No, this is not a typical "the Bush's stole the election" type post. Actually, I will not even focus on problems within our voting stations. And I don't want this thread to degrade to that "Diebold fixed the election" rants. I have a number of problems with our actual election process. I will address each one and suggest some things to help fix the problems. Some of you may not agree with it. Fine, I encourage you to respond. And I'll respond...then you will respond...and then I will respond again...pretty much, there will be a large amount of responses if all goes well.

I Private Voting Machine Companies/Other Voting Procedures
II McCain-Feingold Voting reforms
III Primaries
IV Electoral College

Private Voting Machine Companies

This is the part that will make everyone think I am assaulting the past elections. I am not. What I have to say is completely non-partisan. I do not care what has happened in the past. This is only for the future.

I believe the voting machines should not be made in the private sector. Regardless of how reputable or non-partisan they appear to be. This is right out.

For starters, they could be biased...or their employees. They do not have to answer to anybody. They do not have to share their source codes for the programs. They can add easy-to-exploit backdoors. There are so many logical reasons they should not be able to produce the equipment that is used to elect our government.

Two, why is it that a Federally Sanctioned Election uses Private Sector machines? Would it not make more sense if we used Federally Produced voting machines? After all, if we have people of both sides watching each other like a hawk, wouldn't that help prevent dishonesty? (How to keep a Baptist from drinking? Bring two...that whole analogy...)

But, if our Government is going to produce the machines that calculate the votes, we would need to adopt a national standard. The completely electronic machines produce no paper trail. Our machines must produce a receipt. In fact, I believe they should produce two of them. One of them, is left with at the polling station for recounts. That way we can satisfy both types of people. The people who don't care as long as their guy wins and the guys who will complain about cheating because their people lost.

Also, we must have an easy to understand system. Look at Florida when there was an abnormally high percentage of votes for Buchanan. I'm not going to say the ballots weren't easy to read, but obviously we are missing some people. So, I say we should probably make sure the system can be used by anyone...even the blind...

McCain-Feingold Bill

I admit it. I was once for this resolution. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I was once very naive. I did not realize that there are some objectionable things with this legislation.

First thing was to eliminate the soft money issue. It sounds like a great start for the younger political groups. Corporations and unions cannot donate money. Since the other two parties cannot accept the large sums of money, they have a more level playing field. But this will hurt them in the long run. They are bound to the new hard money regulations. They can only accept donations of up to $10,000. Which means they have to do alot more convincing people than the big two would have to. So, they cannot have some multi-millionaires helping them out further than the grand total of $10,000 per candidate.

Also, McCain-Feingold limits free speech. You don't believe me? Look it up. They have succesfully prevented unions and corporations from creating advertisements. It will be unnacceptable for these groups to create "pro-anybody" advertisements 60 days before a Federal Election.

I think those two portions should be looked at more closely before the next big election.

Primaries

This one bugs the heck out of me...the primaries. It is everybody's turn to go around the country and tell people to vote for him instead of the other eight guys that are just like him. And, yes I do have a legitimate complaint outside of the obvious irony.

The part that bugs me about them is the way they are conducted. Each party runs different candidates and those who belong to that party votes for them. But, no one outside of the party may vote in these run-offs. That part bugs me and I can only point to this last election.

The Democrats chose the candidate who best reflects the views of the "people". With our current division, the Democrats selected one of the most extreme candidates running. He is only likable by his party alone. He does nothing for the other half of the country. Dubya is the same way. He is an extreme candidate. He does nothing for the other half.

So with our two party dominated system, we have two candidates that can only be chosen from picking the lesser of two evils. That is the problem. In the current state, each side will put up the poster child for all of their ideals. There won't be any middle ground. I believe that most of the people of the USA are closer to the middle. So, not many of them feel good with the choice.

I don't really have any suggestion for this problem. The other solution is not that good anyway. That would be to allow everyone to vote in primaries. But, you could argue that the opposing party could try to help select a poor candidate for them. I wish there was an easy way to solve this. It looks like we will just have to suffer unless anyone else has any idea.

