FAQ
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Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Isn't this illegal?
Q: Shouldn't people be allowed not to vote?
Q: What about those who don't want to register or vote because
they don't want to be on another government
database?
Q: Won't the administrative costs be too much to bother?
Q: Where will the money collected from fines go to?
Q: How can I help put this on the ballot?
Q: Why is your web page so simplistic?
Q: Isn't this illegal?
A: No, it is perfectly legal and constitutional, both federally and at the state level.
The Constitution of the United States of America only bars charging someone to vote or
denying someone over eighteen the right to vote based on their age, gender, race, or religion
(see Article XV, XXIV, and XXVI). Under this proposition, voting is still
absolutely free and open to all Californians over eighteen regardless of age, gender, race or religion.
The Constitution of the state of California reiterates that elections must be free of charge to the voter
and then extends voter rights by removing any property ownership restrictions to voting. Under this proposition
voting is, again, still free and those who don't own property are still allowed to vote.
These are the only constitutional restrictions placed on the Government regarding the regulation of voting.
All of these restrictions limit the ability of the Government to interfere with those who are voting. Not a word
is mentioned about interfering with those who do not vote.
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Q: Shouldn't people be allowed not to vote?
A: You are still allowed not to vote, it's just going to cost you at least $50 for the privilege.
There are stop signs up and down this State. There are no physical barriers that force you to stop.
However, if you don't stop, if you choose to break the social contract of the road, then you can expect to
be fined well over fifty dollars.
We live in a representative democracy. This type of social contract can
only be expected to work if a significant number of the population votes. If you are completely unwilling
to enter into this contract and refuse to vote, then you will be much better off moving to a good old monarchy
or dictatorship than whining about paying fifty dollars for violating the basic underpinnings of our democracy.
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Q: What about those who don't want to register or vote because they don't want to be on another government
database?
A: If they are that paranoid, then they should be able to hide from the fine.
If they are unable to hide from
the government well enough to evade the fine, they obviously don't believe strongly enough in their right to
anonymity for this to be a real excuse. It is instead a smokescreen for laziness. You have four options:
get up and go to the polling station, order an absentee ballot and spend a commercial or two to fill it out,
pay the $50 fine, or put enough energy into hiding your existence that the fine collectors are unable to find you.
If you are too lazy to hide or to vote, then you will have to pay the fine and hopefully help fix our broken
democracy by throwing money at the problem.
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Q: Won't the administrative costs be too much to bother?
A: There is no technical reason for the administrative costs to be very large at all.
We already have the technology in place to automatically send a ticket to red light runners all by machine.
The first person to touch the envelope is the local postal delivery person. In addition to the physical infrastructure
to print tickets, various federal, state, and local agencies already have a database of those who are registered,
those who voted, those who have California drivers license and ID cards, those who own property in the state,
those who pay state and federal income tax, and those who answered the US Census department amongst other databases.
The computer code to cross check these databases to find out who didn't register or vote is fairly trivial to write.
The whole process could easily be completely automated.
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Q: Where will the money collected from fines go to?
A: The general fund I assume.
Regardless of where the funds go in the state and local government apparatus, chances are that they will be
misapprobated and misspent. Our voter apathy has led to a situation where elected officials are in power because
they were able to get 15% of the eligible voting population to vote for them. This is the root cause of the
vast majority of the rot present in our government. In order to assist our struggling democracy those who
are eligible to vote either need to vote, or they need to help pay for the porkish, special interest bought,
politics that result from their non-participation.
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Q: How can I help put this on the ballot?
A: Contact us, then help gather signatures from your region during our signature drive.
We have 150 days to gather around 460,000 signatures around the state.
There are two ways to help in this endeavor, actively and passively. Active participation is prefered.
Active:
- Contact us and let us know that you are interested in helping collect
signatures in your area.
- Print out and copy a bunch of signature forms, either US Legal size
or US letter. US Legal is
recomended.
- Go to your local post office or elections department and get a stack of voter registration forms
for those who want to sign but are not registered.
- Try to collect as many signatures as you can from your surrounding area.
At regular intervals, send the completed signature forms back to us collated by county.
We recomend hitting places where there is a large flux of locals. Sites like: strip malls,
grocery stores, wherehouse stores, movie theaters, local sports games and night clubs
(get them while the wait to pass the bouncer/ID checker).
Passive:
Send us money. We accept check, cash, and money orders. We don't have the non-profit
paperwork, so we fall under the same tax codes as sidewalk bums. Help us out of the goodness of your heart and
don't expect to be able to write off much if any of it.
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Q: Why is your web page so simplistic?
A: Mainly because I know what having a slow connection to the internet feels like and, to a lesser
extent, because there are too many things to do in too short of a time to put too much effort into
window dressing.
My main internet connection is dial-up over cruddy rural copper. For this privilege I pay by the minute.
I know what it is like to sit twiddling your thumbs and watching the meter while a graphics intensive site
struggles to load. Everyone agrees that the ultimate goal of any enterprise should be the seamless marriage
between form and function. But when time constraints force one to choose between the two, one should always
choose function. The message should always take precedence over the medium. If you feel you could do better
with this site,
please do and send me a copy. If it still loads fine over my internet connection, I'll replace this web page
with yours.
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Useful links
Califo: Attorney General's office: initiative coordinator
California State Department: Initiative Update
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Contact Information
Rev. Christopher DeMars
email: vote@sonnet.com
phone: 209 533 1564
mail: 21452 Crestview Dr., Sonora, CA 95370
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