Voting; Will We Ever Get it Right?
by Big Dog on Feb 5, 2008 at 19:15 Political
This country has had elections for a very, very long time and yet it seems that every time there is an election there are problems. These are not the problems of cheating like those that took place in past elections with dead people voting, ballot boxes being stuffed and ballots being found at the last minute to rescue a losing Democrat. No, these are technical glitches that seem to occur more and more frequently.
Today there were problems in Illinois, News Jersey, California and Arizona. Some of the problems dealt with voters being purged from the rolls and arriving at the wrong polling places (including those who showed up in states that do not vote today) but most problems were technical in nature. It would seem that a country with the greatest technology in the world could build and use a voting machine that does not cause all the problems. We only do this every few years so we have lots of time to get it right but each and every time we appear more inept than the time before. We went from inept voters in Florida with hanging chads on butterfly ballots to electronic equipment that does not work. These kinds of glitches do nothing to instill faith in a population that already has trusts issues with regard to their government.
It seems to me that there are ways to fix these problems and they do not involve getting more advanced equipment. We should use scanned ballots that the voter fills in with a number 2 pencil. Then the voter would feed it into a machine as the judge watches. The machine can tally the votes and the ballot cards retained in case of a question of accuracy. There are certainly other things we can do. They could have all the primaries on the same day. This would keep us from having confused people and it would also prevent us from having to endure these candidates flying around the country pandering to people. The millions of dollars spent in Iowa and New Hampshire were a waste of money and having all the races on the same day would keep candidates from wasting it and keep states from having an advantage over others.
Having the primaries on the same day would also allow people in every state to vote for the someone on the entire plate of candidates. As it stands now, people who supported Edwards, Richardson, Thompson, Giuliani and others are not afforded the opportunity to vote for those people. We have our national election on one day and the primaries should be no different.
Though it has nothing to do with technical glitches, we should also have a rule allotting votes based on the amount of taxes a person pays. Each person would get one vote and then people would get an additional vote for each $5000 (or another reasonable number) they pay in taxes. This would make our voting system more like corporate America where people get one vote for each share of stock they own in a company. The people who pay more taxes own a bigger share of the country. They have more invested in the country and they should get additional say in how the country is run. I know there are those who will complain and say it is unfair but these are the same people who think it is perfectly fair for the money of those paying taxes to be given to those who don’t. What is unfair is for the top 25% of wage earners to keep paying 80% of the taxes in this country and having no more say in how the country is run than the bottom 75%.
Then again, maybe our election system has glitches because it is run by an ever increasing government bureaucracy. Government never runs things efficiently and more government means more inefficiency.
Source:
ABC News
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Tags: ballots, electronic voting machines, technology, voting glitches
The media should not be allowed any of the vote totals until all precints are tallied, to include the absentee ballots.
They are calling states for people with 1% of the tally in!!
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The main problem with a national primary is it would disenfranchise the people in smaller states. California, New York, Florida would have all the say because there would be more bang for the buck. That’s pretty unfair.
I have no problem with early primaries, I just think they need to schedule randomly or cycle or something so that it’s not the same few states deciding year after year. The small states let the candidates slow down, meet with people, get face time and stuff, unlike with Super Tuesday where it was mostly TV campaigning and very short very frantic stumping in very select states…
A national primary would also screw over lessor candidates. In a national primary Hillary would probably have won in a landslide because of her name recognition that she rode on right up until Obama won Iowa and started to erode her national support. I think you’ll agree that people like Ron Paul get shafted enough already, and I don’t think this would help matters at all…
I don’t believe you’ve thought this higher tax pay means more votes thing. That’s perhaps one of the most un-American things I’ve ever heard you say, and if that needs explaining then you should re-evaluate a few things…
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I don’t think it is any more unAmerican than it is to tax rich people outrageously and give the money to the poor. 25% of the wage earners pay 80% of the taxes and that is unAmerican.
If the wealthy are expected pay more while the poor receive more in benefits than they should have more of a say in how the system runs.
Remember, the Constitution does not give us the right to vote. It states that electors will meet in their respective states. The founders did not give people the right to vote, just electors and there is no mention as to how they are selected.
If people are expected to do more than other people (as in pay more in taxes) then those folks should have more of a say. I could agree that each of us should have an equal vote if each of us were treated equally in other aspects of how this country runs. America is based on capitalism and that principle says that shareholders get a greater say if they have more stake in the company.
As for a national election, proportion the votes like the Dems do (no winner take all) and have a national election. Then, no real state has an advantage because votes are proportioned by how much of a state is won.
I do like the proportional allocation overall, but I feel that selfish tug of winner take all when I root for Hillary and see her come out on top in delegate rich states like California, New York, and New Jersey, but only win 10% more delegates in those states in the end. It makes things more fair overall though throughout places like the Southern States where Obama was able to keep the stakes high with large margins of victory in a bunch of relatively low delegate states. After all the mess that was Super Tuesday, it’s even closer than it was…
It seems that proportional allows it to be more fair so no one feels left out.
You are right, it is more of a mess today than it was Monday! It might go to convention and then all hell would break loose…
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