How Would You Change U.S. Election Procedures?

kkrista asks: "Ignoring for a moment your opinions on the outcome of the presidential election, what do you feel can be done to improve polling procedures in the U.S.? Verifiable votes seem an obvious necessity, but what else? It seems to me that standardized Federal election procedures would help ensure a fair election." Read on for some of kkrista's ideas -- do you have any better ones?

"How about a credit card-style voter registration card that I have to swipe in order to verify that I am eligible to vote? Such a card could be used to present custom electronic ballots to voters so they do not have to physically vote in their home districts (one could be away on business and within the country's borders or even at an embassy in a foreign country and still vote without an absentee ballot). Federal standards would also put the burden of maintaining proper voting facilities on the Federal government, helping to alleviate issues that can arise with insufficient equipment in less affluent or populous districts. The idea is not to centralize the voting regulations that are currently in place in each state, but rather to centralize and unify the mechanics of casting a vote. Your thoughts?"

Comments

How about empower the Electoral College

[sb_steele]

My thought is to give back the power to the Electoral College. Enable the system as it was designed. We should all be voting for a local representative (aligned with the same district as your House Representative). Everyone within that district votes for their representative to the college. And then the entire Electoral College makes their vote for whomever they feel is the best candidate. The system is broken... I agree, but let's repair it to its original design...

Federal Voting Rules

[dJCL]

Let the individual states run the elections if they want, but have the Federal governement set the rules.

It works up here in Canada. We have been laughing our asses off at how the US runs an election for the past 4 years, and this time was no exception. When I voted, I had not been registered, I walked into the voting hall, handed them some ID, and they let me vote. No provisional ballot, nothing weird, I just voted and put it in the same box as everyone else.

And to vote, I have a single piece of paper with all the names in that race listed. I put an X (or any mark) in the space next to the name and that's it. If I mark more then one, it is a spoiled ballot.

It boils down to, I put an X next to who I want on a piece of paper.

How much harder does it have to be. We may have to wait a little longer to get the official counts, but we at least are sure it counted, and I know my vote was counted.

Anyway...

Enjoy!

Re:Federal Voting Rules

[TheCarp]

Theres several problems with our voting system (not the least of which is that I think the 1 vote for one candidate thing is silly, I would rather see a ranked voting system)

1. There are no standards

every system has its problems, differences in how votes are counted, error rates, etc. I find it amusing that in 2000 the SCOTUS stopped the recount because different systems in different counties for doing recounts meant that ballots were not bein gcounted in a univorm manner... so they tossed it on equal protection grounds.

Speculation as to their motives aside, its true, and you would think they could fix it. However nothing was done.

2. Political Parties are way too involved.

In most states to be involved in the elections, you effectivly have to be aproved by the parties. In flordia high level election officals were also high level Bush campaign people.

Now I am not saying that they cheated, but if anyone was going to cheat, then they were in the position to do so. This is a matter of conflict of interest. People who are strongly invested in one candidate winning are involved with vote counting? That has an air of inpropriety that should be avoided.

What we need is a central elections authority with very strict non-partisan rules. The entire system needs to be made completly transparent so that there is nothing to contest after the fact.

3. The system is biased

Sure you can bet a Dem and a Repub will be on the ballot, but who else can get on the ballot in every state? Nader can't, but he probably came the closest. I think we need to a) drop ALL offical recognition of political designations and parties. b) make it easier to get on ballots.

John Kerry and George Bush campaigns should have had to go through exactly the same process that Nader had to go through to get on the ballots. That would be much more fair. It just should not be so hard to get on the ballot.

In addition to this, I think there should be one ballot, on in one state, on in every state.

4 Debates

There should be federally regulated debates. Every candidate on the ballot should be invited to the debates. There should be several of them, and the candidates should be GIVEN the rules, not allowed to try to negotiate them for their own favor.

Beyond that its up to the candidates to deliver their message and call eachother on their shit. Overall I think Kerry's mistake was not calling Bush on his shit.

Kerry got in there with policy talk. He came out with concrete actions and numbers. These are things that you can disagree with though. He let Bush get away with talking in vague generality and metaphore about values and whatnot.

Frankly, if I don't rea dbetween the lines, I find myself agreeing with Bush in his speaches and his debates. he never says anything that you will disagree with. Its all visual metaphores. There is no "we are going to reform taxes, help fammilies etc", whereas Kerry is "we are going to cut this, put the money here to do that". Well nobody is going to disagree with "reform" or "helping fammilies", but they may disagree with specifics about how you do that.

But, thats up to the candidates, reforming the system can only go so far, some steps they have to take on their own.

-Steve

Tweaking the Electoral College procedures

[NeMon'ess]

I heard an idea I like that would shift the campaign more to the populated states, but would keep middle-sized states relevant. The small states are, and will continue to be overlooked, but there's even a benefit for them too.

Presently each state gets electoral votes equal to one for each member of the House it has and two for the Senators. Thus even the least populated states get three electoral votes. I'm not suggesting a change to this, but a change to the way they are awarded. The two senatorial electoral votes are separated out and the population based ones are distributed based on the percentage of the popular vote won in that state. The winner of the popular vote in each state gets two senatorial votes.

Example: Georgia - worth 15 votes (13 population, 2 senatorial)
If Lisa gets 55% of the vote and Jack gets 45%, Lisa is awarded 7 of the 13 and the two for winning for a total of 9. All further examples assume the same percentages.

Example: Montana - worth 3 votes (1 population, 2 senatorial)
The winner gets 2 plus the remaining 1. Thus winning this state is worth all 3 votes and denies the losing candidate even 1 vote.

Example: New Mexico - worth 5 (3 population, 2 senatorial)
Winner gets 2 plus 2 of the remaining 3. That's 4 of the 5. Simply splitting all 5 might've been only 3 to the winner. This way the winner gets 1 more and loser gets 1 less.

What do I like about this extra layer of complexity vs. only awarding votes based on the percentage breakdown? Because it makes it slightly more worth it to not give up on the smaller states. In New Mexico, under a simple split, the loser gets 2 while the winner receives 3. That's an acceptable loss, only 1 point difference. A candidate behind in the polls might write off the state. But if the winner gets 4 of the 5, it becomes more costly to give up.

Example: Indiana - worth 11
Winner gets 2 plus 5 of the remaining 9. That's 7 out of 11. Writing off this state may be costly.

Now let me clarify here, if Lisa wins between 50 and 61.11% she'll get 7 votes. If it's 61.12 to 72.22% she'll get 8.

If you're still reading, it's time to address an important question: Why not write off all the smaller states and focus on the large ones?
Because, compared to simply awarding everything based on the popular vote, every state won is an additional vote. Winning 30 states is worth 30 extra votes. Consider Texas. Lisa and her campaign spend a large amount of time and resources in the state, which has boosted her standing in the polls to 60% so she's getting lots of votes plus the extra one. She has a choice now, she could spend X time and resources there trying to get more votes, or she could go focus them on Wisconsin where she's statistically tied with Jack. The (hypothetical) polls also seem to show her support is plateauing. If she chooses Texas, she'll probably only get one more vote. It makes more sense to go to Wisconsin where she could win the state and get 6 votes there instead of 4.

I like this system better than what we have presently because it makes 8 large, currently uncompetitive, states competitive and important to the race. These 8 are 184 votes, which is 34% of 538. Since smaller states are better represented, these 8 actually have more than 38% of the population who are not being attended to by the electoral process. Counting Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky, and Maryland, these 12 are 220 votes and over 44% of the population.

Re:Let France elect the US president!

[MindStalker]

Yes, of course, brilliant. Any country can count its population and be assigned an amount of electoral votes!!

Of course the countries have to may tax, and the states need to conform to our constituion.

Did I say states? Opps.