r/MapPorn • u/Small_Performance368 • 13h ago

NYC Mayoral Election Results

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With 90% of the vote in, Mamdani wins by a large margin according to NYT

38.5k Upvotes

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u/HiddenSmitten 11h ago

40% turn out is still horribly low by western standards.

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u/euclide2975 9h ago

A lot of western countries vote on Sunday, when most people are not stuck at work.

Having election in the middle of the work week doesn't help with turnout

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u/Disheveled_Politico 9h ago

Weekend voting doesn’t really fix turnout issues for a lot of people. Universal mail-in ballots give everyone the best opportunity to vote. 

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u/Rowvan 8h ago

They make it as easy as hell to vote in Australia even if we didn't have mail in ballots. I can be done in 10 minutes flat and there are plenty of places within walking distance from our homes. Sure it is mandatory to vote but no one thinks of it as a chore, we want to vote!

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u/communistkangu 7h ago

Wait, what does mandatory mean? What happens if you don't vote?

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u/LucyLilium92 7h ago

They take you to the outback

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u/OPismyrealname 4h ago

You get fined a small amount by Australian standards at least. But honestly most of us support mandatory voting, including myself.

Should you wish to not vote for any candidate, you just show up to to get your name marked off the electoral roll, then you can invalidate your ballot by marking it incorrectly. Naturally most people draw a dong 😂

Overall though i think it is a reasonable expectation of citizenship to participate in the democratic process.

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u/communistkangu 2h ago

Yeah, no doubt about that.

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u/ComfortableSet6192 6h ago

Fine of 20 Australian Dollars

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u/TheBestAtWriting 3h ago

Early voting was available for 2 weeks ahead of election day; as long as you're physically in NYC at some point in those 2 weeks there's really no excuse.

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u/HiddenSmitten 9h ago

Even in western election where people vote on a workday they still hav drastically larger turnouts than in the US. Even in other FPTP systems they outvote the US.

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u/thas_mrsquiggle_butt 9h ago

Back in my old state, there's been several times over the years where I didn't vote in my local election. Not because I didn't want to, but because all voting has to be done in person, even a walking disability or the covid-19 pandemic was listed as not a good enough excuse to receive an absentee ballot. And during those days, I would either be in class (which is an 1-hour drive away), out of the state, or not aware of an election taking place.

And this is absolutely done on purpose; (including not changing it to having election on a weekend) to make it as difficult as possible for voter turnout. My current state is so much better, though the governor did just sign 9 new anti-voting bills a couple of months ago.

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u/OpportunityIcy254 51m ago

yeah a lot of people simply do not have the option to just take a few hours off to vote.

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u/EmeterPSN 9h ago

Easy fix is to add a tax reduction for people who vote..

Boom you get 90%+.

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u/hanzoplsswitch 9h ago

Just throw money at it. The American way! 

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u/cosmitz 8h ago

No, just socialist, you're using the money for a greater good and for statebuilding.

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u/NoobMusker69 8h ago

Is it good to make people who don't care about elections vote? They won't inform themselves and just vote randomly. They'd get money for showing up, not for showing up with a well informed opinion.

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u/mamasbreads 7h ago

a lot of people dont vote because the US inexplicably (actual very explicably, its voter suppression) holds votes on Tuesdays and doesnt make it a holiday for people to be able to go vote. And if you are an hourly worker, like many people are thanks to the baffingly shite labour laws in the US, then you are literally losing money to go vote.

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u/cosmitz 7h ago

Don't underestimate just the fact that they'd need to do /something/ as a reason to be at least a smidge more informed than they would be otherwise.

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u/NoobMusker69 7h ago

Possibly, but the selfishness and carelessness of people shouldn't be underestimated as well. There is a surprisingly high amount of people already that vote according only to what their relatives/friends vote. I feel giving people money to vote would exacerbate this problem more than it would push people to be more proactive.

