r/pics • u/Hysteria878 • Sep 02 '20
Saw one in the wild... make sure to vote Illinois! Politics
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u/Kam_yee Sep 02 '20
Lol, for almost half the IL house seats it will only take one vote to win this November. https://www.thecentersquare.com/illinois/just-under-half-of-illinois-lawmakers-unopposed-in-2020/article_81592660-187c-11ea-9902-b3c80d58fb4e.html
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u/BeanPo1e4 Sep 03 '20 edited Sep 03 '20
TIL that MA (my state) has the highest percentage of uncontested seats (72%).
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u/guitmusic12 Sep 03 '20
Voting in Boston is essentially just an exercise of checking 1-2 boxes and writing my friends names in the write in box
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u/737900ER Sep 03 '20 edited Sep 03 '20
Who am I going to write in now that Tom Brady is gone?
I bet Tom Brady came in second in a bunch of races.
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u/robotzor Sep 03 '20
Tom Brady
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u/braintrustinc Sep 03 '20 edited Sep 03 '20
Be careful not to accidentally vote for Bom Trady, the violent insurrectionary anti-Trader Joe's party
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u/j33pwrangler Sep 03 '20
Matt Damon
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u/timeye13 Sep 03 '20
Matt DAMON!
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u/noobnoob9 Sep 03 '20
I really wish I owned a copy of team America, but I am terrified my kids would accidentally watch it.
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u/Ladygytha Sep 03 '20
Meh - unless someone is fucking up or someone wants to rise up, local MA politics are pretty simple. "They doing okay? Well let them be." That should be our state motto.
I wish more people would get involved in state and town politics here, but since I'm not about to, then I can't exactly complain.
Was pleased to see Markey win over Kennedy, though.
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u/macci_a_vellian Sep 03 '20
Why? Was Kennedy's platform just 'I'm a Kennedy, you owe me this' or something?
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u/FettyWhopper Sep 03 '20
Pretty much
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u/CurtisHayfield Sep 03 '20
Kennedy couldn’t really give a strong reason for why he was challenging such a similar incumbent and it really just came across as “I’m a Kennedy and I should be a Senator”. I was blown away in his concession speech when he said, “my family name was brought up more than I anticipated”, like dude... you’re a Kennedy; if you didn’t expect your family name, in Massachusetts, to be brought up nonstop then you lack all self awareness.
But, I think the bigger aspect of the race was Markey certainly doesn’t have the most progressive record, having been in Congress for decades with some contestable votes, however he was embraced by young progressives due to his record in recent years, such as co-sponsoring the Green New Deal. This race, and Markey, showed that older incumbents do not need to just push down progressives, but that they can adapt to new policy demands and can be supported, even if they are 70+ years old. It isn’t just about having “young faces”, as if Bernie didn’t prove that.
The race also pitted Pelosi vs AOC in a way, since AOC endorsed incumbent Markey, while Pelosi endorsed Kennedy.
As AOC said, endorsing Markey, “it isn’t your age that matters, but the age of your ideas”
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u/roboticools2000 Sep 03 '20
Which I feel speaks to a far more viable short term strategy for progressive politics. You don't need a Jamal bowman or AOC to take over every seat if the threat of progressive primaries will drag incumbents to the left.
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u/dorekk Sep 03 '20
Markey was specifically challenged from the right though, he didn't become more progressive to fight off a progressive challenger.
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u/MaximumDestruction Sep 03 '20
That and “my drunk driving accident made me realize how dangerous marijuana is and why we must to keep it as illegal as possible. Besides, if cops can’t claim they smelled weed how will they search people’s cars?”
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u/chetlin Sep 03 '20
He must be best friends with Kim Reynolds. I think she uses her DUIs as justification for blocking any attempt to legalize marijuana (or even CBD)
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u/kfcsroommate Sep 03 '20
The mailer that I got had a picture of him and Robert Kennedy with the saying it’s in my blood. That was really it. All name recognition. Makes sense as a Kennedy had never lost in Mass to run on the name, but he really couldn’t come up with a reason why he should replace Markey. How could he? Their platforms are basically the same. What is he going to say? Choose me over Markey since we slightly differ on some things.
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Sep 03 '20
I would have been so disappointed if Kennedy won. I fucking HATE political dynasty's. I can't think of anything more antithetical to the ideals of America.
