Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

[Lucifer]

Maybe I missed this, but I thought Phytotron asked you what YOUR position was, not what you thought of someone else's proposal. What are your positions?

[compguygene]

Fair enough.

1. People should be able to directly choose which candidate in House, Senate, and Presidential elections receives Federal Money.

2. Last year the Supreme Court ruled that Political Action committees cannot be limited in any way as to how much they spend to support a political candidate, as long as they are an organization that is independent of the actual candidate's campaign because is a limit on free speech. If by the passing of a law or changing of the constitution (without ruining free speech protections) this could somehow be limited, it should be.

3. The current implementation of e-voting machines is too easily manipulated. The only design of an e-voting machine that seems to be not easily manipulated produces a receipt for the voter, and for a permanent record. That way, if someone messes with the electronic tally, a hand recount of the paper can be accomplished.

4. All elections should be run by an organization that is independent of the Government officials being elected and overseen by the courts.

5. All people should be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18 years old. The process of voting should be tuned to make it easy for anyone to vote.

6. As to lobbyists:
Any person who has ever ever worked in any capacity for the Federal Government should be banned for life from working as a lobbyist for life. Also, lobbyists should be banned from federal employment, except where approved by an Independent Panel that is overseen by the court system. This would end the bad practice of lobbyist's firms hiring people to lobby the people that they used to work with.

These are some of my ideas on the issues under discussion.

[Word]

The process of voting should be tuned to make it easy for anyone to vote.

I'm going to comment just this point for now:

I don't think that makes sense (unless I misunderstood you), even if your intention is all right - at least not like this. If (nearly) everyone gets to vote that usually means people who aren't informed would randomly pick a candidate whose agenda they don't necessarily know or agree with. Some of them won't have a qualified opinion to vote for either candidate. So the outcome would be complete random, or, in the worst case, the biggest populist/conman/demagogue wins. That's why you don't let children vote, it's unimportant to them and it's generally agreed upon that they're easier to manipulate. If you have less restrictions you also need more education, better media and better public discourses for more responsible voters. You can't have one without the other. If Romney wasn't such an idiot, it wouldn't be easy to vote.

The least you could do is having them answer a quiz like isidewith.com's and teaching them what has happened in political history before they vote, but I'm not sure if that's enough.

[Lucifer]

The process of voting should be tuned to make it easy for anyone to vote.

I'm going to comment just this point for now:

I don't think that makes sense (unless I misunderstood you), even if your intention is all right - at least not like this. If (nearly) everyone gets to vote that usually means people who aren't informed would randomly pick a candidate whose agenda they don't necessarily know or agree with. Some of them won't have a qualified opinion to vote for either candidate. So the outcome would be complete random, or, in the worst case, the biggest populist/conman/demagogue wins. That's why you don't let children vote, it's unimportant to them and it's generally agreed upon that they're easier to manipulate. If you have less restrictions you also need more education, better media and better public discourses for more responsible voters. You can't have one without the other. If Romney wasn't such an idiot, it wouldn't be easy to vote.

The least you could do is having them answer a quiz like isidewith.com's and teaching them what has happened in political history before they vote, but I'm not sure if that's enough.

You can't limit the franchise without enabling tyranny. If voters have to prove their worth, then here in the US where white, anglo-saxon, protestant kids get generally better educations, minorities would lose representation. The franchise must be available to all.

So, work on eliminating the inequities in education. That's the way to get better voters, and coincidentally, a better country.

[Word]

Yeah, but being part of a minority is different from being irresponsible, uneducated and manipulated, right? I didn't say that minorities should be discrimated against. But before you can form a qualified opinion you need education and just making everyone vote when you know they won't follow their conscience because they aren't fully informed is dangerous for a democracy. See 1933-45.

(unless that was directed at compguy, re-reading your post I don't really see where we disagree, Lucifer...)

[Lucifer]

Yeah, but being part of a minority is different from being irresponsible, uneducated and manipulated, right? I didn't say that minorities should be discrimated against. But before you can form a qualified opinion you need education and just making everyone vote when you know they won't follow their conscience because they aren't fully informed is dangerous for a democracy. See 1933-45.

(unless that was directed at compguy, re-reading your post I don't really see where we disagree, Lucifer...)

Minorities would end up discriminated against because demographically schools in minority neighborhoods are worse than schools in white neighborhoods.

We already tried stuff like that in the US, they were called Jim Crow Laws, and their purpose was to stop blacks from voting by taking advantage of the economic disparities in setting up ways to qualify voters.

So, no, that's a bad idea unless your purpose is to disenfranchise minorities.

[Word]

Minorities would end up discriminated against because demographically schools in minority neighborhoods are worse than schools in white neighborhoods.

Which is why I said you'd need more education before you make it too easy to let a demagogue get to power

(so that minorities have a qualified opinion as well, regardless if it's a minority)

. If you have less restrictions you also need more education, better media and better public discourses for more responsible voters

So, no, that's a bad idea unless your purpose is to disenfranchise minorities.

So, how is more education bad for a functioning democracy? An educated majority should be educated well enough so it doesn't oppress an uneducated minority, right? Wouldn't you agree that the US would be less splitted if people knew what to think of FOX?

It looks to me as if you're saying that educating people so they can truly vote for the things they believe in disenfranchises minorities. I don't think you have that opinion. I didn't say that any group should receive better education than another.

[Lucifer]

No, you said:

The least you could do is having them answer a quiz like isidewith.com's and teaching them what has happened in political history before they vote, but I'm not sure if that's enough.

That's Jim Crow, we've done it in the US already, and it disenfranchises minorities because of how the education system currently works. If you want something even more severe, you only disenfranchise more minorities. The original Jim Crow laws had a Poll Tax, where you had to pay a tax when you voted, and a literacy test. Poor people can't afford the tax and are much more likely to be unable to pass a literacy test, and in the United States, minorities dominate the "poor people" demographic, while WASPs dominate the middle and upper classes. So your "pass a test" idea, while sounding good, will disenfranchise minorities, and I'm not speculating here, I'm telling you what has happened historically.

I'm saying that instead of making a person prove they're qualified to vote, let everyone vote (all adults, kids don't vote not because of lack of education, it's because of lack of maturity, and the line drawn is somewhat arbitrary), and fix the education system so that everyone who finishes high school is qualified to vote, at least with education. It's still the individual's responsibility to keep up with current events and issues and so forth. But when you focus on improving education for everybody, you benefit the country in many more ways than just qualifying voters, so it's obvious that we should be focusing on education.

[Word]

fix the education system so that everyone who finishes high school is qualified to vote, at least with education

which is what I have said (I thought). first fix education, and have as many qualified voters as possible, then have less restrictions and make them more aware of their choices. the quiz part had nothing to do with disqualifying them. I only talked about teaching them, not testing.

I don't think that makes sense (unless I misunderstood you), even if your intention is all right - at least not like this. If (nearly) everyone gets to vote that usually means people who aren't informed would randomly pick a candidate whose agenda they don't necessarily know or agree with. Some of them won't have a qualified opinion to vote for either candidate. So the outcome would be complete random, or, in the worst case, the biggest populist/conman/demagogue wins. That's why you don't let children vote, it's unimportant to them and it's generally agreed upon that they're easier to manipulate. If you have less restrictions you also need more education, better media and better public discourses for more responsible voters. You can't have one without the other. If Romney wasn't such an idiot, it wouldn't be easy to vote.

[Lucifer]

I'm actually in favor of rewriting how voting works.

Either we switch to a system where every person gets as many votes as there are candidates (and are required to vote every vote they have), or we do something else.

Polling works great to predict the president. It's almost like we don't even have to go to the polls. How about a bureau whose only purpose is to periodically poll people and ask what issues matter to them and how they matter? The feedback that citizens have will be to submit issues for consideration, and all submissions that make it through the spam filter must be considered, and this agency will ask the questions, get the answers, and will be required at election time to rate all candidates in terms of the issues, and their ads would be required to run 1:1 against all other political ads that run. So if Romney bought 60 minutes of ads and Obama bought 40 minutes of ads, the agencies rating ads would get 100 free minutes of airtime.

Then the election is handled by this agency. They run a poll. People still vote, of course. If the voting result is within the error margin of the poll, then the poll determines the winner. If the voting result is not, then a new round is run. The voting part of the election serves to check the power of this agency.

Anyway, this particular agency would use the scientific method to study each issue and how it affects the population. They'd be required to break it down demographically, determine how each issue affects the economy, etc. Thorough studying of each issue. When laws are written, this agency would serve in an advisory capacity by predicting how the law would impact the country as a whole, taking into consideration all other issues. It would be staffed entirely by scientists and mathematicians. Educational standards might include somethingcorr to the effect of people seeking science or math degrees have to serve at least one semester as an intern for this agency. You know, stuff like that.

The only issue I have with this idea is making sure this one agency doesn't become corrupted. I don't like a system that can't deal with corruption naturally.

[Word]

So you want a neutral monopoly poll source instead of the press? One side would call it too liberal and the other too conservative.

And there is another problem - the possible influence of a poll on the actual election.
In political theory, there's the defeatism-effect for example: you can expect more voters if they are certain that their candidate will lose.
If it's neck-and-neck you'll get more voters (mobilizing-effect), and if one is candidate is likely to win it can possibly make the other side's voters think the race is already decided (resignation-effect), same for the others (lethargy-effect). That's why there is more than one poll, and why they're all different.

edit: the only halfway readable text about this in English is this, page 4:
http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/med ... ng_web.pdf

didn't check the source though

[compguygene]

I like your idea, Lucifer. I really think you have a great start on a really smart idea for election reform. And thanks for saving me the need to explain the history of Jim Crow laws.

