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Debating Taboos
The first nationally televised debate (C-SPAN) on the subject of mandatory voting, or voting duty, occurred in Washington D.C. on June 27, 2011 (watch it at: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/DebateonMa). Why did it take so long? Because discussing this topic has been a taboo in electoral, legislative and main media arenas.
Taboos afflict all know cultures, anthropologists tell us. And our country certainly has its share. History teaches that when verbal taboos are broken, free discussion and changes for the better occur.
Remember when publically discussing tobacco smoking and cancer was a taboo? The cigarette industry was just too powerful with its advertising and political influence. Then a handful of physician, lawyers and health advocates broke that taboo. Health information by U.S. Surgeon Generals, warning labels, the ban on TV tobacco ads, effective law suits and limited regulations followed. Smoking dropped from about 46% of adults in 1965 to just under 20% today.
The media had a taboo on reporting unsafe automobile designs and the absence of proven safety features. Even criticizing a defective automobile by model name was taboo. For lawmakers and the media "mum was the word," or else you would anger the powerful auto companies and their dealers. Then in the Sixties the taboo was broken, motorists learned that auto makers were suppressing the installation of many simple life-saving devices like seat belts and other crashworthy features.
Congressional hearings revealed that car companies were not recalling known, defective vehicles for correction. Public outrage led to the passage of two auto and highway safety laws in 1966. Irregularly enforced, they have saved millions of lives and injuries, and the saved hundreds of billions of dollars.
Make your own list of public taboos. For example, in all the talk about debts, deficits and taxes, notice the near total silence about a huge revenue producer, with a ready base of popular support, a Wall Street securities transaction tax--often called a tax on high volume financial speculation. In President Obama's 70 minute news conference last week, not one reporter asked his position on this proposed tax. Moreover, no President has been asked this question in public for at least the last 40 years. Yet several countries have such a tax and the U.S. had such a tax until about fifty years ago.
The first nationally televised debate on the Wall Street sales tax--a fraction of one percent and far less than retail stores sales taxes--will be held on July 8, 2011 (see debatingtaboos.org).
The mandatory voting debate featured widely quoted scholar-advocate Norman Ornstein in the affirmative and noted libertarian Fred Smith in the negative. Voting as a legal duty, on the order of jury duty, but much less time-consuming, turns out to be a remarkable multi-faceted subject. Some 32 foreign countries have such a law but fewer than 10 of them--notably Australia, Belgium, Argentina mildly enforce them.
Certainly the turnout is much higher in these countries--96 percent in Australia--than in our elections which range from a high of 60 percent in some presidential elections to as low as 8% in some statewide primaries.
Opposition to mandatory voting is based on an aversion to government coercion, notwithstanding very mild sanctions such as a $15 fine or requiring a written excuse to avoid the fine. Opponents also say, required voting cheapens the vote, leads to random voting or other forms of passive resistance and produce more voters with little or no knowledge about the candidates.
Proponents argue that having three options--voting for the candidates on the ballots, choosing to write-in someone or voting for "none-of-the-above" takes care of the issue of coercion. They also say that having to obey thousands of laws and regulation should entail voting for or against the lawmakers responsible for these many mandatory laws. In addition, the goal of being elected by a majority of the eligible voters, instead of getting into office with as low as 20 or 10 percent of the eligible voters legitimizes the principle of democratically elected governments. Finally, they say required voting saves large amounts of get-out-the-vote money.
Walking out of the auditorium, the people in attendance for the Ornstein/Smith debate exclaimed that it was the first time they thought about voting as a legal duty. College students averred that they'd never even had a "bull-session" on the subject.
Never confronting this duty, its benefits and consequences probably explains why when a poll asked people their opinion, about 70 percent opposed. But even Fred Smith observed that cranking in a none-of-the-above option somewhat diminished his opposition. (For a copy of our report on this subject, visit: http://www.csrl.org/nota/)
So here's to breaking more public taboos and opening windows, and letting sunlight and fresh breezes and important ideas waft through them--whether it is the repeal of the Taft-Hartley anti-labor law, charging mining corporations for taking the public's hard rock minerals and using the public airwaves, the military budget, prosecuting Bush/Cheney, U.S. wars of aggression, closing nuclear power plants, ending the individual income tax, legalizing industrial hemp, or changing drug policy, prison policies and more.
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78 Comments so far
Show AllI agree. But hey, they need more warm bodies to buy mo stuff.