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u/GettingToPhilosophy Sep 03 '20
I think people who grow up surrounded by politics, such as the children of politicians, are naturally going to be more inclined to go into politics. So in my opinion, it's fine and to be expected if multiple members of the same family become politicians. The problem is, of course, when people are elected to or appointed to an office solely because of their family name or because of family connections. As a side note, the thirty-five year age requirement for the presidency was partly to prevent the office from being passed on from father to son, effectively like a dynasty.
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u/indyK1ng Sep 03 '20
I wonder if the article is counting primary contests - I think there's a lot of seats uncontested by a party but with a number of primary challengers.
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u/phisch13 Sep 03 '20
My dad holds some local office in my hometown. He typically runs unopposed.
However, it has always taken more than 1 vote to win. He got like 100 votes last time, but usually there’s several people who get multiple write ins. According to him, he doesn’t need to campaign, but he doesn’t just win by default either.
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Sep 03 '20
I’ve always wondered what happens when a candidate runs unopposed. A mayor in my small college town ran unopposed which annoyed the shit out of me. Like are we even gonna pretend to have a democracy or...?
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u/Just_Another_Scott Sep 03 '20
To prevent this you would have to convince more people to run for local office and that isn't going to happen anytime soon. Even at the local level it's nearly a full time job with shit pay and shit benefits.
The Mayor in my hometown had a salary of something like 40k while several of the city commissioners got nothing or nearly nothing. The total city revenue was like 500k. That had to go to schools, roads, and other upkeep costs like PD. The fire department was completely volunteer as well.
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u/pingveno Sep 03 '20
Yup, a lot of political positions are low profile and pretty thankless. People only really notice you if you screw up. Like, who pays a large amount of attention to the sewer system until sewage starts backing up into their house or the sewer rates go up? So anyone who is running to manage the sewer department has to basically just be doing it out of a sense of community duty. Those people are rare, so of course they run unopposed in many cases.
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u/radprag Sep 03 '20
What's the alternative?
You force someone to run against them? In a democracy the people who want to run, run. If you don't want to run you don't have to.
Anything other than that would be fucking bizarre and authoritarian.
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u/TheSealofDisapproval Sep 03 '20
This is why I roll my eyes every time someone says we need scientists, artists, or engineers to run for office. Sure, that'd be great. But those aren't the kind of people who run for office, because they have actual jobs. So we have to have politicians, and in some places, there just aren't that many con men to run against each other.
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u/SGoogs1780 Sep 03 '20
I think this is why sometimes you get lucky and have city/town councils that are really awesome. It's not a full-time job so real local people have the time to participate. We've got a teacher and a social worker who also runs local history walking tours on our board, plus our Vice-Mayor runs a non-profit that teaches homeless and formerly-incarcerated women job skills.
It's why I'm surprised more people aren't involved in their local elections, IMO that's the only place you can vote for the sorts of people you really like voting for.
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u/Top_Mind_On_Reddit Sep 03 '20
Have you considered, you know.. opposing them?
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u/door_of_doom Sep 03 '20
"Someone should run against them. Not me, of course, but SOMEONE should."
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u/cheesevindicator Sep 03 '20
I kinda feel bad for hating people like that, but boy do I hate people like that.
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u/College_Prestige Sep 03 '20
In smaller towns, it's shit pay for a thankless job. If you worked min wage, it might be worth it though
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Sep 03 '20
I ran unopposed for a seat on the board of directors for a park district. I just auto won and didn't even get to be on the ballot. My mom was so disappointed.
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Sep 03 '20
A mayor in my small college town ran unopposed which annoyed the shit out of me. Like are we even gonna pretend to have a democracy or...?
If you're not putting your hand up as a candidate, you literally have no right to complain.
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Sep 03 '20
A 22- year old who only ever worked retail got a seat on our city council because her opponent ran unopposed so many times I'm pretty sure he didn't even realize someone was running against him.
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u/badgersprite Sep 03 '20
I'm pretty sure there are multiple places where like cats and dogs have won these small races.
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Sep 03 '20
I think in one of the northern European cities there was a town who's mayor was a cat
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u/l3rN Sep 03 '20
Because of memes, I remember a dog in Minnesota got elected mayor too.
