Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Attn: Americans!

Don't forget to vote today!!
--Wanda

There's been a great turnout here (Indianapolis area) this year; almost every polling place has had no less than an hour wait from 6 am onwards. I went over to my designated polling site at about 10 am and waited 50 minutes-- but it went by pretty fast. The elderly lady in front of me in line said this is the first year in all her years of voting in this county that she's ever had to wait more than about 15 minutes.

~Toc

I was waiting in line before they even opened. Got there about 6:35am. Was out of there by 7:15. The whole town votes in one place the convention center so that was pretty quick.

I always have to laugh though about the people standing out side handing out flyers for their candidates to get your vote. I sure hope that by the time you go to vote you've made up your mind who you are going to vote for.

I voted! Minnesota may have the highest turnout of all 50 states. We usually have great voter turnout anyway. After all, this is a state in which we can have blizzards on election day, and people pride themselves on getting to where they need to be in bad weather. We had reasonably nice weather most of the day except for a few showers in the morning, thankfully.

I voted -- and I got challenged at the polls (even though I have voted at the same polling place in every election since my 18th birthday in December of 1998). I even had to cast 2 ballots because of a "hanging chads" thing . My first one was VOID.

- Laura

We had the fill-in-the-circles ballots, so no chad worries.

I also found out that my stepmom's mom is an election judge volunteer in Mankato.

I've been hearing news reports all afternoon about voter turnout being much, much higher than normal, which is great news for democracy. Turnout in most Western democracies has been on an alarming downward slide for the last decade or so, even falling below 50% in some national elections. Whatever the reasons for higher turnout, and I know that there are many, and regardless of the outcome, this is very encouraging and I hope it will last!


Wendy (currently disenfranchised as she has no vote in Canada until she becomes a citizen, and doesn't believe in voting in UK elections without paying tax there )

I voted about 9:30 this morning to miss the working folks. All was smooth and it took about half an hour. We voted in the convention center and had the fill in the circle ballots. I had my sample ballot marked and with me, otherwise I couldn't have remembered it all. We had 16 state propostions plus one local one to vote yes or no on. Then we had the California senator, the district Representative to Congress and the State Assembly to vote for. Then 3 for City Council, School Board, Airport Board and Water District.

Artemis
My family is from Mankato too!!!

Minnesota?

I'm a student in Boston but I voted absentee in Ohio. The news keeps flipping to Columbus and outlining the craziness that's happening there, and part of me is glad not to have to deal with it, but part of me thinks it'd be exciting to have participated in all of that. My dad said he had eight messages on his answering machine from celebrities and politicians, including Bush and Clinton, and my grandma said Alfre Woodard called her! There are lawsuits all over the state contesting voter registrations and challenging people at the polls (Laura, what did you get challenged for?!). What a mess! Someone at the Ohio board of elections got their act together, even if the rest of them are running around like headless chickens...)

They said I wasn't who I said I was! They asked me my birthday, and I said, December 2, 1980. They said, "No, that's not what's listed." And I said, "Um . . ." They said, "You were born on July 21, 1983 and you already voted absentee." And I said, "That's MY Sister." There are 4 people with my last name listed at our precinct -- Jennifer (the sister), Laura, Mary (my mom), and David (my dad). I had to produce an ID -- I showed 2 forms -- and they said my signature didn't match up. I kind of screamed at the challenger and luckily someone there knew me, so it was all resolved. All in all, it took over 2 hrs for me to vote -- including standing in line and the ballot fiasco.

- Laura

Emily: Yep, Mankato, Minnesota. My father was born there. My mother was born in Winona, Minnesota and I was born at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

Artemis
We've lived here so long everyone knew us, so there was no question who we are. Oh, I got a personal call from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Prop. 72. Hey, the guy knows how to use the media.

High five for higher turnouts. I waited in line for just 30 minutes this morning, and that was the first time I've ever waited in line to vote. My little area in town isn't really big on voting, so I'm glad they were coming out of the woodworks today. I felt really young. It's mostly stay-at-home moms and retirement communities in my neighborhood, and the stay-at-homes definitely had finished voting before I got there.

JD

I voted absentee, so no lines for me. And it worked out with great timing that my mom was here before the election, going home just before the election, and so she was able to turn it in for me -- I was just a little bit nervous about trusting that important of a document to international mail. Could be paranoia, I don't know.

Kaylle -- what do you mean $4 instead of $14? For mailing costs? Or do you actually get charged to vote? Isn't that illegal?

Bethy

PS Wendy, I agree that high voter turnout is a *great* thing, regardless of the outcome. Hopefully we can turn the high turnouts into a trend...

I voted for the first time yesterday. Got up a lil after 5am, got to the polling place at 5:50, doors opened at 6:30, and I was done by 6:50am. When I got there, there were about 30 people ahead of me or so. By the time I was done, there were probably about 100 or more behind me. The line snaked out of the church, and along a wall and a half. I was impressed.

/me skids to a halt - you pay to vote over there???????

Yvonne

Laura, it is amazing sometimes what you go through when you go to vote. I have a very unusual last name. In fact anyone with it in the US is related to me. When my mother died it took me several elections telling them when I went to vote that she had pasted away before they finally took her off the rolls. Same with my father. No wonder they don't know what percentage of registered voters really voted.

I feel sorry for those that had so many things to vote on. Where I live they always hold local elections (city council/mayor) seperately. We did that in October.

Anyway I'm just glad the elections are over. Hopefully they will decide who won and we can stop listening to all the name calling soon.

I walked over to the polling place about noon. There wasn't any line, and no one challenged me. It was gratifyingly non-eventful.

Nan

I got challenged by a Republican challenger because I am (and my whole family is) a registered Democrat in a traditionally Democratic area of Ohio, plus I am young. They were going after young people who might have been voting in their first election and African Americans. I knew it had been in the news, but I hadn't actually expected to be challenged.

News Story

- Laura

Pats on the back to everyone who voted! This IS a great thing for democracy. I guess all the promotional things that went on (especially those geared towards young people...they really went all out!) worked really, really well! And even though I'm alln the way on the other side of the border, everyone I know is on the edge of their chairs.

Can't wait to see how it all turns out!
Mirage

I voted yesterday about 9 am, with no significant wait. No problems, though I did overhear a poll worker giving wrong info out about provisional ballots to a young man who was voting for the first time but whose name didn't appear on the registration log. Overall, though, we had very good voter turnout -- county-wide, we were at about 57%, with some precincts coming in at 68% (lowest precinct was around 39%). For a rural county in a vastly Republican state (in other words, we are not a swing state), this is pretty darn good by today's standards. (We had a number of contested county and state races, too.) I'm looking forward to seeing what turnout is nationwide.

What was really fun for me, though, was that I got to work with our local newspaper again on election night reporting last night. As some of you know, I'm very active in the League of Women Voters, and last year we began assisting the paper by compiling the precinct by precinct voting results into a large chart for publication. (Since we are a relatively small town, our paper doesn't have the staff to do this otherwise.) So on election night, a few of us hang out at the courthouse (where they tabulate the results), get print-outs of each polling place's results, then run them over to the newspaper office where another few of us enter them into the spreadsheet and format the info for printing.

Last year I got to shadow the Assistant Editor of the paper while she stood watch at the courthouse to do interviews, and this year I hung out with the Editor in Chief in her office putting the data together.

It was fun and interesting for everyone, but for a FoLC, bonding with the editorial staff of the newspaper and gettng to ask them all sorts of questions is a dream come true.

Kathy

/me skids to a halt - you pay to vote over there???????

James

Well, I voted last week... North Carolina allows "no excuses" early voting, and about one million people took advantage of it. I waited in line for about an hour, last Tuesday around noon, and later in the week the lines seemed to get much longer. I drove past the polling place again yesterday, and there was no line whatsoever Guess I should have waited. But it was fun.

Btw, for those who haven't seen it elsewhere -- GWB now has 274 electoral votes (only need 270 to win) and John Kerry has conceded; he'll make the big speech at 1pm Eastern.

and I hear that nationwide, it was about a 60% turnout

P"W"J!
trying not to gloat *too* much... <eg>

Kaylle had to pay for postage because she voted absentee. She goes to school in a different state than the one where she lives. So, she had to pay to send her ballot by mail. Last time, because the ballot sheet got to her late, she had to pay even more to express mail it so that it would get in on time.

Paul, who is very upset about the results and very worried about the fate of the country (and most of the world)

What I want is for someone to finally explain to me the reason for this entire Electoral College system. I passed US Government in high school, but apparently I missed the lecture when it was explained why we don't just use a very simple "most votes wins" system. If the majority of Americans vote for a particular candidate <coughGorecough> how can it be possible for the other guy/gal to win?

I just don't get it.

I'll be over at the Federal Building renewing my passport and getting my 4-year visitor's visa to Australia if anyone can explain this to me...

Lynn (who voted painlessly yesterday in a state that, in the end, didn't make a difference)

Paul beat me to it <g> Yeah, as he said, I vote absentee because it's more important to me to vote in Ohio than in Massachusetts. Last time, in 2000, I didn't receive my ballot until the day before it was due back in Ohio. I had to overnight the stupid thing and it cost me $14 (which I have always thought was outrageous; shouldn't the post office do this for free or something?).

