
Did You Vote? Now Your Friends May Know (and Nag You) - dpeck
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/04/us/politics/apps-public-voting-record.html
======
keiferski
_Anyone can use the apps, but executives say they hope to improve voter
turnout particularly among young Democrats. The VoteWithMe app, for instance,
is preset to show likely Democrats among a user’s contacts. Users must change
the app’s settings to see the voting histories of all of their contacts._

This, combined with the “Our Trusted Partners” section, clearly shows that
this isn’t about getting people out to vote in order to strengthen the
democratic process - it’s about supporting a particular political party.

As an independent, this is really troubling. It will only result in more
tribalism and more shaming for having “undesirable” party registration. Yeah,
your actual vote is still private. But considering that mere membership of a
party has been an issue in the past, this isn’t very reassuring.

Then again, maybe it will lead to an implosion of the party system and a shift
to independent voters.

~~~
davidw
> Then again, maybe it will lead to an implosion of the party system and a
> shift to independent voters.

Ranked Choice voting would generally be a good move in that direction.

 _Edit_ I'm also going to add that this isn't a great time to sit on the
fence:

[https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/11/03/why-the-mid-
ter...](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/11/03/why-the-mid-terms-matter)

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/11/04/election-r...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/11/04/election-
referendum-trump-corrosive-changes-american-politics-column/1871790002/)

~~~
bhauer
Yes. Score voting or approval voting would be my preference. Easier to use and
even more expressive for voters.

[https://electology.org/score-voting](https://electology.org/score-voting)

[https://www.counted.vote/](https://www.counted.vote/)

~~~
faitswulff
I just learned about approval voting and it has my...approval.

Jokes aside, "upvoting" all the candidates I approve seems much more doable
than ranking the candidates in order of merit, especially given that there are
a lot of candidates running.

~~~
davidw
Approval feels a bit too binary to me. I like the idea of scoring or ranking.
Not sure how scoring doesn't get gamed by people giving 10's to the ones they
like, ad 1's to the ones they don't, though.

~~~
bhauer
IMO "gamed" is a bit of a strange choice of word. The whole point of score
voting is to give each voter more power to express their true preference. If
their preference is to assign top scores to several candidates, _fantastic_ ,
thank you for your vote! If the next voter prefers to give more diversified
scores, _wonderful_ , thank you for voting! And if the next voter would prefer
to rank order the candidates, you can do that too using score, so _great_ ,
thank you for voting!

Yes, if you are highly strategic and acutely fear some popular candidate(s),
you might give maximum scores to all candidates of which you approve to
minimize loss risk. But again, great. That doesn't seem like "gaming" things
to me.

With score, voters leave the ballot box feeling they were able to express
their preferences and therefore have less regret about their votes.
Incidentally, I feel in the long term, approval or score voting would do more
to improve the satisfaction people have with voting thereby increasing
participation than all of today's "get out the vote" drives have had.

~~~
davidw
Over time, the people who use middling scores might 'catch on' that doing that
lessens their influence, so everyone starts gravitating towards the extremes?

IDK, I'd love to see it tried.

~~~
vokep
Probably, but we shouldn't expect to actually solve this entirely...if so,
great, but realistically, anything better than the present is...better.

------
ajross
What has happened to HN? The second paragraph of the article explains quite
clearly that these apps display only the fact of a ballot having been cast,
not the votes. Yet I count no less than seven posts here railing about exactly
the wrong thing.

Yes, people: the secret ballot is an important part of democracy, and this has
nothing to do with that. To be sure, it's one of those social network
paradigms that have unindended consequences. And those are worth discussing.
But only if you read the article!

~~~
daenz
>The second paragraph of the article explains quite clearly that these apps
display only the fact of a ballot having been cast, not the votes.

No, that is _not_ the only thing these apps display. From the article:

>depending on the state, it can include details like their name, address,
phone number and _party affiliation_ and when they voted.

Emphasis mine. And if you don't think party affiliation is a big deal, then
you haven't been listening to the rhetoric used to describe the parties
lately.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Party affiliation is already public record in many states. I don’t understand
the concern.

~~~
tk75x
It's one thing for it to be public record where every person who wants to know
has to make the effort to look it up. It's a different scenario entirely when
thousands of people have access to that information via an easy-to-use app.
Now, the likelihood of someone in your social group who disapproves of your
political beliefs finding out is much higher. I believe we are all entitled to
our privacy and shouldn't be singled out for things like political party
affiliation.