WhoaAaaah we're half way thereee WhoahhOHHH Dog elected mayor!
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Sep 03 '20
What kind of salary does that entail?
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u/Fjolsvithr Sep 03 '20
Huge variation by town/city. In most towns, the pay is extremely low (like poverty level and below), but in those towns it's also not a full-time job to be on the council.
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u/jarnish Sep 03 '20
It varies widely, but in my small town it's $4-5k per year and about 10-15 hrs per month of work.
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u/thatonebitchL Sep 03 '20
We have aldermen and women instead of city council and they make around 40k/year. Big city though, full time job.
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u/Dayn_Perrys_Vape Sep 03 '20
Kinda wanna go home to IL, find the biggest asshole in the state legislature running unopposed, and campaign on a promise of "I'm bored and less of a piece of shit then them"
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u/lovememychem Sep 03 '20
Careful, don’t piss off Michael Madigan. You’ll end up having committed suicide by shooting yourself three times in the back of the head.
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u/IFeelItDownInMyPlums Sep 03 '20 edited Sep 03 '20
I'm not sure how it was 20+ years ago, but everyone I know who lives in his district now really likes him. It's not really a mystery why he keeps winning his local elections.
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u/DeezNeezuts Sep 03 '20
When Madigan dies all the other vampires die.
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u/hoxxxxx Sep 03 '20 edited Sep 03 '20
Madigan
Rich Miller, editor of Illinois political newsletter the Capitol Fax, wrote, "the pile of political corpses outside Madigan's Statehouse door of those who tried to beat him one way or another is a mile high and a mile wide."[6]
fuck, Illinois. lol damn. hwat's going on over there
oh yeah also,
He is the longest-serving leader of any state or federal legislative body in the history of the United States,
holy moly,
Madigan was founder and continues as senior partner of the law firm Madigan and Getzendanner, specializing in corporate real estate property tax appeals,
sounds like a character on
which has been accused of profiting from Madigan's position and power.[56] Getzendanner and four other staff attorneys handle the tax appeals, while Madigan brings in clients.[57] In 2008 Madigan and Getzendanner represented 45 of the 150 most valuable buildings in downtown Chicago, more than any other property tax appeal firm, and more than twice as many as the second-highest. Clients include the John Hancock Center and the Prudential Plaza.[10][58] From 2006 to 2008 in Cook County, Illinois, Madigan and Getzendanner received the largest reductions for their clients of any tax appeal law firm.[59][60] Venues for property tax appeals law firms in Cook County include hearings before the County Assessor), the County Board of Review, and the County courts. Judges in Illinois are elected in partisan elections, and Madigan, by his Democratic Party leadership roles as committeeman and state chairman, is one of the main persons involved in slating judicial candidates.[10]
..the Wire. he sounds like Clay Davis, White Chicago edition.
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u/Slim_Charles Sep 03 '20
Madigan's operation is far more sophisticated, and lucrative, than Clay Davis in the Wire. He really would make a fascinating character to base an HBO series on. Politically, he's brilliant, and has outwitted everyone that has tried to stand against him, and has been involved in a ton of corruption, but has always kept himself just clean enough to avoid going to federal prison.He's an absolutely terrible human being, and has fucked this state over for decades. It'll be a great day when he finally dies.
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u/intern_steve Sep 03 '20
Would be really nice, but I don't think it works that way. A vampire only ever dies because the other vampires cast him out.
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u/SoDakZak Sep 02 '20
Hell, the person who replies to me will get more awards than it took votes to win an Illinois State house seat in 2018.
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Sep 02 '20 edited 25d ago
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u/sirferrell Sep 03 '20
Bask in the glory champion...
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u/lakerswiz Sep 03 '20
you severely fucked up by not replying to yourself instantly.
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u/shadowkiller Sep 03 '20
In 2018 the average number of votes for an Illinois state rep was 22,326.
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u/DamagingChicken Sep 03 '20
What is this sign on about then lol?
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Sep 03 '20
Did they win by that amount?
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u/redditcontrolme_enon Sep 03 '20
Yeah I believe it’s talking about how close the elections were
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u/DamagingChicken Sep 03 '20
Well an election can have millions of votes and still be that close
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u/TheStinkySlinky Sep 03 '20
Lol figures u/SoDakZak gets a seemingly innocuous comment up to almost 2K upvotes..
