Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 June 4

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June 4

Voting demographics

In the US, it is a well-known and well-attested fact that Republicans vote more often than Democrats; this means a few things:

• Higher turnout generally favors Democrats, and of course lower turnout Republicans.
• Republicans will do better in elections than their number among the population should allow (e.g., the number of registered Democrats who do not cross party-lines to vote is considerably higher than their Republican counterparts in most states).
• When opinion polls are done, a "likely voter" model shows about a 4% balance in favor of Republicans vs. a "registered voter" model (according to this reliable source (no direct link)).

My question is: why is this? Magog the Ogre (talk) 07:26, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean why do Republicans vote more often than Democrats or why do the few things other points follow on from the pattern? Nil Einne (talk) 08:28, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

To answer the question about why Democrat supporters are less likely to vote, it seems to be particularly because low socio-economic status (i.e. poor and lower-class) people are less likely to vote, and also more likely to be Democrat-supporting[1][2], and "older, married, have higher education, have higher incomes, and own their homes are significantly more likely to vote"[3] and many of those groups tend towards the Republicans. However psephologists aren't too certain of this, as the articles I cite say. You may then ask why the poor, young, etc, are less likely to vote (lack of time? no transport? apathy/disillusionment? identity requirements and other restrictions on voting? the inability of the badly-educated/illiterate to fill in forms and activate voting machines?). --Colapeninsula (talk) 08:59, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Along with various attempts by the Republicans to disenfranchise potential Democratic voters. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:34, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Not really answering the question, but I just wanted to point out that it doesn't really follow that if a party's supporters are less likely to vote, then they will do well in high turnout elections. For example, you could have a situation where party A has a consistent 40% turnout, and party B has a wildly fluctuating turnout with an average of 60%. Party B would generally have higher turnout, but would do better in high-turnout elections. So these are separate effects, really - presumably the Democrats have a lot of 'soft' supporters, who might well vote for them, but only if they are particularly interested in the election? 81.98.43.107 (talk) 23:30, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Follow up

Interestingly, why is that in developing/3rd world countries the less educated/illiterate voters are more likely to vote? in direct contrast to the west/1st world.

As an aside, how come in the latter the poor are fat/overweight and in the former the rich tend to be so (albeit declining in the former these dyas)Lihaas (talk) 14:24, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Those are very different, and very complex questions. The answer to the first is best encompassed by the sentiment of the aphorism "Familiarity breeds contempt", or more generally people who have a long tradition of democracy tend to take it for granted, and voter participation rates tend to decline over time as people become complacent. In countries with little or no democratic tradition, there tends to be a lot of excitement when the first wide-spread elections occur, and people turn out to vote more. In the second case, in poor countries, only the rich have enough money for food, while the poor work in very labor-intensive jobs, so there exists a sense that fat=rich. For richer countries, where a) much of the work, even for poor people, involves very little physical labor b) where more nutrient dense, whole foods are expensive while calorie-dense, nutrient poor foods are cheap, and c) where only the rich have the time to exercise, poor people tend to have higher rates of obesity. In other words, poor people work multiple, low-effort jobs and can only afford fattening, cheap, processed foods. Rich people work less, have more time to exercise, and can afford better foods. --Jayron32 14:50, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I can imagine other reasons as well. Poor countries also tend to have rather large informal sectors, where poor people work, meaning that they can more easily take voting day off, since they are self-employed. On the other hand, rich countries tend to have more formalised work sectors (at least for citizens), which may mean that they cannot take voting day off, since they are obliged to work.

If we are going to be more cynical, in poor countries, where the wealth gap is larger, and where there is less experience with voting, it may also be a lot cheaper for the rich to buy votes the of the poor. Whereas people who have grown up in a more democratic culture might sell their votes more dearly. V85 (talk) 17:46, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, to take the cynical stance, poor countries without a history of democracy have a much higher rate of voter fraud: The people who are in power just create the voting results out of whole cloth, and do so with impugnity, because no one calls them on it. So, it looks like the poorer countries have better voting returns, but in reality, they just have more made-up votes. There's probably a lot of that going on. --Jayron32 17:55, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Since 1946 Australia has maintained a voter turnout greater than 87% at the minimum, with normal turn outs over 95%, and with invalid votes under 7% with an normal invalid vote under 3%.(idea.int) "Australia" has had "democracy" since the 1850s more or less. Australians chose to inflict compulsory voting upon themselves for some reason, particularly to the extent that they haven't opposed it. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:54, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

With that system in place, how well have the leaders worked out? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:13, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

You'd have to start with List of Prime Ministers of Australia, read about all of them, and make up your own mind. Fifelfoo is dead right about the lack of opposition to compulsory voting in Australia. Although no major party had ever advocated it, literally nobody objected when a backbench Senator introduced a private bill in 1924 to this effect. It was rubber-stamped through the parliament with virtually no discussion, and no party since has ever said they have any plans to make voting optional again. Although it has always got up some people's noses, it is a very low-key issue here. See Electoral system of Australia#Compulsory voting for more details. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 03:35, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

