>If you don't know the names of your representatives you can't vote for them. Seems pretty straight forward to me.

The names are printed on the ballot, along with party affiliation. No memorization needed. In a primary there may be a bit of research needed, but even then you get a sample ballot beforehand so you can research the alternatives, but when the final election happens you generally only have two choices in the US per position and you simply vote for your party of choice.

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stryan 2 days ago | parent [-]

> The names are printed on the ballot, along with party affiliation. No memorization needed. ... > but when the final election happens you generally only have two choices in the US per position and you simply vote for your party of choice.

I want to discourage voting blindingly by party affiliation. Personally I think you should at least know the general ideas and policies of the candidate(s) you're choosing, even though given the current political state the US it's foolish to vote for one of the parties, but even besides that how hard is it to remember their name so you can check if they actually follow through with anything? I'm not expecting perfection, but for example I know my senators names so whenever there's a big vote I can at least scan the list of supporters and see if I should be pissed at them or not. That lets me have at least a general vibe towards them come primaries and election season and whether I vote for their re-election.

> In a primary there may be a bit of research needed, but even then you get a sample ballot beforehand so you can research the alternatives,

Technically out of scope from OP's original point, but there's also a variety of local elections that can have multiple candidates per party. But either way, that "bit of research" with a sample ballot is all I'm really asking for out of people. These days they're tons of great voters guides out there too that include short Q&A's with each candidate for each hot topic issue, policy standpoints, etc. Because so many people just vote by party affiliation arguably the primaries and local elections are the most impactful votes you can do.

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gopher_space 2 days ago | parent [-]

> I want to discourage voting blindingly by party affiliation

This seemed wise thirty years ago. I'm in a blue state that never had much of a problem electing republican officials up to and including the governor, and that worked well for us because every politician clearly and obviously put the state ahead of their party.

> given the current political state the US it's foolish to vote for one of the parties

It worked well for us until now. Today your call for ignoring party affiliation asks us to also ignore insurrection and child rape. That's asking too much, and I'm surprised you had the gametes to even float the idea.

	▲	stryan 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		>> given the current political state the US it's foolish to vote for one of the parties > It worked well for us until now. Today your call for ignoring party affiliation asks us to also ignore insurrection and child rape. That's asking too much, and I'm surprised you had the gametes to even float the idea. You know, I really debated on including that line because I suspected someone would misinterpret it, but I figured it would be a sorta of subtle reference to show I wasn't trying to "both sides are equally bad" type of situation. I guess I was too subtle. To put it clearly, the party it's foolish to vote for is the Republicans. I thought that was obvious given that broad state of things. However, I also think that people don't pay attention to the primaries or local elections just Vote Blue No Matter Who on election day, then get surprised we've end up with a bunch of milquetoast centralist Democrats instead of people willing to make changes like Mamdani or El-Sayed.