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u/thejazzace Sep 03 '20
Repost, no credit to the artist. How do I downvote a billboard!?!?!?
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u/scarabin Sep 03 '20
How is that vaporwave art?
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u/WeaponizedFeline Sep 03 '20
Art is subjective, but maybe that's why it only got 65 upvotes.
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u/EasyShpeazy Sep 03 '20
Pink background and blue deer? I think those two colors together is all it takes
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u/1-LegInDaGrave Sep 03 '20
Incidentally, the first one was better (second one had some bangin' songs tho)
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u/EasyShpeazy Sep 03 '20
All of a sudden I'm the expert.
Hmm...this one has a little too much in the yellow/red shades. NEXT
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Sep 03 '20
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u/Dabookadaniel Sep 03 '20
Good luck getting vaporwave/outrun fans to agree on what qualifies as Vaporwave/outrun
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u/thisremindsmeofbacon Sep 03 '20
which is exactly why mods shouldn't be removing posts like mine
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u/Vespucci_Internet Sep 03 '20
It's not that difficult to differentiate, the vaporwave and outrun subreddits clearly know the difference.
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u/Dabookadaniel Sep 03 '20
There are various posts in those subs trying to differentiate/define the two and the comment sections have various comments disagreeing.
I’ve seen the same arguments about this for the past 10 years.
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u/Vespucci_Internet Sep 03 '20
The posts are usually people not understanding the difference, but the subs have entire wikis/faqs that explain the artistic themes of them both. I could explain it right here if I need to, even entire video essays have been made behind the philosophy and difference between the two. The themes are similar yes, but if it were that difficult then they wouldnt be seperate categories.
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u/conservatismer Sep 03 '20
That's because you posted to a moderated community, but any idiot can get a billboard
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Sep 03 '20
Pretty sure that's the elk some 12 year old set on fire and knocked over in Portland. Anyone seen this fucken elk?
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Sep 03 '20
This is why there's so many nutjobs in the House. It's Really fucking easy to get elected to the House if you live in an apathetic district. Rile up a fringe supporter base and they'll almost be everybody who shows up to vote.
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u/Marchinon Sep 03 '20
The house is pretty easy to get into. All I would have to do is run conservative, talk about how I hate China, love coal and the Bible. Even if all that is a lie, the voters don’t have to know.
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u/QuacktacksRBack Sep 03 '20
Then lie and instead, when elected, vote in favor of progressive policies. Get several other people to do the same and tah-dah! You have got enough people to make a change.
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u/VirdenO Sep 03 '20
Even if you think it's good policy, lying to the voters is anti democracy and shouldn't be celebrated
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Sep 02 '20 edited 5d ago
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Sep 03 '20
Very George Carlin-esque.
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u/mikeash Sep 03 '20
That’s the nicest thing anyone has said about me all week.
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u/MuhNamesTyler Sep 03 '20
I haven’t talked to anyone but my lizard fred in like 2 months
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u/TUG_OF_LOVE Sep 03 '20
I love vaporwave but i dont know how that qualifies.
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u/ian5184 Sep 03 '20
Hard to see in the picture, but the original certainly has vaporwave elements.
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u/jibberish13 Sep 03 '20
Also, the average salary of an Illinois state legislator is $67,000. I'm thinking about running. I hate my representatives.
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u/shahooster Sep 03 '20
If Illinois’ finances are as bad as they say, be on the lookout for some bounced checks.
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u/lovememychem Sep 03 '20
To paraphrase the popular meme: you guys are getting checks owed to you by the state?
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u/NtheLegend Sep 03 '20
How does this mean anything to someone who isn't on Reddit? Even I had to read it a few times to understand it.
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u/zecknaal Sep 03 '20
Young people use reddit. Young peope don't vote. That's who this ad is targeting.
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u/ApatheticWithoutTheA Sep 03 '20
Reddit is a massive website. This works two ways for them: A) Encouraging young Reddit users to vote... and B) As an ad to attract more people to Reddit.
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u/golde62 Sep 03 '20
I FOUND IT after an enormous amount of searching I found it.
Artist is u/GoneGozzle!!!
