Possible Voting Reforms

[Blue Rectangle]

Given all the recent problems with registration, early voting and provisional ballots, what can we agree on?

I support all the above rules.

[MODU]

I support 1, 2,3, 6, 7, and 8.

I am a strong believer in that you must be a registered voter before showing up to the polling place on Nov 2nd.  To be more exact, there should be no registering past 9/30 of the given election year.  Last minute registrations only add to confusion.

Secondly, every state should allow the voter to register through their state tax forms.  That will eliminate most of the congestion at registration stations in the state, and it gives the states plenty of time to process the registrations (since tax forms are due earlier in the year).

And lastly, a photo ID must be displayed at the time of voting to cut down on fraud.  It is not an infringement on peoples rights to display an ID since all it is doing is verifying the registration information on the record and matches it with a the face of the voter. 

Those are my three big gripes about elections.  And I've already started my discussions on the flaws of provisional ballots in another thread.  I think that is the worst idea yet.

[Blue Rectangle]

I'm glad to see #6 (absentee ballots only for true absentees) at 5/5 right now.  I think Oregon's all-mail ballot is a bad idea that would be a disaster if applied to larger states.  Absentee ballots have turned into a means to an end; the end being increased turnout without regard for fairness and accuracy.  It is time to return absentee ballots to their original purpose.

[stry_cat]

None of the above.

[A18]

None of the above.

Reason?

[Grad Students are the Worst]

MODU, how can you support 3 yet not 4?

I support 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8. I think we should eventually switch to 7, but it has to become an obvious standard first. People should not be surprised on election day.

[MODU]

MODU, how can you support 3 yet not 4?

Easy.  You should vote where you are told to vote.  If your county has multiple pricints, then you go to the pricints which you are assigned. 

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

None of the above.
Oh, well, I'm the least opposed to 7, so I voted for that.
They all suck though.

[MODU]

Oh, well, I'm the least opposed to 7, so I voted for that.

Why am I not surprised.

[muon2]

I'm glad to see #6 (absentee ballots only for true absentees) at 5/5 right now.  I think Oregon's all-mail ballot is a bad idea that would be a disaster if applied to larger states.  Absentee ballots have turned into a means to an end; the end being increased turnout without regard for fairness and accuracy.  It is time to return absentee ballots to their original purpose.

There is a problem defining the absentee. If absentee means out of the precinct or county, I would oppose that rule. It's very hard to prove that one is actually away. Some frequent business travelers don't know their schedule more than a few days in advance and regularly vote absentee to be sure. Most importantly, absentee ballots are very important in nursing homes, the voters can rarely get to the polls and usually a day is set up in advance of the election for all the resisdents to vote absentee.

[muon2]

I also disagree with restricting registration to government offices. The workers there are not necessarily better than field registrars. Instead, there should be a required verification of the registration by the local board of elections. That's a godd reason to require registration to be complete 30 days in advance of the election.

[WMS]

All 10. I worked four years in a county registration office, and have come to the conclusion that all the changes in electoral law since the dreadful 1993 National Voter Registration Act have, as their purpose, increasing the possibility of voter fraud. Why else would liberal Democrats keep trotting out their same BS excuses against voter IDs? You have to have an ID to do damn near anything else.

There are many, many, problems with inaccurate voter rolls caused by this - as a True Example, I FINALLY got two voters turned to inactive status last year who had, as I discovered, moved from New Mexico to Texas TEN FREAKING YEARS AGO but were still on the voter rolls, since one of the worst parts of the 1993 NVRA was that it explicitly prohibited deleting voters from the system for not voting, even if they hadn't voted in a decade.

The only justifications I've found for that part of the law involve, frankly, left-wing BS about discriminating against minority voters. Mind you, they didn't ever explain just how cleaning up the voter rolls by getting rid of people who were too damn lazy to vote in 6 or 8 years and who probably didn't even live there anymore was discriminatory. This has resulted in a LOT of "deadwood" in voter registration rolls across the country...ripe pickings for fraud, since how will anyone know, without ID, if the person who signed the roster for a deadwood voter is really that voter?

[stry_cat]

None of the above.

Reason?

All of these discourage voting. 

Registration deadlines before the election disenfranchises people. If I move just before election day, I'm left with the option of not voting or committing a crime by voting in a place where I don't live.

I find the ID requirement very offensive.  By demanding ID you are accusing me of committing a crime and you better have enough proof to back that up in court before you do so.

Felons should be allowed to vote.  Once they've paid their debt to society all of their rights need to be restored.  Politicians are afraid that once people have seen first hand what these bad laws do, that they'll be voted out of office and their dumb laws repealed.