~~~
mikeash
Lobby your state government to make that information secret, or end official
party affiliation altogether. In the age of ubiquitous internet access, it’s
no longer reasonable to expect any publicly available information to remain
obscure.

~~~
belorn
Here in Sweden there has been several alternatives which all puts barriers in
front of public information in order to prevent it being accessible through
the internet.

One method is to simply not allow people to copy it. I can go to the
department and request the information, but I can't leave the building with
any digital or physical copy (photoing inside is forbidden). Technically
within the legal definition of public information. The other method is using
copyright to grant permission for private use but not distribution, which mean
no one has permission to put the public information online. That way its
publicly available to request from the department but it will not be published
online. The third method is not really a method but simply relying on the
gdpr. The information may be public but there are still legal limits on the
kind of databases people may have about private information.

------
tomohawk
Voting should be completely private, including the fact of whether a person
voted or not. It's that person's choice, and not voting is just a valid of a
choice, and deserves to be kept private.

This is how the ballot boxes get stuffed. The fraudsters figure out who
doesn't vote, who's dead but still on the roles, etc, and stuff the boxes with
votes for those people.

Here's an infamous example:
[https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/17/archives/followers-say-
ji...](https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/17/archives/followers-say-jim-jones-
directed-voting-frauds-busloads-of-voters.html)

~~~
elicash
I was calling infrequent voters yesterday, people who need a reminder. A
couple didn't know it was Election Day, which may sound weird to some folks
here but is not uncommon in off years. Others knew, but had no idea where they
were supposed to go to vote. And still others didn't know about voter ID
requirements that are new in some states.

For those of us who volunteer to help infrequent voters have the info they
need to vote, this data is crucial.

~~~
jvreagan
There's a lot of private information that's valuable to others. Doesn't make
it right or ethical.

~~~
elicash
You're calling it private, but the whole debate is whether it should be
private or public (currently it's public). You can't have a democracy if
people don't know how to engage in it.

~~~
tomohawk
So partisan campaigners should be able to do traffic analysis on people to
better direct their activities?

~~~
elicash
Campaigners should be able to identify who is an occasional voter in order to
give those folks voting information.

~~~
tomohawk
You mean like this?

[https://freebeacon.com/politics/dems-warn-multiple-states-
we...](https://freebeacon.com/politics/dems-warn-multiple-states-well-know-
dont-vote-will-neighbors/)

These records need to be made private pronto. There is no public good served
by enabling pressure and guilt campaigns.

~~~
elicash
I believe voting is a public good.

------
keiferski
_The apps’ developers say they are simply democratizing access to these public
records._

This is the exact same argument that is often used to push public
surveillance: “Well, you were out in public and visible anyway, we’re just
making it easier to access this data.”

~~~
dtornabene
True! Its also a bold face lie. By the very fact that these records are public
makes them more or less "democratized" already. These apps are there to
monetize public information for private profit, with a patina of pseudo-civic
morality. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who read this and jumped at that
awful line, albeit for different reasons.

~~~
matthewbauer
Where is the private profit in increased voter turnout?

~~~
visarga
They could sell 'electoral services' to parties (or party sponsors).

------
augustocallejas
About 6 years ago, for the 2012 election, I wrote my first iOS app called
SuperVote ([http://supervote.org](http://supervote.org)) where Facebook users
would voluntarily share their endorsements on a shared ballot, allowing you to
see how your friends and family plan to vote (especially useful for
California, and all the ballot initiatives). It got about 100 users, but
didn't really take off, so I didn't continue updating it.

At this point, considering the state of politics and Facebook, I would not go
about the same venture anymore.

~~~
24gttghh
Isn't it illegal to publicize exactly who a given person voted for?

Seems like basically this:

[https://www.propublica.org/article/why-it-may-be-illegal-
to-...](https://www.propublica.org/article/why-it-may-be-illegal-to-instagram-
your-ballot)

~~~
pessimizer
You're not seriously saying that it's illegal to publicly endorse voting for a
particular candidate?

It is usually illegal to show proof of who you voted for, and absolutely
should be, everywhere. People have to take your word for it. The ability to
provide evidence of who you voted for creates the ability for others to demand
evidence of who you voted for.