This year I received the ballot in time but I didn't mail it until last week, so I had to send it priority for $4, but that's my own fault <g>.

I spoke to my brother, Ian, last night, and he said he stood in line for NINE HOURS to vote. He's a college student in a really tiny town and my assumption is that they simply weren't prepared for the number of student voters they got. Consequently, he's really angry Kerry's conceded the race before the votes are even counted (as am I! I voted absentee, that means my vote doesn't count?! ). His away message right now is quite colorful...

Kaylle
who is very worried about America...

I'm with you Lynn, it's a mystery. Very frustrating that the events of 4 years ago did absolutely nothing to improve the process as a whole.

To have another race this close and again to be unsatisfied that we have the 'right' result is very disturbing indeed.

~Liz (voted, in NJ, uneventful thank goodness)

Lynn, it's because the US is not a democracy. We're a constitutional republic, with lots and lots of checks & balances built into the system, and with the system set up to give lots of clout to states as opposed to the Federal government. The Electoral College forces both candidates to try to appeal to all voters in all states, instead of hunkering down in a few key, highly-populated areas. In other words, with a direct vote system, nobody would give a crap about what Rhode Island thinks.

Liz, what's unclear? The results in 2000 were mixed, of course, but this time the Electoral count and the popular vote count are both going for Bush -- in fact, he's the first president since 1988 to actually get more than half of the popular vote. I understand lots of people aren't happy about this, but I don't think that invalidates the process.

PJ

I'm gonna go with Pam, here. Not voting is a greater misdeed than voting for any candidate. If you don't participate, you don't have a right to bemoan the outcome.

The part that almost everyone admits is broken is NOT the electoral college; it's the fact that campaigning is expensive and we don't control the sources of campaign money as well as we collectively should. Thus, politics is beholden to interests larger than an electoral bloc. But we're working on it courtesy of the likes of Sen. McCain.

Of greater concern to me is the misuse of our forefathers' determination to separate church and state but conveniently failing to protect the need for that to be bilateral. I suggest that we need to prevent our constitutional republic from becoming a thinly-veiled theocracy.

Sherry (who's finally decided to register with a political party--Libertarian)

It could have very easily gone the other way, though, Pam. (And it might well have, if there hadn't been Republican party members challenging people to show multiple forms of ID when they have voted in the same place for years -- given Laura's story and the reports of hours several *hours* long in Ohio, how many people left instead of putting up with the situation? What about people who had young kids with them, or elderly people would couldn't physically stand for 4 hours straight? Or blue collar employees who had to get to work or be fired? No matter how you look at it, no matter what party was doing it, this kind of harassment was just plain wrong, and definitely unAmerican.)

If I recall the numbers from the news correctly, Bush won the popular vote by about 3 million this time, but he only won Ohio by about 100,000. If 110,000 more people in Ohio had voted for Kerry, he would have won the state and the presidency ... yet he would have still lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. It could have very easily been the opposite of what happened in 2000 with Gore.

And I think it's a safe bet that if we would have had the same results as 2000, only with the Democratic candidate winning, the Republican party would have been first in line to criticize the electoral college.

There is a movement in that direction, regardless, and while I'm glad the process wasn't drawn out again this year, I almost wish it would have happened (with Kerry winning the electoral college even though Bush had more votes) because it would have brought the issue even more to the forefront. I, too, think the electoral college process is outdated and should be replaced. The argument that voters in small states are ignored doesn't hold water with me because *my* vote is ignored the way it is now -- I'm a Democrat in a predominately Republican state, which means my vote in presidential elections is pretty much void. Campaigning and technology are totally different now than they were in 1776, and I don't think we can take the same reasons for the system to be automatically valid anymore.

All that said, and as much as I wish there had been a different result, I'm glad we're not going through the nightmare of 2000. It's better to have it decided now. Even if I find the result very scary for the future of this country.

Kathy (who, even as a Democrat, voted a split ticket for my local and state races)

Well, it's funny. With the exception of ads and mailings for local politicians and initiatives, here in California you'd barely even know that this was an election year. It was accepted weeks - months? - ago that California was going to go for Kerry, so both candidates stopped campaigning here, didn't broadcast any ads.

Now, I'm a Canadian citizen living in the US, so I can't vote. But if I did, I would be upset at living in a system where the candidates just didn't bother to campaign in my state for weeks, figuring it was a waste of time and money. For me, then depending on which political party I belonged to I might see it as a waste of my time to bother to vote, right? And that's hardly the message that the leaders of our government want to convey to the public.

