Election Reform

[Yeahman]

First off make Election Day a national holiday.
We need electronic voting machines with user-verifiable paper print-outs.
People should be allowed to vote anywhere in the state. You just bring your voter card which has your district of residence on it and the computer brings up that ballot.

Split the electoral college votes instead of this winner take all system. It would encourage more voting in states like NY where Kerry is expected to take all 31 electoral votes.

Instant Run-off Voting for the presidental election. It ensures that even 3rd party votes count. You rank your candidates so that even if your 1st choice doesn't get enough votes, your vote is given to your 2nd choice. All the candidates that don't meet a certain percentage threshold are eliminated. The remaining candidates get the electoral votes in proportion to the total votes in the state.
http://www.fairvote.org/irv/

No more redistricting. We should have proportional representation. We vote for the party instead of the person. The seats are then awarded to the party in proportion to the percentage of votes received. Voting also done in the IRV manner.

Senate seats should be up for election at the same time. Also in a sort of IRV manner where the elimination process continues until there are only 2 people left. Those 2 people become the senators.

Campaign finance reform is the hardest area to fix. We need to fix it but at the same time we can't deny a person's right to free speech. Any ideas?

[thaite]

Inclusion of "None of the above" on ballots.

http://www.nota.org

[achtungbaby]

Moving to Elections:)

[Mr.Lum]

First off make Election Day a national holiday

Why? So you can force people to vote or do nothing? That's restricting the part about it being voluntary.

[Yeahman]

Why? So you can force people to vote or do nothing? That's restricting the part about it being voluntary.
There's a contradiction if I ever saw one. Giving people the choice to vote is restricting the part about it being voluntary?

[kuilong]

We need electronic voting machines with user-verifiable paper print-outs.

This is bad, for two reasons: (1) How do we know the vote printed out is the vote actually recorded? (2) How do we know that Don Mafioso won't tell me to vote for Badnarik and then demand to see my receipt when I come out?

Electronic voting is just a bad idea, period.

Instant Run-off Voting for the presidental election. It ensures that even 3rd party votes count. You rank your candidates so that even if your 1st choice doesn't get enough votes, your vote is given to your 2nd choice. All the candidates that don't meet a certain percentage threshold are eliminated. The remaining candidates get the electoral votes in proportion to the total votes in the state.
http://www.fairvote.org/irv/

IRV is still subject to tactical voting under certain circumstances (for instance, with a very popular third party). I think a Condorcet method would be best -- after all, the Condorcet winner would always beat the IRV winner in a head-to-head election (if they differed). If there isn't a Condorcet winner (after taking the Smith set and all that jazz) then we can run an IRV election to select the winner.

For more info on Condorcet methods: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method), Election Methods - A Pro-Condorcet Site (http://electionmethods.org/)

No more redistricting. We should have proportional representation. We vote for the party instead of the person. The seats are then awarded to the party in proportion to the percentage of votes received. Voting also done in the IRV manner.

Or, we could have things like in New Zealand's new MMP system or Germany's where you get two votes -- one for the party, and one for a candidate. The party then gets to appoint a number of "list candidates" to Parliament (Congress?) proportional to the number of party votes it received. The lists of candidates are distributed beforehand, of course.

Senate seats should be up for election at the same time. Also in a sort of IRV manner where the elimination process continues until there are only 2 people left. Those 2 people become the senators.

Why?

I think a lot of the US's problems come from its having an 18th century electoral system instead of a 21st century one. I doubt any of these measures will ever get passed within our lifetime, though.

[Mr.Lum]

There's a contradiction if I ever saw one. Giving people the choice to vote is restricting the part about it being voluntary?
NO. I said that that's what would happen if it were made a "national holiday". There's the choice to sit on your ass or vote. Can't work or what not. You limit their choices. They should be able to go about their business as normal and not have everything shut down on election day.

[ism]

This is bad, for two reasons: (1) How do we know the vote printed out is the vote actually recorded? (2) How do we know that Don Mafioso won't tell me to vote for Badnarik and then demand to see my receipt when I come out?

