{"id":129172,"date":"2015-12-18T11:14:45","date_gmt":"2015-12-18T18:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/18\/election-turnout-matters-dammit.html"},"modified":"2015-12-19T17:31:29","modified_gmt":"2015-12-20T00:31:29","slug":"election-turnout-matters-dammit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/18\/election-turnout-matters-dammit.html","title":{"rendered":"Election turnout matters, dammit"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lot of folk were worried that the far-Right National Front in France would gain a large foothold of power, based on an upswing in support from a stagnant economy and (especially) Islamicist terrorism over the last year. And the first round of election that fear seemed to be coming to pass. Then …:<\/p>\n

'France's far-right National Front performed unexpectedly poorly in Sunday's regional elections, securing control of exactly zero regions. In the first round just one week ago, it finished in first place in six out of 12 regions and was expected to prevail in second-round voting in at least two, and perhaps as many as four, regions. The unexpected defeat came in the context of soaring turnout. Just 48 percent of eligible voters cast ballots last week, but, faced with predictions of National Front victory, that surged to 59 percent today.'<\/i><\/p>\n

Turning out for elections matters.<\/i> That's a lesson that the Democrats keep struggling with, especially in off-year elections, when turnout drops in general — and which the GOP then sweeps in and gains more seats in Congress. You think your going out and voting doesn't make a difference? The French just proved you wrong.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nFrench far right faces unexpected defeat after turnout soars<\/a><\/span>
\nShowing up to vote makes a difference.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lot of folk were worried that the far-Right National Front in France would gain a large foothold of power, based on an upswing in support from a stagnant economy and (especially) Islamicist terrorism over the last year. And the first round of election that fear seemed to be coming to pass. Then …: 'France's … Continue reading “Election turnout matters, dammit”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,81,353,532,347],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-elections-2010","category-elections-2014","category-elections-2016","category-voting-rights"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":46050,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/23\/as-we-hurtle-toward-the-election.html","url_meta":{"origin":129172,"position":0},"title":"As we hurtle toward the election","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 23-Oct-14 5:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"My wife and I have voted. I would encourage everyone else to do so, too. Yes, even Republicans (I, for one, think heavy voting is better on principle than light voting, even when it doesn't favor my point of view), but particularly for Democrats. These things make a difference. Are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/senate%2Bforecast.pngimgmax%3D660.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24284,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/06\/im-sure-the-gop-will-be-over-new-election-laws-over-this.html","url_meta":{"origin":129172,"position":1},"title":"I'm sure the GOP will be over new election laws over this","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-Dec-11 7:35pm","format":false,"excerpt":"After all, they've spent a huge amount of time chasing a bunch of mythical \"fraudulent voters\" by adding all sorts of voter ID laws, restricting voter registration programs, reducing voting periods, etc.So now that we have a real, honest-to-gosh case of election fraud, actually convicted in court, what sort of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6490,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/08\/26\/insane.html","url_meta":{"origin":129172,"position":2},"title":"Insane?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 26-Aug-04 11:37am","format":false,"excerpt":"BoingBoing reports on an \"Insane plan to let military to vote using insecure email.\" The plan affects military personnel from Missouri. Quoting an anonymous contributor: Increasing voter turnout is always...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2004"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2004","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2004"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30785,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/23\/yes-clearly-just-another-voting-suppressive-mistake.html","url_meta":{"origin":129172,"position":3},"title":"Yes, clearly just another voting-suppressive mistake","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 23-Oct-12 3:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Maricopa County in Arizona again seems to have (purely innocently, of course) given the wrong date for the election in Spanish-language materials.'Yvonne Reed, spokesperson for the Maricopa County Department of Elections, told HuffPost that some of the Spanish-language notices were incorrect because the department used the election date from last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31112,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/01\/pundits-and-predictions.html","url_meta":{"origin":129172,"position":4},"title":"Pundits and Predictions","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 1-Nov-12 10:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"1. Every pundit seems to have a strong idea that Their Candidate Will Win.2. Some substantial proportion of those pundits (let's say 50%) will turn out to be, in fact, dead wrong.3. All the wrong pundits will have plentiful reasons why their predictions were wrong, ranging from it being the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7077,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/11\/02\/refresh_refresh.html","url_meta":{"origin":129172,"position":5},"title":"Refresh … refresh … refresh …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 2-Nov-04 3:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Doyce has found CNN's Election Results page, which provides a nice snapshot of all the results as they (are yet to) trickle in. It's got some nice side-bar customization you...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2004"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2004","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2004"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129196,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129172\/revisions\/129196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}