September 24, 2004

• As the election nears there has been so much crazy talk all around that
  it would be impossible to even begin to discuss it all. But there has
  been one particular line of talk that has been growing in ferver these
  days that is really starting to tick me off.  You see the election
  is starting to be so important to people in this polarized nation that
  people are starting to act as if not voting would not just be a mistake
  but a despicable crime. The non-voter is being painted at the very
  least as criminally negligent, callous, disinterested, and
  inhuman. 

  How odd? What is it about going into a booth in November and placing
  your mark for a particular candidate that somehow elevates a person to
  a higher order of humanity than those who do not? Or to put it another
  way, what makes people think that those who vote are of necessity doing
  more for the betterment of their nation than those who do not?

  Some people say that your vote is your voice. Not voting then is to be
  silent and accept what is going on, to acquiesce to the evils of the
  world, to be sitting idly by and doing nothing. 

  But any reasoning person can see that your vote is not your voice. Your voice
  is your voice.  Voting is an important part of democracy, don’t
  get me wrong. But it is not the most important part of democracy nor is
  it the only aspect of democracy that the common person can engage in.
  So much more important is your active engagement in the democratic
  process and by that I don’t just mean running for office or becoming a
  political pundit. I mean thinking and wondering about aspects of
  government. I mean discussing them with friends and family or even
  strangers. I mean doing things like keeping a Blog or writing on
  message boards or signing petitions or just taking the time to sit and
  think about what is happening in the world and why it matters.  In
  short I mean paying attention to the world around you and trying to
  understand it and then choosing if you so desire to exercise your
  freedom to act upon your understanding to invoke change.  Voting,
  or calling or writing representatives or running for office or signing
  petitions or staging protests all of these are ways to act upon your
  mental impulses that can often have an impact. And often smaller
  actions can have an even larger impact that these expected mechanisms.
  Sometimes talking to your friends about something will cause them to
  talk to others who talk to others… The spread of unique ideas can
  begin with the most inconspicuous act but make no mistake it is this
  spread of ideas and opinions that governs the future of nations more
  than the results of elections or even the actions of elected officials.

  So what people are really talking about when they are talking about the
  importance of voting is really a much smaller and less significant
  thing than they make it out to be. What they really are saying is that
  if you don’t vote you won’t have a say in who will be president or any
  other elected body.  But that doesn’t mean you aren’t having your
  say in the democracy.  By not voting you are exercising a choice.
  You are making a statement too and one that matters just as much as a
  vote in favor of one candidate or another. Saying that I find no
  candidate acceptable really should be a legitimate and well respected
  decision that a voting member of the public can make.

  On a similar aside I think it is absolutely horrible how people speak
  about voting for an independent candidate. It is absurd to say that to
  vote for such a candidate is to “throw away your vote”. Such a
  perspective paints the world in stark contrasts where there are only
  two legitimate view points and only two real candidates representative
  of those viewpoints. Further it makes it seem like a person who doesn’t
  vote for one of these two views isn’t exercising his power as a
  democratic citizen effectively. In other words people would have you
  believe that any decisision that isn’t to vote for the democrat or
  republican candidate is nothing but an act of stupid impractical
  rebelliousness.

  This is absurd for all the reasons I’ve said so far and more. Your vote
  is not your voice but it is a small part of it and whenever you
  exercise it or choose not to exercise it you are making a statement as
  is your right as a citizen no matter how you exercise it. We have a
  right to vote for anyone and for whatever reasons we please. We don’t
  have any obligation to play the democrat vs republican game that 
  paralyzes the world. We can opt out by voting for another or we can opt
  out by choosing not to vote. These are real options that a rational
  intelligent being can choose to take. Who is to say whether such acts
  would ultimately prove to be a mistake? It is up to the individual to
  gauge the risks and decide what they want to do with that precious
  vote. If people can bully, push, and trick people into exercising that
  right only in a particular way and only under certain guidelines than
  the result is a limitation on individual freedoms that could ultimately
  prove dangerous to the future of free societies.

