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

[sethg]

(1) I’ve never seen straight-party options on ballots in Boston, Cambridge, or Somerville, MA. I assume these were established in cities with more powerful political machines.

(2) No. This is how elections used to be run. Then cronies of whichever party was in charge of vote-counting would look for any excuse to disqualify written-in votes for the opposition, which led the parties to take out newspaper ads with preprinted ballots... and then finally reformers came up with the brilliant idea of preprinting everyone’s name on the ballot itself. A democratic election should simply take the measure of the peoples’ will, not make them jump through hoops to prove their worthiness to vote.

(2a) On the other hand, the blogger Matthew Yglesias has long argued that American elections simply have too many positions on the ballot: it would be better to have the few offices that everyone actually pays attention to be elected and have the rest be appointed.

(3) In Massachusetts, people handing out literature have to stay a certain distance away from the polling place. Is that not the rule in Pennsylvania?

(4) For multi-member constituencies, the technical term is single transferable vote, and it is indeed used in some Australian states, as well as in the People’s Republic of Cambridge. For single-member consistencies, the equivalent of STV is instant-runoff. I love these systems but I despair of them catching on in this nerd-hating country.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

For me, voting involves going to the polls, getting the ballot which is a sheet of paper with names on it and ovals next to the names, and we use a marker to fill in the oval next to the name we want.

No option to vote party line. In any case, not all offices have candidates from all parties, so, in practical terms, you couldn't.

Not sure I want to make voting into a spelling test. If you're dyslexic enough that you CAN use a ballot, if you familiarize yourself with it, but CAN'T reliably write a name, I don't see that you should be penalized. If you've had a stroke, and are perfectly lucid, but have trouble with fine motor control, I can imagine you might be able to fill in an oval easier than you could write a name.

Our polling place has a line painted on the ground with "ELECTION LIMIT" on it. Most places I've voted that have been polling places for decades have similar painted lines. Any electioneering has to happen on the far side of that line.

I don't mind campaign literature, because I've been handed actual brochures when approaching the polls, which laid out information in fair detail.

[sue-n-julia.livejournal.com]

Given that, between state and local races, Julia and I each voted for about 25 people (6 of whom were unopposed judges) and 10 referenda/proposals, requiring write-in voting is somewhat unreasonable. Yes, I can usually remember 25 names or so, but not necessarily what will be the valid spellings.

Given how close our 2004 gubernatorial election (Gregoire vs. Rossi) was (less than 123 votes difference) and that it did go to the courts as it was, I don't even want to think about how bad it would have been if people could argue if spellings were close enough. And, considering the difference in difficulty spelling Gregoire and Rossi, would the win truly have been one that the people wanted or one created by whose attorneys could eliminate more votes based on poor spelling?

FYI, I pay attention to our politics and I called our current governor MacGregoire instead of Gregoire while I drafted that. Should my vote not count?

S

ETA: Washington does a mail-in ballot (you receive it by mail and can either return it by mail or drop it at a balloting location or public library). This is really nice because I was able to spend time with the ballot, researching referenda and candidates -- thereby not relying entirely on the propaganda that comes across our airwaves. This is especially important as the local candidates did not do much advertising or campaign rallies.

Straight party vote

[brokengoose.livejournal.com]

I've often thought that we SHOULD continue to offer a straight party vote option, but any votes made under that option would be worth half. Mark that clearly, of course. If you're in a hurry, or you can't bother to read the rest of the ballot, it's a quick way to indicate your preference without being informed. Your vote counts for less, though, because you're explicitly saying that you don't care who the candidate is and can't even be bothered to look through the rest of the ballot to find out.

I'd also like to see actual paper ballots of some sort. The lack of a paper trail is disturbing.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

This is the most interesting election-related post I've read today. I'm going to point a friend of mine who helps run elections to it, as I think she might have some useful perspectives.

#1 has been implemented in Missouri, and people find it VERY annoying

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I'm here via browngirl, who knew I'd find this interesting. I'm recuperating today from nearly 19 hours working at the polls yesterday with a sprained ankle and a crick in my neck, so forgive me if I'm a trifle incoherent.

I can't tell you how often people complain to me about having to touch in or ink in the oval next to their candidates' names. "It was so much EASIER in the OLD days!". And sure as hell, people come in and bemoan the absence of the punch cards. I told one man yesterday that he had clearly never seen a stack of punch cards actually BREAK a computer, as I have, and that he probably wouldn't enjoy going back to waiting three days for full election results as we used to have to do.

I swear to the gods that people would use ANY method of voting if we just gave them back the ancient booths with curtains that creaked open when you pulled down a lever. They loved those.

As for write-ins...If you do that, you need to raise funds for your governments to get 1)very, very sophisticated handwriting recognition software 2)an army of staff and 3) be prepared to wait at least a week for your election returns.

I would mostly agree with you on number three, except for the simple fact that often people do take the list of party candidates and use them as a voting guide. I always vote early, due to the fact that I'm working on election day, so I take in a printout of my ballot or a hand-written cheat sheet, then I take it home and put it in my own recycling bin or use the one at the Board of Elections.

How about this...Every single electioneer MUST have a recycling bin with him or her, and must collect literature from exiting voters. Signs MUST be removed from outside the polling place no later than closing time (7 p.m. here in Missouri) or fines will be imposed. If the fines are amateur ones, the fine will be imposed on the candidate or on the organization supporting the measure.

No thoughts on #4. I may not have enough brain left to consider it.

[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)

[byronhaverford.livejournal.com]

While I find your suggestions appealing, I think that they are not likely to be accepted by the politicians or the populace.

In California, before every state-wide election, a voter information booklet is mailed (by the state) to every registered voter. Each candidate is allowed to fill a single page with whatever he likes. Each ballot measure gets one page for the pro- and one page for the con-, and one additional page of independent fiscal analysis.

That booklet was INCREDIBLY valuable to me as a voter, and I am convinced that it led to a better-informed electorate. I would pay higher taxes for this service in Pennsylvania.