Utter bollocks.
Neoliberals regularly rant and whine about about overpopulation and link it on everything form environment, to food (ie not enough, so GM is necessary)
What is the glaring taboo is the refusal to talk about consumption. To talk about golf courses, swimming pools, manicured lawns in say, Texas, Arizona. What is the glraing taboo is the refusal to talk about the 40-50% of food that is thrown away in the US, the ~40% of food that is thrown away in the western world.
Right. The neo-Malthusians like to parade themselves, like Christian Fundamentalists, as if they are an oppressed group, when the reality is that they are very well funded and have access to powerful institutions.
The problem is that, as you have pointed out, they are wrong. When the accusatory finger of "overpopulation" raised, it is always directed at masses of people in poor countries. The problem is poor people don't consume much. Consumption is directly related to class. While poor people in the US consume more than poor people in India, neither consumes anything like the rich (or others higher on the economic scale) in either of their respective countries.
(While there are problems with looking at averages), the average American uses 50 times the energy as the average Bangladeshi does. The US population is roughly 300 million. We could replace the US population with the consumption of the average person from Bangladesh (an "overpopulated country") and put ( 50x300 million) 15 billion Bangladeshis into the US and consume no more energy than before. This is more than double the world's current population.
The issue is the consumption driven by the capitalist quest for ever greater profits. As capitalism concentrates greater wealth in fewer and fewer hands it spreads poverty (unemployment), the real cause of "overpopulation" and hunger.
The real purpose of the overpopulation argument is as a scapegoat: blame the poor for their poverty and excuse the rich and most importantly the system that made them both that way.
"The real purpose of the overpopulation argument is as a scapegoat: blame the poor for their poverty and excuse the rich and most importantly the system that made them both that way."
The economic argument before the ecologic argument is putting the cart before the horse
How so?
Ecology- from the Greek meaning "study of the household"
Economy- from the Greek meaning "running of the household"
How can you run a household without knowing how it works? How can you fly an airplane without knowing how to fly?
Premodern man had no idea of the science of astronomy, of physics, of biology, of the cell (and there's still much we don't know). Yet, those people managed to survive just fine.
"Ecology" has the same root as "economy" but it wasn't coined until 1866. I can use a microwave oven without knowing how it works. I can grow vegetables without know how they grow. So what is your point?
Very well said
"So here's to breaking more public taboos and opening windows..."
Oh, I get it. Let's hope that our fascist media superstructure will begin to break more taboos as we all live in the decade-long murderous aftermath of a false flag crime that was committed in broad daylight yet which NO ONE will address realistically.
Mr. Nader, if the taboo concerning the murder of 3,000 Americans on American soil and the fairy tale which contradicts both the laws of physics and commons sense can't still be broken 10 years after the fact, why should we even harbor hope that any significant "conversation" can be started concerning the fascist state we live in?
Because the propagandists are clever enough to pull on our hope-strings and report news every now and then which seems to support the peons?
I mean really.
edited to add:
What I mean to say is that with the example of 9/11 and the pernicious silence about that day, when the TPTB don't want the serfs to discuss something, it will not be discussed, everyone will take their marching orders of silence and the issue - even when its cold-blooded, broad-daylight murder - will die.
Exactly. The Mother of All Taboos -- 9-11-01.
How about ending the taboo that fascist amerika IS the World's # ! terrorist nation; and its occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan ARE terrorist acts against humanity !
Amen to that!
What did you not mention even in discussing 9/11? An even greater taboo, the role of Israel in American politics.
I've got to join the Amen Chorus: the Unsolved Mystery of the events of September 11, 2001 is a mega-taboo enforced at points along the entire Amerikan political spectrum.
No one talked about it? Really?
Because I've read and heard countless rebuttals of the truthers more plausible hypothoses, many on mainstream media (if you include NPR in that mix, and I don't see why anyone wouldn't, honestly).
Really? Can you offer an example? I'm not saying it hasn't been discussed, but I am unaware that many (let alone most) of the plausible hypothesis raised by "truthers" have been rebutted by falsers. 99% of the "rebuttals" I have witnessed have consisted of ad hominenm attacks and other logical fallacies.
