thoughts on election day (not about candidates)

[cellio]

Voting reforms I would like to see (unlikely as they may be):

1. No "vote straight party" options. The right to vote is important and was hard-won; it is not too much to require that you actually vote for candidates.

2. All voting is write-in. If you can't bother to learn, or write down, some approximation of the names of your chosen candidates, why are you voting for them? All reasonable permutations of spelling accepted (to be determined in advance for each candidate). Nice side bonus: it might reduce negative campaigning, which repeats the opposition candidate's name all over the place...

3. No handing out of campaign literature at the polls. Signs are fine (at distances specified by law), but no hand-outs that subvert #2 and create a waste problem.

The goal of all three: a more-informed electorate. When asked who you voted for you should be able to say something more specific than "the Democrat". It might take a little longer to vote and a little longer to count the results, but isn't it worth it?

And finally:

4. Ranked voting, so that people can vote for perceived dark horses without feeling they've implicitly voted for the greater evil among the front-runners. (You see this all the time -- "I'd like to vote for X, but the bad guy is ahead so I need to vote for the less-bad guy who could actually win instead". So other parties get few votes and the cycle continues.) There are merits to both the Worldcon-style "Australian ballot" (do Australians actually vote that way?), where you keep eliminating the lowest vote-getters until a majority emerges, and point tallies, where top position is worth N points, next on N-1, and so on, and most points wins. Either scheme is better than what we do now.

Now that would be an enpowered electorate!

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

(1) Word. Even if you are just walking in with a cheat-sheet you should never be beholden to one party.

(2) Not sure on this.. we have enough candidates that I don't hear of until I get the ballot (and then have to go online to research) that I like having at least a list of names in a booklet. My handwriting is also so poor that my vote would no longer count. ;-)

(3) Oh, you would have loved Elihu Harris. His staff basically handed out coupons for free chicken dinners for people who voted for him. I kid you not. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elihu_Harris)

[cellio]

(2) Not sure on this.. we have enough candidates that I don't hear of until I get the ballot (and then have to go online to research) that I like having at least a list of names in a booklet.

And you could bring that list of names with you -- no problem there. It's not a memory test.

My handwriting is also so poor that my vote would no longer count. ;-)

I was actually thinking of write-ins being implemented as type-ins. Much easier for everybody.

(3): oh my...

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

I was actually thinking of write-ins being implemented as type-ins.

Ah, I vote absentee. My polling place is inconvenient, and I much prefer lying down with the booklet and a laptop when deciding on who to vote for. Once that part is done I don't want to have to fill in a second ballot.