The amusing thing about the civil libertarian philosophers opposing compulsory voting, under the conception that it delegitimises Australia's politics, is that both major extraparliamentary political movements (the white armies, and the lower-c-communist left) believed Australian politics was or is illegitimate regardless of compulsory voting—yet generally fail to take the standard actions groups who believe a system to be illegitimate take. Obviously the meaning of "illegitimacy" in Australian politics doesn't focus on the election to bourgeois parliament that liberal democratic scholars believe to be a key site. (Cf: the Wollongong parliamentary invasion, and the Howard era parliamentary invasions; or the Franklin Dam campaign's ignoring of the issue of parliamentary legitimacy) Fifelfoo (talk) 03:45, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Bugs, Australia's parliament is largely governed by "the vibe" of the dominant coalition of parties holding government and the construction of their cabinet and platform, rather than on the character of particular leaders. There is no Howard without Abbott and Costello. There is no Hawke without Keating. No Ming without Holt. Key indicators of system failure would be the emergence or maintenance of large extraparliamentary movements. In the period 1924 to 2012, the taming of the industrial labour movement and the replacement of industrial conflict with bureaucratised and symbolised conflict in parliament indicates that the Australian parliament has been successful in taming extra-parliamentary political movements. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:45, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Personally, as I vote in every possible election, I am not particularly against the idea of compulsory voting; the problem is that in some democracies, they get the idea that compulsory is somehow antithetical to liberty. That is, being forced to do anything is against the idea that you should be free to do what you want. So, while I am sympathetic to the idea that compulsory voting works to the point that it gets more people to vote, I also understand why some countries are against doing it. To take it to the rediculous extreme; if you put a ballot in a person's hand and a loaded gun to their forhead simultaneously, you can get even closer to 100% turnout. The question is the level of onerous involvement of the state in people's individual lives those people are willing to tolerate. Each country has come up with it's own level of toleration for that state involvement, and what works in one culture doesn't necessarily work everywhere. Which is not to say that it couldn't; but you'd need to change the culture first, which is not an easy process. --Jayron32 02:14, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

"They get the idea"?? Of course they get the idea, because it's obvious. Compulsory is antithetical to liberty, pretty much by definition. --Trovatore (talk) 04:23, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

See understatement and litotes. Come back if you have any further questions. --Jayron32 04:47, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Elements of the Australian system of voter registration (compulsory, but laxly enforced), compulsory voting (mandatory, but waived readily for reasonable excuses such as illness), and postal / pre-voting are probably incompatible with common US conceptions of fair and appropriate voting, in particular I get the sense that many US laws are actually enforced, and when enforced enforced with fervour; this is a radically different situation to law enforcement in the Australian polity. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:45, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

In the USA, it will never happen, because if it did, the Republicans would lose practically every election. It's in their best interest to try and keep Democrats from voting, by whatever shenanigans. For example, leadng up to today's Wisconsin recall election, they were trying to convince people that if they voted in the original recall vote, they didn't have to vote this time. And it's worth pointing out that if anyone falls for that, it serves as a good argument against compulsory voting! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:45, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure that the Republican Party would not long tolerate losing every election. It would reform its coalition towards the "centre" substantially possibly as far as merely right wing, and/or simply wait for the US polity to change towards' its position, and/or collapse as a third party more cleverly aligned with the new basis of a potential party system to take the Republican Party's place. Similar party system changes have taken place elsewhere, for instance, the UK Labour Party's permanent shift from the centre to the centre-right. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:39, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Trying to be more centrist is why they lost the last election, or so they claim. In any case, compulsory voting in the US would require a constitutional amendment, and there's no energy for that. It never even comes up in public discussion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:59, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Armenians on USA/Armenian Americans

I was wondering what the general opinion of Armenians from Armenia proper was of the USA and Armenian Americans. Is it the same as the direct African expacts/diaspora has of African Americans of older slave heritage, similar to what South Asians think of the extended 2/3 generation "ABCD" in the USA, and by extension UK, etc.? The religion elements adds something more interesting as theyre all still Christians. Is it something akin to "you sold us out by running off to the developed west"?These are not my words, btw, ive heard similar lines from Africans as "sell out" being a reasonLihaas (talk) 14:13, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I can think of no reason why there should be any similarity between the experience or perspectives of Armenians / Armenian-Americans and Africans / African-Americans. Off topic, (OR Warning) Armenians arriving in the US after the 1988 Spitak earthquake, in one case with which I'm familiar, had difficulties with earlier arrivals who sought to exploit their lack of language skills and ignorance of the culture. DOR (HK) (talk) 06:35, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I had read some time ago that Armenians in Armenia proper tend to be lot mre conservative. SO much so that to at least one person who wanted to visit hias ancestral homeland, he was told that hed be better off marrying an Armenian girl from the diaspora because of the culture clash. I suppose its the same for Jews who want to find a Jewish bride, only to realise that Jerusalem and the settlements apart (though to some degree certain settlements too), most of the country is far more liberal than the dispora. There is even a modicum of anti-americanism, which come as a surprise to many.

