Monday, May 02, 2005

A Modest Proposal for Election Reform

Okay, Democrats say that the Republicans stole teh election in 2000. Republicans say that more people voted in Milwaukee and Seattle then were registered to vote. (Both going to Kerry). So, what to do. My fear is that if you believe your opponent is cheating, it gives you license to cheat as well.. Soon, we will see swarms of Republicans riding on buses from polling station to polling station to swamp elction workers with last minute resgistrations. Sure, theat is what the Republicans accuse the Democrats of, but they lack the imagination to actually try something new, and besides, it works.
One method that would reduce the amount of fraud is to contract with NCR and other ATM software managers. For instance, there I am in Vegas, having blown my cash, and travellers checks, what do I do? I go to an ATM to get some more money to get my money back. Remarkably, ATMs have over a 99.9% accuracy rate. So, if we could get the same level of accuracy in voting, we would eliminate alot of the spoiled votes, where people try to divine what the voter wanted.
Say that you go to the county election office, and they give you the equivalent of an ATM card, and tell you that you can vote at any ATM machine in the world. No more lost ballots, or late from the war zone. INstead, you go to an ATM, punch in your PIN number, and enter your vote, no matter where you are. Since you are registered to vote, you willonly have a ballot for your home district. And, as a bonus, you could print out your ballot to show the results. Should you realize that you made a mistake, you could still go back and vote again and override your previous vote.
Simple, cheap and easy. It will never happen for these very reasons.

No comments: