Twelve more hours
Nov. 1st, 2004 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
illusionofjoyBy tomorrow afternoon, I will be standing in a booth, pulling levers, casting my choices into the pool of thousands in an attempt to turn the tide of a nation. I'm honestly sick of the campaigns and the waiting. I'm sick of politics. It's like a pernicious disease; I want to tune it out and get away from it all, but I keep watching, like some sick junkie. This is the most important election of my lifetime and I am worried.
I am sick of the Bush administration and their backers. It seems to me that half of the United States is either too stupid or paralyzed with fear to make an informed decision, therefore opting to stick with an incumbent administration bent on a policy of flushing the nation down the shitter. I want a president who doesn't see himself as the fearless leader who happens to be God's mouthpiece - I want a president who will be a public servant.
You see, to me, in voting, I am reviewing a list of job applicants. When I vote for a candidate, I have decided, based on this person's resume, that they would be the best person to hire for the job. By denying an incumbent my vote, I am effectively saying, "you're fired."
It seems that half of the United States doesn't see themselves hiring public servants, but instead, want people who will make their lives easier by telling them what to do (Ted Rall wrote an interesting article about this). I don't want my elected officials telling me what to do! I want to tell them what to do! Telling your representatives what to do is what democracy is all about. It is what democracy should be: a voice of the people - all of the people.
George Bush and company are not conservatives. A true conservative would have maintained the reforms of the Clinton administration, and kept steady along that path without pushing any further. If anything, the Bush administration is full of regressives, reactionaries and simple despots. That George Bush has nothing negative to say about Russia's Vladimir Putin and his grabs for more power is telling. Then again, so is the fact that Bush was quoting as saying, "this would be so much easier if it were a dictatorship - so long as I was the dictator." Don't believe me? Look it up on the "internets."
John Kerry's presidency won't be perfect. In fact, it will be very much about damage control, at least in the beginning. If he is saddled with a House that doesn't agree with him, the process of reconstruction will become much more difficult (if ever there was a time to vote along party lines, this is it, Democrats). Still, I see great things for the nation should Kerry make it to the White House. I trust a man who stops, sits back and weighs his options before jumping to action. I trust a man who will change his mind if he sees that path he treads is leading towards disaster. Some call this "flip-flopping" - I call it common sense.
My main concern is that, despite all the canvassing, despite all of the "get out the vote" efforts, the 2004 election will be yet another sick rerun of the 2000 election. Already in Ohio, two judges have been forced to bar Republican-appointed "challengers" from hanging around polling booths. These so-called challengers would have tested those going to the polls to see if they truly qualified. Meanwhile in Florida, nearly 60,000 absentee ballots have gone missing already. It all seems very fishy to me.
With an election evenly tied, it wouldn't be difficult for the debacle of 2000 to happen all over again. A few strings pulled here and there and - poof - King George gets the throne once again. The best way to prevent this from happening is for as many Americans to go out and vote as possible. The people need to go out en masse and swarm the polling stations. Not only that, but should some form of wankery happen as the results are being tabulated, we need to rise up and firmly shout, "no! This is wrong!" The people of the United States not only need to go out and vote but they - we - need to be willing to defend our votes and our right to vote (Project Vote Smart is a wonderful resource for both veteran and first-time voters).
I have actually been thinking about what exactly is wrong with the system of elections in this nation and what can be done to fix it. I came up with these points:
- The Electoral College needs to be abolished
- A simple majority must give way to instant run-off voting
- A nationwide standard of polling needs to be implemented
This archaic remnant from prior to the civil war served only to disconnect people from their elected representatives (because the general public was thought too unwise to chose the correct candidates) and to give slave-holding states more representation in Congress by counting slaves as 3/5ths of a human being. The Electoral College suppresses the popular vote and is an affront to the democratic process.
There is no reason for the people this nation to be forced to chose between two parties. There is also no reason for third party candidates, such as Ralph Nader, to be considered "spoilers." If there is one truth that goes unsaid about the 2000 presidential election, it was that between votes for Gore and Nader, more people total did not want Bush in office, than who did (Gore still won the popular vote and would have been president were it not for the Electoral College, Supreme Court, hanging chads, etc.). In any case, the majority of the people did not want a certain candidate in office, but since the vote was split within that majority, it allowed for a candidate with a simple majority to get in office. An instant run-off election would prevent such a thing from happening. Here's how it works: say you have three candidates running against each other: the Red, Blue and Yellow parties. When polled, voters chose 35% Yellow, 25% Red and 40% Blue. In a polling system with a simple majority, Blue wins the election, even though 60% of those polled did not want Blue in office. Since they could only chose one candidate at a time, what could they do, however? Instant run-off voting allows for voters to choose multiple candidates, in descending order of priority. If a voter enters the booth, with the intention of voting for Yellow and is hard-line against Blue, they can also select Red as a second choice. In the same election, Red's 25% would "run-off" to Yellow, giving Yellow a 60% poll over Blue's 40% and the win in the election. [More on Instant Runoff Voting]
In Pennsylvania alone, there are five different types of devices used to tally votes, depending on what county one resides in. At best, this is inconvenient when one moves from one part of the nation to another. At worst, it is confusing and leads to mistakes. It is my opinion that a national standard for polling stations would greatly decrease the chance of errors and miscounts. If everyone in the nation is on the same wavelength, then it is easier to tell if something is amiss - fraud can be spotted more efficiently and legitimate votes can be tallied with more accuracy. Whatever system would be implemented would have to pass two standards: 1.) The voter must be able to clearly discern which candidate he or she is choosing and 2.) a non-contestable record of the voter's choice(s) must be made and kept in a tamperproof medium.
These were just some of my thoughts for repairing a flawed Electoral system. Obviously none of these reforms are going to happen by tomorrow, however, they could happen, with enough public support.
As for the now, I am going to vote tomorrow afternoon and hope to see the desired results of my visit to the polls on the evening news. Democracy is advanced citizenship and I don't intend on being at the back of the class. You shouldn't either.
More info:
