I hang my head . . . i wander off disconsolate . . . Oh Justice ! ! ! thy name is not dictionary . . .
BBB - Good catch on "disenfrachise". I too had picked this up through its common use and never checked. Of course, by the time they print the next edition of the dictionary, it probably will be there, English evolving based on the most common errors, such as it does.
You wrote of the Electoral College, "...I believe it may have outlived it's validity in our system...". How so? Can you be specific? i'm curious to see what you think has changed so that it is no longer needed. There are only two arguments I could see for getting rid of it: either all states had become equally densely populated or the needs of rural citizens had become identical to the needs of city citizens. I can't see that either of these has happened, so i'm hoping you'll share what you think has. Thanks.
State legislatures used to give undue weight to rural citizens, before districts were redrawn on the basis of "one man, one vote." Perhaps the same principle should be employed in our presidential voting.
nimh wrote:Two additional alternatives get too little credit, I think. [..]
Second: in Russia, they have an additional option on the ballot. You can vote, if you want, Unity or Union of Rightists or Communist - but you can also vote "against all the above". [..]
n 1993 4,2% voted "against all". In 1995, 2,8% did so.
I just discovered that one American state actually has this option as well. The printed ballots in Nevada actually include the option to vote for "NONE OF THESE CANDIDATES". In 1996, 5,608 voters did so - 1,2% of the total number of votes. Quite a lot, actually, I think!
Source:
http://www.ballot-access.org/1996/allvotes96.html (a very interesting page - and website - for third-party buffs, btw).
In 2000, 3,315 Nevadans did so - 0.54% of the total.
(Source US Election atlas -
http://www.uselectionatlas.org - brilliant website! Absolutely exhaustive.)
I like the Dutch system -- a lot. Makes sense to me. But I'd stick with what we've got if:
we get rid of the Electoral College
we make sure everyone is satisfied that his/her vote is fairly counted
we insure that any/all doubts are satisfied by a full recount with judicial intervention only in extremis -- there must always be a paper trail for votes, a trail in the possession of the voters
I'd be curious about reaction to a proposal that voting be made mandatory.
No mandatory voting in a free country.
I'm not a proponent of mandatory voting, but Sofia's response doesn't make sense to me. We have drivers' licenses, mandatory education, social security numbers, all of which are requirements.
Driver's License is only mandatory if you choose to drive.
SS#--Government bookkeeping and such...
Mandatory voting; too Saddam.
Mandatory voting can also be a little dangerous (unless, perhaps, you do include an "against all" option). There's a lot of voters out there who think all politics is crock and all politicians are crooks. Obliging them to vote when they are convinced noone is worth voting for will initially just create resentment. With a present turnout of 50%, thats a lot of votes inspired by sheer resentment you're gonna get there.
In the medium term, of course, such a measure can be an incentive for politicians to reach out to the presently alienated in a way that maisntream politics now is unable to do, its true (which ir probably what you have in mind). But in the meantime what are the truly disenchanted and disgruntled going to vote? Expect double figit scores for Buchanan, if not David Duke and the like.
Of course that would make politics a lot more lively - others, again, might vote for more centrist protest lists - there's a Monster Raving Loony Party in the US too, y'know <g>. And one could say that if such feelings are felt among the electorate, its only right, in a democracy, that they are expressed in politics, as well. But then again one can also argue that, in a democracy, people should have the ight not to vote, too. What do you do with conscious non-voters, for example? An anarchist would see mandatory voting as an expression of state repression, and in a democracy he should have the right to make the choice not to participate if he feels it would be wrong to do so.
Again, an option of "against all" should limit both above objections somewhat, of course - though it didnt stop Zhirinovsky from winning the '93 elections in Russia, and an anarchist (etc) would probably still feel his freedom to abstain from the system offended by the obligation to partake in the procedure, even if it was to vote "against all".
Its not just the risk of massive numbers of protest votes setting the system adrift that led to the abolition of mandatory voting in almost all the European countries, in the post-WW2 era. (That happened, anyway <g>). Its also that its simply unenforcable. Too many people started ducking the obligation. And whatcha gonna do? Would you really send them a fine because they didnt vote? Jail them if they refuse to pay? Nah ... So mostly, states have just given up on that one.
(And there's a principled side to that, even, too: adopting too many "virtual" laws - laws that you're not actually going to enforce - undermines the legitimacy / acceptance of the system of law itself. In Holland, since "gedogen" (tolerate) has become a day-to-day element of legislation (i.e., coffeeshops are formally not allowed to purchase their supplies in the market, but their doing so, anyway, is "gedoogd" - its agreed not to enforce the law - and this logic has spilled into many aspects of life), people now get infignant if the state suddenly refuses to "tolerate" their petty transgressions of the law. Only after a number of lax enforcements of laws concerning safety regulations, business premises and so on was suddenly exposed when a fireworks factory exploded (razing an entire neighbourhood), a cafe burnt down (with the people in it), etc, did this start to get clamped down on again).
I would just like to bring up the fact that our form of gernment has created the most powerful country the world has ever known. Economically powerful, militarily powerful. and scientifically powerful. Our government was set up the way it was with a purpose and to suggest that it doesn't work seems to be somewhat preposterous to me. But, that is just my opinion.
McGentrix wrote:I would just like to bring up the fact that our form of gernment has created the most powerful country the world has ever known. Economically powerful, militarily powerful. and scientifically powerful. Our government was set up the way it was with a purpose and to suggest that it doesn't work seems to be somewhat preposterous to me. But, that is just my opinion.
Fallacy: the end result of the whole is positive, ergo, it is "preposterous" to suggest any of the individual constituent parts wouldnt be better off changed.
Do you think the US has become "economically powerful, militarily powerful. and scientifically powerful [..] the most powerful country in the world" thanks to the two-party system, McG? Cause I think thats what the question was about ...
I think one often finds the attitude, "I've got mine, so please don't change anything"!
Is there any other government like ours that we can compare with? There are plenty of parlimentarian governments that we can look at and none of them are super powers. The US has a history of having a 2 party government to provide checks and balances and that has indeed led to the greatness of the US.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Super power? Is that what we want to be?
tartarin
Would you rather be king or peasant?
I'd rather be a working partner in a sustainable community -- a community which takes its responsibilities to the rest of the world very seriously.
Perhaps we could go back to forms of democracy? Certainly an important element is the role money plays in creating power.
I would opt for a system in which the money angle is carefully regulated -- no, better than "regulated," a system in which money plays only a very small role, if any, and is never allowed to influence an election.
