Using Crowdsourcing To Design More Accessible Elections

An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. Election Assistance Commission is sponsoring an online, open innovation challenge to search for creative answers to the question: 'How might we design an accessible election experience for everyone?' The goal is to develop ideas for how to make elections more accessible to everyone, especially people with disabilities."

Comments

New electron designs via crowdsourcing?

[Neil_Brown]

Finally, a positive news story.

Easy is easy

[cold fjord]

What is much harder is to make it both easy to vote and make it difficult to cast a fraudulent vote. Preventing fraud is an important consideration as more and more elections in the US are decided by razor thin margins, well within the margin of being decided by fairly trivial fraud.

Re:Easy is easy

[ScentCone]

and make it difficult to cast a fraudulent vote

Especially when special interests say that even being asked to present a photo ID at your poling place is racist vote suppression. Hard to fight THAT sort of nonsense.

Re:Easy is easy

[spire3661]

Its not as much nonsense as you make it out to be. Look at the statistics for low income families and their ability to get proper identification.

Re:Easy is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

The states that want identification to vote are usually giving away free identification in-order to avoid being label as being anti-poor or having a "polling tax." If the poor don't have time to get a free ID during some part of the year, I don't think I want them voting.

We don't need more voter we need better informed ones regardless of the number of voters.

Re:Easy is easy

[SirAstral]

Identification Cards should be provided for Free (once per year) and paid for by taxes. This does not mean free DL's.

Ensuring that a person voting is a citizen should not be such a problem. After all, the very people you say it will cause an issue for manage to get a lot of other things that require identification such as bank accounts, rental accounts, vehicles, and rental property.

If you lack the capability to obtain identification in today's society then I would submit that such a person should not be voting due to diminished faculty to begin with! Such people should not be participating in the direction any country should be heading.

Re:Easy is easy

[cold fjord]

Good point. The best you can do is to get the facts out and try to make a good argument.

Not a Race Card

Voter ID Is Not Jim Crow

Re:Easy is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't giving it away. You still have to provide numerous documentation, which makes for an onerous requirement for some, especially the elderly.

Re:Easy is easy

[Samantha Wright]

No, no, no, you've got it backward. That's the accessibility of voting The accessibility of an election is how easy it is to steal it. The US EAC is looking for ways to make manipulating election results more accessible to disabled lobbyists, goons, and crooked politicians. I'm sure such respected election-stealing industry leaders like Diebold will bid quite viciously for any contract relating to giving their products an edge in the accessibility-conscious jurisdictions.

Re:Easy is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Easier for disabled people is a great idea. Easier for people, period, is bad. We need to get over this grade-school idea that "everyone should get out and vote". The fuck they should. We need SMARTER voters. Not more voters. Frankly, if you're too fucking stupid to vote on anything based on something other than "he's my religion durp durp!" or "he's gonna give me some free stuff durpa durp durp!" then you need to stay the fuck home and away from the polls.

Also, just do like we've done in Oregon for like fifteen fucking years, now. Vote by mail. No polls. You get a thing in the mail. You fill it out. You send it in.

Re:Easy is easy

[Stone Rhino]

Individual voter fraud is extremely rare. The sort of fraud that would be prevented by photo ID is almost nonexistent. On the other hand, the requirement to obtain a photo ID excludes a nontrivial percentage of the population, and creates an additional burden that falls disproportionately on poor and/or nonwhite voters. Voters who usually vote democratic, making this a partisan issue.

Much more likely than fraud by individuals is a systematic effort to exclude voters unlikely to vote for your party, and the usage of methods to purge legitimate voters from the rolls, add additional hurdles (the modern poll test), or gerrymander districts so voting doesn't work at all.

It's not a "special interest" to want democracy to work for everyone, not just the well off.

Re:Easy is easy

[tomhath]

What is much harder is to make it both easy to vote and make it difficult to cast a fraudulent vote.

I didn't see anything in the linked article about reducing fraud. The goal is to "include citizens with diverse cultural backgrounds, technology experiences, literacy and language proficiency, and abilities".

Re:Easy is easy

[WhiplashII]

Where I live there are buses that pick up homeless / projects residents, and then go from precinct to precinct voting.

Re:Easy is easy

[Curunir_wolf]

Now you're just trying to discriminate against dead people. That's Deadism, you insensitive clod!

Re:Easy is easy

[tick-tock-atona]

There is a very simple way to make elections more accessible: make voting compulsory. As an Australian, I simply cannot fathom how the US seems to constantly struggle with issues such as electoral "accessibility". The advantages of compulsory voting are numerous:

... compelling voters to the polls for an election mitigates the impact that external factors may have on an individual's capacity to vote such as the weather, transport, or restrictive employers. If everybody must vote, then restrictions on voting are easily identified and steps are taken to remove them. It is a measure to prevent disenfranchisement of the socially disadvantaged. Countries with compulsory voting generally hold elections on a Saturday or Sunday as evidenced in nations such as Australia, to ensure that working people can fulfill their duty to cast their vote. Postal and pre-poll voting is provided to people who cannot vote on polling day, and mobile voting booths may also be taken to old age homes and hospitals to cater for immobilized citizens.

Fraud is easily identified when everyone has to cast a vote - you cannot tick off a name more than once.

The arguments against compulsory voting generally boil down to thinking that the government asking for one's opinion qualifies as totalitarianism. But there is a simple solution to this.

If voters do not want to support any given choice, they may cast spoilt votes or blank votes. According to compulsory voting supporters, this is preferred to not voting at all because it ensures there is no possibility that the person has been intimidated or prevented from voting should they wish.

Re:Easy is easy

[SETIGuy]

Yes, but without proper documentation we won't know if they are legal eligible to vote.

Yet somehow we survived as a country without such requirements in the past.

But unfortunately, elections in this country are decided by who doesn't vote. And conservatives (i.e. Republicans) have recognized they they are the one who win when people don't vote. So they make it difficult for people who vote for Democrats to vote. That would be the poor, primarily. The primary attributes that poor people have in common are frequent address changes. So the "voter ID" laws are designed to disenfranchise anyone who has changed their address within a year of the election. You do that by putting the registration deadlines as early as possible. You have to show an ID to register, and if your address has changed by the election, you won't be able to vote. Especially because the Republicans are printing flyers threatening arrest if you show up with invalid ID.

Similarly, they disenfranchise students by making a gun registration form acceptable ID, but a student ID is not.