None of these prevent fraud.  Any kid in school knows how easily it is to get a fake ID to buy beer.  Finally by getting rid of registration all of the other issues go away.

[MODU]

Finally by getting rid of registration all of the other issues go away.

I think just the opposite will happen.  Without registration, you have no way to track who has shown up to vote, nor if they are eligible to vote within that district.  Without registration, the potential for fraud will dramtically increase.

[London Man]

A non-partisan government body sends you the registration form. Simple as that.

[MODU]

I'm all for "states rights" and what not, but when it comes to voting, I strongly believe there should be a national standard, which includes registration deadlines and IDs.  The states can decide how many voting sites to have and how long the sites can remain open on election day (and none of this provisional voting crap).  But there needs to be a standard to reduce confusion and the possibility of fraud.

[No more McShame]

I think it's moronic that you can walk up to a polling place and vote without basic ID prooving who you are!  Can any Democrats explain why almost all of you oppose this common sence reform so whole heartedly.

[The Vorlon]

There are lots of reasonable sets of rules you could adopt for elections.

Out of these many many sets of rules, I would like the Federal government to pick ONE of them, and I frankly really do not care which one, and apply it consistently, uniformly, and equally at every polling place in the land.

A national standard of punchcards where "swinging gate" chads count but "pregnant" chads do not...?

Sure, I can live with that, or the other way around is cool too... just pick ONE standard, proclaim what that ONE standard is BEFORE the election, and then apply this standard equally and in a consistent manner AFTER the election.

Optical scanners work.

Touch screens work,

Punch cards work,

Benidictine Monks doing caligraphy on parchment paper with feather quill pens works...

Pick any ONE of a zillion possible standards, ratifty that ONE standard, and apply it consistently everywhere.

Elections will never be perfect, it's just the way it is. 

Let's just make sure they are equally imperfect everywhere in the same imperfect way

[A18]

Good ideas, Vorlon, as long as this only applies to federal representatives and senators.

The states have the constitutional right to determine how their presidential electors are chosen, and of course, to run their own state and local elections.

I really, really like the idea of touch screens. Ever since I got my permit, and I had to take the test using one.

Nothing could be easier, and I can't imagine it ever "failing" to count a vote for legitimate reasons.

[The Vorlon]

Good ideas, Vorlon, as long as this only applies to federal representatives and senators.

The states have the constitutional right to determine how their presidential electors are chosen, and of course, to run their own state and local elections.

I really, really like the idea of touch screens. Ever since I got my permit, and I had to take the test using one.

Nothing could be easier, and I can't imagine it ever "failing" to count a vote for legitimate reasons.

The key is that within each state that they have uniform rules - NOT different rules in different parts of the same state.

For example,, lets say Vermont passed a rule that you had to register to vote by having a Benidictine Monk hand caligraphy your registration card, and you had to delivery that registration by carrier pigeon.

Silly - Yes, but also fair as long as EVERYBODY in Vermont used the same method.

Same with voting machines.

In an optical scanner county, 99.5% of votes get counted, in a puch card county, about 98.x %.

If I live in an optical scan area my vote is more likely to be counted than if I live in a puch card county.

This is not fair.

Interestingly enough, the technology does NOT need to be perfect, just consistent.

For example if we had vote readers that shreaded into tiny bits 50% of all ballots without counting them, while silly, would be a perfectly FAIR way of counting, as long as EVERY county had the same machines and EVERY vote had the exact same 50% chance of being shreaded.

The technoloy does not need to be perfect, just equally and consistently flawed

[So the Heroes Fall]

1, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 9

[opebo]

None of the above.  The best voting reform would be making voting a requirement for all government services, including getting and keeping a drivers licence. 

[Will F.D. People]

I find the ID requirement very offensive.  By demanding ID you are accusing me of committing a crime and you better have enough proof to back that up in court before you do so.

By this logic we should get rid of security screenings at airports because we are accusing everyone who gets on an airplane of having a bomb.

Felons should be allowed to vote.  Once they've paid their debt to society all of their rights need to be restored.  Politicians are afraid that once people have seen first hand what these bad laws do, that they'll be voted out of office and their dumb laws repealed.

Personally I think giving up your right to vote forever is part of paying your debt to society.

None of these prevent fraud.  Any kid in school knows how easily it is to get a fake ID to buy beer.  Finally by getting rid of registration all of the other issues go away.

I don't see how getting rid of registration can lead to less fraud. I think there is a public need to have fair elections that outweighs the minor burden placed on voters of having to register and having to show ID.

[phk]

Voting should be mandatory for all. 100% turnout.

[Frodo]

I support all of the above-mentioned reforms -in addition to requiring that electronic voting machines have a paper trail, and for each voter to receive and carry with them a paper version of the ballot with the votes they had cast electronically.