The American Voting Process

[Inquartata]

Universal education, IMO, is less about education than socialization. It teaches work habits, meeting deadlines, punctuality, working in groups, obedience to authority, and getting along with or at least enduring peers and superiors. It trains kids for their roles as worker drones, in other words. In this sense it is a useful thing.

It also provides a degree of cultural homogenization. A national perspective is better for that purpose than 10,000 private local ones would be.

But you need self-actualization to get an actual education. Government is not good at persuading young people to do that.

[Robert Smith]

More important to my mind than the mechanics of election is choice; and to my mind - admittedly jaundiced, admittedly outside and differently-informed - what you've got is a two horse race where both horses are put up by the most privileged in society, with the primary purpose of preserving their positions at any cost.

I'm not saying that any other country does it better; around here, there's a tendency to vote for the party you think most likely to keep the one you don't want in, out. But there doesn't really seem to be anything to choose between - donkey **** or elephant ****, it's all ****.

It doesn't seem like there's much of a voice for the regular guy in the street. When these two behemoths can mobilise such vast resources, how does the little guy break in? Even when Ross Perot's the "little" guy?

You could hope that there might be other ways to at least give "you, the people" more opportunity for input; another decade or so and it should be viable to hold electronic referenda on all kinds of things. But I guess that relies in large part on an educated audience, and that relies on who's doing the educating.

Hmm, come to think of it, you're snookered...

[esskreemr]

I'm intrigued by the recent push to take congressional districting and most of the election process out of the hands of those being elected. I'm somewhat skeptical and I'm not naive to believe it could have a potential negative effective on both parties. Will it have the desired effect? Only time will tell.

[epeeisky]

I'm not saying that any other country does it better; around here, there's a tendency to vote for the party you think most likely to keep the one you don't want in, out. But there doesn't really seem to be anything to choose between - donkey **** or elephant ****, it's all ****.

I agree. A large percentage of the people in the US cannot tell you why they vote for or against a person or bill only that they think he is a good man or they just hate the opposite side. I don't dislike the voting process; I think people dont use the process correctly. Instead of actualy finding out the isssues, they vote on their "gut feeling" and vote in a party instead of a person. If I asked people at my school, an overwhelmingly biased population, why they voted for Bush, Kerry or other they would respond somewhere along the lines of " They are better than the other person." So if our system was used corectly it would accurately account for the political/social/economic needs and wants of the country, but since people often dont use the system corectly the squekiest wheel then gets the grease instead of the bigger percentage. Basically if our democracy was used corectly, or as I see it should be used, people would be much happier and would "work"

I feel that our democracy is fine to propogate to other nations under certain circumstances and would work in those countries.

I hope my rambling makes some sense.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Congress should pass a law requiring voter-verifiable paper audit trails on all electronic voting machines.
This would be great - is there any reason for why it should be any other way???


States should require voters to present photo IDs and offer free photo IDs to those who don't have drivers' licenses.
A comparison - over here (Sweden) voters do not have to register to vote. Correct voting cards are sent out to the correct address of every voter, without fail.

All "legitimate domestic and international election observers" should be granted unrestricted access to the election process, within the rules of the election.
Considering that the USA sends out such observers to other countries, it would be a bit much to demand that other countries do not do the same thing.

News organizations should voluntarily refrain from projecting any presidential election results in any state until all polls have closed in all states but Alaska and Hawaii.
Has been tried in several European countries, with little success. There are always workarounds, and it just creates a divide between those who have access to restricted information and the rest. Information wants to be free!


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


Election systems and the theories behind them happen to be a favorite topic of mine, do a search if you doubt me.

Some rehashes of what ails the US. system, IMO:

1. There are too few viable candidates to any given post. Therefore, the least bad viable candidate for a given voter is often so bad so that the voter can not bring himself to vote for him. This breeds voter apathy, and a host of other problems.
2. The core constitutiencies of each party have too much power in selecting the party candidate. This leeds to polarized elections, where the stated opinions of the 2 leading candidates in high-profile (but often not very costly) issues are greatly divergent, and the middle-of-the-road voters have nobody to represent their views.
3. The huge importance of money. US. candidates must spend a lot on getting money, and so far we have not seen any "point of diminishing returns" when it comes to US. elections. This is intertwined with #2.
4. The single-seat districts. This makes #1-3 worse, and gives fewer opportunities to up-and-coming politicians try their hands.

there are more, but I have to go now.


Have a ncie time!

Peter Gustafsson