Third Party & Independents: Archives

Forrest,

First, recounts and certifications of counts should be accomplished by volunteer voters representing all the parties on the ballot. That is the best way to to insure no unfair advantages.

I agree with you that hiring partisan companies to do this for the people, is absurd. On the other hand, it is just as absurd to allow the government, i.e. politicians and or their appointees to read the counts or recounts.

Decentralized is good, means if tampering is an issue it won’t be system wide.

I’ve kinda grown fond of the purple finger method. At least it would solve one aspect of fraudulent voting.

David,

The Secretary of State’s job (at least in terms of voting) is to make sure that all citizens can vote and all votes are fairly counted. This is an organizational problem as well as a technical/legal problem, and right now the organizational end of things is a mess (my opinion, as well as most world leaders).

In California (and the rest of the country) voting is administered by a hodgepodge collection of state, county and local bodies setting different, and at times conflicting electoral policies. Many of the same irregularities, inequities and improprieties that plagued the 2000 presidential election returned in 2004.

In 2004, voting machines malfunctioned and in some cases did not work at all. Voters suffered harassment and intimidation at the polls, many were wrongly turned away without casting a ballot, and some were incorrectly purged from the voter rolls. Improperly trained and underpaid poll workers gave inadequate or incorrect information to voters.

From an organizational stand point we need:

* Uniform Standards for all polling stations,
* Public Interest Voting Machines,
* Election-Day Voter Registration (to increase turnout),
* Oversight by a Nonpartisan Election Administration,
* A network of trained and professionalized poll workers,
* and Voting Rights For All U.S. Citizens

The only way to achieve this is by putting in place a single voting system (like every other county in the world).

Forrest, can’t argue with any of those proposals. Except professionalize poll workers. It is in the best interest of voting rights that volunteers remain the primary workers. Volunteers aren’t in it for the money. Professionalized poll workers will be more receptive to bribes. That’s not to say other incentives for experienced poll workers can’t be installed, non-monetary ones, though.

Ken has the right idea. But take it 5 steps further and implement bio-ID’s for voting. Start with fingerprint scanners. When missing fingers start showing up at the polls, we can move to retinal scans. That should be pretty safe. Folks would notice a voter who pulled eyeballs out of their pockets.

David, there are problems with any ID system. Retinal scans might be the toughest to defeat, though. Fingerprints can be faked, but not easily. I don’t want a chip under my skin nor a tatoo on my arm.

I think there does need to be a nationwide standardization of voting methods, and impartial and open counting methodology. It is absurd to allow these partisan Secretary’s of State to continue given their history.

Thanks for the post Forrest

I ran across this gem of a story today