Democracy - American style.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Some time ago, before the election, I was of the opinion after [Poll #1881500]

Comments

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Actually, the best solution to prevent it from happening is mandatory automatic registration at 18. While I suppose that might not catch every single person, it'll certainly catch the vast majority.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Sort of anti-freedomz though as a solution, isn't it?

Ergo, it won't work for America. You need a different answer: but what that is I'm groping in the dark for. (If you'll excuse me ending on a preposition.)

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

groping for in the dark :P

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, for the sake of style, which is a defining characteristic of prose, it is prob. necessary to bend rules: as any fule kno.

This is especially true of parodic satire. [Tips hat.]

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

We do that. I like it, it works for us.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

We're talking about America and the politics of the possible here.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Ah, my state, I love you so.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

You should see the Everest-sized mound of shit that my country has done.

Some diamonds in all that crap though, and some pure gold too: which is true for most countries, really.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly skeptical that the claims are 100% true, that this isn't sour grapes from people who were in the power structure now finding themselves on the outside, etc.

If they are true, however, this is a good result with a terrible rationale behind it. I agree that early voting needs to be curbed, and I tend to land on the "outright eliminated except in cases of absolute necessity" camp. At the end of the day, the goal is to make voting as secure and universal as possible, and the outcome of this policy, independent of the intent, aids in that.

One day to vote, register ahead of time, show an ID when you arrive. Basic stuff here. While I have doubts of the truth of these statements, this intention is not the way to get there.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

That the outcome and intent of these measures is so different we can only put down to happy accident, incompetence, and wilful blindness to fact, on the part of the machine; and the affirmations of religious zealotry by some of the individual candidates, maybe.

Just think: with a better organisation, the electoral task could perhaps have been accomplished, and all of these awkward questions and disgruntled folk could have been bought off with a sinecure or two. It is how it worked many centuries ago, when the state interfered rather less. Such a method is in operation even now in some countries I can think of.

No doubt it will evolve, or devolve, into something better, or whatever, driven by the market and need.

Or you could give yourselves a meta-political Standing Electoral Commission with real teeth. If democracy is so wonderful and precious, perhaps in this day and age, and where folk on either side behave badly, it needs some non-political oversight, and maybe even some overseers with the ability to make punitive redress.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

We're at a point now where some of our states have proven themselves so incapable of running a competent election, that we really need to invite in, say, South Africa to oversee their voting apparatus.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Which is why I'm suggesting a guarantor of electoral freedomz.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Are you similarly skeptical about those claims when it's Democrats involved?

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

the goal is to make voting as secure and universal as possible

Do you believe their are trade offs between universality and security?

If there are trade offs between universality and security, how much security is worth how much universality?

In what way does "one day to vote" increase the security of voting? My own sentiment is that security is enhanced by early voting. My reasons, looking at my own hometown: the City of Gainesville, and outlying bedroom communities, had 69 polling places open on election day, 2012. During Early voting, there were 3 open sites.

That means, for the duration of Early voting, the best equipment, allowing for the best procedural checks, were ~20 times more concentrated. The Staff of early voting were able to work at a steady pace, rather than a perpetual cattle call rush, and actually had a learning curve, wherein they could become better at their jobs as voting ramped up toward the climax. This would lead to improved security.

I'd also like (and have been looking for) some hard numbers about facility and equipment use, but my feeling is that the Early voting arrangement supplies some economy of scale such that the cost to process each early voter is less than the cost to process each election day voter.

So, if early voting is not an extraordinary economic hardship for the municipality, and if it is not less secure, and if it increases voter participation, why would anyone oppose it?

Arguments that it decreases security better be well formed and empirical, rather than vague pseudo-worries, as the later implies that the security goal is a red herring, and that the real goal is decreasing participation.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Do you believe their are trade offs between universality and security?

Not especially. We're not talking about impossible, or even difficult, barriers here.

In what way does "one day to vote" increase the security of voting?

