This thread is just for comments about what we can do to ensure that FUTURE elections are not only on the up and up but widely perceived to be fair and free from fraud. This is not a thread to discuss the current election. We have a lot of other threads that discuss that. This thread is for discussing what kind of equipment should be used, should partisans be in charge of running our elections, etc.

Paper ballots, and everyone votes by mail. No problems with votes disappearing into the electronic ether, and no waiting in hours-long lines at the polls. It's already being done in some parts of the country.

Good suggestion, but what happens if the ballots get lost in the mail? They already had a problem in Florida with absentee ballots not being mailed. Can it work in some states but fail in other states? Does it depend on who is running the election?

who should be in charge of counting the ballots?

I think Oregon is already voting completely by mail. Make it like the tax forms going out by mail every year. People have until a certain date to return their ballots. If you move, you have to go to your local town hall and pick up a ballot.

citizens! in dual control, equal # of dems/repubs... but would that be fair to the other parties that will probably be getting stronger over the next 4 years?

Good question about the other parties. Here is another question - Who picks the citizens that do the counting?

we volunteer, just as poll workers do

How do we know that a volunteer Dem is really a Dem? And, how do we know if a volunteer Republican is really a Republican?

The only problem is that states have the right to dictate their election rules and federal judges are not in the habit of overturning those state rules.

This is a barrier to a national standards movement. However, I beleieve that the Congress can legislate national standards that allow for the states to still dictate their rules providing that they achieve the national election standards.

This means that activists need to become organized in each state, learn the election laws, rules, policies, and economics and to evaluate these for potential anti-democratic violations that can be challenged legally or publicly illustrated to be anti-democratic (see SHAME ON YOU!), and to then have these activists use their knowledge to educate our other groups so they may be more effective in achieving their goals, such as making the public aware of and striking down anti-democratic election laws, rules, procedures, and economics in states.

voter registration?? elected officials?? We'll probably never know 100%. But it has to be better than what we have now.

Won't there always be a question about some aspect of the process, whether it is the ballots used, the machines or lack of machines, the people in charge of the elections, the people that are counting the ballots, etc., etc. Is there really a fail safe way to conduct elections? At what point do we have to trust people? Is there ever a point? I'd love to see a comparison done on the various reforms that we should consider. We need to work out which option leaves the least amount of room for corruption.

Good idea.

sad but true!

Maybe we should study how other democratic societies in the world vote.. just for ideas. But probably better skip the Ukraine afterall they learned from us!

I can tell you how the election system is in Canada, which is widely perceived to have an excellent system. First we have a permanent voter list. If one wants to get on the list, they merely have to prove their address, and have appropiate identification. Our campaign only lasts for 6 weeks, not 2 years. Just prior to election day, we receive a card in the mail telling us which polling station to vote at, which is in walking distance. When at the polling station, we hand the card over, which contains our name and address, and we have to again show appropiate identification. On election day, there are numerous polling stations, and there is NEVER long line ups. I have been through about 8 or nine elections, and have never waited more than 10 minutes. We use a PAPER BALLOT ONLY, no machines whatsoever to count the votes. The votes are put into a sealed box. When the polls close, the doors are locked, and there are representatives from every party, at every polling station, to count every vote.The ballot is very simple, candidates name with a box beside each name. There are no hanging chads, because one just puts an X inside the box of ones' preferred candidate. We also don't have propositions on our ballots. We have separate Referendums in the case one is needed. No votes are allowed to leave the polling station until ALL the votes are recorded, and all parties have verified the results. The votes then go to a secure place (at least I hope it is), in case a recount is needed. Feel free to use any of these for your elections.

thanks, see this link for a target='_blank'>prototype.

That's the kind of system I was thinking about!

Sounds pretty simple and efficient. If you are on the voting list and you change your address how do they know you are the right person? Do they have one central voter list across all of Canada or are there lists for each province?

If you move, you have to notify the permanent election commission of your new address, which requires you to bring a copy of your lease contract with your signature on it, and also 2 pieces of identification with your picture on it such as a drivers licence, medicare card, social security card etc.

Show ID at the polling place - oh no!!!

Why do Americans get so offended about this???
We voted for this in AZ and now we are being called racist because of all of the people coming in from Mexico.

