The Big Picture: One Day in November

[ThunderCavalier]

Definitely something to wrap your head around.

However, tbh, Bob, I'm not going to vote, and I'm probably going to be one of those people trying to get Halo 4. However, it isn't because I value Halo 4 over politics (OK, I do, but hear me out.), but rather, it's because the presidents and the government in general has become so stagnant and deadlocked that we're not likely to have any truly significant changes or events anytime soon. The only really big turnout of the Obama election was the Obamacare, and that's been shoved on the backburner due to Republicans deadlocking everything that it would do in the first place, so Obama's... essentially done nothing.

I know the whole point of a democracy is to vote for a president that will bring change, but between the stagnant Obama administration and the rollbacking Republicans that advocate ideas from an age I'd like to burn to the ground rather than hear ranted at me one more time, I think I'll just stay home and play out Master Chief's new chapter. It'll be more productive, well-spent time than voting to see who we blame for the new four years of nothing.

 

[Treblaine]

Yeah, e-votes can be hacked. And ballot boxes can be stuffed. What is the distinction? There is none.

I have no tolerance for such fatuous concerns, we accept the possibility of ballot-box stuffing because it is as old as democracy, but we won't accept the risk of "hacking" because it is new and we don't understand it. That is a ridiculous logic.

I'd like you to show me a ballet stuffer who is not only able to stuff thousands of extra votes into the box while at the same time removing opposing votes. That would be quite impressive.

I don't think you understand me, I'm not scared of e-votes because they are a new way of doing things. I'm scared of them because of the incredible importance of their job coupled with the fact that they can be altered to completely skew the results.

The example you cite of election fraud had laughably poor security. It is the digital equivalent of leaving the main ballot box in the middle of the street with a sign on it said "Official votes, do not tamper with" and leaving it unguarded - but WOW, turns out someone tampered with it when they weren't looking! The Login was "admin" and the password was "admin". That's not a grand heist, that's stealing candy from a baby. There are not superlatives extreme enough for how careless this is.

Yes the security was laughably terrible, the thing is that the people who created the system challenged people to try to hack it in an attempt to prove how 'secure' the e voting system is. This is equivalent to placing a ballot box in the middle of the street with a sign that says "We created the most secure ballot box ever, you can't tamper with it even if you tried"

The fact that the login/password was admin just furthers the point, this was a human error. It's actually a lot easier to take advantage of a human error than a computer one since people are idiots: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-27/human-errors-fuel-hacking-as-test-shows-nothing-prevents-idiocy.html

I'll spell this out for you:
For the same amount of money invested and expertise employed, you can make electronic internet-based voting a whole order of magnitude more secure than paper voting

alright thanks for spelling it out, but please explain it. Just because you claim that e-voting can be made secure doesn't make it so. How would you prevent human errors? how would you make sure that these systems can't be hacked? It's hard to fix a problem in the software if you don't even know it's there and by the time you figured it out the damage would have already been done.

Is that clear enough? Is it unhackable? HELL NO! But it IS more secure. Stop using "hack" in some colloqual TV-trash way for "magic with computers". Some things ARE impossible to seize illicit control. Like the United States's nuclear missiles silos.

I don't appreciate being patronized. just because I don't go into grand detail about certain hacking techniques doesn't mean I assume people can type for 10 minutes and steal all the money from a bank account. I'd also like to point out that just because the nuclear missle silo's haven't been hacked doesn't make them impossible to hack. Have you ever heard of Stuxnet?


Before it people assumed nuclear power plants couldn't be hacked either. How did the virus get into the power plants? through PC's used by maintenance staff, human error.

The point is even if you can hack into it YOU WILL KNOW IT WAS HACKED! But if someone starts stuffing ballot boxes... you have [no way of knowing. The security you need for ballots is extraordinary and there is a while encyclopaedia of techniques to defraud an election submitted in paper and unlike on a computer they are untracable and undetectable.

you might want to read that article again, specifically this paragraph:

By exploiting a number of equally egregious security flaws, the team was able to get inside the system, block it off from other attackers, control the ballots, modify them to include SkyNet and Bender, and accomplish this all while remaining completely covert. As a victory dance of sorts, the team programmed the machines to play the University of Michigan fight song. Authorities remained unaware of the successful hack until a tester ? who had just ruled the system ?secure,? I might add ? suggested they lose the music because it was annoying.

they got away with it, so much so that a tester wasn't able to notice it after it had already happened. It's actually fairly easy to stay hidden when using a computer.