Kathy

The Electoral College itself is not the problem, but the way states approach it totally is.

My Kerry vote in the state of Georgia was essentially moot because it's a conservative state and more people wanted Bush. That isn't fair to me -- it's tantamount to my not voting for the president at all.

The EC will not change. It's in the Constitution, so changing it would require 3/4 of the states to ratify the amendment, and that won't happen. The only thing we can do is to push for our states to adopt Maine's attitude towards the EC, where the electoral votes are split based on election results. So, if 60 percent of Georgia goes Bush, 9 of the state's electoral votes go to him, and the other 6 go to Kerry.

Until that happens (and it's a long-shot in certain states, notably mine), I am going to continue to feel disenfranchised. Also SERIOUSLY freaked about what we've got coming on our horizon.

What's unclear to me is if there was a definitive winner in Ohio. That Kerry chose not to persue a recount of the provisional ballots doesn't make it any less of a feeling. I think that if we had a foolproof way to count ballots I wouldn't feel like we somehow missed some votes.

I also agree with Kathy..the voting process in general is not consistent across the country so the differences in experiences right here in this thread points to unnecessary hardship for some who wanted to vote. That alone could tip the balance..for either side especially when the margins are so razor thin.

~Liz

Hey guys, now you know how I felt in '96 North Carolina pretty much always goes Republican for president (and just as often has a Democrat governor, go figure), and we went for Dole, but Clinton won anyway. And yeah, this year, Bush took us pretty much for granted. It happens. I always vote anyway.

Oh, and Kathy...

I really have to disagree with this. Hey, we're conservative; we don't want to toss out a 200+ year system just because it didn't break our way one time...

PJ

I think Maine does have the right idea - it merges the spirit of the electoral college with real-life results an actual election puts forth. By assigning a percentage of electoral points of a state based on the parallel percentage of actual votes, then every voter's vote does mean something.

I live in Illinois which was a forgone Kerry state. As such, I voted only out of a sense of civic duty, not because I felt my vote (for Kerry) would actually make a difference. My mother, on the other hand, faced the same situation as Kathy B - voting for Kerry in a state that is heavily Republican. As such, she wasted the hour she stood in line because her vote essentially meant nothing. What the system does is tell anyone who might go against the majority in their particular state to just stay home on voting day or move to another state where their candidate has a fighting chance (which looks to be Ohio, Florida, and a few other key swing states). I find it highly ironic that the message to "get out the vote" is so big yet quite often, an individual's vote means nothing in the end.

To say that it is only because we "lost" that we are unhappy with an antiquated system seems a bit unfair. If we were to live by all of the systems and rules set down by our founding fathers back in 1776, I wouldn't even be able to vote because I'm a woman. One of the things so wonderful about our governmental system is its ability to change and grow as society changes and grows. Certainly Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and John Adams never imagined that some day someone would be voting via computer or that a pervasive, far reaching media would mean that a candidate could simultaneously campaign in all 50 states(heck, they didn't even imagine 50 states). Yes, the fear that a candidate would set up shop in Philadelphia or New York City or Boston, before travel was so much easier, was real and there was a need for a system to prevent a candidate from doing just that. You can't tell me that if, today, a candidate only focused on the needs of huge population centers such as NYC, LA and Chicago, the rest of the country would not express their displeasure with a no vote.

It's 2004, not 1804. Just because a system once held good reasons for being doesn't mean that it should continue to be used if those reasons no longer apply. That's called tradition, which IMO isn't very applicable when in comes to matters of such great importance as presidential elections.

Lynn

As a resident of Puerto Rico, where 4 million disenfranchised American citizens are at the total mercy of a President for whom we cannot vote , I would be more than amiable to the idea of eliminating the Electoral College!

The first year I filled out my federal tax return and realized I had to pay federal taxes - it's a long story, but most Puerto Rican residents do not pay federal taxes - I went to the ACLU. Does the phrase "Taxation without Representation" sound familiar? The man at the ACLU said there wasn't a thing they could do about it, short of changing the constitution to eliminate the Electoral College! I've been paying federal taxes ever since, and I can't vote for President, nor do I have a single Senator or Congressman representing me.

Actually, I disagree that without the EC, no-one would care what the people of Rhode Island think. I believe that *with* the EC, no-one cares. Both Bush & Kerry put the majority of their efforts into winning CA, NY, NJ, etc. Who cares about RI's 2 EC votes? On the other hand, if we had a true democracy, with one man-one vote, then Joe Black's vote in Rhode Island would count as much as Jane Brown's vote in California. (IMHO)

- Vicki

And Our dear George would still have won .
58 million popular vote, baby!

WOOHOOO Dubya!