You'd be more successful getting a "none-of-the-above" option on ballots THEN going after mandatory voting. Speaking for myself, I'm disgusted with voting. If I had a legitimate way to easily voice that disgust, i.e. None-Of-The-Above, I might return to the polls. That's only if n-o-t-a was reported on election night right along with candidates totals. Can you imagine the effect on future Pols who saw 2 election cycles where 80% voted for n-o-t-a !?
I agree, altho I don't think I could ever support mandatory voting. My "NOTA" has always been third party votes but third parties are getting scarcer due to ballot access "laws". IRV or real NOTA would help break the duopoly.
Somewhere around my desk I actually have a newspaper editorial supporting NOTA. It was from the Wall St Journal, 1991.
cassandra wrote:
My "NOTA" has always been third party votes but third parties are getting scarcer due to ballot access "laws". IRV or real NOTA would help break the duopoly.
Somewhere around my desk I actually have a newspaper editorial supporting NOTA. It was from the Wall St Journal, 1991.
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Excerpt from “Debating Taboos” by Ralph Nader
Proponents argue that having three options--voting for the candidates on the ballots, choosing to write-in someone or voting for "none-of-the-above" takes care of the issue of coercion. They also say that having to obey thousands of laws and regulation should entail voting for or against the lawmakers responsible for these many mandatory laws.
* * * * *
My Reply:
Both Plurality Voting and Instant Runoff Voting are preferential voting procedures.
As a consequence neither of these two voting procedures is even capable of passing the "We Hate Them" test.
You can make up a version of this test yourself providing that you describe people's opinions in a way that makes it possible to also describe someone confronted by the "lesser of two evil" dilemma.
Consider this very simple example for instance.
Everybody prefers Candidate A to Candidate B, but at the same time everybody dislikes and opposes both Candidate A and Candidate B.
If just one person votes that person will vote for Candidate A and Candidate A wins no matter if Plurality Voting or Instant Runoff Voting is used. If no one votes it's a tie. That is the best you can do under this particular circumstance with Plurality Voting or Instant Runoff Voting, a tie.
But neither Plurality Voting nor Instant Runoff Voting will tell you the truth that all of the voters, or perhaps only a majority of the voters, or perhaps only more voters than like the two candidates, actually hate the two candidates.
This is called manufacturing the appearance of consent.
Supposing there is just one person who prefers Candidate B to Candidate A and likes and supports Candidate B and everybody knows it. Then some people who prefer Candidate A to Candidate B but hate both candidates are going to be tempted to vote for the "lesser of two evils" because they have strong reasons to believe the person who prefers Candidate B will vote for Candidate B, and then of course we are screwed.
Of course, people who prefer Candidate A to Candidate B but hate both could kidnap the person who prefers Candidate B during the voting period, or worse simply kill the person who prefers Candidate B. But people really shouldn't be pushed to such desperate measures in a democratic society, simply because of the severe limitations of the voting procedure used in elections. But we do not live in a democratic society and both Plurality Voting and Instant Runoff Voting are just one part of the problem.
There are many other versions of the "We Hate Them Test". My favorite demonstrates that even if you add a "None of the Above" (NOTA) option to Plurality Voting or a "None of the Others" (NOTO) option to Instant Runoff Voting that both these two voting procedures will still at times elect one of the two candidates to office even though both of the two candidates are disliked and opposed by a majority of the voters.
The conseqences of restricting each voter's freedom of speech and freedom of political association when voters cast their votes at the ballot box, and that is really what Plurality Voting and to a somewhat lesser extent Instant Runoff Voting do restrict freedom of speech and political association, the consequences are enormous and extend far beyond the "We Hate Them" test.
Yes, Plurality Voting is worse. But both Plurality Voting and Instant Runoff Voting prohibit voters from voting "No" directly against individual candidates on the ballot; and therefore both these two voting procedures favor candidates who may have little support from the voters but have huge amounts of support from wealthy people willing to contribute money in all the ways that it is possible to contribute money in order to get their candidate on the ballot and ensure that "suitable" candidates are almost always elected.
Fortunately, there are two consent / dissent grading scale based voting procedures called Yes No 'Maybe So' Voting and Category Scale Power Voting which actually empower voters in the manner appropriate to the sovereign boss that voters are supposed to be in a democracy. Basically, both these two voting procedures determine whether or not there is a election winner in a manner very similar to that commonly used to hire someone for a job.
Now, image that!
Aren't all those elected officials supposed to be public servants working for us.
