Writer's Block: Vote early, vote often

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Gosh, I wish the asker of this question were kidding.

I vote on issues, either directly or at the meta level. An example of the latter: as grouchyoldcoot pointed out last night, Pennsylvania is losing a congressional district due to the recent census, and the state legislature and governor together decide the new boundaries. I favor the Republican candidate for governor (I don't think we can afford Onorato, who is likely to continue the current governor's reckless policies), so it matters that the Democrats dominate at least one house in the legislature. Under other circumstances I probably would not have voted for the Democratic incumbent, but I did today. Did it help? We'll see, I guess. But I feel strongly enough about the issues that I wasn't willing to ignore them and vote for the Democratic candidate for governor even though the Republicans have a strong presence in the legislature now. We can survive a Republican-drawn redistricting more easily than we can survive a continuation of Ed Rendell's policies.

(For those who are wondering, I don't particularly like either of the candidates for US Senate, but Pat Toomey scares the crap out of me so I voted for Joe Sestak.)

I tend to vote for Libertarians when they appear on the ballot (none today), but only if they pass basic due diligence on the issues. They have to be little-l libertarians too and not just people who got enough signatures on a petition to run. As I think we've all come to learn, minor parties can easily attract wackos.

thoughts on election day (not about candidates)

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!