Belgian elections are today. Mailbox flyers for political candidates often show profiles in exclusive walled gardens (Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram). And they often have email addresses at hotmail, gmail, or outlook. They are betting on #digitalExclusion. I am cancelling all of them regardless of party.

I am also cancelling five whole parties for undermining democracy via digital exclusion by using Cloudflare for the party’s own website. Digital rights are important in 2024, particularly for democracy, as we are increasingly being disempowered by power abuses through forced use of oppressive technology. Direct Tor blocking? Also cancelled.

I am also cancelling all extreme right parties on general principle. And even slightly right if “immigratie stoppen” is something they are misfocused on.

Who’s left? I think I’ll be voting none of the above on a lot of positions because they don’t clear my basic bare minimum bar of digital decency.

Young voters overwhelmingly believe that almost all politicians are corrupt and that the country will end up worse off than when they were born, according to new polling from Democratic firm Blueprint obtained exclusively by Semafor.

The sour mood points to potential trouble for Joe Biden, who is struggling with Gen Z and younger Millennials in polls compared with 2020, and needs to convince them he can be relied on to improve their lives.

As part of the online poll of 943 18-30-year-old registered voters, Blueprint asked participants to respond to a series of questions about the American political system: 49% agreed to some extent that elections in the country don’t represent people like them; 51% agreed to some extent that the political system in the US “doesn’t work for people like me;” and 64% backed the statement that “America is in decline.” A whopping 65% agreed either strongly or somewhat that “nearly all politicians are corrupt, and make money from their political power” — only 7% disagreed.

Via @alissaazar@Kolektiva.Social

Hillary did the meme "liberals would vote for Biden even if he drank the blood of an infant only because Trump drank the blood of 1.25 infants."

Many political parties are allowing Cloudflare to block some demographics of voters from seeing election info on their own candidates. These political parties are running exclusive websites:

• PS/Vooruit (Socialist / Parti Socialiste [fr/nl])
• Défi (previously part of the MR, now more at the center [fr])
• CD & V (center / Christen Democratisch en Vlaams [nl])
• Groen (Green Party [nl])
• Open VLD (liberal [nl])

Effectively they are operating in an anti-democratic fashion. Open and inclusive access to election info is paramount to democracy.

The political parties who are running inclusive websites are (quite ironically) the right-wing parties. And funnily enough, some of the right-wing parties actually have an English version of their website as well. This defies their historic reputation as being relatively xenophobic. If voting purely on the basis of digital rights and digital inclusion fostered by their website implementation, the right-wingers are the clear winners here.

Voting left entails supporting parties that suppress election info from some demographics of people. Voting right is a non-starter on general principle (e.g. climate denial). Voting is mandatory but there is said to be a “none of the above” option.

(edit) OTOH, the French green party (ecolo.be) has an open website. Perhaps that’s a decent way to vote.

Source

Please, tell me more about how I feel about Donald Trump getting a second term. I'm sure making me feel guilty over something I have literally no power to affect will encourage me to waste time on empty virtue signaling instead of using my political and social energy more productively.

Image description: four men in tunics and sandals beating a naked man with sticks; the image may be depicting the Roman policy of decimation (having one in ten soldiers in a unit beaten to death by their fellow soldiers, to punish the entire unit for cowardice or desertion). The caption reads "four out of five citizens love democracy!"

Crosspost from LW World News

Why do people need a conspiracy theory to deal with the idea, that some might disagree with their view on voting? Some quotes below

"You’re either a plant or .."

"But good job trying to be a right wing fascist troll and guilting people into not voting so Trump wins."

"Russian spies. Nice try."

"Incredible how the majority of their comments come at hrs when most Americans are in bed .."

"^ this guy wants trump to win the election."

"Bad-faith actors are tryin to say all the cool left-leaning kids aren’t voting this year - All of a sudden for no particular reason"

I find that idea so annoying because its not really an argument and more a stated believe. I don't even want to argue with that.

His argument is that if you vote, then you carry responsibility for the outcome.

This is what I think.

We all know the game is rigged. So what do I tell myself by, yet again, participating in a game I know is rigged?

It's not a matter of effort. It's a psychological statement to vote -- and by voting I give my authority to this system. I say that I believe in it enough to vote. So, on some level, I think voting matters.

Personally I don't think it does. Not on any level.