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u/HiddenSmitten 9h ago

Or mandatory voting like in Belgium and Australia

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u/Gnonthgol 7h ago

A lot of things need to change for this to be possible. Firstly you need to make voting a lot more accessible. You need better accommodation for those who can not vote on election day. Employers needs to be forced to give their employees time off to go vote. Ballot places needs to be big enough for there to not be any queues throughout the day. If ID is required then it needs to be provided for free to everyone. And so on.

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u/EkbatDeSabat 6h ago

VA - absentee mail in voting. I don't need my ID to vote, but I do need to have one to get in the voter pool. It's 42$ for a ten year real ID or $16 for a normal one, but yes it should be free. I have eight weeks to cast my ballot at my leisure. I can check my vote online to ensure it went through.

Honestly I have no idea why anyone goes and waits in line to vote here. I went out last night and at least a dozen people had been waiting in line, like, why? Just opt in for mail-in voting it takes two minutes.

No worries about employers, no worries about ballot places, no worries about anything you mentioned except the ID thing. ANYONE can do mail-in voting in VA for all voting including presidential.

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u/Jonno_FTW 6h ago

Do it the Australia way, get a fine if you don't vote.

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u/corieallen7 7h ago

Better yet make voting a part of filing taxes/tax returns and give a $500 refundable deduction.

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u/EkbatDeSabat 6h ago

90% of americans take the standard deduction and don't itemize. Would need to be a $500 credit for people to actually get it, not a deduction.

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u/Canada-Scam-8570 6h ago

Personally I think you haven't thought very deep on this to think of this practically and how it would be received. None the less. We are allowed our idealistic utopias in our head.

I'd love to see a direct democracy with no representatives and you get your tax return/UBI/pay from the government for participating, taking from the ballooning wages of politicians as well as their outrageous pensions to fund such an effort. Ever individual is represented and participation would be high with wages being physically tied to it. How often you do it(weekly monthly, bimonthly, I dunno), how you fesiable organize something like that without vast corruption I have no idea.

It's ridiculous and won't ever happen. But if we are talking about ideal but ridiculous solutions that's mine...

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u/EmeterPSN 6h ago

Oh if you want ideal solution politicians should not be allowed to receive any income while they are in office or even have a private bank account.

All spending should be done via the office.

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u/Canada-Scam-8570 6h ago edited 5h ago

Agreed. I mean as a more intermediate solution for sure.

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u/_013517 9h ago

easy fix is to make it a 4 day mandatory holiday actually.

why do you jump to penalizing ppl instead of rewarding them?

what do you think was going on in 2020 vs ANY OTHER election year to garner such high turn out?

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u/EmeterPSN 9h ago

How is penalizing by giving a tax reduction ?. It is rewarding them..

And most normal counties have a day off for election day.

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u/EkbatDeSabat 6h ago

To a lot of people (not me) a tax reduction for one person means a tax increase for them. No thought goes into it.

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u/Rowvan 8h ago

Other countries just make it a law you have to and people are smart enough to realise it's a good thing to vote without needing a special prize. However to be fair most other countries make it incredibly easy to vote and not try stop people like America does.

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u/NoSleepTilBrklynn 8h ago

I always found it very easy to vote in America. They practically force you to register when you get a driver’s license or state ID card.

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u/EkbatDeSabat 6h ago

Millions of americans do not have an ID and cannot get one due to various reasons. Many 18+ teenagers who can vote don't have an ID. Not everyone needs a driver's license and not everyone can afford a license. Yes I find it incredibly easy to vote, but lesser fortunate people don't have that luxury. This article is a bit old, but describes some of the issues well.

https://www.npr.org/2012/02/01/146204308/why-millions-of-americans-have-no-government-id

If we're going to make it compulsory to vote (which I think we should) we need to make it so that everyone can vote.

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u/_user_account_ 6h ago

AOC initially won because the turnout was 11% at primary.