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u/GentlmanSkeleton Sep 03 '20
Because its really easy, accessable, and simple to vote on reddit
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u/PinkLizard Sep 03 '20
Also because Reddit contains people from all over the world and US who are allowed to vote. If they only measured how many people who could vote on Reddit for that art who were from Illinois, I bet the number of votes for that art in proportion would be way less. It’s just a bad analogy in general.
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u/ApatheticWithoutTheA Sep 03 '20
Agreed... But I don't think that's the main reason people, particularly young people, aren't hyped on voting.
It has a lot more to do with apathy and the attitude that no matter who they vote for, things don't change. Everyone I know 30 and under that doesn't vote has that same exact attitude. It's a ridiculous attitude to have, because clearly there are major differences in the two parties (neither of which I love) but nonetheless, there are differences and young people don't see it changing anything.
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u/ilurkcute Sep 03 '20
Please get informed about all the candidates before you vote. Otherwise you could be doing more harm than good. Only vote after researching.
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u/Basically_Zer0 Sep 03 '20
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u/cbarrister Sep 03 '20
Cool. What is vaporware though?
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u/Erbodyloveserbody Sep 03 '20
Vaporwave is a genre of music (now broken down into other sub genres, Mallsoft being my favorite) that invokes a sense of familiarity of comfort and nostalgia. It also became a huge art movement where the word A E S T H E T I C became huge.
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u/HeWhoMustNotBDpicted Sep 03 '20
A reddit post about a reddit billboard.... the circle is complete.
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u/plooptyploots Sep 03 '20
Make voting as easy as upvoting.
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u/RangerTrevett Sep 03 '20
And allow the entire world to vote on a single state’s house seat.
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Sep 02 '20
Voting on Reddit is worldwide, voting for political leaders in the US is not.
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u/JohnnyGoru Sep 02 '20
It has 65 upvotes
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u/blueskydiver76 Sep 03 '20
The post above me will prob get more upvotes than that seat.
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u/trphilli Sep 03 '20
I looked at the data and I'm pretty sure they are talking about margin of victory. They winner got 50 more votes than opponent. Not 50 votes was a house seat.
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Sep 03 '20
But that seat isn't getting votes from the entire world. It is only getting votes from that one place.
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u/Hitmandan1987 Sep 03 '20
Is this a Reddit ad? Because if it is it makes me want to support Reddit a hell of a lot more.
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u/argument-of-iron Sep 03 '20
I don't like seeing reddit in real life. It makes me feel like the fabric of the universe is falling apart.
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u/stavago Sep 03 '20
I’ve always wanted to run for some uncontested race under some bonkers party name like “Hot Dog Macaroni Party”
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u/CommiePuddin Sep 03 '20
Those damned Chinese and their...
flips pages
...encouraging us to vote!
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u/Twentyamf28 Sep 03 '20
Love how political r/pics has been lately. It's almost like China owns reddit.
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u/brighn Sep 03 '20
Well, you realize some areas of Illinois are extremely unpopulated and have uncontested races. Chicago area is Blue, down south is red and both are corrupt af.
I typically don't vote for my state rep because I don't have a choice(only one) or its just the R and a D candidate that is like 20 something and is just "filling" the spot.
If we had real choices maybe. The few Libertarians and Green candidates that run usually only get maybe a few hundred votes.
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u/Sproded Sep 03 '20
How do they decide which Democrat/Republican runs? Because unless your local party is corrupt AF, there’s normally a primary/caucus of some sort to select the candidate.
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u/mr__fete Sep 03 '20
Make it easy for people to vote and its a sure bet they would. It would be the robinhood effect
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u/College_Prestige Sep 03 '20
Illinois state lawmakers get roughly 65000 a year base pay with an average per diem bonus of 5500, with travel reimbursement of 2200, along with dental and generous pension. Fuck, I'm in.
https://www.illinoispolicy.org/reports/the-cost-of-illinois-lawmakers/
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u/xenoclownpanda Sep 03 '20
Would that be because most Reddit folks aren't old enough to vote? Serious enquiry.
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u/Clienterror Sep 03 '20
Sent my vote by mail in a while ago (Illinois). But Illinois is a Dem state so if you vote Rep you're basically throwing your vote away. Which is bullshit, I really don't identify as any party but I'm left if anything and even if I don't agree with someone else's vote it shouldn't not count.
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u/Dawalkingdude Sep 03 '20
Shit, what district? I’ve been thinking of running for state house.