If you had the choice between clapping for a dictator or not, what would you do? It's so easy to clap! Just clap, and perhaps the dictator will be in a better mood for the next four years.

What does dictatorship have to do with democracy? Democracy is an oppressive system that is easily gamed. Our model historical example of it is Greece -- a slave society.

THERE ARE BETTER WAYS. Let the turnout be 10% and let's have a discussion about legitimacy. Voters give legitimacy to a corrupt system. STOP IT.

In the political cosmology of something that calls itself the “Democratic Party,” it is now a widespread belief that support is owed from below rather than earned from above. Instead of building popular coalitions by seeking to represent the hopes, dreams, and interests of a democratic majority, a posture of absolute, uncritical deference toward elite politicians is presumed to be axiomatic — even when an election is still well over a year away.

I shared this on a different instance some months ago, but with this new instance open it might find a different reception.

I would cast my drop-in-the-ocean vote if it didn’t require needlessly reckless disclosures. The question is- which states offer more privacy than others? These are some of the issues:

publication of residential address

It’s obviously fair enough that you must disclose your residential address to the election authority so you get the correct ballot. But then the address is public. WTF? I’m baffled that the voter turnout isn’t lower.

Exceptionally, Alaska enables voters to also supply a mailing address along with their residential address. In those cases, the residential address is not made public. But still an injustice as PO Boxes are not gratis so privacy has a needless cost.

Some states give the mailing address option exclusively to battered spouses. So if you are a victim of domestic abuse, you can go through a process by which you receive an address for the public voting records that differs from your residential address. Only victims of domestic abuse get privacy that should be given to everyone.

publication of political party affiliation

You are blocked from voting in primary elections unless you register a party affiliation, in which case you can only vote in the primary election of that party. A green party voter cannot vote in the democrat primary despite the parties being similar. The party you register in is public. So e.g. your neighbors, your boss, and your prospective future boss can snoop into your political leanings.

AFAIK, this is the same for all states.

publication of your voting activity (which is used for shaming)

Whether you voted or not is public. If you register to vote but do not vote, it’s noticed. There is a shaming tactic whereby postcards are sent saying “your neighbors the Johnsons at 123 Main St. voted early -- will you do your civic duty too? Note that the McKinneys at 125 Main St. have not voted; perhaps you can remind them?” They of course do this in an automated way, so non-voters know their neighbors are receiving postcards that say they did not partake in their civic duty.

forced disclosure to Cloudflare

These states force all voter registrations through Cloudflare:

• Arizona
• Florida
• Georgia
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• New York
• Ohio
• Rhode Island
• Washington

That’s not just public info, but everything you submit with your registration including sensitive info like DL# and/or SSN goes to Cloudflare Inc. Cloudflare is not only a privacy offender but they also operate a walled garden that excludes some demographics of people from access. Voters can always register on paper, but whoever the state hires to do the data entry will likely use the Cloudflare website anyway. So the only way to escape Cloudflare getting your sensitive info in the above-mentioned states is to not register to vote.

To add to the embarrassment, the “US Election Assistance Commission” (#USEAC) has jailed their website in Cloudflare’s walled garden. Access is exclusive and yet they proudly advertise: “Advancing Safe, Secure, Accessible Elections”.

solutions

What can a self-respecting privacy seeker do? When I read @BirdyBoogleBop@lemmy.dbzer0.com’s mention¹ of casting a “spoiled” vote which gets counted, I thought I’ll do that.. but then realized I probably can’t even get my hands on a ballot if I am not registered to vote. So I guess the penis drawing spoiled vote option only makes a statement about the ballot options. It’s useless for those who want to register their protest against the voter registration disclosures.

Are there any states besides Alaska that at least give voters a way to keep their residential address out of publicly accessible records?

1. it was mentioned in this thread: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/8502419

Image description:

Calvin and Hobbes standing outside in the dark, staring at the stars. Stick figure floating in the sky with a speech bubble saying "If I don't vote or vote for anyone not backed by a major party they tell me the outcomes are my fault, but I did not build this game, I think it's poorly designed, I was excluded from participation until quite recently, the rules treat certain groups really unfairly, the rules for changing the rules are also distributed really unfairly between players, and I never consented to participating and don't want to play. I just want to exist and try to do some good with my hands and my brain and the people around me who feel the same way."