Ellectoral College

Ah, yes. The insult to our advancement in life. Back then, this was the best way to conduct elections. Today, it just helps screw the people. The problem I have with it is fact that we can have people win the Popular Vote and lose the presidency. We no longer have true state identity anymore, so why can't we eliminate this. I believe that we can do away with this and be better for it.

Think about it, Bush could have won by 3.5 million votes, but John Kerry could have pulled Ohio and won. Would you conservatives like it? And I know how the liberals feel about it from the 2000 vote.

I do not think we need it anymore. Or, we could do away with the Senate vote in it. That way it would more accurately reflect the will of the people.

But those are my thoughts...thanks for checking it out!

I forgot to add few things in here.

Voter ID

We need to have some form of Voter Identification. This should eliminate people from voting when they shouldn't. It is horrendous that people actually argue against people proving who the hell they are.

I think that is it...

Then do not come to Wisconsin where Governor Doyle is set to veto that. It was found that 15K people voted in Milwaukee that gave fictional addresses. It was predominantly black communities. Why would he vote for something that may cost his reelection? What logic can he give otherthan he knows people are voting falsly and would affect his party.

OXmanK,

Good post.

There is another alternative to the voting machine issue: having the source code be open source. That way anyone and everyone will have access and be able to look at the code, both private citizens and federal watchdogs -- the best of both worlds. Open source communities already exist, and giving folks a new project that costs the government nothing to develop would be a good thing for both tax payers and the government.

With respect to the rest, I have heard this idea from another, and I think it is interesting. To end the woes of the current system, let's create another system. Instead of a democracy, let's call it a Randomocracy. It goes something like this:

1. Take a random sampling of 2,000 Americans a certain age or over.
2. Allow whomever of that sampling that are not interested in being president drop out.
3. With the smaller group left, have everyone write a paragraph of a certain length outlying their personal ideas/policies/views for the future.
4. Publish all of these for the American public to view; however, do not publish any information regarding who wrote the paragraph.
5. Allow the American people to vote for the secret person behind the paragraph of their liking.

The interesting implications are as follows:
1. anyone realistically has a chance of being president.
2. Party voting is over -- you vote for a person's views and not their party.
3. Millions will not be spent in primaries, advertisements, etc.
4. Electoral College is over; not more red or blue states.
5. The voter has a true scientific sampling of the American people to evaluate which person represents America the best.


Any thoughts?

Originally posted by radardog

The interesting implications are as follows:
1. anyone realistically has a chance of being president.

Don't think I want just anyone to be president. The average American, imo and self-inclusive, is an idiot. The large majority of us have no idea how to govern our own lives much less a nation of 180M. The president doesn't just sit around and make decisions, he has to organize a cabinet and staff to help manage Congress and an enormous beauracracy.

2. Party voting is over -- you vote for a person's views and not their party.

Biggest problem with that is the fact that Congress is still a two party system. Any proposal from a third-party president would likely be DOA. What would the point of that be?

3. Millions will not be spent in primaries, advertisements, etc.

Then what would the farmers in Iowa and the old folks in CT do every 4 years? Like it or not, presidential politics is a nice way for some places and organizations to make money.

4. Electoral College is over; not more red or blue states.

I actually think the Electoral College is still a good idea. Without it, small states like the one I live in are completely irrelevant. Candidates would completely ignore the bulk of the country and focus on places like NYC, LA, Chicago, etc. An interesting trend that others have no doubt noted elsewhere is that the Dem candidate in the last 2 elections carried nearly every major city, but lost nearly all rural areas.

5. The voter has a true scientific sampling of the American people to evaluate which person represents America the best.

Again, I would say that this is not necessarily in our country's best interest.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Smaller states are irrelevent today. Do you think that Bush or Kerry really cared about Wyoming? Don't you think they care more about the Orlando area or Atlanta? I think that this nation has progressed to the point to where we have lost state identity. Be it a good or bad thing, that is an entirely different post. We are more of a nation of people rather than a union of states. We still pick our representatives by state, but should we still pick our Presidents that way?