Of course, the power given the voters by democratic voting procedures based upon expressions of consent and dissent like Yes No 'Maybe So' Voting and Category Scale Power Voting can still be overwhelmed by enormous amounts of propaganda.
This is called manufacturing actual consent (through brainwashing).
Fair and free democratic elections are not possible unless there is some reasonable control over the expenditure of money used for the purpose of disseminating political speech.
Despite what the U.S. Supreme Court may say, such regulation and control if fairly implemented does not violate anyone's free speech rights.
Chief Justice John Roberts needs only to think a little more deeply upon the comment in his concurring Citizens United opinion about the guy on a soap box or the lonely pamphleteer and realize that preventing someone from spending millions of dollars promoting and disseminating the political speech of his or her choice in no way prevents that person from getting up on that soap box or standing on a corner and passing out pamphlets, or standing on a corner with a laptop and showing the "Hillary" documentary movie or some other movie just like the rest us. The Supreme Court's Citizen United ruling violated the U.S. Constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law.
What are we going to do about that? A Constitutional Amendment to abolish corporate personhood or something more directly target at the real issue surrounding freedom of speech, freedom of political association, and the expenditure of money to disseminate speech or both?
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Sample YNMS and CSPV Ballots see also PuffinThrush at Jul 11 2011 - 12:55am in this thread.
The “We Hate Them” Test
None of the Above (NOTA) and None of the Others (NOTO)
- -
Please consider the following sample electorate which I often use to discuss the "We Hate Them" test.
We will look at Plurality Voting with and without a "None of the Above" (NOTA) option added and Instant Runoff Voting with and without a None of the Others (NOTO) option added.
There are a total of 9 people in this sample electorate grouped into 3 categories according to their opinions.
Group 1 People (4 in number):
Prefer Candidate A to Candidate B; like / support Candidate A and dislike / oppose Candidate B
Group 2 People (3 in number):
Prefer Candidate B to Candidate A; like / support Candidate B and dislike / oppose Candidate A
Group 3 People (2 in number):
Prefer Candidate B to Candidate A; dislike / oppose Candidate B and dislike / oppose Candidate A.
The 2 people in Group 3 are suffering from the "lesser of two evils" dilemma.
If you look at these 9 people you will notice that they dislike / oppose Candidate A by a 5 to 4 majority consisting of the 5 people in Groups 2 and 3 versus the 4 people in Group 1.
Also, you will notice that they dislike / oppose Candidate B by a 6 to 3 majority consisting of the 6 people in Groups 1 and 3 versus the 3 people in Group 2.
In other words these 9 people dislike / oppose both Candidate A and Candidate B by majorities of the people in the 3 groups.
But Plurality Voting without NOTA will elect Candidate B by a 5 to 4 majority consisting of the 5 people in Groups 2 and 3 versus the 4 people in Group 1, if the people in Group 3 vote; otherwise Plurality Voting without NOTA will elect Candidate A by a 4 to 3 majority consisting of the 4 people in Group 1 versus the 3 people in Group 2.
Plurality Voting with NOTA will also elect Candidate A this time by a 4 to 3 to 2 plurality consisting of the 4 people in Group 1 versus the 3 people in Group 2 versus the 2 people in Group 3
In other words even adding the “None of the Above” option to Plurality Voting doesn’t enable Plurality Voting to pass the “We Hate Them” (both) test. This certainly violates the principle of the consent of the self-governed.
Just replace the words Instant “Runoff Runoff Voting” for the words “Plurality Voting” and the words “None of the Other” for “None of the Above” in the above analysis and you will get very nearly the same results for Instant Runoff Voting with and without the “None of the Other” option as you get for Plurality Voting with and without the “None of the Above” option.
The primary different between the Plurality Voting and Instant Runoff Voting results occurs when NOTA and NOTO are included as options on the ballot for these two voting procedures respectively.
The initial result for Instant Runoff Voting with NOTO gives Candidate A the 4 votes from Group 1, Candidate B the 3 votes from Group 3 and NOTO the 2 votes from Group 3, if the people in Group 3 decide to vote; otherwise Candidate A will win outright with a 4 to 3 majority.
Assuming the people in Group 3 decide to vote, according to the way Instant Runoff Voting works NOTO is eliminated from contention because NOTO has the fewest votes of any of the “candidates”. The IRV votes of the 2 people in Group 3 are transferred to their second choice Candidate B giving candidate B a 5 to 4 majority consisting of the 5 people in Groups 2 and 3 versus the 4 people in Group 1.
Even adding the “None of the Other” option to Instant Runoff Voting doesn’t enable Instant Runoff Voting to pass the “We Hate Them” (both) test. Once again this violates the principle of the consent of the self-governed.
Both Plurality Voting and Instant Runoff Voting are severely flawed with or without NOTA and NOTO.
- - - - -
Sample YNMS and CSPV Ballots see also PuffinThrush at Jul 11 2011 - 12:55am in this thread.
Grading Scales and a Brief Description By Analogy How YNMS and CSPV Election Outcomes are Determined
- - - - -
rfloh (in another thread) wrote:
Many of the problems of voting systems can be addressed, it voters are not limited to manichean choices: ie, yes vs no. Instead of being forced to vote yes or no, either or, voters should be able to vote based on a scale. Say 0 to 10, or -10 to 10.
That way, you can measure degree of agreement, degree of (dis)like.
- - - - -
My Reply:
You are right, for the most part. But we shouldn't use numbers to label the scale and the scale shouldn't be so large.
Category scales are used in questionaires and surveys in order to give meaning to the scale beyond the meaning that a number can give by assigning verbal labels such as "Most Opposed", "Opposed", "No Comment", "Support", Most Support" to the points on the scale.
In fact this particular set of category scale labels is a good choice for use in Category Scale Power Voting ballots, because these labels let voters know what they need to do to directly express their degree of opposition or support about each and every individual candidate on the ballot.
Some sixty or more years ago research was done that indicates category scales are most reliable (meaning that the results are most reproducible), if the scale used provides no more than 5 to 7 degrees of expression, which is why category scales used in questionaires and surveys for the most part have provided no more than 5 degrees of expression for decades.
Because a government, and by definition democratic government, should not be about the arbitrary exercise of power whether that power is wielded by a dictator or a group of voters, the scale used in voting procedures should provide no more than 5 degrees of expression.
Although most people have five fingers on each hand which is why the most natural and commonly used number system is base ten, the human brain when "eyeballing" various kinds of measurements or while making complex (rotten?) "apples and oranges" and lemons type evaluations and comparisons among candidates, which are necessarily made without the aid of a standard measuring stick, can't reliably and reproducibly sort items or candidates into ten (or eleven) or twenty (or twenty-one) or one hundred (or one hundred and one), or whatever more categories. More is not necessarily better.
This is enough, however, to radically increase the freedom of speech and freedom of political association, and therefore the political power exercised by each and every individual voter.
The method used to aggregate or "add together" what all the voters have said about the candidates on the ballot in a Category Scale Power Voting election was derived from Yes No ' Maybe So' Voting and focuses on consent and dissent or support and opposition first, and then uses the information provided by voters as a candidate grading scale if necessary in order to select a winner from acceptable candidates.
Coincidentatlly, this process is similar to how a hiring manager or boss might look at a group of applications for a job. The resumés or job applications are first each looked at individually, nowadays often by a computer program, and job applicants or candidates are accepted and put on a short list for further consideration or rejected outright.
Then the final choice is made from the short list of job applicants or candidates, if in fact there are any job applicant or candidates on the short list.
This is a somewhat simplified description of how an election outcome is determine when Yes No 'Maybe So' Voting or Category Scale Power Voting is used. The actual method automatically makes a second attempt at finding candidates for the short list if none were found the first time and includes appropriate rules for handling write-in candidates. While a write-in candidate may win an election outright, provisions for write-in candidates also provide a mechanism for getting new candidates on the ballot for a second election in case no one is elected the first time because no candidate has adequate support from the voters.
Unlike Plurality Voting, Instant Runoff Voting, Approval Voting, and Borda Count neither Yes No 'Maybe So Voting or Category Scale Power Voting will elect a candidate who is opposed by more voters than support that candidate.
It is appropriate that a voting procedure used to elect people to government office in single-member district elections including elections for governor and president provide results that are consistent with the consent of the governed and are arrived at in a manner similar to that used to hire people for a job.
Afterall, our elected representatives and government officials are supposed to be public servants engaged in public service working on our behave in our best interests.
I will post sample Yes No 'Maybe So' Voting and Category Scale Power Voting ballots so that folks can get a better sense of how these two voting procedures works.