TEEEEEEEJ

Easy TEEEJ, there's a warning up from Annette about that sort of behavior on the other thread.

Vicki, if you object to paying Federal Taxes you'd certainly object to what you'd pay if you had the right to vote as a state. You get plenty of protection and benefit from the US constitution unrelated to who is in office. Doesn't that count for something? If you want the vote, are you and the constituency of PR ready for the other obligations of statehood? The reason PR isn't a state yet is specifically because the population has refused to vote for assuming the overhead. The option comes around every few years.

Sherry

As I said in my earlier post, not in California, Vicki. Maybe both Bush and Kerry did some campaigning here in the early days, but there hasn't been anything literally for weeks, if not months. We would read stories in the newspaper of people being deluged by ads on TV - we never saw a single ad from either candidate. Apart from a few ads about local propositions, etc., we would almost not have known that there was an election occurring at all. California was accepted as a Democratic win long ago.

Well, although personally I do think that the US should get rid of the Electoral College, I can see the fear of the smaller states, and why it will never happen. As I said, Bush and Kerry campaigned very little in California as far as I can tell, yet Kerry picked up 5.5 million votes and Bush 1 million less. And they were hardly here.

If the EC were eliminated, I could see candidates spending the bulk of their time in population-heavy states and ignoring the little ones like RI. After all, this election is a prime example to show how they ignore states where the outcome is a given - like CA. So why wouldn't candidates ignore the little tadpoles in the big ocean?

I personally like the way that Maine does it. That way, probably no state is a foregone conclusion - certainly not California - and then the candidates can "spread the wealth".

Kathy

The thing about the EC is that no state can have less than 3 EVs. It's based on the number of congressmen. Every state has 2 senators, and representatives are based on popluation. So, even a state with a total popluation lower than that of Manhattan Island gets 3 EVs.

On the one hand, that means that no state gets left out. Small states still matter.

On the other hand, it means that minority votes in any given state (CA, for example) don't count. It also means that a vote in a small state counts proportionately more than a vote in a larger state. Even with EVs split proportionately, some votes won't really count. What do you do, for example, if your state has 4 EVs and the population is split 55/45? Maine was split 52/48, but Kerry still got all 4 of their votes because the system is by county (or something).

So, okay, we're in a democratic republic. Our leaders/representatives are elected by the people, but government is handled through the states (Congress, for example, works via state representatives, not direct public election). The system is designed around state's rights, with Federal power spread around to prevent a tyrany from arising.

That's still not a good enough reason, IMHO, to have a national popluar election in which some votes count more than others or perhaps not at all.

Of course, as mentioned, it's not likely to change. We'd need a constitutional amendment, and the odds are stacked against that.

Oh well. There are worse problems.

Paul

See now that warning, though understood, doesn't sit well with me, because it's not fair to stifle my joy because others are not happy with the turn out, especially as I merely stated the factual popular count. I'll give you that the "whoohoo" may have been over the top, but again, I shouldn't have to be cautiously PC because others are not as happy.

If I'd won a million dollars I'd be just as joyous in my financial security as I am in this outcome. I wouldn't appreciate being stifled for celebrating my million, so this nudge to curb my enthusiasm isn't very appreciated either. It's not like I was rudely gloating or anything.

TEEEEEEEEJ

See, that, to me, is gloating. I understand you're happy. Thrilled, even. But a lot of us are really upset. I personally am baffled as to why things went the way they did.

If you won a million dollars, no one would be telling you not to be happy about it. If we all *lost* a million dollars and you won, then we might get sick of hearing about it <g>. All we're asking for is some sensitivity that a large number of people feel very differently than you do and are disturbed by the outcome of this election.

Kaylle

TJ, emotions are high on both sides. Some people are very happy. Some people are very upset. Restraint is called for on both sides.

Just as those who are upset need to refrain from hurting or offending people by posting here about how upset they are, those who are happy need to show a similar consideration.

Celebrate or vent amongst your friends, but please try to keep things calm in places like the boards, where both groups meet.

Paul

Sorry, guys, this is a bit off topic (the topic being the Electoral College), but I just had to answer:

No, actually I pay more now.

Believe me, I've done the math. When I first filled out a PR tax return, I was flabbergasted at how high the taxes were. I did a hypothetical, figuring my same income and deductions, calculating federal, NY state and city taxes. My local Puerto Rican taxes were higher than all three of these together.

And now, there is a new federal "Alternate Minimum Tax", which the federal gov't is making me pay *over and above* the Puerto Rican taxes I'm already paying!

Well, as US citizens, I should hope Puerto Ricans get the protection and benefits of the US constitution. And yeah, it counts for a lot.

