Readers React: ‘Voteria’ for L.A.: Do we really want to bribe people to vote?

To the editor: The lottery has been characterized as a “tax on stupidity” due to the astronomical odds of winning. Do we want to increase the number of voters by drawing from this large pool of the ignorant who are only motivated by an unrealistic belief that they might win a lottery if they show up on election day? (“Whatever you call it, bribing voters is a bad idea,” editorial, July 21)

It’s better to have a smaller turnout in which most of the voters participate through a desire to do their civic duty and are thus likely to be better informed and have thought about the issues. Lottery participants are, by definition, probably uninformed.

John Ovnick, Chatsworth

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To the editor: I agree that using a Voteria to get more people to participate in a school board election is problematic. But using a lottery to simply get people to vote might be a good way to help maintain our democracy. Our very low turnout of late is a threat to our democracy.

At the senior citizen facility where I live, we had a high turnout last November. We got 85% of our eligible voters to go to the polls, and having a lottery helped a great deal.

Harry Shragg, Reseda

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