You false assumption is because paper-based in-the-booth voting has been around for so long it is somehow immune. am fed up with this double standard against new technology that can make people's lives so much better. This is like refusing to have new surgical procedure to remove a tumour by citing an example of a charlatan doctor who performed a botched surgery while drunk.

I have nothing against new technology but just because it's new doesn't make it safe. It has already been shown that these things are hackable on more than one occasion: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44706301/ns/technology_and_science-security/t/it-only-takes-hack-voting-machine/#.T6HBlsV20kY

what's more you don't even need to be smart to do it, a lot of these hacks are done by 'injecting' the machine with software which means that anyone with a basic understanding of computers can pull it off.

I remind you, the hack at UoM would work just as well whether the votes were entered on paper or via the internet, as it attacked the central counting system which MUST be a digital computer to count them reliably and quickly. Would you rather wait weeks for votes to be counted with a 5-10% margin of error?

how would these vote counters be hacked? the general public would not be allowed anywhere near them, they wouldn't need to be connected to the internet (which means they can't be remotely hacked) and the only way a human error could occur is if someone were to connect/install something onto the machine allowing the hack to happen.

Did you vote in the caucuses? If not, why not? Don't complain you don't have democratic choice if you discard your opportunity to choose.

No I didn't, because I'm Canadian.

I can give you examples of ridiculous election fraud as in Zimbabwe and Iran, but the problem with paper elections is PRECISELY that ballot box stuffing (that includes discarding votes of votes you don't want) is untraceable. You literally have to have cameras everywhere and make sure their recordings are never tampered with. Electronic voting it is possible - as with secure bank transactions - to make tampering with even a single solitary vote a mountainous task with multiple avenues to get caught.

The explanation is in how internet protocols work and how such an electronic voting system should work, it's exchange of codes and algorithms, constantly in confirming communication with multiple police servers and monitoring where the packets go and come from.

Um, how do you propose we can remove human error from the equation OTHER than via more electronic internet/computer based voting? Human errors are inherent EVEN WITHOUT ANY COMPUTERS INVOLVED! There are human errors in counting the votes by hand. Fail to carry the one and suddenly thousands of voters have been disenfranchised.

I have more than hear about stuxnet, my dad works in a gas refinery that has been hit by stuxnet and he has overseen efforts to contain it. It's no big issue. It's a simple troll virus and obvious in its effect, in no way is it relevant to the possibility of SECRETLY tipping election results in an internet based national election.

Their "without being noticed" is not because they were invisible, but because NO ONE WAS LOOKING FOR THEM! It really is like an unwatched ballot box in the middle of the street at night, no one saw them not because they were invisible... but because NO ONE WAS LOOKING! Their network was not policed, there were no significant firewalls, it's nothing but a basic Windows network security AND THEY HAD AN EASY TO GUESS KEY CODE! Am I mad? Kind of, yeah. That this university could be so dense and on the other hand people like you concluding new technology is ALL untrustworthy. They didn't even USE even a fraction of the network security they could have used.

Please STOP using this ridiculous straw-man argument of UoM's LAZY attempt at voting. They had less than poor security, they had NO SECURITY! You cannot keep using this example of its unacceptably unreliable security when it's clear they didn't even try. I mean the login password they used, no admins paroling ready to pull the plug, nothing. Where were the firewalls?

They central counting computers would be hacked exactly the same as in this UoM example. Via the internet. They need to be connected to the internet to receive the results from each count in a timely manner. In principal and and in practice it is exactly the same the difference being UoM DIDN'T EVEN TRY to make their system secure and in actual national elections in the USA they DO MAKE IT SECURE! Even nuclear missiles silos are connected to the internet, that is why the internet was created to coordinate a nuclear war, but they don't get hacked BECAUSE THEY ACTUALLY BOTHER TO TRY TO MAKE THEM SECURE!

Let me make this clear, University of Michigan did not even TRY to make their system secure. This is no Fort-Knox heist, this is inviting someone to steal candy from a baby and then declaring them master thieves. Now if someone hacks a Nuclear Missile silo and launches a random nuclear weapon... THEN you can go around claiming that no system is secure and we need to perform every election in a boot with paper, but till then, nope.avi

PS: why are you complaining about US elections then? Canada doesn't have a President but a Prime Minister? What is your problem? Anyway, Ive explained the voting in the caucuses, so there, you do have more than "just a choice between two candidates"

 

[SciFi Maniac]

I hate the prospect of ignorant youngsters voting, so when I first heard that this may deter young voters, I smiled on the inside... Darwinism, however, obligates me to say that I was NOT referring to any of the well-informed, political savvy individuals on this website. You are all shining paragons of culture and knowledge, rivaling the abilities of greek philosophers. Nor was I referring to myself, an individual among the very demograhic I expressed skepticism towards... PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!