Regards,
Peter K. Harrell
- - - - -
Sample YNMS and CSPV Ballots see also PuffinThrush at Jul 11 2011 - 12:55am in this thread.
Mandatory voting does not compel you to vote for anyone on the ballot. You can always write-in "none of the above" or "Mickey Mouse", but you should at least go out and vote. All electronic voting machines take write-ins.
I think mandatory voting is a fine idea, as I beleve that a big reason the Democratic party has been so accomodating to the corporate-business right is becasue a majority the wage-earning working class who the Democrats once claimed to represent don't bother voting anyway. Additionally, it is well established that a very effectvie tactic of the right has been to supress voting.
Of course, the unique and bizarre US policy of having elections on Tuesdays (clearly a voter suppression tactic) doesn't help either. Voting should be moved to Sundays or make elction day a holiday, as it is done in more civilized democracies.
But then again, Australia has had mandatory voting for a while now, and their Labour Party has nontheless become rather big-busines friendly too. So, mandatory voting is no panacea, but it would still help.
Moving election day to Sunday is a great idea, but it might never happen in the US due to so many factions of religious fundamentalists. Making Election Day a holiday - and netting a long weekend out of it, would be the next best choice. In the current electoral environment, though, any real change is a long way off.The media will never accept public financing of campaigns; shortening the time frame of campaigns isn't likely either. As it stands, many states have enacted 50s style voter ID requirements, and others will likely try to follow.
Agreed, and few countries that call themselves democracies have anything like "voter registration". You are automatically enrolled at your birth-home and notified of your polling place as soon as you notify the government of an address change via a tax return or drivers license.
my neighbor just told me he registered to vote...
saying “you’ll never guess why i did such a thing!...
the next ballot has a mandatory voting question on it!...
and the “no” votes have got to win!”... :)
Worst idea ever, on so many levels. Forced democracy is a beautiful way to drive up participation rates in order to claim even greater legtimacy for the empire. That's why Britain did it.
I still can't believe how lame the arguments supporting mandatory voting are, especially when contrasted with the arguments against it.
Most mandatory-voting countries like the UK or Australia are still better functioning democracies than the US. Not perfect by any means, but better.
Anyone on the left who opposes mandatory voting knows very little about the electoral process. It is practcally a law of physics that in any country with mal-distributed wealth, increasing and broadening voter turnout always helps the left to at least an incremental extent.
Brasil also has mandatory voting, however it would be a mistake to assume that mandatory voting leads to electing "left" candidates. Those countries, such as in Latin American, have a stronger social foundation than do countries like Britain, Australia or the US. In the example of Brasil, there is a tremendous wealth gap, yet the "right" candidates drew fairly strongly in the recent elections. If it weren't for the strength of Lula, Serra would be president.
Besides, there are no guarantees which way a populace might vote - assuming a free and fair election, something that no longer exists in the US - and it is the US we are talking about.
there is no compulsory voting in Britain.
Thanks. Only Australia then. Someone mentioned they did above, so I just assumed that they did rather than check.
Of the few dozen countries that have compulsory voting, only a few enforce it. I understand thet Australia is very liberal in taking excuses for not voting (small form, no doubt via internet), so very few people ever pay the $15 fine.
According to the Wikipedia article, compulsory voting is most popular in South America, the only exceptions being Colombia, Venezuela and Guyana. And, South American countries have been more successful at electing candidates on the left.
Then it must be by region or municipality, because two good friends of mine are required to vote or they're fined. I was under the impression it was national. I'll check.
Thanks for the correction above. It was a municipal situation. My error.
Be careful what you wish for. What happens if "none of the above" wins? You're either stuck with the incumbent, or the parties come back with more garbage candidates. The Powers That Be couldn't care less if you voted "none of the above"; at worst this would be a minor annoyance to them.
"none of the above" wins most of the elections in the USA, except that we don't get to count it. The NOTA vote is the majority or at least huge minority that stays home now, thus allowing cranks and corporate errand boys to claim "landslide" when they get over 20% of the vote. There needs to be a way to count the votes of people so disatisfied with the available choices that they would rather stage the election again. IRV would also help, as would Saturday, weekend or holiday voting. Why shouldn't the polls stay open for 2 12 hour days in a row, instead of 12 hours on one work day during the week? As for an election day holiday, if employeres are worried about having to give another paid holiday, why not have elections on one of the many "patriotic" holidays we already have? What better way to honor the vets than hold elections on Veteran's Day? Yes, I am aware of the irony, but I am being ironic advisedly. Wouldn't this at least partly shame the political class into slightly more reputable behavior on and near election day?