And, if course, that guy living in a doorway on main street isn't going to have valid ID even though he is as elligible to vote as the Mayor is. Maybe moreso, because if the mayor is a Republican, he's probably a felon.

Re:Easy is easy

[SETIGuy]

Identification Cards should be provided for Free (once per year) and paid for by taxes.

And if a person has moved since their free ID card was provided they lose their right to vote? How about people that don't have an address? Do they lose their right to vote? How about students? What address does their ID say? Do they have any choice in where they vote? How about people whose birth certificate has errors, or the electronic record for their birth has errors. Who pays the price for rectifying those errors. How about people who have changed their names? How about people who haven't changed their names but use their middle name as their first name on every record but their birth certificate? How about people who have multiple addresses? How do you handle their choice of voting district. Personally I think you shouldn't be voting due to inability consider the consequences of your actions.

Re:Easy is easy

[SETIGuy]

Anonymous cowards tend to be morons and I'd put you in that category. The problem is often not the lack of photo ID, but the lack of a photo ID that is a character for character match for birth records. What happens when you move. The people who move the most are the people who can't afford $13 every time them move. How long does it take the voter registration change to be enacted? How does someone who is living on the streets (but still entitled to vote) prove their eligibility?

How many people truly can't afford one of the above?

It doesn't matter. If the answer is one or more, it is unconstitutional. Ever elligible is entitled to vote. Any law that prevents someone who has a right to vote from voting is illegal. Vote early/vote often is a strawman argument from the right that doesn't actually occur. Whereas Republican Secretaries of State (Blackwell, Harris) preventing eligible voters from voting is well documented and thousands of times the votes of any alleged voter fraud.

Re:Easy is easy

[SETIGuy]

Are you actually using National Review lies as a source? Way to tag yourself as a tool of the Republican party.

Re:Easy is easy

[SETIGuy]

I don't think that anyone with a demonstrated IQ of less than 155 and completed PhD should be allowed to vote. I'd also like I economics test and a scientific literacy test added. Would that be OK with you?

Actually, I think its the "woo hoo I made it through collage(sic)" people are more of a problem than the people who quit after high school.

Re:Easy is easy

[SETIGuy]

Yeah, the conservative mods hate anyone injecting truth or logic into the conversation.

Re:Easy is easy

[cold fjord]

Its not as much nonsense as you make it out to be. Look at the statistics for low income families and their ability to get proper identification.

Here are some interesting statistics:

Not a Race Card

American University found that less than one-half of 1 percent of registered voters in Maryland, Indiana, and Mississippi lacked a government-issued ID. A 2006 survey of more than 36,000 voters found that only 23 people in the entire sample would be unable to vote because of an ID requirement. . . . .

The weakness of the case against voter ID has been much in evidence in courtrooms. The Indiana and Georgia voter-ID laws were upheld by state and federal courts. In the Georgia case, the federal court pointed out that after two years of litigation, none of the plaintiffs, including the NAACP, could produce a single otherwise eligible voter who did not have a photo ID or could not easily obtain one. That failure was “particularly acute,” the court wrote, “in light of the Plaintiffs’ contention that a large number of Georgia voters lack acceptable photo ID.” Similarly, in the Indiana case, the federal court noted that “despite apocalyptic assertions of wholesale voter disenfranchisement, Plaintiffs have produced not a single piece of evidence of any identifiable registered voter who would be prevented from voting.”

The Georgia court said that the claim that voter ID is the same as a poll tax “represents a dramatic overstatement.” Imposing tangential burdens “does not transform a regulation into a poll tax” and “the cost of time and transportation” to obtain a free ID “cannot plausibly qualify as a prohibited poll tax because those same ‘costs’ also result from voter registration and in-person voting requirements, which one would not reasonably construe as a poll tax.” All of the states implementing voter ID have provided free IDs for anyone who does not already have one. As Rhode Island state senator Harold Metts said, “In this day and age, very few adults lack one of the forms of identification that will be accepted, and the rare person who does can get a free voter-ID card.”

Re:Easy is easy

[alphred]

Every citizen should be allowed to vote. Period. It doesn't matter if you think that some are "uninformed" or otherwise undeserving. There are always those who think they are better than others and deserve more rights, attention or ponies, but in a country that truly values democracy those voices should be ignored.

Re:Easy is easy

[spire3661]

Except for the plane, I can do everything else you listed without an ID quite readily. Hell, for the train i can BOARD without a ticket and buy it en-route. Even for a plane im sure i could charter a flight with no ID as long as I had enough cash.

Re:Easy is easy

[ormondotvos]

Well put. There's no real excuse for not having ID. Poor people, homeless people, any excuse will do. This society requires ID, and it should. Free, with help available for free, including transportation to offices, and document searches.

Re:Easy is easy

[ormondotvos]

Every one of your (frequently specious) objections can easily be handled by a paralegal with a Prius, at state expense.

Re:Easy is easy

[ormondotvos]

Your objections are to a strawman, in that ID was already postulated to be free, and in the land of Visa cards, it shouldn't take more than a day to check records. I'm surprised you're even posting here, with your level of understanding. Think of it as a negative no=fly list.

Re:Easy is easy

[SETIGuy]

Could be, but won't be.

Re:Easy is easy

[ktetch-pirate]

You quote: "A 2006 survey of more than 36,000 voters found that only 23 people in the entire sample would be unable to vote because of an ID requirement" Now, do you know how many fraudulent votes were cast in Maryland because of a lack of photoID checking? Less than 23 TOTAL, not '23 out of 36,000', but total. VoterID fraud is a non-existant problem, that is somehow 'solved' by disenfranchising 0.5% of the population? The problem is people assume it's a big deal. In Ohio, across the 9 Million votes cast in 2002 and 2004 combined, a total of FOUR ballots cast because of VoterID fraud. If we assume Ohio had similar percentage of people without a government-issued ID, you've dienfranchised 0.5% to prevent 0.000044% VoterID fraud. Or taken the votes away from 11,250 people for every VoterID fraud case. In REALITY, most of the Voter Fraud that goes on, wouldn't be stopped by VoterID requirements anyway. So, if stopping Voter Fraud was the objective, then you've got to find another method, because this one won't do a thing.

Re:Easy is easy

[ktetch-pirate]

how about this: Five Myths about Voter Fraud Funnily enough, the first one is about ID laws and their ineffectiveness at doing anything except disenfranchising.

