Poll Vaulting

[captainsblog]

There's been a LOT of last-minute, targeted negative advertising over the past week or so. You've seen some of them- the ads about Jim Webb's racy novels; the race-baiting ones from Tennesee; the ones about an upstate contender for an open seat who mistook an Albany area code for an 800 number and got a 2-second call to a sex line on his hotel bill; and ones all over (including here) which distort mostly the challengers' records on things like terrorism and social security.

These ads all seem targeted to what Republicans call "the base"- the faith-based voters, the over-50s who view their retirement benefits as sacrosanct even though most of them know they'll be cut, and stupid people everywhere who aren't savvy enough to understand how easy it is to distort records and soundbites and everything else using modern technology.

You, just by being here, are outside that cohort. The question remains, though: what're ya gonna do about it, huh?

I'm not asking for positions, believing in the sanctity of the voting booth. What isn't private, or sacred, is the path TO the voting booth. It's public record if you're registered, and what elections you voted in. For the record, I've voted in every general election, from the day before my 18th birthday (it's legal- I checked) until last year with the exception of the one year a paranoid college town Board of Elections refused me because I-gasp!- moved back on-campus.

So how YOU doin? If you're nervous about revealing even this much, send your answers in a comment, which I will screen, and then figure out a way to add those to the final data.

And if my purpose in all this isn't clear enough, let it be: a week from Tuesday, VOTE, DAMMIT!

[Poll #855679]

Comments

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

I can't fathom the idea of not voting; this might be because I live in a part of the world where voting is compulsory for everyone on the electoral roll, and being on the electoral roll is compulsory for people over 18.

Well, ok. That's not wholly true. You don't have to vote: you must turn up at a polling place, must have your name marked off, and must collect your ballot papers; what happens then is up to you.

Even if it weren't compulsory, I still wouldn't understand not voting; it (eventually) affects near enough to everything, and elections here are always held on Saturdays. So, all it involves is taking some time out of the weekend to go and pencil in numbers in the squares on a little piece of paper. (Preferential voting is love.)

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

My wonderful country rarely breaks 50 percent turnout among the registered, and who knows what percentage of the eligible voters bother to do that. Even worse, we have a two-party system in which many of the who-gets-to-run decisions are made either, still, in smoke-filled rooms by party hacks or, just as bad, in primary elections which are ill-advertised and ill-attended by few other than the aforementioned party hacks.

I would love if we'd go to either something like preferential voting (which I presume is something like the old Hare System we used in college elections, where you marked your preferred candidates 1-2-3 and the system sorted itself until a majority was reached). But we never will, since it would be perceived as being communist.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

My wonderful country gets near-full voting from those eligible and registered by virtue of a $20 fine. Party candidates are mostly chosen by party members in local branches of the party; for the fun that can bring, go and look up branch stacking.

And, pretty much. You number preferences for House of Representatives candidates in your electorate only, they distribute preferences until there's only two left, and whoever has more wins. Whichever party has a majority of seats in the House of Representatives then forms government.
The Senate plays similarly. You either (a) pick one party and have your preferences distributed how they want, or (b) number all 90+ candidates individually. They continue until 6 of the candidates for your state have 15+% of the votes.

[schmedgar.livejournal.com]

We have candidates calling and asking us if we want absentee ballots sent to us because of the issues we had with the machines on primary day.

I still plan on going out and voting though.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

This will be our last year with our traditional lever-pull voting machines- reliable, completely backed-up, yet inaccessible to the handicapped and so old nobody makes spare parts for them anymore.

[cafemusique.livejournal.com]

I still think that Canadian elections have it down for reliability and verifiability...

You're handed a paper ballot with the names of the candidates (and, for provincial or federal elections, the name of each candidate's party), and beside the name of the candidate(s) you are voting for, there is a circle in which you use the pencil (provided) to mark an X beside their name. No hanging chads, no machines to freeze or break down. At the end of the day, the poll workers (observed by representatives of the candidates) empty the box and count the votes. No keys that could be ordered from the Internet, no hackers need apply, etc., etc.

Speaking of which, I thought today's Foxtrot comic was quite on target.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Pencil and paper is, I think, the best possible medium for a vote. It's reliable, can't possibly break down, accurately reflects the intent of the voter, doesn't impose technological barriers, and makes it Virtually Impossible™ to do anything untoward to the votes afterward.

[miss-katelynne.livejournal.com]

We have mail-in ballots in my county. They're not what I'd considered Absentee, but similar.

[luckycee.livejournal.com]

I have never, ever not voted. I have voted in every single election since I turned 18 in 1974, a record of which I am very proud to boast.

[beccak1961.livejournal.com]

I have found, as I get older and it doesn't matter if they are democrat or republican, once they get to DC they are all politicians (maybe something in the water?) that I no longer vote *for* someone as much as I vote *against* someone else. It's very much voting for what I hope turns out to be the lesser evil.