Vote 2016!

[Mooseman]

Competency is extremely subjective. Who determines one's competency?

Voters are supposed to do that.
The age limit is now on how old you have to be to get into office, it should also be to retire from elected office.

 

[Spiderman]

It all comes back to the voters. If the guy is doing his job, he's at least effective which may (or may not) mean competency. That's probably what I meant, now reading back on what I wrote; effectiveness should be the key.

 

[Mooseman]

Effectiveness is different to everyone.

 

[Spiderman]

Which again is determined by the voters. If the majority of voters think their representative is doing an effective job, he's going to win - it's the whole purpose of voting.

This is assuming the voting districts are equal and not gerrymandered, though.

 

[TomB]

I think it's more a matter of staying visible, and not for the wrong reasons. Voters don't necessarily care enough to keep up with what gets accomplished during a representative's term - they're more about name recognition and not having scandals making them look bad for voting for that person...

 

[Mooseman]

I think it's more a matter of staying visible, and not for the wrong reasons. Voters don't necessarily care enough to keep up with what gets accomplished during a representative's term - they're more about name recognition and not having scandals making them look bad for voting for that person...

This past election has disillusioned me to that idea.

 

[Spiderman]

Voters don't necessarily care enough to keep up with what gets accomplished during a representative's term - they're more about name recognition and not having scandals making them look bad for voting for that person

Overall, I think you're right but becoming educated about their representative's record should be the responsibility of the voter and the representative shouldn't have a "limit" placed on them "just because" of the voter's ignorance.

I'll use myself as an example: I frankly didn't know anything about my representative's record going into the election. Barbara Mikulski, my long-term rep, retired and there were two new names on the ballot. I always voted for Barbara before simply because of the name recognition, but with two new names that I knew nothing about, I just voted for the same-party-as-Barbara one (Dem). Of course it was my responsibility to know more about them but also frankly, I didn't care about the Representative race; it just wasn't a big deal to me.

 

[rokapoke]

I didn't care about the Representative race; it just wasn't a big deal to me.

I think this gets to the heart of the issue. I suffer from the same apathy regarding the "down-ticket" races. Ironically, those are the ones that should matter more to the voters, because the further down the position is the more direct its impact on your day-to-day life. But most people get into the habit of voting once every four years and counting their civic duty completed (I fall in that category, unfortunately, and also do not educate myself about the non-presidential candidates).

 

[turgy22]

I think a big part of that issue is that our representative democracy doesn't really work the way it was intended. Instead of our local representatives actually representing their districts, they represent their party or, at best, a particular wing of their party. I think it's getting more and more rare for a state rep to stray from the party line and that just makes voters more and more likely to vote their party or vote the same party in every race, assuming that whoever fills in those down-ballot races is just another surrogate on the national level.

 

[Mooseman]

Unfortunately, those down-ballot positions are usually decided in the primary, since many districts/municipalities/regions are one party sun-divisions and there either is not one running in the other party or they all cross register for both or the other party has little chance to win.
So, if you are like me and refuse to register for any of the self-serving political parties (all of them), you don't get to impact the elections.
But, I do try to keep up on the local people running hand have voted for a Dem, Rep, Ind, Lib, Green, etc..... because of the person, but never the party.

 

[Oversoul]

I think that the mandatory retirement age raises an interesting point, but ultimately I don't think I'd advocate for it.

 

[TomB]

But that was my point Spidey: most people can't be arsed to pay attention to what their representative's record is, whatever their "responsibility" is. Name recognition, and staying scandal-free is the key to re-election I think.

Perhaps not so much for first timers though...

 

[rokapoke]

So, if you are like me and refuse to register for any of the self-serving political parties (all of them), you don't get to impact the elections.

Ohio does primaries differently, it seems. Each primary when you go to the polls you get to pick which party you intend to vote in the primary for. It seems backwards but it ultimately makes a lot more sense than registering one time for a party and being stuck with it for all eternity.

 

[Spiderman]

I was agreeing with you TomB but tying it in with Mooseman's idea, but also saying that people should be arsed (myself included) to really know what's going on. But many are content not to and just complain about the big general picture in abstract (where are my taxes going, health care, education, etc).

I think turgy22 has accurately summed it up but again, I think it's the result of gerrymandering in a lot of cases (like what Michigan or Wisconsin is going through right now?) Whoever's in charge of the re-districting makes sure that one party will be elected to retain their majority and dilutes the voting power of the other party.

Different states do their primaries different ways. For some, you have to be registered as that party to vote in their primary (closed) and others, it doesn't matter (open). That's why the Bernie supporters were fighting to get those states who were closed to be open so everyone could vote.