Re:Easy is easy

[SETIGuy]

In a land where states charge $50 for a printout of a birth certificate, you somehow think conservatives are going to make a government service free? Not going to happen. And what happens when the middle name on my proof of residence (i.e. drivers license) doesn't exactly match the middle name on birth certificate. Well, that's the point, conservatives want such people purged from the voter rolls. Along with anyone whose name matches a convicted felon. If you name is common, expect to be purged.

Of course you'll say it's all about preventing foreigners from voting. But most states enacting these law allow a drivers license as proof of residence for both voting and registering to vote. And every single state in the union allows resident aliens to get a drivers license. And, for some reason, the same people who want ID to be presented in order to vote, don't want a voter registration form to be included with drivers license or car registration renewal. (Oh, that's right. Keep the registration forms away from poor people. That's what the whole ACORN thing was about.)

The system in this state, with address verification when registering, and a signature for comparison when voting, is entirely adequate. It makes it hard enough to vote multiple times. Aliens claiming to be citizens would need to sign a paper, what when verified could get them arrested. But nobody is being arrested for such crimes, because the don't happen. (Although some cities allow resident aliens to vote on local issues, the resident aliens get a different ballot.)

You're complaining about crimes aren't happening, and ignoring the ones that do. Blackwell in 2004 moved most of the voting machines out of minority districts in Ohio and into wealthy white districts. Of course he did so long lines would cause frustrated minorities to give up rather than wait for four or more hours to vote. That's the kind of election fraud that really happens, affecting thousands of voters. It's a lot easier to throw an election that way than it would be to have people vote in multiple precincts.

I Disagree.

[The Wild Norseman]

We don't need more accessibility. We need more transparency. Or, more specifically, companies can make all the cool electronic voting machines/procedures/whatever that they want to, as long as we the people have unfettered access to it to ensure that the system remains accurate.

lots of things

[theedgeofoblivious]

Move voting to the weekend(for people who can't get away from work).

Make it last a full weekend from Friday at noon until Monday at noon(for people who can't get away from work).

Move voting to the spring(for people who have bad weather in early November).

Make it so anyone can vote at any voting station rather than requiring that people go to only the one(for convenience).

Make it so all schools and all government offices are voting stations(for convenience).

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

Re:lots of things

[theedgeofoblivious]

Oh, and institute approval voting.

Approval voting is simple. You mark the candidates you'd be okay with(not just the one you like the most), and the person with the most votes wins.

Make it so people can just circle the candidates they'd be okay with. This would cut down on extremist candidates and would improve the chances of candidates with wide appeal, would make voting easy to understand, and would make it easier to determine people's intended choices. It would remove people's incentive to vote for the "electable" candidate, and would encourage them to vote for candidates they really like.

The winning candidate would be the candidate who really had the most support among the voting population, not just the candidate who people thought most other people would vote for.

Re:lots of things

[rmstar]

Move voting to the weekend(for people who can't get away from work).

Indeed. This is very important. And this one does not even require thinking.

Re:lots of things

[jc42]

Move voting to the weekend(for people who can't get away from work).

Indeed. This is very important. And this one does not even require thinking.

A number of historians have claimed that the American custom of voting on Tuesdays was created explicitly so that employers could prevent their employees from voting. Simply have an "emergency" at work that requires all employees stay on duty until the problem is fixed, and you've eliminated most of the wrong kind of votes from the people you employ.

I have wondered what the actual historical evidence for this is. It's easy enough to find claims of such things, but it's not quite as easy for a "layman" to spend the time it would take (without taking time off from work ;-) to find the actual historical documents explaining why something as bizarre as Tuesday elections was implemented.

In any case, we might note that in many countries, elections days are national work-free holidays. Passing a law like this would undo the effects of the US's custom of voting on work days. It'd probably also result in elections being moved to the weekend, since there would no longer be a reason to hold elections during work days.

Re:lots of things

[icebike]

The vote on Tuesday was because in those days you couldn't mess with the Sabbath so it had to be a week day.
Furthermore we were an agrarian society for the most part, so employers didn't even enter in to it.
Voting was set late in the year, after harvest, when most farmers really didn't have all that much going on.
Travel by horse means a day to the county seat, vote, go home taking another day.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/01/why-we-vote-on/

Re:lots of things

[sd4f]

That's more or less how it happens here in Australia, which has compulsory attendance, turnout rates end up being above 90%, except for the extended period of voting, here it's only ever a single day from 8am to 6pm. With compulsory attendance, we do have laws which compel employers to release workers to go to vote but they just about always select a saturday and since there is a need to process so many individuals, schools, church halls, public halls, hospitals, pretty much any government or building voluntarily offered is used for voting.

Re:lots of things

[Darkness404]

We already have approval voting, its called the Republiocrats because neither side has a really distinguishable political platform. Where is the anti-war party? Where is the anti-taxation party? Etc. Obama is, like it or not, basically a moderate and not much different than Bush who was also a moderate.

Re:How about making an effective ID system availab

[YrWrstNtmr]

Why not a national ID system?

States Rights. This is a conglomeration of 50 individual states. There is no 'national election'.

Why not any kind of biometric systems?

Too prone to failure

Why nothing but a picture?

How else would you do it? What is your suggestion?

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as we're only allowed to vote for people or parties and not on actual decisions, what's the point in making those elections more accessible?

Re:Why?

[icebike]

Probably the most insightful thing posted on this thread. Where are my mod points when I need them, and why are you posting as AC?

Re:Why?

[Curunir_wolf]

As long as we're only allowed to vote for people or parties and not on actual decisions, what's the point in making those elections more accessible?

Because that would be even easier to manipulate than the congress, which passed the PATRIOT act almost unanimously, after allowing 20 minutes for reading it, and a year later most of them still hadn't read it. How many voters would actually read 1000+ pages of legislation, AND actually take the time to understand it? More likely they'd put stuff in front of people like "STOP CHILD PORNOGRAPHY act", with things in it like automatic access to every GPS device, requiring a Federal license to access the Internet, and making encryption illegal without authorization from the Federal Reserve.

Re:Why?

[Hognoxious]

As long as we're only allowed to vote for people or parties and not on actual decisions, what's the point in making those elections more accessible?

Probably the most insightful thing posted on this thread.

I can see why it might appear so to someone who thinks a diverse nation of 300 million can be run the same way as a village of 40 Amish, i.e. someone totally ignorant not only of how government works but how it must work when applied on a large scale.

The system of choosing decision makers on their broad abilities and general policies and letting them get on with it is certainly imperfect, but it's better than proxy rule by Rupert Murdoch, which is what GP is proposing even if he's too dumb to realize it.

