Fed Up with Elections

I have an idea about who is at fault with the current election debacle. If you’re a Dem, Karl Rove must be the culprit. If a Republican, it must be the media. Perhaps all can take the fall, but the real villain is misinformation spread by big money. This problem is systemic and no one will dispute that fact. Huge dollars are taken out of our economy and paid for slanted political information or negative attack ads. What do we need them for?! Oh sorry, media companies need the cash flow rush every two years. Sorry!

There was a recent news clip which touted early voting and voting by mail as the wave of the future. Sounds like a reverse tsunami to me. If electronic voting machines or traditional voting booths aren’t the answer, maybe e-voting’s time has come. Certainly with technology and the internet, we could make a fast, fair, clear, just and informative system. If we had election week online just think of the productivity gain for companies having a work day instead of an election day.

Here is how it might work. Every election year there would be a week in November when a ballot just for you is found on USVotes.com. Between elections, local election boards for your district will be preparing their site using a national template. The information needed to make an informed decision regarding candidates and the ballot issues will be generated locally. The ballot itself would contain the information needed to make an informed decision and because the voter could take as much time as they want (voting week versus day) on any computer, the information could be quite detailed. The voter is identified by their social security number and the software would be sophisticated to catch fraud (dead voters need not apply). Certainly if credit cards can be protected, so can the voting process. In fact, the credit card protectors would be a good choice to build this system, privately with official federal election supervision.

On the ballot, each candidate would answer the same questions, again as part of the process (i.e. What is your stand on social security, healthcare, or taxes?). Questions the board of elections felt were pertinent for the district, state, or nation. Each candidate would have an essay question like: What strengths do you and/or your party bring to this contest? Maybe the most important component on the ballot would be the voting record and qualifications for office – information that would be prepared by a non-partisan group of volunteers who will no longer be needed at traditional polling sites.

Folks who do not have a computer at home or work could leisurely vote at their traditional voting sites equipped with computers and staffed with helpers. They could also vote in coffee shops or on their child’s laptop or PDA.

The key to this system would be the consistent information available to make an informed decision. Certainly, if WebMD can give good information on our health, someone can devise good information one week a year on a few American citizens.

Maybe more good candidates would agree to come forward if the rules were simple, accurate, and fraud free. Who wants to run against a flame thrower? With the advent of around-the-clock news, the media thrives on the juicy stuff that rarely means anything yet ends up swaying the vote. Each voter would have the same information prepared ahead of time and they would be less dependent on media bias and timing.

Here is a new career: highest ethics needed, not a spin doctor, soft spoken, likes getting the facts straight (former media folks and actors need not apply), needs some web competence. Job Posting: Guilford county election official and future political candidates.