  So that being said there is something that is and has been deeply
  disconcerting about the voter turn out in elections in the United
  States.  The huge numbers of eligible people who are exercising
  their right not to vote suggests a very different kind of danger to
  democracy.  It suggests to me that one of two things is likely the
  case. Either one a very very large number of people are being
  disenfranchised out of their right to vote. That is circumstances and
  awareness are such amongst these people that they are never really in a
  situation where they get to make a rational decisions whether to vote
  or not.   OR the alternative explanation that seems equally
  likely is that an extremely large number of people have cast their vote
  for not caring about the elections, for utter disgust and lack of faith
  in any of the leadership of the nation or the very effectiveness of the
  voting system. They choose not to vote because deep down inside
  they don’t believe in the effectiveness of a representative system to
  secure their safety and happiness.

  Both of these perspectives are scary. Both of these are probably true
  of some of the people who aren’t voting and both of these suggest a
  need for immediate and radical change in the very way our elections
  work. 

  If I might be so humble I have a few suggestions off the top of my
  head. First off understand that one of the most important components of
  getting people to vote is going to be removing the ability of people to
  make excuses for why they aren’t voting. People shouldn’t be able to
  easily say that they didn’t vote because they forgot to register or
  they couldn’t get a ride or because they “knew” that their vote
  wouldn’t make a difference.  Now note that you can never get rid
  of all excuses. A person will always be able to say no matter how
  unlikely it seems that they forgot that the election was that day and
  for all we know there may well be people for whom that is the case.
  What’s more I don’t blame people for making excuses if they are doing
  it because they didn’t want to vote and don’t want to admit the real
  reasons why which might be for example because they didn’t know who the
  candidates are or they couldn’t make up their minds, or they just hate
  having the responsibility of being part of the election process or that
  they just don’t believe in democracy or whatever. People have a right
  to not vote for whatever reasons they want and to make up any reasons
  to tell people why they didn’t vote that they want as well. 
  That’s not what I’m saying we are combating when we try to eliminate
  the excuses people use for not voting.  What I mean instead is
  that for every person who may be using whatever thing as a cover up
  excuse there may be others who might actually have voted if that
  barrier had not been in place.  People ARE that fickle. You often
  decide to do a thing because it is before you and easy and cost you
  nothing to do.  That’s what voting needs to be… as easy as we
  can possibly make it. That means breaking down any barriers mental or
  physical that are preventing people who are legitimate citizens of this
  country from voting in its elections.

  To put it in other words, voting should be as easy as tying your
  shoelaces. It should require no greater effort or will and it shouldn’t
  be a thing that you can miss out on because your are a procrastinator
  or are not very aware of the world around you. For that reason no
  person eligible to vote by the law should ever be denied their right to
  vote if they are willing to exert whatever minimal effort is required
  on election day. That is to say registration should not be necessary.
  The computer system should be setup in such a way that all the relevant
  information about all eligible voters is already on file. That way all
  you need to do is prove that you are you on voting day and then you can
  vote. Some sort of permanent identification card or device would be
  adequate.

  Similarly you shouldn’t even have to go anywhere to vote. You shouldn’t
  have to figure out where your polling place is and report to the right
  one or bother with complicated mail in procedures when you are not in
  the state with which you are registered, etc.  You should be able
  to vote online at your computer chair or at any other computer with
  internet access anywhere. All you would need to do is prove your
  identity by way of one of these identification cards. Of course then
  every home in the country should have a computer with internet access
  AND there should be public places where you can freely access the
  internet but that’s a debate for another day. Another possibility would
  be to make it easy to vote over the phone.

  You might guess from this that I am not one of the die hard pro-paper
  ballot people who are demanding the destruction of electronic voting
  mechanisms. I think that eventually voting will simply have to abandon
  paper and I think ultimately if the system is well designed and well
  policed it will be safer and more fair than a paper ballot
  system.  Now if our current electronic mechanisms such so bad that
  we need paper ballot backups right not to ensure overall fairness
  that’s fine so long as we understand this as a step toward the voting
  system of the future not as evidence that all non-paper systems are
  corrupt and wrong.

  The final barrier to crush that I think is still breakable is the one
  associated with the dreaded excuse of “my vote wouldn’t have mattered
  anyway”. It is sad that many people think this way and there isn’t all
  that much we can do about it without completely changing the way people
  think about the significance of their vote.  However, there are a
  few things we can at least think about doing that might well help
  convince people to choose whether or not to vote on the basis of
  whether they believe in the candidates or not rather than whether they
  think the election is a forgone conclusion.