Re:Why?

[icebike]

I can see why it might appear so to someone who thinks a diverse nation of 300 million can be run the same way as a village of 40 Amish, i.e. someone totally ignorant not only of how government works but how it must work when applied on a large scale.

Remember this post of yours next time you see any ballot initiative.

And perhaps you should refrain from voting on it out of protest over the deviation from strictly representative models of government.

Is this really necessary?

[icebike]

There are already many different programs in place for this, from Absentee Ballots (by mail) , to free handicapped bus service for those still wanting to go to the polls. By some accounts even the dead can already vote.

It seems like this is redundant, as states and local government already reach out to their handicapped citizens. Government posturing seems to be the primary emphasis here, to get the last possible government dependent person to vote, regardless of cost, and woe be to anyone who stands in the way, or suggests that anyone who wants to vote already has the opportunity, and that there are those who simply don't want to vote.

Follow the link in TFA to the mission statement and notice this nugget:

Cognitive disabilities: intellectual, developmental, remembering, concentrating

If someone can't remember who they wanted to vote for, or is too mentally challenged to form and opinion why include them in this process at all? (especially when some states require a sound mind to vote).

More troubling was this paragraph:

While each country has its own election system, and we have only a limited ability to change that, we can focus on making elections more accessible, through new technologies, communications tools, and processes.

What? Excuse me? This sounds like the groundwork for more meddling in the business of other countries than improving anything in the US.

Re:Is this really necessary?

[icebike]

County.

Go read it for your self: http://www.openideo.com/open/voting/brief.html
Third paragraph below the sub-title "The Opportunity"

Re:Is this really necessary?

[Ocker3]

I think in this case, we can probably expect that they Meant County. Hell, I even typed that "Country" and had to correct myself.

Dead Counts as Disability?

[corsec67]

Any attempt at making voting more accessible should not make the election process easier to tamper with.

For example, have a machine print a voted ballot, and the human-readable parts of that ballot are what are counted.

Imagine a virus that manipulated databases, but only took effect on election day. That would certainly effect systems where the votes are only stored as digital data.

Ballot stuffing is very rare.

[khasim]

Ballot stuffing (or even voting two or more times) is very rare.
So rare as to be a non-issue. Despite claims to the contrary.

Most attempts at "fixing" the "voter fraud" issue are really aimed at making it more difficult for people to vote. They have to jump through more hoops so they might not be able to afford it in time or money (or both). Meanwhile, the people with the extra time and money CAN jump through the hoops (after all, they determined what those hoops would be). So the only "legit" voters are the people who are already prosperous under the existing system.

So it is just a way to maintain the status quo.

Anyway, on to improving the system.

1. How about extending "election day" to more than a single day?

2. And how about including a national holiday in that period? Move Presidents Day so that it falls in the middle of "Voting Week". Or the end. Or the beginning. Or even on "Election Day" if you don't want to add more days. Yay! Holiday! Get out and VOTE!

Re:Ballot stuffing is very rare.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ballot stuffing (or even voting two or more times) is very rare.
So rare as to be a non-issue. Despite claims to the contrary."

Except, of course, when it isn't. LBJ would have never held office, had it not been for ballot box stuffing. And he's not the only one.

There's a persistent pattern, in a number of states, of early returns providing a clear advantage to one party, and that advantage holding until all but a very few precincts return, and then those precincts not returning for hours after the other polls have closed, and then returning just enough to swing the election. And oddly enough, these precincts vote 90%+ for one party, and due to persistent efforts to keep the voter registry dirty, have more registered voters than they do people.

There are a lot of people who believe the Prosser would have lost, in Wisconsin, had the Secretary of State not "accidentally" held out a strong GOP county from the initial totals. That had she not, the voter manufacturing effort would have kept running until he had lost.

The Soros-backed efforts to stack the states SOS offices with radical leftists doesn't help convince people that there isn't fraud going on.

Still, I have an easy answer - stop counting votes, until after all of the polls have been closed. There's absolutely no need to be publishing any returns while there are polls still open.

Re:Ballot stuffing is very rare.

[cold fjord]

Ballot stuffing (or even voting two or more times) is very rare.
So rare as to be a non-issue. Despite claims to the contrary.

Sorry, but you are quite simply wrong about that.

. . . two Troy city officials, the city clerk and a councilman, along with two Democratic political operatives, have pled guilty to forging absentee-ballot signatures and casting fraudulent ballots in the 2009 Working Families Party primary. The WFP is the political party associated with ACORN.

One of the citizens whose votes were stolen was stunned at what happened. She said that she was “sure this goes on a lot in politics, but it’s very rare that they do get caught.” This voter was right on the money with that observation — fraud is so easy to commit in our election system that it is rare that fraudsters get caught and even rarer that they get prosecuted.

. . . one of the Democratic operatives who pled guilty, Anthony DeFiglio, told New York State police investigators “that faking absentee ballots was a commonplace and accepted practice in political circles, all intended to swing an election.” And whose votes do they steal? DeFiglio was very plain about that: “The people who are targeted live in low-income housing, and there is a sense that they are a lot less likely to ask any questions.”

That is exactly what former Alabama congressman Artur Davis said recently when he admitted that he was wrong to oppose voter-ID requirements. Davis says the “most aggressive” voter suppression “is the wholesale manufacture of ballots, at the polls and absentee, in parts of the Black Belt” of Alabama, which is an area of very poor black communities. These are the very areas where the NAACP claims voter fraud does not happen. The NAACP opposes all reasonable measures to safeguard the voting process for its own constituents, even going to the extent of defending vote stealers, as the NAACP did in Greene County, Ala., in the mid-1990s. Small wonder one of its local officials was recently sentenced to five years in prison for voter fraud in Tunica County, Mississippi. - Yes, Virginia, There Really Is Voter Fraud

And more . . .

In contrast, a subsequent media analysis showed that at least 2000 votes were cast illegally in Florida in the 2000 presidential election. Since the margin of victory in Florida was 537 votes, the fraudulent votes were sufficient to affect the outcome of the election.

That’s not an isolated example. Evidence adduced at various commission hearings suggests numerous instances of actual voter fraud. The cases involve organizations and individuals who register ineligible voters, dead people, and fictional characters. In an infamous Ohio case during the 2004 presidential election campaign, a canvasser paid with crack cocaine registered Dick Tracy, Mary Poppins, and scores of other equally noteworthy characters.

Again, these aren’t isolated cases. A major 2001 voter registration drive in St. Louis’s black community produced 3,800 new voter cards. When some of the names appeared suspicious, elections officials investigated all of the cards and determined that every single one was fraudulent. Dogs, the dead, and people who simply didn’t want to register were among the new registrants.

The problem isn’t only that canvassers are being paid to produce manifestly fraudulent voter registrations; it’s also that voter rolls throughout the country are being padded with hundreds of thousands of false and fraudulent names. For example, testimony by John Sample before the Senate Rules Committee showed that Alaska had 503,000 people on its voter rolls but only 437,000 people of votin

Re:Ballot stuffing is very rare.

[khipu]

Ballot stuffing (or even voting two or more times) is very rare. So rare as to be a non-issue. Despite claims to the contrary.

And we should take your word for this? In fact, the courts disagree.

Most attempts at "fixing" the "voter fraud" issue are really aimed at making it more difficult for people to vote. They have to jump through more hoops so they might not be able to afford it in time or money (or both)

Nonsense. A voter ID requirement is a requirement for voters to prove that they are eligible to vote, nothing more and nothing less. The fact that that may impose a small extra burden on a tiny minority of voters is incidental, and the burden is not unreasonable. It is also what all other democracies in the world require, to no ill effect.

Re:Ballot stuffing is very rare.

[ktetch-pirate]

Nonsense. A voter ID requirement is a requirement for voters to prove that they are eligible to vote, nothing more and nothing less. The fact that that may impose a small extra burden on a tiny minority of voters is incidental, and the burden is not unreasonable. It is also what all other democracies in the world require, to no ill effect.

To quote you, Nonsense
Every time I've voted int he UK I've never needed an ID. In fact, until a few years ago, UK driving licenses didn't even have photos. You just give your name and address when you walk in. You don't even need the ballot card that's sent to you in the post.
Don't go saying 'all other democracies require' when they don't. Some basic research does wonders....

Re:How about making an effective ID system availab

[icebike]

Why not a national ID system? Why not any kind of biometric systems? Why nothing but a picture?

If the Republicans suggested this you would be the first one up in arms.

Think for just a minute before posting such nonsense. Someone puts your name on a secret list, and you can't board an airplane. Now you want to entrust the right to vote to these same people?

You, sir, are a dangerous man.

Remember, they *d8d* say "everyone"

[Barbara, not Barbie]

'How might we design an accessible election experience for everyone?'

1. In the long-time tradition of letting the dearly departed cast their ballot, it's time they make it official policy to "bring out your dead." Zombie votes have always been cast anyway - just legitimize the practice.

2. Furthering the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), people with ADHD and Aspergers should be allowed to better express themsleves by letting them "vote early, vote often". Keep pulling that lever as much as you need to!

3. Since the secrecy of the vote is an integral part of the election process, everyone will get a secret ballot, same as in Soviet Russia. "Do not open the ballot, citizen! It's called a SECRET ballot for a reason!"

4. To avoid discriminating against people who live on the west coast or other time zones, election results will be available nationwide 6 hours before the polls open, EDT. This will allow for more celebrations for the election of our dear leader.

5. Remember, it's not election fraud unless we say it is!

Re:How about making an effective ID system availab

[AliasMarlowe]

Why not a national ID system?

States Rights. This is a conglomeration of 50 individual states. There is no 'national election'.

The current SCOTUS would probably rule that elections to Federal offices (President, Congress) very obviously fall under the Interstate Commerce and/or the Necessary and Proper clauses of the constitution. Their reasoning would be bizarre and impenetrable, but their decision is final.

Or others.

[khasim]

Each state can have a different voting methodology.
Don't limit yourself to approval voting.

Wikipedia has a whole list of different voting methodologies and how they'd affect the outcome of elections.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system

Re:eVoting

[icebike]

An online voting booth would easily create a substantial boost in the number of people voting and would limit out virtually no one (except those without internet or in rural areas, but frankly, absent door-to-door service, it is going to be extremely hard to include these people in elections. That, or at least a national and easy to use site/phone hotline for signing up for absentee voting.

Sure, toss that out there with out a shred of evidence that it would substantial boos in the number of people voting.

It might well increase the number of votes cast, but not necessarily the number of people voting.

It is drop dead simple to sign up for Absentee voting. Call your county government, forms in the mail, done.
It is not a National system because Elections are by constitution, managed by the states. That you don't know this, or are willing to waive it away makes you a very dangerous person in my eyes.

Electronic Voting with a paper trail

[TubeSteak]

Think about how many tens/hundreds of millions was wasted on failtacular e-voting initiatives.
Imagine if all the States got together and spent that money once on an Open Source hardware/software package.
Even if they go over schedule and over budget, it'll only ever have to be done once.

And this time, don't farm out the job to politically connected corporations.
Instead, have the programming coordinated with some University's Computer Science Dept
and don't forget to have it all overseen by the guys/gals from BlackBox Voting.

I'm sure there are more than enough people who'd be happy to volunteer their testing skills throughout the design and coding cycle to ensure that the voting software comes out with minimal bugs and security holes.

Holiday

[Dracos]

Make election day a holiday for whatever jurisdiction (federal, state, county, etc) is on the ballot.

Re:Holiday

[PolygamousRanchKid]

People would just do what they do on any other holiday: sleep late, go to the "Special Voting Day Sale," have a cookout, drink beer, sit around, watch the "Voting Day Bowl Game" on TV, drink more beer, etc.

Everything except go out and vote.

Re:Holiday

[icebike]

Check your state laws about Time off to Vote.

Isn't that exactly the opposite of the trend?

[rbrander]

I thought the US was trying to make elections LESS accessible out of concerns of voter fraud. Voter ID stuff and all that?

Re:Isn't that exactly the opposite of the trend?

[icebike]

Seriously, you get voted insightful for that troll?

Who cares about the law?

[Tim Ward]

I was telling outside a polling station. A car drew up. Someone got out of the car and went into the polling station.

The presiding officer came out and said to us tellers (representing the candidates (I forget whether this was a year when I was also the candidate)):

"There's a disabled lady in that car who would have considerable difficulty getting into the polling station. I have been asked to take her ballot paper out to the car for her to fill in. Do you have any objections?"

This suggestion was of course completely illegal. Naturally, however, I and the tellers for the other candidates said "no problem at all, go ahead" and that's what happened.

A victory for common sense over the boring details of the regulations. I had no idea, and neither did any of the other tellers, who the punter was going to vote for - that wasn't the point.

Re:Who cares about the law?

[Ocker3]

I was handing out voting cards for a friend who was running for office here in Australia, and at the end of the day an older couple comes up. The husband gets out of the car, and is looking for a voting card (here in Australia, you usually have to do more than just tick one box, you need to tick a few, based on personal opinion or your preferred party's suggested order) for his wife. After doing this all day, I could usually pick which people would ask for which party's voting card, and I quickly realised that although he'd taken the voting card that I was handing out, he wanted one for the opposing party. None of their people were handing out stuff, they were off talking, knowing they'd done very well that day. So I went to their area, got one of the cards, and gave it to him. His intention was clear, he knew which party he preferred, he just needed some technical details to follow, and I was happy to help him. No voter with clear intent should ever be disenfranchised, we should make every effort to help them cast their vote and remove barriers.

Re:Things I want to see change in the US.

[Ichijo]

Some would say strategic voting is still possible with Instant Runoff Voting, and that the Condorcet method eliminates it. But either one would still be better than our archaic "first past the post" plurality voting system.

And I agree with all of your other points.

Re:How about making an effective ID system availab

[icebike]

The Republicans are already trying for just that sort of control over the right to vote. At the State Level, where it can be exploited to disenfranchise people.

Nonsense.

Please quote specific citations in specific states, or STFU.

In California voting is easy

[WarJolt]

I don't see how it can be more accessible in California.
I have a harder time going to the DMV.

Step 1: sign up to vote. Make sure you check vote by mail.
Step 2: receive vote by mail ballot.
Step 3: research your issues/candidates
Step 4: Fill out your ballot
Step 5: return by mail.
Step 6: wait for next election. Return to step 2.

"Assistance"

[ChadL]

We could have people working at the polling stations who act as proxies to assist voters. The voter tells the worker who to vote for, then the worker places the vote.
Because we are short on money, they canidates should pay these workers, and decide how many and where they work.
I'm sure self-regulation will work fine for this, so faud won't be an issue.

Re:"Assistance"

[icebike]

Brilliant!

And all paid for by the candidates. Problem solved with no additional government money.

Stop universal suffrage

[Gothmolly]

Why do those who have not, get to vote on the distribution of wealth from those who have? If you're not a property owner, how much skin in the game do you really have? If you can't pass a basic civics test, how are you qualified to vote?

Re:Stop universal suffrage

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the laws will be applied to you.

The entitlement flows in the other direction, not because of who you are, but because of the way the laws work.

You are thinking of voting as something you earn, but rather, your right to vote is how the government earns your consent.

It's an easy confusion to make, the rich often think they are entitled to something because they deserve it, not that they need to deserve to have something.

Every Day a Holiday in November

[Doc Ruby]

We could start by just collecting ballots every day in November, not just the first Tuesday. Or we could move it to the first weekend if a month is too long to keep walkup ballots secret (though we do it with non-anonymous voting by mail).

We could make "Election Day" a mandatory Federal holiday, even if we keep it on Tuesday. Or we could make any voting receipt exchangeable for a holiday, either in November, or maybe within 6-12 months with 30 days advance notice and approval.

This will help people with access disadvantages by making shorter lines at the polls, and making more physically accessible poll locations available during a longer window to arrange to attend there.

Re:Every Day a Holiday in November

[Doc Ruby]

While the benefits of vote by mail are pretty clear, I don't like the downsides. Lost anonymity is one. Putting the collection and counting entirely in the hands of the government, unseen by the public or campaigns, is another. Usually it doesn't matter, and the advantages totally win. But when it does matter, it's the most important factor of all.

Best Solution IMO

[no-body]

So, forgo all the electronic gadgetry, do a simple mechanical trustworthy traceable process with paper and be done with it! Do it locally with many eyes watching over everything happening.

It's not hip enough and the results cannot be shown on live TV screens as instantly and the voting equipment companies won't do so much business - so what!

Apparently, some entities are using straight paper ballots for the sake of transparency and simplicity. Switzerland appears to be one of those. No complaints about lack of trustworthiness.

Re:Best Solution IMO

[FatLittleMonkey]

Australia has pencil-and-paper voting and we still get to have live results TV coverage. The only time we don't get a same-day result is when it comes down to one seat, and it's within the margin of postal-ballots. (Or recently, when neither party got a majority and the independents took their sweet fucking time deciding who to support.)

Although I would suggest the US separates Federal, State and Local elections to different times of year, and where possible, different years. That would make things easier both for voters and for counters.

Re:Best Solution IMO

[no-body]

Good points - another idea is to move elections from Tuesdays to Sundays where most people don't work.

Re:Best Solution IMO

[compro01]

another idea is to move elections from Tuesdays to Sundays where most people don't work.

Sounds like an excellent idea to get some more entertainment value out of the religious right.

American Idol Style

[Greyfox]

Everyone should get to vote as much as they want by texting a number, but each vote costs $1. Then the WHOLE WORLD could weigh in! And if Hu Jintao wants to get on the ballot and run, more power to him! Problem solved (You're welcome!)

Re:American Idol Style

[FatLittleMonkey]

The election day revenue could replace taxes.

Technology not always a good idea!

[sd4f]

The last federal election in Australia had something like 16,000 discrepancies, the problem in Aus, is that you aren't require to prove your identity to vote, you do need to identify yourself, but that only means stating your name and address, so that you get crossed off the list, but each electorate has many polling booths, each with many lists, so the same person can vote numerous times, and even though the electoral office will eventually see that, they can't prove whether it was that actual person who went to vote a number of times, pretty much unless they admit it.

Having worked at elections, i would argue that people should be required to prove who they are to vote, but i would be strongly against any electronic system for voting, as i think the old fashioned ballot paper does its job, and while open to some error, is somewhat harder to fabricate, the ballots are there, they all have different scribbles on them, and if any totals go pear shaped, the ballots can always be recounted, again, having worked at the elections, i can say with full confidence that Australian election are not rigged, even though 16,000 discrepancies, that's across 150 electorates all around 80,000 voters in size, and i do think something should be done to reduce the cases of electoral fraud, however, on the whole, voter sentiment ultimately wins as the fraud is only ever a problem in marginal seats, and both sides in the two party system do it, so they kind of cancel each other out. Close results usually mean that there's less than 1,000 votes between the two preferred candidates.

Re:Technology not always a good idea!

