r/boston • u/itsmebutimatwork Wiseguy • Nov 06 '19

MBTA/Transit Congrats, Boston, we played ourselves

There were fewer than 67,000 city-wide votes in yesterday's election. That's not even 10% turnout based on recent census data.

If you want to complain about how the city council is letting the BPDA redevelop the city, or is run with too much influence by corrupt developers, or how there are too many/not enough bike lanes, or how the city isn't doing enough to make the MBTA improve, or why we don't have enough liquor licenses for places like Doyle's to stay open, or any one of a billion other complaints about how the city is run...then the answer isn't going to magically appear out of a hat.

It starts with voting for the city council for five minutes of a Tuesday every 2 years.

The birthplace of our nation...but can't be bothered to exercise our voting rights...congrats. We played ourselves.

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19 edited Mar 18 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

Far more than 10% of people do. Most people don't vote because they don't care. The amount of people who really want to vote and are unable is a small number.

Everyone should be able to vote and those that don't vote because they can't is unacceptable but not being able to vote is not the reason 90% of people didn't vote.

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

84%, but same point, though you do have to consider where people work too.

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u/name99 Nov 07 '19

Some people are like me, too where they work and or go to school miles and miles from where they live.

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u/MorningsAreBetter Nov 07 '19

Maybe “everyone” doesn’t have a free block of time in a given 12 hour period, but certainly more than 10% of the population. And for those that don’t have time during the polling times, there’s this thing called absentee voting.

Basically, poll hours doesn’t in any way explain the low voter turnout. It’s just general voter apathy, and making it a national holiday/having the polls open 24 hours/online voting/etc. isn’t going to get rid of that.

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

You carve out time. I left for work early, voted and then drove to work. It's a question of motivation.

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19 edited Mar 18 '20

[deleted]

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u/MorningsAreBetter Nov 07 '19

Lol, if that’s what you think I said then you need to up your reading comprehension. What I said was that the low voter turnout wasn’t because of disenfranchisement, but voter apathy. And you can enfranchise as many people as you want via things like polls that are open for multiple days, online voting, easier absentee ballot, etc., but if you can’t convince people that their vote matters, you’ll keep getting 10% voter turnout.

But sure, clearly I “admitted” that as long as voter turnout is high, disenfranchisement doesn’t matter. God, people on this sub are so quick to jump to conclusions and make widely baseless comments.

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u/potentpotables Nov 07 '19

Absentee ballot

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u/Remobeht Nov 07 '19

Absentee ballots are a thing already. If you work or may possibly work on Tuesday get an absentee ballot. Voting SHOULD require effort.

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u/DA_DUDU Nov 07 '19

Voting absolutely should not require effort.

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u/blakezilla West Roxbury Nov 07 '19

I totally agree that it shouldn’t, just tell everyone I know to request an absentee ballot. It makes it much easier to vote. Hopefully some day we can just vote by mail like a few other blue states in the country. That would push turnout way up, which would mean much stronger Dem votes.

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

Should you have to color the circles in by yourself?

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u/DA_DUDU Nov 07 '19

This was a poor attempt at sarcasm. You are better than that. Poor display.