  One thing to consider would be to impose much tougher standards on
  polling that is done prior to elections. Thus polls done prior to
  election would have to meet a minimum of inclusiveness and fairness.
  There would be some sort of certification mark or name assigned to
  polls that meet these standards so that yes you can run lesser polls if
  you want but you won’t be able to say that your polls meet the
  standard. This would give people a better idea of the truth rather than
  the trickeries and misleads that come about with polls. Similarly these
  polls would also have to give out clear information about the polls and
  news reporters would have to report all of this information rather than
  just the results to the public.  Now these standards need not be
  enforced solely by the government, independent polling certification
  agencies could come into existence. It could be a business market kind
  of a thing too just so long as polls are not misleading people into
  thinking their vote doesn’t matter when it quite possibly could matter.

  Another bit more extreme proposal would be to simply not allow polling
  for a certain time period prior to and during elections.  For
  example say for two weeks no media organization would be allowed to
  report that such and such poll says so and so is winning. Similarly no
  exit polling would take place so that news reporters could not start
  reporting who is the victor or who is the loser in the election befor
  all the counting is done and all are aware of the truth of the matter.
  (By the way obviously all states should be synced up in terms of timing
  as well)

  Now some might find these last ideas somewhat disturbing. They may
  argue that such actions would be taking away the freedom of the people
  to know who is winning! But this is a product of the absurd
  generalization of elections that equates them to “races”. Elections are
  not races. You cannot look upon them and know who is in the lead because
  the voting is ultimately blind. You don’t know what anyone will vote
  until they’ve voted. That’s when you know who has won and who has lost.
  All prior statements of winning or losing are just opinions and
  suppositions that have historically been based on very poor and
  inaccurate facts. Worse sometimes these assertions are nothing more
  than blatant attempts to sway voters who aren’t for a particular
  candidate to not bother to show up.

  This is all part of a more general issue with elections in the US. The
  way the system is setup the candidates don’t have to care about all of
  the people who are in their constituency. In fact they need only care
  about those whose vote “matters”.  And really it turns out to be
  as important for a candidate that voters for the other guy don’t show
  up to vote as that voters do show up to vote for him. Thus a candidate
  never has to convince those not already in their camp that their own
  positions are better. They only have to convince them that the other
  guys ideas are bad enough that you aren’t going to be willing to put
  your name behind them. This is why on the news we hear so often about
  this idea of “suring up your base”.  It is pivotal that you get
  the people who believe in you already to vote for you as the other guy
  is probably trying to convince them not to bother to show up at all.

  To make matters worse the electoral college is such that a candidate
  can ignore who huge contingents of the people. Really a democractic
  candidate need not care at all about the democrats in those states that
  are already slated as going republican and vice versa. What the
  democrats in those states believe or want or look for in a candidate
  just ultimately don’t matter at all.

  Obviously the thing to do here is to revise or completely eliminate the
  electoral college system and any other systems like it. Whatever new
  system set in its place would have to have explicit and obvious
  reasoning behind its weighting model or it should, more logically
  perhaps, simply be a true majority rule system perhaps with some
  contingencies when not enough of the population has bothered to vote and with the need for the victory margin to be statistically significant before victory is called.
  But anyway plenty has been said on such matters in the past no need to
  dwell on it.

  Of course the basic idea I want to advocate is a very active approach
  to getting people to vote while respecting their fundamental and
  important right not to vote. I don’t advocate calling people up, going
  door to door, bugging them to death to get them to vote. I despse those
  kinds of things. But I do advocate making voting as easy as possible so
  that anyone can decide at any given moment that they want to just go
  ahead and cast their vote and do it with little or no effort. Oh sure
  there would still be many people who don’t vote, some for good reasons
  and some for stupid reasons but that’s their right and I wouldn’t have
  it any other way. But I do think that with some pointed changes you can
  get a lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise have voted to bother casting
  their ballot.

  Of course if you really want to talk about major reform you have to
  start talking about complete revisions of the party system and the
  possibility of having idividuals cast multiple ranked votes for sets of
  individuals. But that is beyond the scope of today’s random blogging…

  • 6:23 pm
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