Actually, you could ask the residents of Washington DC the same question.

I'm not sure what you mean by "assuming overhead". There is a fear that becoming a state would mean paying federal taxes in addition to the PR taxes. People who don't understand how high PR taxes are tend to think, "Well, *I* pay both state and federal taxes, so why shouldn't they?" You really have to understand just how high PR taxes are in order to understand why people fear adding federal tax on top of them.

I personally believe that if PR were a state, local taxes would go down proportionately. Others disagree.

The point of my original post, however, was not whether PR should become a state or not, but rather whether I would like to eliminate the Electoral College, so that I could vote. I would!

- Vicki

TJ,

The thing about you winning, and feeling great, is that there are others around here that have lost and feel lousy. If Kerry had won, would you like them rubbing your face in it? The admin position is that we're all friends here, political beliefs notwithstanding, and friends try to be considerate of each others' feelings.

PJ

In both '93 and '98 the referendum failed to pass based upon the perception that it would cost too much. So, yeah, you and I are on the same page. The people fear the taxes.

As for AMT, let's just say it's a blessing and a curse--you are blessed that you earn a good living; and you are cursed that you aren't in the same league as a Rockefeller. I learned long ago that if you earn it, you pay it...because the alternative isn't pretty. And at least it beats the UK--my counterparts in the UK always had whopping tax bills and made less than I for the same sales. So....as Dr. Wayne Dyer says, 'if you change the way you look at things, what you look at changes.'

Sherry

LOL! No, actually I am very blessed, and I do make a good living, otherwise I wouldn't have to pay the AMT in the first place.

The thing is, the AMT is supposed to be a tax imposed on people making a fair amount of money who have somehow managed to find all sorts of loop-holes and tax shelters, and thus ended up not paying any taxes at all. In my case, the reason I'm not paying federal taxes isn't because I've found some sort of tax shelter, it's because my local tax debt is absurd!

Regardless, it doesn't change my main point. I'm paying taxes, but I can't vote.

- Vicki (who is usually a fairly up-beat sort of person, but gets incredibly grumpy on Apr.15 every year, and on Nov.2 every four years)

I don't think I have a right to actually say something here since I don't live in US and I'm not an American citizen but try to live in a country where all you heard from the past month or so was explainations about US voting system It's funny to think that Brazil just had Mayor elections but as soon as it finished all you could see was news about US election.

I don't really want to say what works and what doesn't work in US but I can say what works in my country. I think you all know how huge Brazil is and our voting system doesn't have a EC. All Brazilians have the same power to decide who is going to be the next President, Mayor, whatever. It doesn't matter that São Paulo, for example, has more people living there than in Porto Alegre. My vote as a resident from Porto Alegre means as much as a vote from a resident from São Paulo. What counts is the number each candidate gets in the popular election. I didn't vote for Lula, for example but he won and it was fair because he got more votes but all votes counted in the end (even if my candidate didn't win ). It's hard for me to think why this wouldn't work in other countries like US. We do have differences in the size of our States as well but that doesn't influence which candidate is going to win. It sounds much fair to me than having an EC.

As for the way you vote there Brazil should send you some electronic vote machines j/k I waited 1 minute to vote for Mayor and my city is huge

All I wish is peace for the world but I'm afraid about what's going to happen now

Raquel (who is going to hide now because she didn't want to give people a boring lesson about Brazil voting system )

Me neither Quel, but... we try to give our two cents here.

she´s right. i live in rio de janeiro which is way bigger than her state and her vote counts just like mine. One men, one vote. Well, in this case, one woman, one vote.


i voted for him! And he won! But I like the other candidate too. Both wanted the best for our country.

the electronic system of brazil consists in a machine on each section that carries a diskette. the president of the section authorizes u by the means of a password to vote only once. You press ur candidate number and confirm. You voter's registration card returns to u after that.

After 5pm, the diskettes are sealed and they go to the Federal agency to be inserted on a computer and the votes are counted. the information goes to a mainframe and at night we all know who was elected, even in national elections.

It is not perfect, but we are proud that this system seems to be (up to now) flawless and fast. We do hope the Americans and the Europeans that came to learn about our system can do the same in other countries. at least the tension would be released soon and people would know who won faster.

Peace is all we want, but sometimes people dont go on straight lines... they take the curves.

I just hope we all find the way out... together.

MDL. (who will now hide with Quel. )

Sounds like a good system you've got going there in Brazil One question -- if, God forbid, some of the diskettes lost data for some reason, is there a paper trail that can be re-counted? We've been talking a lot in the States about methods of voting.