~~~
24gttghh
Legally, I understand the distinction but publicizing exactly who you voted
for seems like it could have similar repercussions in terms of voter
intimidation.

~~~
tomjen3
If you threaten me to vote for a specific party and all I can say is that I
did so, your threat is not great.

If you can threaten me, and after that make me prove what I voted for, the
threat is much more effective.

~~~
24gttghh
For the record, I'm not threatening anyone...

------
gnicholas
Various folks are talking about the fact that voter history (though not actual
votes cast) is public information. I recently learned from a candidate for
local office that the email address that I put down when registering to vote
can be purchased by any candidate.

I didn't realize that by providing my email address on a government form, I
would be opening myself up to spam from literally any candidate — local,
state, or national. And of course, on all of these emails, it says at the
bottom "you are receiving this email because you signed up on our website."
Not exactly!

------
andrew_
I understand that the apps discussed in the article are voluntary and used by
people who want to share that information. But this relatively recent
obsession over political alignment remains troubling. I'm old enough to
remember when voting choices were considered a private matter. Today's climate
is largely unconducive to polite discourse, and these apps strike me as
another opportunity for people to share "too much" information, which provide
an avenue for further weaponizing of public judgement.

~~~
greglindahl
I'm a little mystified how you could have read the article and made this
comment. Choosing to register with a party and choosing to vote are choices,
but they've never been private ones. Your actual vote is a private matter.

> Whom Americans vote for is private. But other information in their state
> voter files is public information; depending on the state, it can include
> details like their name, address, phone number and party affiliation and
> when they voted.

~~~
masonic
In California, at least, it's private except for certain specific _political_
uses, like sending voter slates. It is provided _with a contract constraining
its use_.

You can't just walk into a Registrar and walk out with all the voter data and
turnout history and use it however you want. Even party Central Committees and
mailhouses have to sign usage agreements.

The _Times_ cares nothing about the law, of course. This is already
demonstrated when they "leak" alleged contents of people's tax returns,
military intelligence briefings, etc.

~~~
matthewbauer
I think most states make this publicly available. California may be an
exception.

~~~
greglindahl
The public purpose of making this info available is to reduce voter fraud. I
suspect this isn't obvious to most people. The reason that we can be somewhat
confident that the dead don't vote too often or that non-voters don't vote too
often is that it's not that hard for anyone to run a study of voters to find
people who are actually dead or who deny that they voted.

------
donatj
Given the rapid rise of politicaly motivated violence, I think it’s likely
best to keep my vote to myself.

~~~
bskap
Who you voted for is private. The fact that you voted is public- anyone can
get that from the state, no need for you to volunteer it.

------
randomname2
Does anyone else find this creepy and Orwellian?

~~~
ilikehurdles
Yes. Also incredibly annoying. “Nag” is right. I hope I never get contacted by
friends using this junk.

------
nothingtodo
Only a bunch of tone deaf assholes would think this is a good idea in this
political climate. What a nice way to make it easier for other assholes to
find out which political "tribe" someone belongs to and discriminate against
them when it comes to getting a mortgage, employment, admissions to schools
etc. Nice going assholes, you made the world just a little bit worse.

------
jpfed
For people in this thread that are alarmed by the fact that voting records
contain information about your party affiliation- note that this is not true
in every state!

The fact that many states keep records of party affiliation is neither a
necessary part of the democratic process nor is it an immutable fact of
nature. It may be possible to change how voting records are kept or handled
with ballot initiatives.

------
a_imho
Democracy would be better off without voting, Sortition [1] is vastly superior
method of electing representatives.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition)

~~~
dannyw
With a big drawback of zero accountability for candidates.

~~~
a_imho
What threat model do you have in mind?

I don't think voting every 4 years helps with accountability that much either
in practice.

------
chiefalchemist
Not to get off topic but it's worth mentioning that, by definition, voting and
electios help to establish and elevate confirmation bias.

For a scientific view on why we struggle to come together I'd recommend "The
Influence Mind" by Tali Sharot.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/books/review/the-
influent...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/books/review/the-influential-
mind-tali-sharot-decision-making.html)

------
dev_north_east
If someone did this, they wouldn't be my friend anymore.

