get elected that aren’t actually popularly supported, I don’t think that’s been an issue. Uneducated voting happens, whether or not people want to be casting that vote or not.

Most people I know simply vote down the line, picking every Democrat on the ticket, without knowing who they are, or having heard of their name before that day. There are a few who get educated on the candidates’ stances, but I’m pretty sure they’re a minority.

@Fieryspoon: It scares the he’ll out of me that this is how the majority vote, but I suspect you are, sadly correct.

My entire family discusses political candidates based on their looks, their personal lives, and such. No mention of policy or their records.

I think Elizabeth Roosevelt said something like:
Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.

The sad and annoying part is, that as the education of the country gets worse and worse, the number of people who can see past the “people” becomes smaller. It’s a problem that reinforces itself.