And why shouldn't all absentee ballots or late ballots be counted. In some jurisdictions they don't have to count the absentees if they think the margin of victory when the polls close is bigger than the number of absentees registered as such or registered as such and still uncounted. Is there anything more corrosively anti-democratic than that?
A victory for NOTA would be such a rich, fragrant moose turd in the face of the duopoly, that it would be worth it just for a day of celebration! It might just indicate a significant reserve of common sense and decency among ALL the eligible voters
The moose turd is what we all get when NOTA wins, the media writes off the NOTA voters as cranks, and we then get another round of corporate suits to vote for. IRV at least has the virtue, meager though it may be, of not requiring an extra election that would have to be paid for.
IRV--much better than NOTA, but I thought they had to have another election if NOTA won. Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be a point to it. Is that the point?
I think you are wrong on this. Most USAns support what we would call "progressive" or "moderate left" laws and political and governmental structures, distrust the Blue AND Red parties and generally dislike their candidates, but are convinced that most USAn DO NOT support such things, are loyal to either Institutional Party and love particular candidates. A "none of the above" rejection vote option -publicly announced along with candidate votes- could well reveal this "silent majority" to themselves, which could in turn be a major game-changer.
I'm with you on this matti, a NOTA win would be the Emperor's New Clothes happy ending re-write. Still wouldn't address the current magic black box problem though.
voting? you still cling to the hope that is voting?
we just need more votes, that's the problem?
we need more Democratic votes? more third party?
huh...
"Impeachment is off the table."
doesn't matter who you vote for...
Ralph is falling down the ol' respectometer with this plea for voting reform...
even if done 'correctly', democracy is no great shakes...
the votes of the two outweigh the vote of the third, no matter how evil the two, nor how justifiably correct the third's position...
violence is always waiting, in the wings, to correct an undesired election result...
"I can hire one half of the working-class to kill the other half."
- Jay Gould, Gilded Age railroad & real estate tycoon
More and more of us on the Left are coming to understand that there is a role for EVERYONE to the left of the neo-liberal capitalist tri-partisan hydra in Washington D.C. to play in opposing these wretched nihilists. Communists, socialists, left-libertarians, traditional populist progressives, and, yes, even Michael Moore. If all the boobs who keep pulling the overall Left apart with their internal bickering don't start finding common ground and uniting ASAP this entire planet is going down--not just North America and most of the EU.
There are meetings starting to be held within the U.S. to organize labor unions across multiple unions and job specialties. The AFL-CIO has called for an independent labor movement no longer tied to any of the current dominant political parties. This is what all of us on the Left should be supporting and urging them to accelerate. If you hear of ANY union protest or rally in your neck of the woods, get off your ass and go attend it. Talk to the union members about this cross-union organizing movement and encourage them to enlist their local union leaders to support it. The AFL-CIO still has 11 million members. If all the other unions threw in their membership we would have a working-class political force to be reckoned with in this country and they could afford to field their own independent labor candidates. This movement could build into a new Labor Progress Party to depose the failed Democratic Party. And even more important: This could become a model to organize with other working-classes around the world to DEMAND globally enforced labor and environmental protections.
Job 2 on a truly united Left's To Do List: Create our own mass media to circumvent as much as possible the "mainstream" corporatist, militarist media monoliths. Blanketing the country with non-profit pro-labor populist progressive, socialist and left-libertarian low power FM radio stations with simultaneous online streaming is one way to go. Google: independent listener sponsored radio and then google: low power FM and read up.
Most American right-wingers are nominally "Christian" even though their beliefs with respect to the poor, "the other," and the "Christian prosperity movement" are heresies against authentic Christianity. Activists, including union members on the Left who are Christian need to start publicly calling out these right-wing Christians-in-name-only for their un-Christian fear and hatred of the poor and "the other" and their servile worshipping of, and concentration of riches in the hands of the super-rich while they support tri-partisan neo-liberal policies that crush the middle-class and lower-class.
The subject of taboos is a good one. But the voting taboo is a wash. Doesn't matter if you're forced to vote or not, the end results will be the same. The deck is stacked against the people...the regular people that is. Now it they enforce all candidates to be included in the debates, with mandatory coverage by all broadcasting (who use our airwaves FOR FREE) and public financing of elections, then we might have something.