------
yuchi
In Italy the secrecy of the vote means that people have the right to keep it
secret, not the obligation to do so!

Is it any different in the US?

~~~
LoSboccacc
It also means you can't prove what party you voted, the point is both protect
from repercussions and avoid vote selling, but yet can still happen in the
smaller municipalities, since you can theoretically* buy the town whole and
detract money for every vote missing

Even in Italy however you needed to "tesserate" to vote for party primaries,
so who has those archives knows at least how involved you are with this or
that party because there's a certain correlation between party registration
and voting patterns

*Theoretically that's also why you see percentages approaching 100% for one candidate in many small Sicilian towns

~~~
yuchi
I never knew those figures in southern Italy. Thanks for sharing.

------
JohnTClark
It's a bad idea. I got guilt tripped by my friends a year for not voting in
the parliament election (not from US).

“I don’t want this to come off like we’re shaming our friends into voting,”
said Naseem Makiya, the chief executive of OutVote, a start-up in Boston. But,
he said, “I think a lot of people might vote just because they’re frankly
worried that their friends will find out if they didn’t.” It's incredible to
me how some people can make a bad idea look nice by using words.

"Political science research has shown that people turn out to vote in higher
numbers when they think their family and neighbors are observing their civic
behavior. The VoteWithMe and OutVote apps simply automate that surveillance
and social pressure." It is because of fear and the bad thing is that it's
harder to fight against these ideas that use nice words like "research",
"strengthen democracy" because you come off like being anti democracy, anti
science etc. In communist Romania there were elections and if you didn't
participate there where bad consequences and because of that there were 99.9%
turnout but I would not consider that a victory for democracy.

Some people say that if you voted or not is public record. Yes it is public
but there is a difference between 1 click and jumping through some bureaucracy
to find that information.

~~~
salvar
> Some people say that if you voted or not is public record. Yes it is public
> but there is a difference between 1 click and jumping through some
> bureaucracy to find that information.

Would you call that bureaucracy an important feature then?

------
pg_bot
Not voting is a legitimate choice.

~~~
clouddrover
In what way? What are you choosing exactly? Unless so few voters turn out that
the election can't be considered valid (if there even is a minimum turnout
required), someone's going to get elected and put in power. By not
participating in that choice all you do is disenfranchise yourself.

I'm surprised more countries don't have compulsory voting. Voluntary voting
means political parties win elections by getting out the vote. They get out
the vote by appealing to the extremes of their base, by suppressing the votes
of their political opponents as much as possible, and by spending a lot of
money on campaigning. And when political parties are desperate for money they
are made vulnerable to interest groups with deep pockets.

Compulsory voting helps get the money out of politics and moderates the
extremes of policy because parties can't afford to appeal solely to their
base.

It's a simple approach to elections which can be applied to any democracy
without changing the electoral system of that democracy. All that changes is
that you have more votes to count.

~~~
sheepmullet
> In what way? What are you choosing exactly?

You are signalling that neither party has your support.

Even in countries with mandatory voting a decent number of people cast an
empty ballot.

~~~
clouddrover
> _You are signalling that neither party has your support._

To what point and purpose? A politician is accountable to the voters, not the
non-voters. Non-voters are not a consideration because they've chosen not to
be.

> _Even in countries with mandatory voting a decent number of people cast an
> empty ballot._

Australia has compulsory voting. There was a 91.93% turnout at the 2016
election and 3.94% of those votes were informal (see the 24th page):

[https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/research/files/voter-
turnou...](https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/research/files/voter-
turnout-2016.pdf)

So, in effect, about 12% of voters in Australia failed to vote in the 2016
election.

Contrast that with a voter turnout of 60-61% in the 2016 US presidential
election:

[https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-
samplings/2017/...](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-
samplings/2017/05/voting_in_america.html)

[http://www.electproject.org/2016g](http://www.electproject.org/2016g)

That's not counting any invalid votes so more than 39% of voting age citizens
failed to vote in the 2016 election.

I'd say the Australian model delivers a better result.

~~~
sheepmullet
> To what point and purpose?

1) Because you don’t want to feel responsible.

2) To ensure politicians have to work for your vote.

Item 2 would work even better if we moved away from first past the post.

> I'd say the Australian model delivers a better result.

Better in what way?

I don’t think more people voting is automatically better.

