Election reform, 2020 edition

Take your personal political preferences aside for a moment and lay out your platform for election reform. Here are a few of my thoughts:

1. Get rid of party affiliation in ballots.

1a. Get rid of down-ticket voting. Not sure if this is a thing still, but it is irresponsible for some one to be able to press a button and fill in all R or D candidates.

2. Count all ballots on livestream. Secrecy in counting leads to fraud. Heck, let the local candidates be there for all I care.

3. Absentee Ballots are due By Election Day— or, conversely, move Election Day back so all the counting happens at once. The country is not designed to handle a slow trickle of ballots over the next week. Businesses need to make decisions on hiring/laying people off. The stock market hates uncertainty. Winners need to be known on Election Night, or in the very early morning hours at the latest. The fact that so many states are still counting 36 hours later is ridiculous.

4. Ban election ads from TV for the month of November. Please. So glad those things are over....




So what changes would you like to see?

a reply to: SuperStudChuck

I'm not an American, so my voice means little. However:

Mandatory voting for everyone registered to vote and a big push to get every citizen older than 18 registered. Then if there are more votes than those registered to vote in any particular area, the vote must be invalid and must be completely re-done.

Also, photo verification for all voters, and electronic accounting that the person who has voted has done so (not whom they have voted for, that should remain secret, but the fact that they have voted is recorded). This prevents a single individual from voting in multiple polling locations.

And an overhaul of the EC, too. Perhaps making it 1,000 times bigger, or so, in line with population growth? Or, perhaps proportional representation that accounts for population changes as well as for the individual powers of the states, and simply abolish the EC entirely.

You would also need a process of de-registering the deceased, as well. Perhaps de-registration could be tied in to other government systems as a deceased person has no rights to be potentially abused by linking up their data.

a reply to: SuperStudChuck

I like your list but you need photo ID. You need one for everything else in life, why not to vote?

Last mail in ballot should be mailed at least a week before election. If you miss it, drop it off where you would vote on election day.

a reply to: SuperStudChuck

This is what I would do, Setup a website where you can see what you voted for. The website should also have a place where you can contest other votes, and contest your own vote. Everyone gets a mail in ballot, to be mailed in by October 1st, this way they can be fed into the system and counted by the 14th. Last 2 weeks, any vote contested whether it is yours, or you contesting someone elses will force you to go to the polls. Polls should open the last week of October, to give everyone time to get there. Nov 1st-3rd counting begins. You will be able to vote all the way up to 9PM on the 3rd. after that its done. Results announce @ noon on the 4th. Every place that votes are stored, managed and controlled 3 representatives of each party will be present to verify. This means if one goes to the bathroom, 2 our left to verify. In other words nothing fishy happens through the entire process.

Camain

In the USAf when a nuke is moved there are about a dozen signatures on paperwork showing who pulled it, who assembled it, who transported it who received it, who loaded it.

Voter fraud ruins republics and democracies, so why are random people allowed to walk in with a wagon full of ballots?

There should be a trail of paperwork showing who has had access who transported, who collected, who received it and who processed it, ETA who was security when counters are sent home for sleep.

Paperwork missing names sucks, but no we cant count it.

originally posted by: beyondknowledge
a reply to: SuperStudChuck

I like your list but you need photo ID. You need one for everything else in life, why not to vote?

Last mail in ballot should be mailed at least a week before election. If you miss it, drop it off where you would vote on election day.

I forget photo ID isn’t required everywhere.

a reply to: camain

I love the concept, but pretty torn on digital stuff. Yes, it’s convenient, but not sure on security. I like being able to see my vote was counted. Putting paper in a machine and walking away doesn’t build my confidence.

a reply to: chr0naut

I haven’t studied the electoral college, but it seems to me having smaller regions or districts would be interesting.

Cities in TX would have their voice heard, as would northern Cali conservatives— it works for Maine and Nebraska to have districts, and it cancels out anyway, but it brings more areas into play... maybe a good thing?

Severe penalties for voter fraud beyond jail. Once out, no longer can own land or a home and they have to register as a voter fraud criminal just like sex offenders. About as closer to treason as it gets. A living death sentence.

Fingerprint scanners at polls and fingerprint tab on absentee ballots and mail ins. Fingerprints are put into a national registry. Any outstanding warrants, outstanding child support the ballot is terminated and the person fined for even trying to vote.

Federal Voting Marshals at all mail / absentee centers. No more hiring people off the street. The Federal Voting Marshals tally them. Caught tampering and sentence to 20 years.

originally posted by: SuperStudChuck
3. Absentee Ballots are due By Election Day— or, conversely, move Election Day back so all the counting happens at once. The country is not designed to handle a slow trickle of ballots over the next week. Businesses need to make decisions on hiring/laying people off. The stock market hates uncertainty. Winners need to be known on Election Night, or in the very early morning hours at the latest. The fact that so many states are still counting 36 hours later is ridiculous.

There's so many problems with this paragraph.

You can't move Election Day, its date is set by the Constitution.

Not counting ballots after Election Day disenfranchises people who mailed their ballots on time, like the military.

Counting a number of ballots takes the exact same time whether they all come in at once or over time. It's like saying a pound of feathers weighs less than a pound of rocks.

There are always calls for electoral reform after an election and always from the losing side in the main.

The claims of electoral fraud needs to be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated, but this system has worked for so long and people hate change don’t they?

We had exactly the same thing being asked in 2016, where Killary secured the popular vote, but still lost the election, because it is the American way.

a reply to: Cobaltic1978

So you’re saying it’s a good time to have the discussion— every four years. I agree!

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Plenty of states got their ballots counted ahead of time or on the day if the election. They had rules in place that ballots had to be on site. That’s why we are talking reform.

No one thinks their way is going to actually happen, but it’s fun to see what other people are thinking.

originally posted by: SuperStudChuck
Plenty of states got their ballots counted ahead of time or on the day if the election. They had rules in place that ballots had to be on site. That’s why we are talking reform.

That's because their laws are set up that way and you ignored the major issues I pointed out.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: SuperStudChuck
Plenty of states got their ballots counted ahead of time or on the day if the election. They had rules in place that ballots had to be on site. That’s why we are talking reform.

That's because their laws are set up that way and you ignored the major issues I pointed out.

Which is the whole point of this thread, law or policy changes people would like to see.

Isn’t it just easier to say you think things are fine the way they are?

a reply to: SuperStudChuck

my response is we spent over a trillion on the obamacare website. I think microsoft could figure it out for oh i don't know 100 billion? It might only cost 5 billion, but ya mark ups etc. at the end of the day setting up something fix all this bs is worth it.

Camain

originally posted by: SuperStudChuck
Which is the whole point of this thread, law or policy changes people would like to see.

Isn’t it just easier to say you think things are fine the way they are?

I obviously don't have a problem with how things are laid out in either our national Constitution or in those of the respective states.

You have some instant gratification piece you need to work on, the election was rarely called the day of for most of our history.

originally posted by: camain
a reply to: SuperStudChuck

my response is we spent over a trillion on the obamacare website. I think microsoft could figure it out for oh i don't know 100 billion? It might only cost 5 billion, but ya mark ups etc. at the end of the day setting up something fix all this bs is worth it.

Camain

It didn't even work for months. They also had someone in charge with no background in IT or healthcare. She was some CEO of Walmart or something.

The main problem was the scaling. It was poorly designed. They didn't smoke test it, remediate all defects. Someone did make something similar for almost nothing.

Oh and all the money. A lot of it went to close friends of the Obama's. He did lose both Houses over it but by that time it didn't matter since he was on the way out.