Similar parallels i suppose to how a language in the original homeland changes and adapts over time while the diaspora keep it the original way with a mic-conceived perception of preserving the language.Lihaas (talk) 10:40, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

European Union licence plate

I notice that when I was in England, most of the cars had licence plate with the European Union flag on it. Since UK is EU member, does it mean that all the cars in the member states have the European Union flags on them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.153.36 (talk) 14:34, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

See Vehicle registration plates of the European Union. Briefly there are four countries in the EU where the flag is optional, Britain being one of them. --Viennese Waltz 14:41, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

The article has a somewhat strange wording regarding that, since it is actually five including Denmark (voluntary in practice would mean the same as optional). --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:03, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

The Norwegian licence plate (for newer cars) also has that blue field, but instead of the circle of the EU stars, it has the Norwegian flag. Which, in my eyes, looks horrible: It's not a good colour combo. (Norway, of course, is not an EU member, but an EEC member.) V85 (talk) 17:38, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

EEA not EEC. -Sussexonian (talk) 09:38, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

In the part of England where I live, EU numberplates are rare (so rare that I assume they are foreign). They may be common in other areas. Dbfirs 21:40, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

As vehicle registration plates of the United Kingdom#Examples of British registration plates with national emblems notes, Britain allows a variety of emblems to be placed in that area, corresponding with its constituent parts. These are optional and don't have any meaning (one can live in Wales and have a SCO tag, for example). Cars bought new from the dealer usually don't have anything, so someone with a blue-edged plate (be it EU or one of those others) will likely have had to get someone to make it up specially for them, at a modest additional cost. These too are in a minority; I'd estimate that in Scotland you're more likely to see a SCO than a GB plate, however. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:29, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Just to note that new cars can be bought with plates with the EU symbol you dont have to buy the basic plate and throw them away. MilborneOne (talk) 11:08, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I've very occasionally seen plates on which people have stuck non-approved stickers over that area, indicating their affinity for regional independence and forlorn causes - I'm pretty sure these are illegal, but I don't know how keenly the fuzz police these. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:35, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Just to counter the feeling that these plates are rare the nearer you get to the channel crossing like the south east of England more people use them as it allows the car to be driven on the continent without any additional markings. It is likely that drivers who do not regularly travel across the channel dont need the EU symbol so dont bother with it. MilborneOne (talk) 11:13, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Just curious

I found an old photo at the LAC an put it at the bottom of Flying Bluenose. I am wondering which of the four bridges it is from the map at the top of the article. My google earth doesn't seem to be working. File:D.A.R. Bluenose.jpg. I assume I have the train name correct from the original LAC image title.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:21, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Looks like that's the Bear River Bridge. Looie496 (talk) 18:48, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Looie. I may add a qualifier to the image talk page until it can be confirmed.--Canoe1967 (talk) 11:19, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I looked at it in Google Earth and it's really obvious there -- you can see the island right where it should be, the distant shoreline, and everything. Looie496 (talk) 17:10, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Ok, thanks again. I am sure it is the Bear River as well. I wonder if I beg LAC they can scan at a higher definition. It may be worth restoring as a nice panorama from that era. I have found a few good images on their site that could do with a better scan.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:45, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

What are the laws about filing a stupid legal case?

Suppose one files a civil case using freeman on the land type arguments (and with the "merits" that such cases usually have) - but in this case the person filing is doing it precisely because they know the freeman arguments are so silly, and basically they would just like to go to court for a day "for a laugh" to see how it reacts to insane arguments.

What are the legalities of doing this? Egg Centric 23:46, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

See Frivolous litigation. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:51, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

There is usually a statute or rule which requires counsel or the party filing a pleading that it is filed in good faith, basically. In Federal courts and those state courts which follow some adaptation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, (again, these are for civil cases) it is Rule 11.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:54, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

By the way if you want to see how nuts the freemen can get, here's them trying to arrest a judge, it's hilarious - [4] Egg Centric 23:55, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Most questions about "What are the legalities of ... " that don't mention a jurisdiction merit an answer "It depends where you are in the world". --ColinFine (talk) 19:30, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

See Standing (law).—Wavelength (talk) 20:12, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

In the USA, see Jonathan Lee Riches. Nyttend (talk) 01:23, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Also vexatious litigant... AnonMoos (talk) 12:55, 6 June 2012 (UTC)