What needs to be done to the electoral process before 2008?

[hedgehog]

I want to suggest a change that no one has mentioned: keeping the polls open later nation wide. I was flabbergasted at how early some states closed their polls yesterday. Given the number of people working two jobs and those with long commutes, 6AM to 6PM is not long enough.

[txindy]

1. Keeping the polls open and making paper ballots available.

Even if it is only as a back-up, paper ballots MUST be readily available if requested.

Best-case scenario: All electronic voting machines are scrapped and the polls are open 24 hours.

[acmejack]

2. Public funding of Elections!

See Arizona's clean election law for a model.

edit: It would cost $6 per taxpayer!

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/242/elections-funding.html

[casus belli]

3. Here, here. n/t

[blondeatlast]

7. It's one thing I can say that Arizona got completely right!

I've been a voter for almost 25 years and this is one of the things I'm most proud of.

[casus belli]

4. Electronic voting security and accuracy oversight.

[blondeatlast]

5. National holiday--complete with picnics, festivals, etc.

On site child care.

Street vendors offering food.

Polls open 12:01 AM to 12 PM.

No races called before 75% of precincts reporting.

Part time shifts for poll-workers with more hourly pay (no more than 6 hour shifts).

Paper ballots.

Press and citizen's groups count the ballots.

How much time do you have this morning? I could go on forever...

[kdmorris]

6. Paper Trails, REAL campaign finance reform

One of the reason we got stuck with Jeb Bush lite as a governor is that the Democratic candidate (Jim Davis) ran out of money. You could tell when it happened because there were no more ads on TV. But Crist kept running awful, LYING ads up until Monday.

Oh, yeah, that's another one. If you are going to make a campaign ad, it CAN'T be negative. State what you stand for, not what's wrong with the other guy. I may re-think that later, but the ads were really horrifying and mostly from Republicans (Crist, Joe Negron, who was running for Foley's seat, and Clay Shaw)

My congressman, Robert Wexler, has taken the electronic voting machine's lack of paper trail to the Supreme Court. No word yet on when the case will be heard. (More here: http://wexler.house.gov/news.php?ID=254)

Have I mentioned today that I LOVE my congressman? There is one issue I disagree with him on (and in the interest of avoiding a war on this perfect day, I won't mention it), but even in that case, he is always representing his constituency.

[ghostsofgiants]

8. I mentioned this yesterday..

You guys need a voting system that's uniform throughout all 50 states and you need complete, independent national oversight (akin to Elections Canada up here).