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Progressive Texas organizers hail shock win as far-right Republicans left reeling
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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politics
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In America today, these are the same thing. The way you win is by encouraging certain people to vote and discouraging other people from voting. Trump has been taking care of discouraging Republicans and MAGA from voting all by himself.
I really think America needs mandatory voting to stop this behavior, but it's much easier to encourage or discourage people to vote than it is to actually carry out the will of the people.
As much as that seems like a good solution, it's unlikely to win many supporters. You'd be better off making voting day a federal holiday.
Do both.
Presidential election should be a holiday. And move it to a Monday. Not sure why it's so difficult. I'm sure there's some deep seeded evil explanation.
Bone Apple tea! Its deep seated, haha.
Damnit!
You’re right, but I do think deep seeded could carry the same meaning.
I think it should actually be moved to Wednesday if made a holiday. It should be pushed as far as possible from being an opportunity for a long weekend where people choose leisure over civic participation.
Federal holidays do not guarantee a day off of work (edit: unless you're a government employee or work in a field that needs the market to be open). There are, however, state-level laws in some states that do guarantee time off to vote.
Good point; I was unaware of the state-level laws. Regardless, I will stand by my statement: it's better than what we've currently got.
If I could just somehow get permission to amend the constitution for one day, I'd fucking shove democracy down people's throats so hard, totally against their will.
Yeah, forcing people to perform an act to legitimize an unjust system is really a great way to achieve reform.
Please explain how that's supposed to work?
By at the same time also requiring some form of ranked choice for every election, and to have a "none of the above" option, and if over 50% of the votes have "none of the above" as the #1 choice the election must be redone with all new candidates. Everyone is thus able to truly vote for who and what they believe we have the turnout to never have to discuss the legitimacy of the winner.
I assume this means that you don't believe votes are properly counted and that all of our elections are "rigged."
If you have that belief, then what reforms do you think are possible? Most people who I've heard express those opinions are far right wing people who want to discard democracy.
Not the one you responded to but if I may hazard a guess I'd say they see non-voting as a protest against the two party representative democracy currently in place.
If you're forced to vote and there is no blank alternative, you are being forced to legitimise it whether you like it or not.
In Australia, for example, which has mandatory voting, the only requirement is that you participate. So, you can do the equivalent of submitting a completely empty ballot if you want to protest.
We also hold elections on a Saturday, and allow early voting. It's not a perfect system, nothing is, but it's far better than the shit-show in the US.
And there's sausages!
Mandatory voting creates more room for independent and minor parties to collect your vote, instead of just abstaining in the booth. The preference system tends to avoid outcomes that don’t reflect the electorate.
In Australia, far left and far right politicians and candidates can and do bloviate all they want, but ultimately mandatory voting pulls politics back to the centre.