election thoughts

[djdima]

It is a sad state of affairs when all the important parties cast doubt on election results based on either too many people voting, or not enough people voting. This is my opinion of how the US should deal with this problem

Comments

[transplanted]

the first time you post in more than a year; and the only thing intresting enough for you to talk about is the election - if it's so important to you - you vote!

[puddnhead]

It's an interesting math problem actually. Is it possible to have verifyable voting while maintaining privacy? As far as the rest, don't disagree with it, but would point out that better to focus on the goal and not to get too caught up in the specific method by which that goal is reached. There's nothing magical about electronic voting that _necessarily_ makes it better worse than shards of pottery. There's also an arguement to be made that the underlying problem that led to this lack of trust is not one that can be solved by technical means alone. As long as they have lost faith in their government, people will still distrust even a fully fool proof voting mechanism. That particular problem can only be solved with time or revolution.

problems

[djdima]

I agree with you absolutely that the problem is more a psychological/sociological problem than a technical one. Of course, the root of the problem is that the Republicans would just prefer to have large numbers of people not vote: as long is this is the case it will be politically impossible to solve the problem.

In reality, my scheme is just an attempt at creating a voting mechanism that would be difficult enough to game that Republicans would have a hard time voting against it (or something like it). Of course, Republicans would just find something else to object to (like the usage of SSNs) instead of owning up to the fact that demographics dictate that the party cannot continue to be so exclusive.

Also, I forgot to mention the national voting holiday thing, although certainly lots of other people have talked about that before.

Re: problems

[puddnhead]

Gotcha. See my fear is if all the best voting practices in the world are introduced, the tactic will simply change from messing with the vote to messing with the voter. It doesn't matter if your ballot box is uncorruptable- all you have to do is convince the right people that it is corruptable so that they end up concluding that they might as well stay at home.

The system may be sick to the point that a revolution is the only way to fix it. Mind you, revolution doesn't have to mean a new constitution and storming the 1600 Penn Ave. I think you can make the argument that the demise of the Whig party and rise of the (original abolitionist) Republican party was a revolution of sorts. The time is ripe, just need to track down that damn handbook on how to do it. :-)

"No one ever changed the church by pulling down the steeple.
Systems just aren't made of bricks. They're mostly made of people."
-Penny Rimbaud (Big A, Little A)