~~~
clouddrover
> _To ensure politicians have to work for your vote._

By not voting you're telling politicians that you don't matter and they will
believe you.

> _Better in what way?_

As I said in my first post, compulsory voting helps get the money out of
politics and moderates the extremes of policy. Less money is wasted on
campaigning and policies must appeal to a broader group of people.

~~~
sheepmullet
> By not voting you're telling politicians that you don't matter and they will
> believe you.

Which party wouldn’t work hard to get an extra 100k+ voters?

> moderates the extremes of policy.

Not that the US is perfect but Australia still seems to have plenty of idiots
in politics.

~~~
clouddrover
> _Which party wouldn’t work hard to get an extra 100k+ voters?_

Which party wouldn't work harder when they know that if you're not voting for
them, you're voting for someone else?

And, importantly, the nature of the work is different. Compulsory voting means
more policy work and less work energizing the base.

~~~
sheepmullet
> Which party wouldn't work harder when they know that if you're not voting
> for them, you're voting for someone else?

It completely changes the strategy - when you know everyone has to vote the
winning strategy is to be the least worst.

This leads to mediocre politicians who will “kick the can down the road”.

------
Krasnol
God I'm happy to live in a country where this data doesn't even exist.

Voting in Germany is secret. You get your voting information automatically if
you are eligible and you send either a anonymous letter or take a pen and go
to put an X on a piece of paper.

------
teekert
This is way to important to be done by a closed source, nontransparent party.
How can this be legal? And is not voting not also a fundamental right? Imagine
an app tries to mess with your right to vote instead of your right to not
vote...

------
astura
>“I don’t want this to come off like we’re shaming our friends into voting,”
said Naseem Makiya, the chief executive of OutVote, a start-up in Boston. But,
he said, “I think a lot of people might vote just because they’re frankly
worried that their friends will find out if they didn’t.” That's like,
dictionary definition of shaming.

Waiiiiittttt, back that train right up!

What exactly does this person think "shaming friends into voting" is if it's
not "vot[ing] just because they’re worried that their friends will find out if
they didn’t?"

I don't really care about these apps either way, just... how does anyone have
such a lack of self awareness?

~~~
zrobotics
Well, he looked at the current privacy climate (especially around social
media) and thought this was a good idea.

I'd say it's safe to assume he isn't all that socially aware. I can say for
sure that I received one of these messages from one of my contacts, I'm damn
sure shaming that person back for using this service. I'm thinking
twitter/Facebook post naming and shaming, along with an explanation about how
that contact was clueless enough to share their whole phone book with this
app. I for one don't trust them not to do anything shady with that info.

------
dpeck
mods, I went with the caption vs the clickbait title, if it needs to be
something else mod away.

~~~
dang
In a strange way I think that title ("See the Voting Histories of Your Friends
and Family (OutVote S18)") may have unintentionally been even more baity,
because a lot of commenters seem confused by the phrase "voting history". So
maybe we'll try the main article title for a while.

~~~
dpeck
you may just be right. Hard to not trigger the sensationalization instincts
with this story regardless of title.

------
sonnyblarney
This is terrible and reminds me of that South Park episode where everyone
murders everyone else 'no secrets'.

In Scandinavian countries I think you can look up someone's income tax - but
it's a little bit bureaucratic and that person will also be notified that you
looked them up. Not sure if it's necessary, but the sharing logic is
necessary.

If you want to know how someone voted, you have to pay $5 for each person,
they will be notified, and you can't publish the information, or something
like that.

Or better yet - it should be confidential.

~~~
sfRattan
For those who remember it, the peer pressure and shaming implications of these
apps remind me more of the season 8 episode, "Douche and Turd." Particularly
how everyone in the town ostracizes Stan until he's willing to vote, even
though he doesn't really care and doesn't like either choice.[1]

I guess South Park is like the Simpsons now... There's literally an episode
for every situation.

[1]:
[http://southpark.wikia.com/wiki/Douche_and_Turd](http://southpark.wikia.com/wiki/Douche_and_Turd)

~~~
astura
My favorite part of that episode is that P. Diddy's "vote or die" campaign is
literal.