 

[SciFi Maniac]

Definitely something to wrap your head around.

However, tbh, Bob, I'm not going to vote, and I'm probably going to be one of those people trying to get Halo 4. However, it isn't because I value Halo 4 over politics (OK, I do, but hear me out.), but rather, it's because the presidents and the government in general has become so stagnant and deadlocked that we're not likely to have any truly significant changes or events anytime soon. The only really big turnout of the Obama election was the Obamacare, and that's been shoved on the backburner due to Republicans deadlocking everything that it would do in the first place, so Obama's... essentially done nothing.

I know the whole point of a democracy is to vote for a president that will bring change, but between the stagnant Obama administration and the rollbacking Republicans that advocate ideas from an age I'd like to burn to the ground rather than hear ranted at me one more time, I think I'll just stay home and play out Master Chief's new chapter. It'll be more productive, well-spent time than voting to see who we blame for the new four years of nothing.

But isn't the gridlock the beauty of the system? Isn't the point of the system to make radical change dificult and slow? You probably stopped reading this as soon as you saw the Calvin Coolidge profile pic, but not liking either candidate is a bad reason to avoid voting. If you do that you're essentially giving each of them half a vote. Just choose the one you agree with more, otherwise the gridlock would disappear... Man, I sound like some whimsical pamphlet they'd hand out at a high school assembly.

 

[Wesley Brannock]

His " big picture " is going on the assumption that politicians hold any real power and or that the public has a real influence over politics and or politicians. I call that assumption laughable at best dangerous at worst.

 

[cl]

That's an over generalization, their both r's and d's that push for and against different regulations.

 

[Treblaine]

Definitely something to wrap your head around.

However, tbh, Bob, I'm not going to vote, and I'm probably going to be one of those people trying to get Halo 4. However, it isn't because I value Halo 4 over politics (OK, I do, but hear me out.), but rather, it's because the presidents and the government in general has become so stagnant and deadlocked that we're not likely to have any truly significant changes or events anytime soon. The only really big turnout of the Obama election was the Obamacare, and that's been shoved on the backburner due to Republicans deadlocking everything that it would do in the first place, so Obama's... essentially done nothing.

I know the whole point of a democracy is to vote for a president that will bring change, but between the stagnant Obama administration and the rollbacking Republicans that advocate ideas from an age I'd like to burn to the ground rather than hear ranted at me one more time, I think I'll just stay home and play out Master Chief's new chapter. It'll be more productive, well-spent time than voting to see who we blame for the new four years of nothing.

Uuuuh, you know you are voting the President as the EXECUTIVE not chief legislator!

Government =/= passing laws

Government = governing = how you sort shit out

Obama gets too much credit for "Obamacare", his influence over legislature is very small and the most he can do is NOT veto the act. The President's main job is RUNNING the government.

Key Executive decision Obama has made:
-Expand special forces operation over the Afghan border into Pakistan, culminating in the death of Usama Bin Laden
-Stimulating the economy so that USA has seen growth (even if a lag in jobs) while Europe and other parts of the world stagnate.
-Ordered a standdown in Federal investigations and prosecutions over violation of federal Marijuana laws if state drug laws are not broken, so California's medical marijuana clinics can still help their patients

Why don't you vote more in the legislature elections?

Distinction between Executive and Legislature is practically taught at grade school level, why do so many not make this distinction?

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Uuuuh, you know you are voting the President as the EXECUTIVE not chief legislator!

Government =/= passing laws

Government = governing = how you sort shit out

Obama gets too much credit for "Obamacare", his influence over legislature is very small and the most he can do is NOT veto the act. The President's main job is RUNNING the government.

Key Executive decision Obama has made:
-Expand special forces operation over the Afghan border into Pakistan, culminating in the death of Usama Bin Laden
-Stimulating the economy so that USA has seen growth (even if a lag in jobs) while Europe and other parts of the world stagnate.
-Ordered a standdown in Federal investigations and prosecutions over violation of federal Marijuana laws if state drug laws are not broken, so California's medical marijuana clinics can still help their patients

Why don't you vote more in the legislature elections?