You mentioned the election commission was permanent. How many people are on the election commission and are they appointed? If so, who appoints them? How long do they serve?

This is a valid point!

Why is it considered a hindrance to be asked to positively identify oneself in order to vote, when one votes using a secret ballot?

I for one do not think that the above requirement is anti-democratic! In fact, it ensures the integrity of the vote.

However, to suddenly require this without proper notice when previous elections occurred without such a requirement may be problematic, so extensive advance notice and publicity should be used to ensure compliance.

Everyone should have vital documents that identify them, though these documents may find occasion, as above, for viewing, they need not be copied and/or reproduced in any way in order to authenticate their validity. With the proliferation of identity theft, who wants some stranger having a photocopy of or recording the information off of their vital document?

I didn't answer this part so here it is. There are separate lists for each. One for the Federal election, and one for the Province.

There will be NO fair elections in the future unless we insure the 2004 election was fair.

Amen to that!

Actually most of the election officials are hired by the voting companies...Surprise surprise, a few bad seeds can be mixed in real easy. How the election rigging was pulled off flawlessly in 2004. That ought to be done away with permanently and after the investigations are over, these companies sued right out of existance.

Well actually I said the voting list was permanent, not the election commission. Just before an election, the Government hires the necessary people to carry out the needed functions during the election. They place ads in newspapers and other advertising locations to hire those people. Although they do have a staff of people to handle election stuff for when there is not an election. These are usually unionized labor.

Logically, this is impossible.

It is a foregone conclusion that we have just experienced an unfair election, but that it was up to us to ensure that the election would be fair in advance of it.

Going back in time to recreate what exactly occurred is an extremely dificult and unlikely way to decide this election being that prior to the election we lawfully had the right to affect the laws, rules, procedures, policies, and economics of the election, but instead chose to trust in the strategy of having our inept, untrained in Election Laws and technological fraud, attorneys observe the election to ensure it was fair.

The election, though I believe was hijacked electronically, was really lost way in advance by our failure to monitor our elected and unelected officials properly in order to ensure that they were working on our behalf, rather than on a special interest's (for example, the Republican Party's) behalf.

This is why I really believe that most of us need to organize into smaller groups as I indicate in numerous target='_blank'>threads in the target='_blank'>Fair Election Practices sub-forum, in order to begin to focus as target='_blank'>smaller part-time specialized groups with digestable, focused, and achievable goals and in an organized manner that will make our democracy work!

Well, I don't know about that. We can certainly make elections in the future fair without ever knowing what the heck went on in this election.

I am not entirely certain how things are, politically, in Canada, but, unfortunately, here in the US, politics (especially at the national level) is all about money. Why else would millions and even hundreds of millions be spent to get jobs that only pay hundreds of thousands?

So, unfortunately, this tends to *encourage* corruption.

That being said, how do we do the paper ballot thing without someone figuring out how to *fix* it? What are the potential pitfalls that need to be explored and eliminated?

This thread is not about the current election. There are plenty of threads that deal with the current election so do not try to hijack this thread! If your post is about the current election it will be moved to a more appropriate thread. This thread is about future elections.

We have a Chief Electoral Officer.

The position of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) was created in 1920 by the Dominion Elections Act. The Chief Electoral Officer is appointed by a resolution of the House of Commons. He or she reports directly to Parliament and is thus completely independent of the government of the day and all political parties. The CEO serves until retirement at age 65 or resignation. He or she can be removed from office only for cause, by the Governor General after a joint request following a majority vote by the House of Commons and Senate.

Also each political candidate can only spend up to $40,000 dollars on his or her campaign, no more than that. So that eliminates someone spending $20,000,000 to basically buy an election.

Terry Gross interviewed Jimmy Carter the week before the elections on NPR's "Fresh Air." I found it rather revealing that Carter, whose Carter Center has supervised elections in over 50 third world countries, said his organisation could not supervise the American Election (if we were to ask) because we didn't meet their Four Basic Standards:


1. All qualified candidates must have free access to the media. Period. In America, candidates must raise $100 million minimum to even be considered. And Nader would have to be included.

2. All central election committees must be non partisan. We have 50 that do not qualify. In Florida, the notoriously partisan Katherine Harris ran for congress and was easily elected. Her replacement, the present Secretary of State, didn't even run. He was APPOINTED by Jeb Bush.