I like the way my area does it -- we get a cardstock paper ballot & special pens. There are broken arrows next to each choice; you draw a line to connect the arrows for the candidate of your choice. Once we're doing marking the ballot (in the privacy of a booth), it gets fed into an optical scanner, and tallied that way, but the original ballots are kept, too. Last week, our polling place was packed (for early voting, they only open a few locations) even with about a dozen booths set up. So they set out folding tables with pens and doubled their capacity for voters. The tables didn't have the privacy of the booths, but if you wanted a booth you could wait a little longer to get one; I didn't really care. Anyway, it usually goes very smoothly, once they verify your registration.

PJ

I'm a bit confused. Is your registration card actually in the machine when you press your candidate number? Wouldn't there be a risk that the machine was registering who voted for whom then?

Pam asked: I was wondering the same thing.

Oh, and I'm glad you both decided to post here, Quel and MDL, even if you aren't Americans. Especially since you aren't Americans. I think it is interesting to read about how voting is done in other countries!

- Vicki

Looking at the electoral college system from the outside, it appears to operate, broadly speaking, like our constituency system. However, our constituency system sort of makes sense because it is designed to choose people to represent the local populace at parliament, rather than to choose a single person to head the entire country. Surely if you're selecting a single person for that role, then every vote cast should carry equal weight?

Yvonne

Well, Yvonne, the Parlimentary style government seems very strange to me <g> (I vote for local representatives *and* president) but obviously it works, since it's used in lots of places around the world.

And I agree with Vicki, it's really interesting to hear how things are done elsewhere in the world. Who says L&C fandom isn't educational?

PJ

Okay, Vicki and Pam I can answer your questions.

First about the machines. After the voting process is done the electronic voting machine prints 5 copies of the Voting Bulletin with the final result of that electoral section and they are signed by the Electoral Judge, Party Members and Board Members (all sections do the same thing). It's also created a disk that is taken to the Voting Center for the final votes to be counted. This disk is protected against reading because just the Central Computer can read it so there is no way it can have its information changed or it can be infected by a virus. Fraud is practically impossible. (I found this in a Brazilian site <g>)

As for losing data well all voting machines are tested and tested before the voting process starts and they are pretty safe. We're using this system since 2000 and nothing happened so far. When something happens is usually before the voting process starts and they can substitute the machine or get back to the old paper system.

As for the voting ID when we arrive in our section to vote the Board Member gets our voting ID and make us sign a paper. After that he/she digits our ID number so the voting machine can be free for us to vote. The vote is secret and when we're done the Board Member gives us our ID back.

I hope that could answer your questions well. I know it can be a little confusing but then which voting system is not confusing?

Raquel (who has faith in our voting system and is glad that we can vote and know the results so fast )

I posted a comment on the other thread. I hope you read it.

I do not see any reason for anyone to gloat. The campaign left this country even more polarized than it was 4 years ago. I was shocked by the lies and deceit, stunningly brutal dirty tricks, and fear-mongering. The campaign was conducted totally without honor; in fact it seemed as though some people would say or do anything to win.

I only hope that both sides of the aisle will one day remember that the American people need them to work together for all Americans instead of pushing through a narrow agenda that only benefits a group of special interests and a select few, if for no other reason than because if the pendulum does not swing back to the center, I fear we have seen the beginning of the end.

The boards administrators and moderators have been keeping an eye on these threads, for obvious reasons. While I'm happy to say that for the most part discussion has been courteous and respectful of other members' feelings, at the same time we're conscious that this topic is one on which feelings run very high indeed. And equally we're conscious that, actually, people tend to come to these boards to get away from real life, including politics.

So, while we're not intending to close down either thread, we'd just ask people to consider now whether it's time to take political discussions to forums specifically created for them. That doesn't include questions about processes; I, for one, have found the posts on that topic fascinating and informative. However, I suspect some people would now like to say goodbye to the 'Yay! Bush won!' and 'I'm so depressed' posts. It's not as if there isn't lots of other stuff to talk about!


Wendy
Forum co-moderator

Having reread your post, Wendy, I'm still not sure ... are you closing this thread down now, or is it still open for discussion?
I, too, have been finding it very informative.

cc m

I don't think Wendy means she's closing this thread. That read more like a yellow light to me. Use caution if you're still here and kicking.

(And incidentally, for those of you who *are* sick of these discussions, and I so don't blame you, and do come here to escape all this, erm...don't read any further, ok? Go read Tank's very excellent fic in progress. I understand completely. I'm nearly done, myself.)

Ok, I swear, with the yellow light firmly in my field of vision:

I am just fed up with campaigns in general.

Were they always like this? I want to know.

I listened to the ads for my local elected officials on the radio- complete with ominous creepy music and a grim voice intoning all the ways Whoever is going to Ruin my home town Forever if elected...