Distinction between Executive and Legislature is practically taught at grade school level, why do so many not make this distinction?

lol, I guess I screwed up that distinction, didn't I?

Even then, though, the divisive split between Americans for Republicans and Democrats means that, more than likely, we'll see a Congress and a House that's still pretty much split evenly between the two parties, meaning that we're still going to have a deadlock. Neither Romney nor Obama, imo, look like they'll be able to persuade or compromise any bill to adequately please both parties, so any action they pass in THAT regard is going to stagnate in the Congress for months at end.

I'm not disillusioned with the presidency; I'm disillusioned with our government in general. I know that, throughout history, both Republicans and Democrats have been trying to tear each other's throats out, but I haven't exactly seen a president in recent years or a united Congress/House in recent years that might be able to get SOME progress in. It still seems like the same old crap we saw back in the last election, and the last election before that, so I'm predicting we'll still have the same old four years.

Thus why I'm not going to vote; I don't see any significant change that anyone's going to bring in the next few years.

 

[Calcium]

Wait, so games don't usually come out around elections? Personally it sounds a good idea to release a game at a time both near the start of the month after people get payed and when there's very little competition.

 

[Treblaine]

lol, I guess I screwed up that distinction, didn't I?

Even then, though, the divisive split between Americans for Republicans and Democrats means that, more than likely, we'll see a Congress and a House that's still pretty much split evenly between the two parties, meaning that we're still going to have a deadlock. Neither Romney nor Obama, imo, look like they'll be able to persuade or compromise any bill to adequately please both parties, so any action they pass in THAT regard is going to stagnate in the Congress for months at end.

I'm not disillusioned with the presidency; I'm disillusioned with our government in general. I know that, throughout history, both Republicans and Democrats have been trying to tear each other's throats out, but I haven't exactly seen a president in recent years or a united Congress/House in recent years that might be able to get SOME progress in. It still seems like the same old crap we saw back in the last election, and the last election before that, so I'm predicting we'll still have the same old four years.

Thus why I'm not going to vote; I don't see any significant change that anyone's going to bring in the next few years.

Look, laws passed is only 10% of the work done. 90% is in execution: executive power. The laws america has are good enough, the real power is in the executive, like the example I gave of Obama exercising his executive power to not enforce federal Marijuana laws where marijuana is permitted by the state i.e. California's Medical Marijuana.

Remember the serving President also chooses Supreme Court Judges. You may not keep up on politics but their decision have HUGE ramifications!

I don't think you realise how significant the President is on SO MANY MANY DECISIONS!

Stop voting for a PRESIDENT and expecting the CONGRESS to change! Voter turnout in congressional elections is even lower, why? Because people like you say "it's futile". This is the same logic of insignificance-individual-contribution that pirates use to pirate their games, yet act surprised when they favourite studios turn bankrup to spite playing all their games... by pirating them.

Please, PLEASE vote! You don't have to announce your vote and argue your point or have to take abuse for voting for one or the other, you should exercise your most solemn right: the right to a secret vote. If anyone ever asks you "well who did you vote for" tell them it is a secret. If they bark at you "why won't you tell your vote" because it is supposed to be a FREE VOTE! Having to explain your stance limits your vote by your ability to explain and defend it.

You NEVER have to publically justify you vote, even the the point of never having to announce your vote. But please, PLEASE, actually follow your decision through. Votes are won by SUCH SLIM MARGINS. Literally, whether you vote one way or another can have a HUGE significance one the outcome. Do not buy into the LIE that your vote is worthless.

 

[Deathmageddon]

Why choose between Halo and Voting? I can do two things...

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Snip

And all of a sudden I understand the relatively low voter turnout in the states (that and voter-apathy due to living in a, for all intents and purposes, 2 party country).

Do you have to register to vote once per election or just every time you move? (If so not that dissimilar from what we do here, each time you move (even within a single municipality) you have to inform your local government (which can be done online, yay).)

A minimum of 5 to 10 miles (8 to 16 km) to the nearest polling place?! Damn those scale differences between the states and the Netherlands just keep surprising me. Let's run the numbers. The city I live in (Nijmegen) has about 165000 inhabitants and is about 57 km^2 (~22 miles^2) in size, the closest city is Arnhem (~141000 inhabitants) and lies at a distance of about 17 km (~10 miles). During the last elections there were 97 polling places in Nijmegen, about 1.6 per km^2 or about 4.3 per mile^2.