Yeah, I know, never gonna happen with these weasels.
"prosecuting Bush/Cheney"
BLASPHEMY.
that's going too far!
Want another taboo?
How about the greedy bankers destroying towns,cities,states and even whole countries and all we get for a top story is some "Casey" trial. Really!
Hey, even the fundamentalist put an end of the world folder on my door and none of the reasons mentioned the bankers, wow wtf , how can it be more obvious.
It's a cliché, but if voting worked it would be illegal. At the very least there should be a BINDING "none of the above" option so that voters have the option of saying no to the entire slate of candidates, as opposed to a "none of the above" that merely nullifies the voter's effort. If we don't want either Tweedle-dee or Tweedle-dum, we shouldn't have them forced on us.
Taboos: there's nothing more taboo in this country than the profit system.
Exactly!
RE: It's a cliché, but if voting worked it would be illegal.
The above is a paraphrase of what anarchist Emma Goldman said: "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." And, importantly, her statement was not a cynical one but one of demonstrable fact. The whole argument of mandatory voting is based on a false premise: that the problems we face today are the result of voting. They are not.
Mandatory voting would not change the the lock that the two-party system has on US politics (put in place by the Constitution). Addressing only recent events: The Bush era tax cuts were supported by both parties, as were our military misadventures, how you voted would not have made any difference. The deregulation that allowed the banking crises to happen and the taxpayer bailout were supported by both parties, how you voted would not have made any difference. Most Americans supported Single Payer not the free gift to the insurance industry et al provided by Obamacare (basically the same as a GOP plan created 10 years prior). How you voted would not have made any difference. The list is endless.
The real take away from this article is that, while a well meaning guy, Nader has nothing to offer us besides stale liberal palliatives. It's sad.
RE: Taboos: there's nothing more taboo in this country than the profit system.
Absolutely right. "A capitalist democracy is nothing more than democracy for the capitalists."
Great idea on all fronts.The GOP are trying to erect more and more barriers to voting because low turnout favors their candidates (not majority material). This would pull the rug right out from under them. It would revamp the way strategists have to operate, giving us a window to push the old guard out.
Plus, it's simple, economical and just. Now we just need to find a safe, secure way to count those votes.
By hand. ;)
By temporary workers hired by the local elections folks a la jury duty.
Fill out a ballot by hand (or with some accommodation for handicap), fold or cover the ballot by hand, drop the ballot -by hand- into a box, pick the ballots out of the box by hand, then count them by hand.
Democracy is about humans trusting other humans enough to decide how things should work together. Human hands, eyes, brains, etc., should be what we trust to count the votes. So the appropriate tech here is the simplest one possible: paper, pencils, box, tables, system for counting /checking, more boxes... that's it, really.
Just make sure there are enough polling places and poll workers so that everyone can vote by hand -without waiting long- in one day, and make sure that there are enough counters to have an initial count in a few hours and you're golden.
(1 ballot/min. x 180min = 180 ballots/3hrs so about 3,600 temps per Congressional district or around 1.6million nationwide or about .5% of pop. paid, say $10/hr, so something like $100K per district or $50-ish mil nationwide)
A National Election Day Holiday would be the capper to any decent reform scheme in the U.S. Throw that in and the jury-duty-style counters feel like small-time lotto winners and the mandatory vote seems like no big deal.
(obviously ballot reform -such as to IRV- campaign funding reform -public!- and many other reforms like districting and ballot access need to be addressed too, but they seem a bit off-topic to your post. )
-matti.
To Matti thank you
hand. ;) BY HAND
I LIKE THAT, THE EXPERIENCE, CONSCIOUSNESS touching, hearing, seeing, feeling speaking WE MUST UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE LET GOVERNMENT OR MORE SO CORPORATIONS DO THAT FOR US. That's how we were fooled.
WE BECOME DEHUMANISED WHEN CORPORATION BECOME HUMAN "citizen united"
"bank of America" does not pay tax, the 62 YEARS OLD janitor cleaning in the lower ground of the very same bank, pay tax.
No terror no torture just truth
Surprised at the anti- mandatory voting sentiment here.
As far as I am concerned, voting is a Citizen's Duty in what's left of these Republics of the United States.
I can see not wanting to BE a Citizen of such Republics, but that's a different question, isn't it? ;)