In the political realm, it isn't enough, apparently, to say 'here is where we disagree.' You have to tear the other candidate down completely, make them look nearly criminal. So much so I find myself wondering, "How on earth did Whoever get elected in the first place, if s/he is in league with Axe-Murderers??"

I find that ridiculous. And so many I know just find it exhausting, so they tune out completely. It's hard work to shift through and find the actual ideas.

I want a race between opponents that just tells me how Whoever and Whomever think on the issues.

The end. Let me take it from there.

Don't tell me the sky is going to fall, the sun is going to turn to blood, if I cast my ballot for one over the other. And most especially, don't tell me at the end of a long, bloody campaign season, "Whoever ran a good race. Is of noble characer. Has been an asset for your home town..." Because how am I going to believe that when for the last six weeks I heard nothing but dire predictions of swarms of locust if I let that person get elected?

After election years such as this one and the previous, we could easily forget there is common ground.

But there is. It's buried underneath all the noise. We're are living proof of that. Unless we live in a compound, most of us live and work among people who are not completely like-minded. We understand that and get along fine. We've done well on these boards with issues that are raw and potentially explosive, and we've shown a maturity our elected officials seem to lack.

I'm tired of the division. I'm tired of those who work on both sides to make it deeper. Who see winning as justifying any means.

There are always going to be differences. That's who we are. There will always be issues on which we are never going to agree. Since that's a given, let's turn our attention to what we have in common. To what we can compromise on, reach a middle ground, rather than this no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners approach to governing and being governed.

That would be a revolution of its own.


CC- pushing soapbox back under desk, removing preach-y halo...checking that yellow light.

Incidently, the Whoever of the creepy music did get elected, and thus far our town hasn't fallen into the river. I'll keep you updated, though, just in case.

Thanks for the explanation, Quel! That sounds like a very good system.

I must admit I'm still suspicious about the fact that your voter ID number is punched into the machine immediately before you vote. It just seems to me that it would be too easy to figure out, then, just who voted for whom. (Maybe I've seen too many "Conspiracy Theory"-type movies!! ha ha)

Here in PR, we vote with paper ballots, which are then hand-counted. The good part is, when there is doubt, it can always be re-counted and verified. The bad part, of course, is it takes a long time to get the final results.

- Vicki

edited to add: CC, I see you were posting as I was. I just read your post and I agree 100%. Just tell me how each candidate feels about the issues and let me decide. (If you think your political ads are bad, you should see ours! Each side goes scrounging through the archives looking for pictures of their opponent picking his nose, or caught by the camera just at the moment his eyes had blinked shut, or making a goofy face right before a sneeze or what-have-you. I guess they figure if they make him look dorky enough, no one will vote for him! )

Wish I'd looked in on this topic a few days ago. My son registered in Cleveland, went to vote at his polling place near CWRU. Like many others there, he was challenged and given a provisional ballot, which was probably never counted since Kerry conceded. Arrg.

His name was not on the list as having registered. He said the same thing happened to many students he knows.

So much for getting the vote out in Ohio!

LaurieD moving on

Laurie, does your son go to CWRU? See, all of us Case students got challenged at the polls (although I voted in my home town of Parma)!

- Laura

He's a recent grad of CIM, there on the CWRU campus. He's "in between" schools, in process of applying to grad schools.

So, not officially a student, but in an area heavily populated with students.

LaurieD

I was worried about my vote not being counted as I voted absentee, but according to Columbus news stations the remaining absentee and provisional ballots will still be counted , even though Kerry has conceded. It would be almost impossible for these to change the presidential outcome, but they will be counted and recorded, and they might have some impact on smaller local elections. I take some small comfort in that...

Kaylle

There was a concern about the elderly waiting in long lines --
In California there is an option to have a permanent absentee ballot sent every election so you can conviently vote from your home. It's not restricted to the elderly either. My mother votes absentee all the time.
I agree this was a really devisive campaign. We need to get some civility back in our election process.

Artemis

Has everyone seen this map?



Based on this map, I don't think a change in the electoral college would make much difference. Likely the red states would not give up many electoral votes but the blue states would have to give up some electoral votes which they are not likely to want to do.

Of course, that map does not reflect population densities, which would offset the wide open spaces of red somewhat.

Funny that today's polls indicate that people want some closure or improvement in Iraq. So, what happened to the vote?

Kaylle, I'm glad to hear that the paper ballots will be counted.

Elderly standing in line? I want to say all states have provisions for absentee ballots. (True in all 50?) In Oregon, vote by mail is the standard... no more polling places.

LaurieD