------
King-Aaron
WOW, I was under the impression that part of the promoted benefits of the
democratic process was anonymity in your voting preferences. Double wow that
Ycombinator sponsored this.

~~~
ericcumbee
It does not say how you vote. Other than the fact that in a primary you pulled
a republican or democratic ballot. But the people you actually vote for are a
secret.

~~~
sremani
Their "Our Trusted Partners" does not encourage me to believe they are non-
partisan.

YC stamp on this makes me a bit sad, but their actions have been swinging left
for a while now.

edit: (their partisan statement is upfront) Outvote empowers progressives like
you to mobilize your contacts to get out and vote.

~~~
matthewbauer
If its any consolation, im sure all sides will adopt it if it turns out to be
effective. Similat trend happened from 2008 to 2010.

~~~
sremani
Its a bad app, in wrong hands, its a bullying tool. I do not want my boss to
know my party registration and worst of all, them to prod me to vote.

~~~
Dylan16807
> I do not want my boss to know my party registration

Ok.

> and worst of all, them to prod me to vote.

For someone that cares about the former, how can the latter possibly be worse?

~~~
sremani
You need to expand from uni-variable logic to holistic human interaction to
understand it.

~~~
Dylan16807
So if we think about the situation holistically, there's an important
interaction between those two ideas, in that the boss is less likely to prod
you to vote if they're in a different party.

Okay so that makes the second option generally _less_ awkward than if the two
events were uncorrelated.

...sorry, I still need more help to understand how you holistically used the
word 'worst'.

------
monochromatic
That's horrible. "There ought to be a law!"

~~~
markovbot
States oughta not give out that data.

~~~
ckarmann
I'm French and when I hear about this kind of things in the USA, I wonder why
this data even exists? Why do people register as Democrat or Republican in the
first place and why do the laws even allow it? I understand that it
facilitates the organisation by the state of the primary elections. But it so
obviously goes against basic principles of confidentiality of vote that it far
outweighs the purposed benefits. And why don't the parties organize their own
primaries?

~~~
labster
Americans don't think that revealing party membership is violates any privacy.
The reason it is available is that the parties need lists of their members,
and campaigns and political orgs need lists of people to mobilize to vote.
This helps us target slate mailers, phone calls, media advertising, as well as
look at who is elderly and might need transportation to the polls. In
California, the list of people who voted is posted hourly tomorrow, so I get
to walk around and remind my party's people to get to the polls.

~~~
zrobotics
Why do we consider "get out the vote" efforts to be a good thing, though? If
someone doesn't care enough to bother to vote without being nagged, are they
providing any sort of meaningful input? How considered will their choice be?

Ive always thought such efforts are another symptom of 'us vs. them", where
the only goal is to get more of your members to vote. I think it would be
aassive improvement if this information wasn't even part of voter
registration. If you want to be a Democrat or Republican and vote in the
primaries, that shouldn't be part of voter registration, you should have to
separately register with your party of choice.

Because I just don't see any reason that anything you mentioned (targeted
advertising, targeted transportation for the elderly) is at all a net positive
for democracy.

~~~
danso
I think ideally the government sees it as net positive for democracy to
maximize the participation of as much of its electorate as possible, in order
for the process, and the winners, to have as much legitimacy and buy-in as
possible. In an ideal world, no one would have to be "nagged", but
realistically, everyone has limits on their time and attention span. Why is
the college student who finally agrees to go with a friend any less of a
valued participant than the retired citizen who has no other time commitments?

Party affiliation is part of voter registration in the states that run
primaries. Primaries are not part of the Constitution, and before the 1970s,
party candidates were picked via convention, i.e. party elites. Making the
primary vote accessible to all voters was ostensibly an attempt to democratize
the selection process. Seems like it'd be logistically difficult to hold party
votes without having a record of voter affiliation.