I don't think we should. It should be an outright popular vote. That way, the small town America would be heard with the same volume as large town America. One vote is one vote. 300 votes should equal three hundred, not the entire election. (Unless the two are seperated by only three hundred votes.) Right now, your vote does not matter as much as a person's vote from Ohio or Florida. If anything, you should be more worried by our current system. I think this is a great solution. That way a person has to appeal to all of America, rather than just to small town or big town.

Radardog, I don't really like that plan. Mainly because you are voting for someone off of one paragraph. Heck, I could write a paragraph that would make everyone vote for me, but it would all be an outright lie. And since we don't know who is saying and we can't hear him say more on it, we stand to elect someone on a false notion. In theory, Hitler could be elected for President...

Originally posted by OXmanK
Smaller states are irrelevent today. Do you think that Bush or Kerry really cared about Wyoming? Don't you think they care more about the Orlando area or Atlanta? [snip]

Bush & Kerry didn't care or campaign in Wyoming because it was a forgone conclusion which way that state would go. Same for UT which is 4 times bigger. New Mexico, on the other hand, is smaller than UT but 3x bigger than WY, and saw both candidates multiple times throughout the campaign - this even with Gov. Bill Richardson, a Clinton Administration favorite. Why? Because in 2000, it came down to a few hundred votes (probably fraudulent ones at that - but that's another post); in 2004 the margin was only slightly larger - in the thousands. Except for the convention, Bush more or less wrote off NY despite the huge electoral importance of the state because he wasn't competitive there. I don't recall Kerry spending much time there either. Does that mean they don't care about the issues New Yorkers care about? Hardly.

As for Orlando, Atlanta, and most other large cities, the issues they deem important are not always the same as those that are important as in other regions of the country. Illegal immigration is a big issue in NM and AZ but not NY, IL, or OH. Farming issues like subsidies and grain exports are debated in IA & KS, but not CT, NJ, and PA. In my view, the EC insures that national level candidates have to represent all kinds of people all across the country - not just those in huge metro areas. While the EC seems to puff up the importance of small states, it also helps prevent the "tryanny of the majority" which the framers specifically worked to avoid.

I tend to disagree with the EC. It does not really matter whether or not if you are from a smaller state or larger state. Your vote should only count as one. If you do not see the inherent flaw in the EC, then you are just missing the big picture.

The EC creates the problem with battle ground states. It should not matter how many states you carry. It should matter whether or not the majority of America wants you to run their country. In theory, thanks to the EC, someone can be beaten by up to, if not more, votes and still assume the presidency. Let's just say a worst case scenario, Kerry won Ohio kept all of the other states he won. Also, lets say that he received no votes in the other states. (I know it is statistically impossible, but like I said...worst case scenario.)

Let's do some figures really quick.

First off, I swiped the election results from two pages. One was CNN...but they didn't have a grand total of each candidate. So, I found some other page with the grand total of the popular vote. Then, I added up all of the votes Kerry received in the states he won. Then, I swapped the totals in Ohio between both Kerry and Bush. Doing this ensured the election going to Kerry. After that, I took all of those votes cast for Kerry only in the states he won and the new Ohio total. That number is Kerry's adjusted total. Then, I took that number and used it to subtract from Kerry's actual total. I used the number derived from that and added it to Bush's actual total. The new number is Bush's adjusted total. And they look at little like this.

Adjusted Kerry total 30,129,808
Adjusted Bush total 90,940,008

And the adjusted vote percentage is in the area of:

Kerry 24.88%
Bush 75.12%

And with these figures, I had Kerry win this election. Does President Kerry seem legitimate? Do you still think the Electoral College prevents the...what did you call it? Oh yes, "tryanny of the majority". That is definitley preventing the tyranny of the majority...In fact, it is stopping an outright mandate, my friend. Of course this is worst case scenario. But, it is still a possible outcome, however slight it may be.