[sinewav]

Now that some time has passed I think it's very interesting to see the current results of the poll. Obama, way, way out in front. Makes me think about the slice of people who play this game, ages, geography, etc. Internationally, the only one I know on Romney's side is that lunatic Netanyahu, so no surprise there. Nationally, I guess Obama is still popular with the kids? I wonder.

[Word]

Did you watch the daily show segment with Netanyahu at the UN assembly?

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-s ... bore-games

[Phytotron]

Man, Word comes up with some asinine stuff sometimes. Dude, enfranchisement of every single citizen of age is fundamental to the very concept of democracy. Every person in a society must have the right to vote for their representatives, no matter how stupid they are (either "they"). Anything short of that is not democracy; it's a government by some privileged class, just short of oligarchy. Sure, people should be more educated, but you cannot disenfranchise people who don't meet some standard (whose standard?) of education, any more than you can disenfranchise people who don't meet some standard of culture or ethnicity. Fack, man.

Don't like the result of ill-informed, ignorant people voting? Provide equal, high-quality education to all people. Until then, as they say, we get the governments we deserve. And after all, if only some elite is allowed to vote, you think they're going to vote to benefit the underclasses? No.

Hell, the Aussies have compulsory voting. EDIT: Not to suggest I support that. While everyone must (not should, must) have the right to vote, where there are people who are completely uninformed or uninterested in politics, those people should exercise a bit of forbearance and refrain from voting.

And I can't believe you would cite the Third Reich, an ideology premised upon a privileged elite and the exclusion of those considered unworthy, as some sort of counter-argument to instituting just such a society.

I think that this could be a part of the solution, but there is one other big issue that needs to be addressed that such as the ability of corporate backed Super-PACs to spend unlimited amounts of money on advertising. For the above proposal to work, you would really need to take the additional step of saying that all elections are to be publicly funded.

Then I don't get why you referenced that plan at all. It would still allow Super PACs and private money, disproportionately from the wealthy and powerful and corporate. That anonymity clause is laughable. It doesn't change anything. I don't ordinarily read comments sections, but the people in the comments section of that article pretty well refuted it.

I'm also surprised that someone so distrustful, even paranoid, about government would favor things like public financing and the kind of power that proposal would allot to the FEC or some other government entity in terms of directing individual donations. Which leads to my admission that I was looking to play a bit of a gotcha game there. You frequently cite your allegiance variously to the likes of Ron Paul, the Tea Party, or Gary Johnson, but as frequently express views or take positions that run counter to what these people advocate. This is just such a case. I poo-poo'ed that political quiz on page 3, but I'd kinda be curious to see what sort of result you'd get from that.

Now, anyway, if you're wondering about my positions regarding the financing of campaigns and elections, again those folks in the comments section mentioned most of the key pieces I've been advocating for years. First, a Constitutional Amendment to not only overturn Citizens United (something Obama and the Democrats are, to my pleased shock, increasingly stumping on), but to overturn the concept of "corporate personhood." (Most states, early on in the republic, had, and continue to have, such clauses in their state constitutions.) Second, a limit to campaign season, something like 6 weeks to 60 days. Third, complete public financing of elections; no private donations. Fourth, equal time for reasonably qualified candidates (without absurd barriers to third parties).

Then you went into other sorts of election reform that I didn't ask about, but I'll comment on a few of those.

3. The best voting machines we have, I think, are the type we have right here in Louisville-Jefferson County. They're scantrons, basically. You use a pencil to fill in a bubble, and the machine reads it. It's quickly counted, not easily manipulated or rigged, and there's always a paper record if there's any question of the results.

4. The FEC is "an organization that is independent of the Government officials being elected and overseen by the courts."

5. I agree. You still gotta sign up for Selective Service. What's more essential to citizenship than voting enfranchisement?

6. Agreed (though you should clarify "Federal employment;" there are many government jobs that have nothing to do with shaping policy). Do you give credit to Obama for the, albeit limited and imperfect, limitations he imposed on the revolving door between lobbyists and government officials?

I'll also add a few other reforms I support. First and foremost, apportionment of congressional districts must be taken out of the hands of politicians. Something like 80%of the seats in the House of Representatives are guaranteed thanks to gerrymandering at the state level. It's similar for state legislatures. And yes, the Tea Party has made massive, abusive changes since 2010. (That is, when they haven't been too busy enacting more anti-abortion laws in the last two years than in the previous several years combined. Teavangelicals.)

Second, instant-runoff voting. Third, binding none-of-the-above. Fourth, I don't actually want to see the Electoral College disbanded, but in Presidential elections all states should split their electoral votes according to the popular vote in that state, as some states have and a couple I think still do (haven't checked lately; I believe Maine and another). This balances the pros and cons of each the Electoral College and a truly popular vote, in terms of representation.

...crap that both of these idiots agree on. A short list follows.

1. War with Iran will be necessary

Meant to address this back after you posted it, as well. Scatter-brained lately, am I. Anyway, where do you get the idea that Obama is pining for a war with Iran?


By the way, did you intentionally use "International Bankers" back there as code? Because, you know, it usually is...for Jews.