Less opportunity, fewer people involved in the process. It's easier to keep the situation tight when you're there for 13 hours as opposed to 13 days.

So, if early voting is not an extraordinary economic hardship for the municipality, and if it is not less secure, and if it increases voter participation, why would anyone oppose it?

Beyond the security aspect, it encourages uninformed voting. A lot can happen in the lead-up to the election, and everyone voting working off of the same information at the same time is significantly better than the staggered situation where someone votes right away and then learns information later that would have changed that. Better, for an informed populace, to keep everyone on the same day.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

What about making voting day a public holiday excepting for the voting officials? And keep it midweek so folk can't turn it into a holiday. Easy to switch one of the other public holidays for voting day.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> Not especially. We're not talking about impossible, or even difficult, barriers here.

Yet, you yourself detail a very specific trade off. In your opinion, more days = more security holes. Since More days also equals more access, we have an explicit security / universality trade off... unless you contend that more days is not equal to more access. Do you so contend?

In any event, assuming that we have such a trade off, how much greater access is worth how much security risk? How much more security assurance is worth how much restriction of access? This is not a trivial or theoretical question... questions like these were the essence of voting access advocate's critique of Texas voting ID laws which would have suppressed the votes of hundreds of thousands, to improve ID security which had been exploited by at most, dozens of people.

> Less opportunity, fewer people involved in the process. It's easier to keep the situation tight when
> you're there for 13 hours as opposed to 13 days.

That makes sense... until we do the math. Here in my state, more than half of all votes cast were cast early (50.7%). In my county, Alachua, This was done using 8 times the days (or hours), but using only ~1/21th the locations.

Doing a quick back of the envelope calculation (presuming that less locations = less people, and that more hours = more people. That's about 1/3 the facility and people cost, servicing more than 1/2 of the votes. Sounds to me that if all voting was done under the early voting regime, less people, and less places, and less equipment needs to be involved... and security risk is a function of total people,total locations, indeed total OPPORTUNITIES for subterfuge. Not just the total number of hours.


> it encourages uninformed voting.

Oh please. We have a long enough election season that anyone who wishes to be informed about policy and records can be. All that's left in the last 7 days is posturing and photo ops and muck raking.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't work here at all. King County closed all its polling places a few years ago in favor of all-mail balloting. No such thing as same-day balloting, really, anymore.

I for one miss the polling places. Gave a sense of civic involvement.

And I would be okay with ID being mandatory only if a free, government-issued ID were created (with no RFIDs installed). That's been the barrier for many, the need to pay for things like licenses with photos. Remove the barrier for entry to all, and we can talk turkey. Until then, call it a dead issue.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't work here at all. King County closed all its polling places a few years ago in favor of all-mail balloting. No such thing as same-day balloting, really, anymore.

Oregon? I really hate that in Oregon especially. At least in-person early voting doesn't pretty much ensure you have to get there a few days early to make sure your vote counts.

And I would be okay with ID being mandatory only if a free, government-issued ID were created (with no RFIDs installed). That's been the barrier for many, the need to pay for things like licenses with photos. Remove the barrier for entry to all, and we can talk turkey. Until then, call it a dead issue.

I don't think this is actually controversial. At least not anymore.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> I don't think this is actually controversial. At least not anymore.

Then why did none of the recent spat of Voter ID laws include provisions to make a specific and free voter ID?

They all tried to use existing ID's with demographic baggage intact (Like the Texas proposal that allowed use of conceal carry ID's, but not University ID)

[oslo.livejournal.com]

One day to vote, register ahead of time, show an ID when you arrive. Basic stuff here.

Oh, okay. So you don't really care about seriously weighing "universality" in the choice of policy. Good to know.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I don't see how I'm not weighing it here.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

As usual it's ironic that the people most afraid of a specific thing were the ones engaging in it the most wholesale. None so shameless as those without a conscience and intent on fearmongering to substitute for actual politics.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Projection.

It happens.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I thought that projectors were outdated technology by now? ;)