3. All voters must vote the same way. In America, some vote on touch screens, some vote in optical scan cards, some probably still use "chad-o-matics." And, of course, some are not "allowed" to vote at all.

4. A physical recount for close elections is mandatory. The technology is available. In fact, most of it was invented in America! It is OK to use touch screen machines - only Carter elections require that they produce a paper ballot which the voter visually checks and then deposits in the "recount box."

Interesting food for thought about the country that claims to want to export freedom and democracy to the third world.

That one's especially important to limit all money to 40,000 especially when you know fascists like the Bush crime family rigged their own reelection using 35 million dollars, to pay the nice friends in the voting companies. They'd be walking their last row if the laws held up limiting all campaign finances to a few thousand.

Well, #2 would be impossible. There is no such thing as non-partisan. Bi-partisan, OK, but non-partisan?

Limiting campaign spending would certainly allow more people to run for higher offices, but it is the office itself that holds the most value. Therefore, it is certainly in a group's best interests to do whatever it takes to put their guy (or girl) in office.

How do we remove the possibility of corruption in those who are counting and controlling the paper ballots?

In Canada there are no voting companies because it is totally paper ballot across the country.

How long does it take to hand count the paper ballots? Is there any standard, like in accounting: get the same result twice for it to be correct? Or is it just count once and let it go at that?

Each polling station usually only has about a couple of hundred ballots to count. There are so many polling stations, and so many different party officials checking the count, it usually only takes one count, and that the count doesn't take long. For instance last election there were 14 parties running, and they can all count the votes if they want. Most of the time it is known the same night of the election which candidates won, and which party won. If there is a recount, it will take a couple of more days, for that candidate. Recounts don't happen very often in my experience.

I believe that the official actions of the official are what is being described, not their personal and private political leanings.

In the case of a public official, their political leanings should not be evident in their official actions or even in their private actions.

For example, Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell was obviously not only partisan but was a case study in conflict of interest for a Secretary of State in terms of their political activities being unable to allow any observer to view that Secretary of State as being objective or without prejudice.

Exactly. There are no people in America who could be put in those kinds of positions and act in a non-partisan manner.

But to act in a completely partisan manner is why we are having this online chat.

Ohio's Blackwell in 2004 and Florida's Harris in 2000 were clearly egregious and potentially unconstitutional examples of partisan public officials overseeing their own prejudicial election agendas that in part were aimed at disenfranchising their political oponents votes by denying their constituents as close to equal as is possible access to the voting booths and voting conditions, in terms of time spent waiting on lines to vote, challenges to voters' legitimacy or rights to vote, and denial of voter registrations - to name a few.

The differences in standards applied to voters in Florida 2000 and in Ohio 2004, based on their county's or precinct's political leanings was quite obvious to observers, but was said to have been without prejudice or advance calculation, and left to be proven as such.

Two words: Open Source

One example: http://evm2003.sourceforge.net/

I'm a beginning (freshman) electrical engineer. I want to be part of a collaborative, peer-reviewed public domain electronics project to design open source hardware and software that takes cast votes and tallies them CORRECTLY.

India's done it. So can we!

Nick

If it works, then it is still needs to leave a paper trail and is only a part of the overall problem with our states' and national election processess, laws, rules, policies, and practices.

We need a referendum to have instead of a Secretary of State presiding over the elections a State Elections Board comprised of 2 Republicans, 2 Democrats, 2 Independents, 2 Commoners. This board would oversee policy, recommend code to be adopted by the legislators, of which only equal votes from all parties representing the state should be allowed. No more of one party creating laws.

And, yes, if you are wondering, I want to overhaul the entire government

Would like to see a change in the way congress is structured as well. If all parties were represented on an equal basis then both sides would have to learn to negotiate and vote for what the people they are represnting actually want.

I just had to move a post that concerned the current election. Please do not post comments about the current election in this thread. This thread is a discussion about future elections. There are quite a few threads that discuss the current election and only one thread that is discussing future elections. Please do not get them confused.

I like the Canadian method of collecting votes. There will always be a risk of partisan behavior, in any election. I say videotape the counters as they count, so they feel pressured to be honest. Also, no matter what the small glitches, the Canadian way is surely more accurate overall that our poor, easily hackable current system. Reform can't come soon enough. Now, how to implement said reform....?