Is Voting a Dead Idea - Do we need some other way?

[MaryH]

Seems like it, doesn't it.

If we could run little rovers all over Mars you would think we could come up with something that would work? Should be hack proof and standardized. And fast. None of this standing in line for hours and hours.

Or maybe it should just be whoever can put the most people out on the street.

[meisje]

1. Yes,,,THUNDERDOME

Two men in, one man out!

[AP]

8. Auntie's Choice!

[Mistress Quickly]

2. MOB RULES!!!

[secedeeconomically]

3. We have a thrid world voting system

Which benefits politician. And nothing will ever be done about. The system is so rigged that soon enough we will be using Democracy in the past tense when referring to it.

[bryant69]

4. You make a convincing argument

You've convinced me to give up on political activism and dedicate myself to playing computer games. After all if nothing will ever be done about it, there's little reason to get all worked up about it. Is there?

Or did I miss something?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[dkofos]

5. We can do that now and be correct.

[secedeeconomically]

9. Correct what?

States are so gerrymandered now that the outcome is know way ahead of the election.

[demokatgurrl]

6. Dictatorship. I think Bush is working on that right now. n/t

[China_cat]

7. No, voting is still a fine idea

What we have to do is find competent individuals who don't desperately WANT the job.

If you're talking about the METHOD of voting...what's wrong with a piece of paper and a pencil. Everyone in line could have their ballot filled out and ready to put in the box as they file by.

[MadHound]

10. The fairest, most reliable, least corruptible form of voting and tallying

Is the good old fashioned pen and paper method, where the votes are handcounted by a bipartisan election commission in public. The only way to corrupt such a system is to "misplace" a particular group of ballots, which can, and does happen with any of the the other methods. But, unlike machine voting systems, pen and paper cannot be rigged to provide the desired result.

If I remember right, Canada still uses this method, and does just fine. The US used this method up until about forty years ago, and it worked just fine. Let us work to bring pen and paper back, rather than fucking around with machines that are easily corruptible.

[AirAmFan]

11. Vote? Vote for WHAT? First we need to kick the corporate money-changers

out of the party, and replace them with progressive grassroots movements that collect tens of thousands of $100, $50 and $20 contributions, the way Howard Dean did. Dean or Trippi should be made Democratic Party Chairman.

We need to be able to put tens of thousands of emails into the right mailboxes on a moment's notice, and to turn out hundreds of people into the streets just when news cameras show up. The Republicans have won by serving as an umbrella organization for numerous single-issue organizations that coalesce around various right-wingers selected by big business. Each organization makes a lot of noise about its signature issue: anti-taxing-the-wealthy, anti-choice, pro-imperialism, anti-brown-skinned-immigrant, anti-gun-control, anti-gay, anti-Black, anti-feminist, anti-evolution, yada yada yada.

But the same corporate forces that have paid to amplify right-wing "social issues" have paid Dem pols to SILENCE voices at the other end of the spectrum, on basic democracy, justice, civil rights, education, job training, anti-poverty, and other "class warfare" issues.

John Kerry could have continued his running mate's "One America" theme, but chose instead to play into the "Swift Boat Liars" campaign on "national security". Dems like Chris Dodd (CT) and Jimmy Carter (of the Carter-Ford Commission) don't even speak up when the 'Help America Vote Act' is used to erect structural barriers to the election of Democrats, through lack of national standards for fair voting, selection of unauditable voting devices in Republican-run states, insufficent funding for voting machines, no bilingual voter education, etc.

And in Minnesota, arguably one of the most progressive states in the union, few Democrats even know that 20 percent of young African American men cannot vote in that state because anti-crime hysteria has swept them up into the "injustice" system (see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2803177 ).

[Johonny]

12. Well

You can run a rover over Mars if you put the scientific principals into your effort. If instead you try any old hack method and then believe you can count any vote total with perfect accuracy then you get what we have now. I system that doesn't know the error rate of the machines it uses but expects an error rate of zero. This was the attitude that got the shuttle blown up.