Election Day May Go Away... In Florida

That's Unpossible! writes "The Orlando Sentinel is reporting about a proposed change to the way Florida will run future elections. Due to the popularity of this year's 'advanced voting' trial run, it seems likely that the voting process can be streamlined by spreading it out over two weeks, allowing people to vote when and where they can. 'Fewer polling places would reduce the number of voting machines and would require fewer poll workers, which could cut salary and training costs. It also would reduce the chances of human error and electronic glitches, supervisors said.'"

Comments

Nothing really new

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Oregon has been doing vote-by-mail for a few years like this.

Hmmm

[MikeXpop]

I've always wondered why voting isn't done like this in the first place. Why all the cramming into one day, and therefore driving away would-be voters because of the crowds?

This could be a good idea

[Bimo_Dude]

I do believe that this should be implemented throughout the whole country, but slightly differently.
I, for one, have to question the idea of reducing the number of poll workers. Doing so may increase the possibility of error, as well as provide more potential for someone to mess with the system.

On the other hand, I think that requiring the polling places ot be open on weekends as well as weekdays should improve voter turnout, since currently, a lot of people can not seem to get away from work to go vote.

To me, the most important thing is to ensure that whatever system is used provides a paper trail. I would gladly pay a little more in taxes to make sure that every vote is counted accurately.

Cover for problems

[SpaceLifeForm]

It also would reduce the chances of human error and electronic glitches, supervisors said.

Malarky. Having fewer voting centers would not guarantee fewer 'electronic glitches'. On the contrary, it could exacerbate the problems.

If you haven't checked recently, you need to catch up on what's happening in Florida. Also interesting is that apparently Keith Olbermann is under extreme pressure to lie about Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org, likely by TPTB. Probably to discredit Keith and Bev as he basically in the only one in the media that had any fortitude to actually perform a proper media role in questioning the elections voting integrity.

Continuous voting

[dhilvert]

This could be a step towards continuous voting:

Continuous elections may ... be organized through a system of automatic voting machines similar in principle to an automatic teller machine. Instead of depositing or withdrawing money from a bank account, each voter would be depositing or withdrawing his vote from a particular party or candidate.

I'd probably prefer a condorcet-style ranked election method over the plurality method outlined on the page cited above, however.

Re:Continuous voting

[Coryoth]

The most interesting voting system I've ever heard of was called "Dynamic Recoverable Proxy", and was essentially a form of continuous voting like this. It was very ingenious, and is only possible now that we have powerful computing and communication resources, so ought to fit in well on Slashdot. Let me give you a rough overview of how it would work:

At the base level it is a direct democracy on every issue. For every issue, every bill, everyone gets a vote, one vote per person. Of course most people don't care to follow every issue, nor take the time to vote on them. That's okay, because under this system you can pass your vote on to a proxy, who will vote for you. You can nominate anyone as your proxy - your wife, your brother, some professor you happen to think is intelligent and informed, or a politician who campaigned to get your proxy. In turn, the person with your vote can pass their (and all the votes of the people who nominated them as a proxy) on to yet another person. This essentially amounts to a concentration of votes into a small number of representatives - their voting power weighted by the number of people they are the effective proxy for. As you can see, keeping track of that tree of proxy voting requires some computing power, especially given that anyone can change their proxy at any time.

Now, besides being able to change you proxy at any time (so there are no fixed terms, no fixed voting days to decide representatives), you can also, at any time, recover your vote. That means that if some issue does arise that you do have an interest in, you can, if you choose, cast your vote individually on that particular issue yourself. This can happen at any level of the proxy tree, so if you gave your vote to your brother, who in turn passed it on to some politician, your brother can recover and vote for both himself and you (unless of course you recover your vote). This means that you can always be sure that your vote goes the way you want, regardless of what your upstream proxy believes, on any issue you care about.

The two major problems with this system that I can see are implementation, and getting such a thing instituted. To track all the votes, and allow anyone to cast their vote individually requires a strong secure network with some powerful mainframes to keep the tallies. Implementation is far from trivial. At the same time, this isn't a system that can evolve naturally from current systems, it would require a ground up restructuring of whatever democracy decided to implement it - it's a revolutionary rather than evolutionary change. That means, realistically, it won't be implemented by any current modern democracy, but instead possibly by some future newly formed democratic republic.

Jedidiah.

This could profoundly distort the results

[tm2b]

The problem is that in many places, especially in Florida, there are a substantial number of voters (especially elderly) who are not willing (or really able) to travel farther than their local precinct.

Early voting here, in Pasco and Pinellas counties, took place at three locations in each county in county government buildings. These buildings (more so in Pinellas than Pasco, which is a more rural county) are in fairly heavily populated areas, and many elderly are unwilling to travel to such areas due to the traffic congestion and the uncertainty involved in travelling farther from home. Further, many are barred from travelling farther than a certain distance from their primary health care provider. Lastly, many can travel only short distances due to the logistics of their limited mobility.

If voting locations are going to be open for two weeks, I don't see how they'll get around this - they're certainly not going to be using churches and schools, the current precinct poll locations, for two weeks straight.

I voted early here, and loved it... but I live about 5 minutes from one of the three locations in Pasco county where I could vote, so it was trivial for me. I think we still need to have a small window where people are able to vote locally. Otherwise, this could effectively disenfranchise a lot of people.

Re:Weird

[phyruxus]

I'd like to see a system where voting is year-round, for the whole term. I want to be able to set my vote on the first day after the election, and change it anytime before the next one.

Before computers, this would have been a tall order. Now it's realistic, if not easy. One national database, one PKI set, and no more chads or impounded ballots or fraud of any kind. Everybody wins, and most importantly, it'll probably drive the cost of holding elections way down.

Window for fraud

[dpilot]

A bigger window for voting also means a bigger window for fraud. At least with the current one-day polling, you can have volunteers from both parties monitoring the election. Once it becomes a multi-week process are we going to have sufficient volunteers so both parties can keep the ballot boxes under observation full-time? This of course excludes Badnarik and Nader fans, as well as Greens, but somehow in the current environment I doubt it would be possible to get Democrats and Republicans to cooperate long enough to disenfranchise minority parties.

I guess it's time to insist that ballots be kept in a multi-keyed vault, kind of like the safety deposit box in a bank. Then at least you get rid of the off-hours problem.

N.C. has had this for a while...

[cahopper]

We've had this in North Carolina for a while, but I believe this was the first year that we were able to vote for president early. Almost 18% of the vote was cast in the two weeks before election day.

I went to vote early, but it was still going to take three hours so I waited for election day (and an hour and a half wait).

One interesting side effect is that the infamous last minute "surprises" that the candidates like to spring are much less releavant. Well...at least now they'll have to pull them two weeks before the election...

WF?!?

[James.Stanton]

How can this possibly be workable? I never understood how early voting was allowed in the first place (my state, MA, doesn't do it).

• When does campaigning stop?
• How do you exit poll across a two week span? (which with no paper trail, seems to be the only way to even kinda-verify the results)
• Will there be daily backups of the systems?

Seems like a recipe for a whole new set of disasters.

Smoke Screen

[ignatzMouse]

Don't do anything until voting integrity is insured. Everything else is a waste of time.

Did your vote count?

Until the voters of Florida can answer that question with certainty no other question needs to be asked.

This is a smoke screen distracting us from the real problem. Our voting system is a joke. Fix it.

Votes have value. Treat them as such.