Sounds to me like the states needs a reliable system for voting over the internet. Mmm apparently we used such a thing in 2006 to allow expats to vote in the elections, Rijnland Internet Election System [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rijnland_Internet_Election_System].

Yeah, it's just when people move that they have to re-register. As far as I know, there is no way to register online, and we definitely don't have a way to vote online because there is a lot of fear of people hacking the system in favor of one candidate or the other.

On the voting places, as far as I know they are only allowed to be housed/held in government or certain public buildings(like schools).

The city I live in has a total area of 23.36 square miles (60.5 km^2), and a estimated population of around eighty-one thousand. So it is basically a little bit bigger than your city, and only has a little less than half the number ofinhabitants I tried to find out how many voting places there were during the last presidential election, but I couldn't. I would say that being generous with the number, I would say that there would be no more than 15 places. They just don't let any old place house voting areas. They have to be large enough to hold many people and also be a secure setting so things stay under control.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Look, laws passed is only 10% of the work done. 90% is in execution: executive power. The laws america has are good enough, the real power is in the executive, like the example I gave of Obama exercising his executive power to not enforce federal Marijuana laws where marijuana is permitted by the state i.e. California's Medical Marijuana.

Remember the serving President also chooses Supreme Court Judges. You may not keep up on politics but their decision have HUGE ramifications!

I don't think you realise how significant the President is on SO MANY MANY DECISIONS!

Stop voting for a PRESIDENT and expecting the CONGRESS to change! Voter turnout in congressional elections is even lower, why? Because people like you say "it's futile". This is the same logic of insignificance-individual-contribution that pirates use to pirate their games, yet act surprised when they favourite studios turn bankrup to spite playing all their games... by pirating them.

Please, PLEASE vote! You don't have to announce your vote and argue your point or have to take abuse for voting for one or the other, you should exercise your most solemn right: the right to a secret vote. If anyone ever asks you "well who did you vote for" tell them it is a secret. If they bark at you "why won't you tell your vote" because it is supposed to be a FREE VOTE! Having to explain your stance limits your vote by your ability to explain and defend it.

You NEVER have to publically justify you vote, even the the point of never having to announce your vote. But please, PLEASE, actually follow your decision through. Votes are won by SUCH SLIM MARGINS. Literally, whether you vote one way or another can have a HUGE significance one the outcome. Do not buy into the LIE that your vote is worthless.

Pretty damn inspirational words. Ever think of running for a political office yourself?

Being serious, though, you do bring up a good point. Heh, you've at least convinced me. I guess I could go out and vote, then.

 

[gim73]

Who says that you NEED to grab a game on release day? For that matter, these big games ALWAYS get a midnight release, so we might as well just pick it up then. November always seems to be a good month to release games. Look at last november. We got Skyrim, Assassins creed revelations, saints row 3 and a couple others that weren't nearly as fun.

 

[Shagdawg]

Can't people both vote and buy Halo 4?

Now, you see, in a "normal" country that would be the case, but the USA is a country where election even has a possibility of being controlled by people who
a) have an xbox
b) will by a game at launch date no matter what (no matter what side you may be on, still is kind of a deciding on the future of the country and you might even count the world)
c) buy a game where the main character is named "Master Chief", that's right, most people call him by his rank

...so yeah, that's the country with the biggest nuclear armament in the world.

Microsoft marketing guys are either stupid or politically careless or intentionally almost breaking the law. Either way, day before or day after would've been better.

This is a rambling, incoherent post that means nothing and adds nothing to the conversation. The only intent is to take a jab at the US and show off poor grammar. I'm guessing you're from the UK since you sound like all the other America hating Brits on this site. Seriously, go fuck yourself.

 

[Shagdawg]

The biggest lie in the world is the belief that presidential elections mean anything. People vote for their favorite candidate, sure. But then other, more powerful people get to control the president. This isn't a conspiracy theory, it's how politics works. Politicians are being run by lobbyists. It's the sad reality. People get the illusion of democracy, and it's good enough for most of them. The problem is, people are waking up. The more you fuck with them the faster they're gonna wake up. Internet is the biggest contributor to that. No wonder corporations want it censored. I can say with 90% certainty that by the end of this decade people will be fed up with all this bullshit.