Mainly for this reason, I say that we should throw out the Electoral College.

You are taking my example as wrong.

I said, or missaid, Kerry gets to keep the votes in the states he wins. Bush keeps the votes he receives in the kerry states as well. Kerry loses the votes in all of the other states. My math is right. So, how about you go back to your blackboard, eh?

Eat it Urkel...

I know people would love to defend everything the Founding Fathers did, but we are no longer at a point where the E.C. is relevent.

Originally posted by OXmanK
You are taking my example as wrong.

I said, or missaid, Kerry gets to keep the votes in the states he wins. Bush keeps the votes he receives in the kerry states as well. Kerry loses the votes in all of the other states. My math is right. So, how about you go back to your blackboard, eh?

That makes your example even more ridiculous. "Straw man" isn't a strong enough phrase to describe it.


Most people trying to illustrate a point, will describe a hypothetical scenario that has at least some connection to reality and clearly demonstrates an important aspect of their argument. While you were able to add correctly, your example has neither of those qualities.

Eat it Urkel...

Ad hominem attacks don't help your argument much either.

Ok, first things first. I let you slide with calling my example straw man once, but not twice. Seems that you do not know how to use it. A straw man is someone a debater creates, making him say some easily countered argument.

Example: "Some would say that plan X cannot last because it will bankrupt people. But I say this is wrong because the plan is can pay for itself."

That is a straw man argument. That fictional "Some people" is the little straw guy. It is not posing an unrealistic scenario. This form of argument (straw man) is a fallacy because it dispatches a non-existent argument. So, I do not see where the straw man exist except for in your mind. So, to you, pal.

The point of that was to show you how badly the E. C. could over throw a serious majority. Completely impossible, not entirely...but definitly improbable. There is a way that the scenario could happen, but I doubt anyone in the big two would employ it. ("The south is full of hicks and I can win without them." Something to that effect.)

But if you really want me to prove to you that the E.C. is no good, let's look at a past election or few where the E.C. looked completely unbalanced in comparison of the actual result...

Reagan vs Mondale

Reagan 54,455,472
Mondale 37,577,352

And the percents of the vote look like this:

Reagan 58.77%
Mondale 40.56%

Guess what the E. C. votes looked like?

Reagan 97.58%
Mondale 2.42%

Does that look anything like the way the people voted? The Electoral College is not only a bad idea, but absurd when you have an actual result like that. Or would you care to peak at the one right after that?

Bush 48,886,597 53.37%
Dukakis 41,809,476 45.65%

But what did the great E.C. percentages look like?

Bush 79.18%
Dukakis 20.63%

Again, does this look anything like the actual results? Care to go to the next one?

Clinton 44,909,806 43.01%
Bush 39,104,550 37.45%
Perot 19,743,821 18.91%

Now for the E.C. percentages.

Clinton 68.77%
Bush 31.23%
Perot 0%

Is there enough room for one more? Yeah, let's go.

Clinton 47,400,125 49.23%
Dole 39,198,755 40.72%
Perot 8,085,402 8.40%

And how about those lovely E.C. percentages.

Clinton 70.45%
Dole 29.55%
Perot 00.00%

Do those numbers jive well enough for you? This is a prime example of the Electoral College not representing the people at all. The normal offset error is not present in them. Now, the E.C. result did not harm the will of the people, but with an offset that horrendous, you gotta start questioning it. Especially in the Reagan election...or Nixon's...or one of FDR's...

I dislike the Electoral College. It is of no real value today. It makes states worth more to candidates, which in turn makes an individual vote worth less if you live in one of those states that are obviously going one way. (See Texas, Louisiana, Massachussetts, California) I would rather the politicians try to appeal to the masses rather than the masses of two or three states.