[icebike]

The last federal election in Australia had something like 16,000 discrepancies, the problem in Aus, is that you aren't require to prove your identity to vote, you do need to identify yourself, but that only means stating your name and address, so that you get crossed off the list, but each electorate has many polling booths, each with many lists, so the same person can vote numerous times, and even though the electoral office will eventually see that, they can't prove whether it was that actual person who went to vote a number of times, pretty much unless they admit it.

Similar systems are used in many US States, but in all cases i've ever seen, there is exactly ONE ledger. (Several to look you up in, but only one to post in).
(I can't imagine doing it any other way, because the damage would be done by the time you detected it. No way to pull a secret ballot from the bin).
You then vote a paper ballot, counted by machine and the paper is retained for recounts.

In Washington State they have gone to Ballot by Mail. They have a couple weeks to vote after receiving the mailed ballot, and they mail it back. Results are usually known by the official deadline, not because the post office is that efficient, but because most people get it done early and ballots are counted electronically, and voters can look up their ballot on line to see if it was received. Paper ballots read by machines, saved for recounts.

I like mail voting.

It only has two commonly cited flaws are:
Homeless people, (they all get mail somewhere, how else to get their government checks),
and
Vote/ballot buying. (Guido comes by, watches you vote (or just collects your ballot and votes for you), hands you the six pack or weed, or $40 bucks or what-ever.)

Neither is proving a significant issue yet.

Re:Technology not always a good idea!

[icebike]

Oddly enough the most egregious cases of vote buying on record happen in exactly the type of outreach the election commission wants to promote.

It didn't happen in vote by mail jurisdictions where it is commonly claimed the risk is the greatest.

Easy

[rrohbeck]

Auction off every seat publicly. Why use the big detour via PACs->campaign ads->voters??? It's inefficient and reduces transparency.

Re:How about making an effective ID system availab

[GumphMaster]

I must say I am puzzled by the notion that elections for federal public office would fall under the umbrella of "Interstate Commerce" as if money changes hands for elec... Oh! I see.

Voter-ID

[FatLittleMonkey]

special interests

You need to drill down into the history behind the issue. Conservatives are easier to motivate to vote, and almost only vote Republican. Groups that are easy to discourage (young, black, poor) tend to overwhelmingly vote Democrat. High turn-out elections favour Democrats, low turn-out elections favour Republicans.

Hence the Republican powers-that-be tend to (quite rightly) see voter registration drives, "Rock The Vote", "Vote or Die", as a pro-Democrat mechanism. So they push back by making voting more difficult. Hell, I saw a conservative editorial recently describing voter-registration drives and anything that encourages voting as "anti-democratic".

Hence the push for voter-ID systems. And it polls well with non-Republicans, as an anti-fraud measure, making it easy to hide their real intent. (Along with less publicised anti Voter Registration Drive measures, like making it effectively illegal to hand out voter registration forms, etc.)

Here in Australia, we have mandatory voting (well, mandatory turning-up-and-getting-your-name-crossed-off, you can still leave your ballot blank). There's a $50 fine for non-voting, although it's apparently easy to get out of. And we have over 95% turnout at Federal and State elections. The left-wing party supports mandatory voting, the right-wing party opposes it. For exactly the same reasons, and with each using exactly the same poll-friendly lies to defend their positions.

This is all part of the long and nasty history of efforts to keep the "wrong" group from voting.

Re:Voter-ID

[ScentCone]

You're over-thinking this. The urge by (often conservative) lawmakers to have their local elections only available to legitimately registered, living local people who will only be voting once, as themselves, is a response to large, organized operations by highly politicized (and avowedly left-leaning, we-don't-like-Republicans) groups that have a habit of conducting massive registration fraud. Conducting it, tolerating it, encouraging it, and sometimes getting in deep legal trouble for doing so.

Republicans don't want fewer people voting. They want fewer BS votes, especially in the face of highly organized BS voter registration paperwork submitted, over and over again, by Democrat activist groups. The "real agenda" is simple accountability. And that is why it "polls well." Because people are tired of the lack of it.

Re:Voter-ID

[SETIGuy]

How does that Fox News koolaid taste?

Re:Voter-ID

[ScentCone]

I don't know! What's it like to make spurious, adolescent ad hominem snarks, knowing that that's your only method of saying anything without actually addressing the substance of the matter? I mean, I appreciate your tacit acknowledgement of the underlying issue, which is the routine submission of thousands of fraudulant voter registrations by activist groups, and the inevitability that some of those are connected to actual fraudulant votes. I'm sure it probably is maddening to you that not everyone hushes up on the subject, since it's kind of embarassing and all. But don't you feel a little childish blaming the messenger? Never mind. If you did, you wouldn't have opened your yap to say it. Carry on. You're not kidding anybody anyway.

Re:Voter-ID

[cold fjord]

Not a Race Card

The baseless claim that voter ID is a Republican plot to depress the votes of minorities, who disproportionately support Democrats, certainly isn’t made by those Democrats who overwhelmingly control the Rhode Island legislature that passed voter ID. State representative Jon Brien, a Democratic sponsor of the bill, said it was wrong for party leaders to “make this a Republican-versus-Democrat issue. It’s not. It’s simply a good-government issue.” Brien added that “we as representatives have a duty to the citizenry to ensure the integrity of our elections, and the requirement to show an ID will ensure that integrity.” State senator Harold Metts, a black Democrat whose support of Rhode Island’s voter-ID bill angered the ACLU and other leftist organizations, said he was “more interested in doing the right thing and stopping voter fraud.” And polling shows that the so-called leaders of the civil-rights establishment who oppose voter ID are actually out of touch with their constituents, who recognize that voter fraud often hits hardest in minority communities.

Election data in Georgia demonstrate that concern about a negative effect on the Democratic or minority vote is baseless. Turnout there increased more dramatically in 2008 — the first presidential election held after the state’s photo-ID law went into effect — than it did in states without photo ID. Georgia had a record turnout in 2008, the largest in its history — nearly 4 million voters. And Democratic turnout was up an astonishing 6.1 percentage points from the 2004 election, the fourth-largest increase of any state. The black share of the statewide vote increased from 25 percent in 2004 to 30 percent in 2008, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. According to Census Bureau surveys, 65 percent of the black voting-age population voted in the 2008 election, compared with only 54.4 percent in 2004, an increase of more than ten percentage points.