Yes, cooperations control everything, freedom is just an illusion, we're slaves, SLAVES! It's not like Republicans and Democrats regularly change seats in the house and senate depending on public opinion (which more or less seesaws), and that government policies change depending on who is control. Obama Care would have been passed even if Democrats weren't in control of the senate at the time...Also, the government caused 9/11, the moon landing was faked, and Jesus was an alien, they knew it and no one is telling us TAI YONG MEDICAL CONTROLS THE WORLD...I dunno, call me a brainwashed idiot if you want but I smell bull.

Nice SMT Nocturne reference.

 

[Axyun]

I'm surprised at how jaded many of the posters here are. Yes the average american is at a disadvantage when large corporations can pour millions of dollars into lobbying for their interests, but our votes still count even if not 100% of what they should.

I also can't understand how people can claim that the two candidates are the same. Anyone who is actually aware of the current issues contested between the candidates, and women in particular should be very involved as there are some REALLY big issues related to them, will know that the two candidates are most definitely NOT the same thing.

I saw a previous poster call Obama a war monger. Really? For going after the people who were responsible for 9/11 instead of Iraq and for, just a few days ago, announcing the end and demobilization of the U.S. army in Afghanistan since we killed the person we were after?

I'm willing to bet good money that 99% of the people here making sweeping generalizations about the candidates or expressing their cynicism for the system don't actually know what is actually current in politics. Even if you felt helpless to cause change, you should still educate yourself. Most of you jaded types just come across as being ignorant. Again, if you are a woman and you can tell me with a straight face that both candidates are the same then you need to get up-to-date on politics ASAP. Your pay and your right to health services are in jeopardy at the moment on account of the differences between the two candidates.

 

[Drop_D-Bombshell]

Hmm....I never really noticed this. Maybe it's because i have no idea about American politics or the fact that 6/11 was election day, but now that you mention it, it does sound rather iffy. Probably nothing.

Anyway, great episode this week, looking forward to next week's.

 

[zombflux]

I'm 18-20, but I won't be buying Halo 4 since the Halo franchise is nothing reskins of a mediocre console FPS, and I won't be voting since I don't want either candidate to win. I'd vote for Ron Paul, but I'd be wasting my time.

You do know that not voting for either of them won't mean that neither of them get the job?

Surely there is one you would PREFER to have as president? You not voting is not going to be interpreted as protest, it's going to be interpreted as laziness. If you have to choose between a ham sandwich and a dirt sandwich, pick the ham sandwich even if you don't like ham. You do not have a choice on no sandwich, come 2013 America WILL get a new President.

You don't have to like either of the candidates, you just have to decide. It's like being on a jury deciding if a man is either "Guilty" or "not Guilty", you aren't voting for the winner of Big Brother. You just have to decide of the candidates which is best for the job.

The only reason I'd have for deliberately not voting (if I was capable of) is if I REALLY COULD NOT DECIDE which was better or worse or I thought it really wouldn't matter which got elected.

I don't care if it's interpreted as laziness. Until they get rid of the "two" party system, voting is a joke. This country is a joke. Ron Paul is best for the job. Ron Paul can not win, so I'm not going to vote, because I'm "lazy".

 

[Treblaine]

I don't care if it's interpreted as laziness. Until they get rid of the "two" party system, voting is a joke. This country is a joke. Ron Paul is best for the job. Ron Paul can not win, so I'm not going to vote, because I'm "lazy".

I don't get it, what is your problem with the two party system?

Don't act like you are limited to two choices, you can vote in the primaries/caucuses

And stop going on with this "laziness" straw man, I NEVER suggested nor insinuated that, and you insinuate that IS my point with putting "lazy" in quotation marks as if it is relevant to my post and "I don't care if It is interpreted as laziness" as if I or anyone on these forums thinks that.

I'll spell it out what I think is wrong with your reasoning, your idealism is at odds with democracy. If people only ever voted for their IDEAL candidate then NO ONE would EVER vote! I'd really like James Randi to be President of the united states, it's NOT going to happen but that's not a reason not to vote (the fact that I'm not a US citizen is the reason).

He's a question, did you vote for Ron Paul in the Caucus? If not, then you can't really complain he isn't one of the candidates. And if he isn't a candidate, then that doesn't mean you cannot vote for the politicians who most closely match his policies. Remember DO NOT hold the illusion that not voting for either means you won't get either.

Be honest, between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, there IS one you rather have in office come 2013?

As Brit I have to warn against a 3 party system, right now our parliament is split three ways and it is a complete mess, not as bad as the mess of the Weimar republic that was so fractured that the Nazis were able to seize power but it's no advantage.