Electronic voting is just a bad idea, period.Apologies to yell0w if I'm getting this completely wrong, but I think he meant a printout in the paper trail sense. The electronic vote would be tabulated, then a paper version of the vote would be generated, verified by the voter, then stored (just like how ballots are currently stored). That way, there is a voter-verified physical vote, not just the virtual vote, allowing for recounts.

Paperless electronic voting is a bad idea. Open, Verified Electronic Voting will be better than what we have now. Unfortunately, Diebold has closed, unverifiable electronic voting, giving the entire thing a bad name. These are the same people that manufacture ATMs that crash.

[Yeahman]

NO. I said that that's what would happen if it were made a "national holiday". There's the choice to sit on your ass or vote. Can't work or what not. You limit their choices. They should be able to go about their business as normal and not have everything shut down on election day.
Do you also oppose all other national holidays? If you're worried about productivity, we'll get rid of Columbus Day. Or make it the same day or something.

This is bad, for two reasons: (1) How do we know the vote printed out is the vote actually recorded? (2) How do we know that Don Mafioso won't tell me to vote for Badnarik and then demand to see my receipt when I come out?

Electronic voting is just a bad idea, period.
ism explained my position.

IRV is still subject to tactical voting under certain circumstances (for instance, with a very popular third party). I think a Condorcet method would be best -- after all, the Condorcet winner would always beat the IRV winner in a head-to-head election (if they differed). If there isn't a Condorcet winner (after taking the Smith set and all that jazz) then we can run an IRV election to select the winner.

For more info on Condorcet methods: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method), Election Methods - A Pro-Condorcet Site (http://electionmethods.org/)
Cool.

Why?
A state that is 51% Republican will likely get 2 Republican senators. I'm sure the Condorcet method can be made to produce the 2 top winners.

[Mr.Lum]

Do you also oppose all other national holidays? If you're worried about productivity, we'll get rid of Columbus Day. Or make it the same day or something.


I'm not just worried about productivity. It's more pressure to vote. Columbus Dayis a complete waste of time and shouldn't even be a holiday IMO. It's just a day off for no reason. They should just keep the polls open for longer. If you vote you vote, if you don't you don't.

[kuilong]

Apologies to yell0w if I'm getting this completely wrong, but I think he meant a printout in the paper trail sense. The electronic vote would be tabulated, then a paper version of the vote would be generated, verified by the voter, then stored (just like how ballots are currently stored). That way, there is a voter-verified physical vote, not just the virtual vote, allowing for recounts.

I would only support this if the paper trail was always counted in addition to the electronic count. And I would prefer either (1) Machines that punch out a paper ballot for you, but do not record or count the vote electronically or (2) something like what cryptologist David Chaum proposes (http://www.voterverifiable.com/article.pdf)

[Shuriken]

Making Election Day a holiday is a bad idea. I think that more people would be concerned with how to celebrate the holiday (for instance, watching football games) than with voting.

[ChinaLama]

Making Election Day a holiday is a bad idea. I think that more people would be concerned with how to celebrate the holiday (for instance, watching football games) than with voting.

as opposed to now, when more people are concerned with going to work than voting...

[Yeahman]

Anybody have any ideas on how to reduce the influence of the lobbyists? I think it's a very important and urgent problem. Votes are being bought by the candidates. It infects both parties and all levels and branches of government.

[kuilong]

Anybody have any ideas on how to reduce the influence of the lobbyists? I think it's a very important and urgent problem. Votes are being bought by the candidates. It infects both parties and all levels and branches of government.

Nick Kristof's column on the 20th (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/20/opinion/20kristof.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and% 20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists) suggested that all campaign donations be funneled through a blind trust, as Chile does for donations above $500 (we'd obviously need a higher limit, something like $10,000). This strikes me as really brilliant. Why don't we do that already?

I'm writing to my state assemblywoman and senator right now.

[Yeahman]

Great idea! $10,000 is too high though. Maybe $1000 or $2000.
But now that still leaves the 527's.