And by accepting the E. C., you are saying it is ok for your vote to count for more than someone elses. And that is absurd. It is obvious that you think it doesn't matter how many votes carries a candidate in an election, as long as he carries the appropriate states. But, that type of thought can and eventually will present serious problems. (And it has happened before...have a seance and talk to Samuel Tilden)

And besides, I'm sure with enough time and energy, I can move numbers in the 2004 election to look more realistic with Bush receiving 60% and Kerry 40% of the popular vote, but with Kerry becoming president. Would you still say it is too unrealistic? I could probably do it by subracting half of the Kerry votes in the Bush states and toss them Bush's way. The point is not whether it is probable...the point is a serious potential for complete and ugly error. An error so serious that it could start some civil unrest. (Again, talk to Samuel Tilden...and that was an even smaller error.) Or I could get it even a little closer than that, 45% to 55% and still have it going to Kerry. (I could probably do it with any percentages you want) Would that still be too improbable to you? (I ask rhetorically, because it shouldn't be.)

Straw man was clearly the wrong term. My bad.

However, I maintain that your example does not prove your point because:
a) it is much too far removed from reality to make logical or reasonable conclusions. Despite your protestations to the contrary, it is an unrealistic scenario - "improbable" is not strong enough. Find me an example anywhere, at any time, where voters behaved as you described.
b) you go on to make a broad generalization by claiming that because in your single fictional example the EC got the voters' intent wrong, the whole system is suspect.
There's probably a technical term for that, but it escapes me at the moment.

The additional statistics comparing popular vote percentages to EC percentages are also irrelevant because the purpose of the EC is to simply determine the winner of a national presidential election. In all the cases you cited, the EC and popular vote agreed as to the winner of the election. No problem there.

You are trying to make a problem out of the fact that the EC and PV percentages are vastly different. But, as you admit:

...the E.C. result did not harm the will of the people-...

I think that you are erroneously assuming that the large margins generated by the EC process translate into political power. Indeed, some folks in the media, mostly pundits trying to fill time on election night, mis-interpret the EC totals to imply a 'mandate' from the voters for the winning candidate. (Personally, when the pundits and media start talking 'mandate', I switch the channel.) The president's political power following an election is largely a short-lived illusion -- they must govern for four years and throughout their term obtain the agreement of Congress to get their agenda passed. In our day & age, that is not a trivial task.

I dislike the Electoral College. It is of no real value today. It makes states worth more to candidates, which in turn makes an individual vote worth less if you live in one of those states that are obviously going one way. (See Texas, Louisiana, Massachussetts, California) I would rather the politicians try to appeal to the masses rather than the masses of two or three states.

Politicians are just that - politicians. They're going to try to get elected with the least amount of effort. Even without the EC, candidates would still be able to target a handful of highly populated states and ignore the others.

Perhaps hyperbole was a more fitting term for the example...and I completely agree with you on the mandate thingy.

I'll drop the improbable one, if you agree that we could have a president elected with a 10-20 percent deficit in the popular vote. And that one is not that far fetched. 45% vs 55%, with the earlier getting the nod is very possible and I am suprised we have yet to see it.

I'd like to say there was twice when the popular nod and the E.C. nod went two different ways. They were close. I think one was 1% and the other was .75%. And in both of those situations, the country became terribly divided. We have witnessed one of those. I don't like the idea of living through another. Cause if Kerry would have won without Popular Vote, I think we would have had an outright Civil War or at least a few heads on stakes. And due to those situations we have a 4.65% chance of error. Roughly one out of every twenty elections has the result against the people.

And even though the offset did not harm the result, there is still a chance that it can.

And I tend to disagree with your last statement because small town America won it for Bush. We are getting to the point where more Americans are living in less densly populated areas. I don't think it was due to Bush's "at least it's not 0%" polling in big towns.

But here is my reasons against the E. C.