------
vectorEQ
should communities come together and share their ideas, vote together for a
better future ?? wtf is wrong with your friends or contacts knowing what you
voted? so ashamed of your own opinions?? :s or are all your friends so shallow
to judge you on sight for some vote you gave instead of being i=interested in
you as a person and wondering why you have a different opinion.

the hell is wrong with people!

~~~
xcfsadfasdfas
I don't have _any_ social media and I don't use Google. Because I don't want
anyone to known anything about me that I don't tell them

Its my own business what I believe in, thank you very much.

"interested in you as a person and wondering why you have a different
opinion." who I vote for (I don't) is irrelevant to what I believe. My friends
and I have lively discussions about things I really care for ([0]) and they're
never on the ballot.

[0] - Does infinity really exist? \- Is the halting theorem fundamentally
flawed? \- What is the nature, if any, of God? \- Are Judaism and Islam
essentially the same? \- What piece of music has moved you in a transcendental
way?

And that doesn't get to the largest (by far) topic when I'm with friends,
which are our kids and how to do what is best for them.

We keep out politics to ourselves, thank you very much.

------
synaesthesisx
Not just friends and family but employers, coworkers etc.

Apparently if you pay for premium (beta) you can even see their previous
ballots and detailed voting histories!

/s

~~~
r00fus
I hope you're joking about that last point.

~~~
synaesthesisx
Right, but it seems to be the direction we're headed in.

Imagine instead a premium model where you have the option to pay to hide your
information (just like paying GitHub for private repos). Privacy for pay -
this is we're headed toward as a society. Shame on YC for supporting this.

~~~
Dylan16807
This app isn't collecting _any_ data about voting. You describe an endpoint
that could be worrying, and I could see paths to get there, but the path
you're describing is nonsense.

Get a coherent thesis before you start calling for shame.

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afriend4lyfe
This is a blatant violation and misuse of voter files. In Illinois, for
instance, "Voter data is available to registered political committees for
bonafide political purposes. Use for commercial solicitation or other business
purposes is prohibited."[1]

I've been noticing a trend where more and more average Joes are just
downloading these files and doing whatever they want with them (specifically,
ad targeting). So it's not hard to imagine what malicious state actors have
been doing with them. And on a social level, it feels as tho these apps are in
violation of the spirit of the voter files purpose.

With these specific apps it appears to be a classic case of "it's easier to
ask forgiveness than it is to get permission".

1\.
[https://www.elections.il.gov/votinginformation/computerizedv...](https://www.elections.il.gov/votinginformation/computerizedvoterdata.aspx)

------
elicash
I’m pro vote shaming.

Voting is not just a right, it’s a civic responsibility. I don’t like when
people who don’t get their pay docked complain and try to get out of jury
duty, either. It’s selfish, if you simply choose to leave the work of
democracy to other people. And ungrateful for those who sacrificed to protect
our rights.

I live in a co-op building. Folks on the board make sure leaky pipes are
fixed, welcome new neighbors, renovate the lobby, and a thousand other things.
So yeah, if I don’t show up to the annual meeting to do the absolute minimum
to vote, when I have the ability to do so, I’m being a selfish asshole to my
neighbors. I’d deserve a bit of shaming.

I’ll soften the stand to note that there are more barriers to voting for some
than others - barriers that can all be fixed through policies, however.

Edit: I’ll add that even if you’re against vote shaming, this data is
important to be public for other reasons. Yesterday I was making phone calls
specifically to infrequent voters as a volunteer, many of whom aren’t aware
there is an election or had no idea where to go to vote. Those folks who
simply don’t know and need help are routinely the nicest and most appreciative
of getting calls from strangers.

------
fzeroracer
There are multiple things to take into consideration here.

For example, there are arguments made that we need to have more strict voter
ID laws in order to prevent potential undesirables from voting. Yet that
necessitates gathering more data from citizens. If we want the government to
be transparent and open with the data it collects, then that necessitates
making that data public. It's a very difficult act to balance having an open
government while expecting data the government collects to be private, because
otherwise you end up with cases like voters conspicuously dropped from voter
rolls using information that is unverifiable and unable to be accounted for by
the public.

There's also considerations to be made when an act of public policy can
directly affect large portions of the population. For example people who might
vote to remove or lessen the rights for minorities are entitled to privacy
even though their actions can cause direct harm to vulnerable populations.
This is made worse through voter suppression as people vote in favor of
actions that cement their own power without recourse.

At the same time I can understand why privacy is necessary because in the era
of Big Business, it's not unfathomable to imagine businesses using public data
like that to make decisions on who to hire or to threaten employees into
voting for policies that directly help them. Yet I can't help but feel that
people who are ashamed of whom they vote for are people that know some of the
policies they're voting for are bad in one way or another, but chooses to
support them anyways, although that veers into the 'nothing to hide' argument.

