Why I'm not voting....

im not voting b/c i don't want to get caught up in the jury duty one day
That's reasonable these days. There was a time when companies paid employees for jury duty, but that's often not the case nowadays, and I've worked at companies that did not pay for jury duty- you were expected to find a way to get out of it.

Another good reason to not vote is that voting records are public. Victims in "stalking" cases often cannot vote or even access their own credit report to see what's in it- without placing themselves at risk of being "found."

But if you don't intend to vote, I have two words for you: President McCain. If he takes office, trust me, all of you will sincerely wish we could have Bush back.

 

I did for the same reason for years. Why do you think even though voter turnout in the US is so low, our legislation has never addressed this issue? Maybe we should ask McCain and Obama where they stand on jury duty being based on political registration. You don't have to vote, you only have to register and you are on the roles.

I wonder if Iraqi voters right after our occupation were made knowledgeable that their participation in the election would open them up to donating wages while they took part in jury duty? Maybe it doesn't work that way in Iraq?

 

Has anyone ever done a study on how many of the rich ever serve on juries?

 

I just remembered another common reason for not voting... In my own state of Ohio, if for any reason you fail to file state income tax, there's a fine of $500 even if the state owed you a refund and you simply failed to file to get it. But as long as you never file again ever, and never register to vote, nothing ever happens over it- but then you can never again get a refund, if you're owed it.

So what happens is that someone fails to file, then to avoid the $500 fine, they don't file the next year (very very bad!!!). Now, to avoid $1000 in fines, the person again doesn't file. I know a guy who hasn't filed state taxes since the 1970s, and he's fine, but can never again vote without "appearing on the radar" suddenly.

Worse yet, the state outsources collections to a third party, a private-sector business that's in it to make money. The sinister part is that they don't subtract out the taxes actually withheld by the state. If you inform them of the deductions, they claim to be unable to verify them.

So for instance, if your total state tax for a given year was $600, and $500 of that was already taken out of your paycheck (so you would thus owe $100 plus the $500 fine), you are forced to pay the full $600 as if nothing was withheld, plus the $500 fine. Good luck convincing them that taxes were withheld, because a photocopy of your W-2 for that year is not accepted as proof. And anything you send them will be thrown in the trash.

I've dealt a fair amount with State of Ohio government bureaucrats, and without exception was treated professionally and courteously. I've been amazed more than once at the efficiency and skills of State of Ohio bureaucrats. But these companies getting these outsource contracts are the scum of the earth, and outsourcing government functions is simply always a bad thing.

Not to drift too far, but since I have already... has anyone heard of communities starting to outsource their police forces to private companies? I didn't think that was legal, but I was listening to a few ham operators talking recently, and they both had lived in some town in Michigan whose police force, they said, was a private company that had a contract to provide the police officers.