For those who might reply that this was because Barack Obama was on the ballot, think again. Mississippi, with an equally large black population and no voter ID, had its Democratic turnout increase by only 2.35 percentage points. Georgia’s registration records show that while only 42.9 percent of registered black Georgians voted in 2006, when there was no photo-ID requirement, 50.4 percent voted in the 2010 congressional elections — an increase of more than seven percentage points. Georgia’s secretary of state recently pointed out that, compared with 2006, voter turnout in 2010 “among African Americans outpaced the growth of that population’s pool of registered voters by more than 20 percentage points.”

Indiana witnessed similar results. In the state considered to have the nation’s strictest voter-ID law, turnout in the Democratic presidential primary in 2008 quadrupled from the 2004 election, when there was no photo-ID law. In the general election, the turnout of Democratic voters increased by 8.32 percentage points from 2004, the largest increase in Democratic turnout of any state. Neighboring Illinois, which has no photo-ID requirement and is Obama’s home state, had its Democratic turnout increase by only 4.4 percentage points — barely half of Indiana’s increase. In the 2010 election, Indiana was one of the states with a substantial increase in black turnout: “The black share of the state vote was higher in 2010 than it was in 2008, a banner year for black turnout,” according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. The black share of the total vote went from only 7 percent in 2008 to 12 percent in 2010.

Numerous studies — including those by the Heritage Foundation, the University of Missouri, the University of Delaware, and the University of Nebraska–Lincol

Re:Voter-ID

[SETIGuy]

I've said it elsewhere. Redundancy is the province of the screaming child. Please, continue your tantrum.

Re:Voter-ID

[cold fjord]

Do you actually have any facts or arguments to add to the discussion?

Re:Voter-ID

[ScentCone]

I wonder if you even fathom the irony in your post.

Re:Voter-ID

[jduhls]

What are "BS votes"? Was my vote "BS"? Does "BS" stand for "Blacks & 'Spanics" (ba-dum dum)? There is little-to-no evidence of "BS Voting". It was concocted in order to manipulate people into more "us -vs- them" voting blocks. Fell for it, huh?

Fraud?

[CapOblivious2010]

I don't know how prevalent individual voter fraud is.... but I've always been a little skeptical of the claim that it's nearly non-existent, since our current election procedures are incapable of detecting it.

In other news, I've discovered that there's no such thing as poor people, because if I close my eyes real tight when riding through downtown I never see any poor people - so clearly there aren't any!

Re:Fraud?

[gmhowell]

I make essentially no effort to prevent elephants from entering my living room, yet it turns out they are still not there.

Re:Fraud?

[CapOblivious2010]

1) You may make no effort to prevent them, but at least you have a procedure in place to detect them

2) I doubt elephants have much incentive to invade your living room

Your analogy is 0 for 2: FAIL!

Online Voting

[digitally404]

What could possibly be more accessible than voting online? There are public avenues of doing this (library's, internet cafe's)... Seriously. As for security, we already do some very sensitive transactions online, and I'm sure all the tallied data is going to end up on some networked computer somewhere anyways even now... How about you create a youtube-esque election site that covers everyones agendas? Where the size of your bank account doesn't matter, because you reach to just as many people as the next guy, who's poorer than you...

Away with congressman and representatives! I want to be able to represent myself! Just let me vote for elections and on major policies online...

Obviously this requires some more planning and thinking to actually make it work.

Re:Online Voting

[icebike]

The study is about improving voter access, not going backward.

Computer/internet access is estimated at only 77% in the US. Thats in line with the US Census bureau estimate of 68% back in 2009.

Internet cafe? Really? I have no idea where these things exist any more, and nothing would suppress voter turnout than having to queue up at some sleazy back alley gamer/porn den.

Libraries? With their semi-functional ancient computers? No.

And if you seriously don'b believe this could be gamed and hacked you are nuts.
Nothing like handing the keys of power out as the prize for the first person (country) to do so.

Re:Things I want to see change in the US.

[FatLittleMonkey]

Some would say strategic voting is still possible with Instant Runoff Voting

But it would be a very weird election where it was useful. Look at the scenarios created to demonstrate strategic voting under IRV, then change "Candidate A, B, C" to actual parties. The scenario usually falls apart.

You are confusing 2 issues there.

[khasim]

For example, testimony by John Sample before the Senate Rules Committee showed that Alaska had 503,000 people on its voter rolls but only 437,000 people of voting age in the entire state.

And?

The question is NOT whether the voter rolls were 100% accurate.

The question is whether people were voting multiple times.

Isn't it funny that activists take up the cause to prevent the requirement of having some form of ID to vote, but not to cash government assistance checks?

Nice. Thanks for showing that.

Hmmmm

[ettusyphax]

Well for one you could do away with gerrymandering that marginalizes poor people, or neo-Jim Crow Laws (see Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow" 2010), or bring back organizations like ACORN which helped to rally ethnic minorities and the economically disadvantaged (before being gutted by the GOP on verifiably baseless claims), or eliminate the electoral college, or pursue more direct-democracy solutions based on Switzerland's thousand-year-old system, or any number of other things. But no, let's waste our time rehashing buzzwords from 2006 so that rich white people can feel good about themselves. Thanks.

Voter ID = Poll Tax

[ThatsNotPudding]

The most prevalent US ID is a drivers license - if you don't have one, you probably are poor and left-leaning, so we don't want you voting. Just get a state ID, you say? The same folks who dreamed up Voter ID laws also made sure the process of getting a state ID requires a not insignificant amount of time and money to further suppress the working poor from exercising their voting rights. Only rich whites should vote; based on most of our history, what's more American than that?

What About Ranked Choice?

[garthsundem]

In addition to crowdsourcing accessibility, what about taking suggestions for election mechanics themselves? Our winner-take-all elections effectively squish third party candidates -- a vote for anything but Dem/Rep is wasted, so why do it except in symbolic protest? Not so in ranked elections: http://www.economist.com/node/21533435. Or what about allowing voters to split, like, 10 "preference points" across candidates as they see fit?

Typical election == crowd sourcing by default

[recharged95]

An election is essentially crowd sourcing. Stop reinventing the wheel with a new buzz word folks..

People just hate to vote in the end.

Then again, what do people like? As the saying goes: sex, love, and money--oh and include food too.

Conservative mods

[SETIGuy]

Yet another moderator is trying to ensure that reasonable arguments are never seen.

Re:How about making an effective ID system availab

[ktetch-pirate]

p>Why not a national ID system? Why not any kind of biometric systems? Why nothing but a picture?

A National ID system you say? you mean like REAL ID?

As for biometrics, what do you think a picture is?

Conscience

[NewYork]

Elections are of no use unless people vote as per their conscience