1. The 4.65% error that is already present.
2. The non-existence of state identity (And it is going away, and we have seen the assault on it.)
3. Winning by E. C. seems to be a technicality. It would be like giving Rocky the title at the end of "Rocky" because of his heart even though Apollo Creed had more points, IMO on the analogy.
4. What happened on the earlier two elections when the people were ignored. (Rutherford B Hayes vs Samuel Tilden situation was awful.)
5. The chance that exist for an ugly error. And a 10% offset win, IMO, would be an ugly error.

Originally posted by OXmanK
I'll drop the improbable one, if you agree that we could have a president elected with a 10-20 percent deficit in the popular vote. And that one is not that far fetched. 45% vs 55%, with the earlier getting the nod is very possible and I am suprised we have yet to see it.

Can't do it. You're going to have to demonstrate with a much more reasonable model and real numbers that such an occurance can actually happen. Especially after I did some more work on the problem myself:

I constructed a model using the 2004 state PV results using a methodology similar to yours. I adjusted the results to give Bush a 1 vote victory in the states he won (though states where the vote total was an even #, the vote difference was 2). The votes that were originally given to Bush were transferred to Kerry to give Bush so that the total # of votes per state remained the same. For example, Texas which was originally a 4,495,797 to 2,816,501 victory for Bush became a 3,656,150 to 3,656,148 victory for Bush. States Kerry won were left alone and he benefited from whatever margin of victory the actual results gave. This model assumes a Bush EC victory by the slimmest of margins in each state and a PV total heavily weighted towards Kerry. The final adjusted PV totals were: Bush - 55,126,958, Kerry - 60,292,700 -- only a 4.5% difference.
Given this, I'm not convinced that you could generate a 10-20% PV difference with an opposite EC result - especially if you use some reasonable model of the real 2004 results. My example isn't perfect, but is clearly not as far-fetched as 0 votes for a candidate in one or more states.

Cause if Kerry would have won without Popular Vote, I think we would have had an outright Civil War or at least a few heads on stakes.

Bah. Hyperbole from a biased media, imo. I read news stories on this level right around election day. In most cases the media was quoting Democratic operatives or just talking out of their backsides. There is absolutely no evidence that even remotely suggests that Bush voters were on the verge of violence because of a potential Kerry victory.

And due to those situations we have a 4.65% chance of error. Roughly one out of every twenty elections has the result against the people.

This is only true if you subscribe to the belief that varying EC and PV results reflects an error in the process. As I've been saying all along, I think the EC prevents the error that a straight PV total would give.

Originally posted by ChemicalLaser

Don't think I want just anyone to be president. The average American, imo and self-inclusive, is an idiot. The large majority of us have no idea how to govern our own lives much less a nation of 180M. The president doesn't just sit around and make decisions, he has to organize a cabinet and staff to help manage Congress and an enormous beauracracy.

Ah, an elitist, eh? I'm not saying this is a bad thing -- perhaps it is best that those who know how to govern be put for election knowingly. However, currently, it is not necessarily who know how to govern better being elected, but rather people who attempt to convince you that they govern better: a big difference, and one even Plato notes.

Moreover, for a country supposedly governed by its people, wouldn't having a statistically sound average joe govern it be very symbolic?

Biggest problem with that is the fact that Congress is still a two party system. Any proposal from a third-party president would likely be DOA. What would the point of that be?

Yes, yes. And any issue that goes against the largest block of voters will never be negated. *coughs* social security *coughs*

Then what would the farmers in Iowa and the old folks in CT do every 4 years? Like it or not, presidential politics is a nice way for some places and organizations to make money.

Perhaps they will need to find a new occupation and/or drive. Electricity put a lot of candle makers out of business.

I actually think the Electoral College is still a good idea. Without it, small states like the one I live in are completely irrelevant. Candidates would completely ignore the bulk of the country and focus on places like NYC, LA, Chicago, etc. An interesting trend that others have no doubt noted elsewhere is that the Dem candidate in the last 2 elections carried nearly every major city, but lost nearly all rural areas.

I'll let you continue with the other fellow on this point.

Thanks for your thoughts,
Radardog