Tag Archives: Voting

Polls and debates

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The polls and the GOP debates are useless. They do not help the voters to make a wise choice. The only thing the polls tell us is that the voters are undecided because they don’t like their choices and because they lack the information on which to base a decision. There are too many debates and they tell us little or nothing. The media treats the polls as a horse race and the debates as boxing matches. We could as easily place the candidates in a fighting cage and select the victor as the candidate. That would only tell us who is the physically fittest, not who is qualified to be president.

I would replace the debates with TV programs in which the candidates respond in writing to written, pertinent questions. The candidates need not be on the program in person, only their brief answers which could be compared on the air to the answers supplied by all the others. Voters could study the answers later at their leisure on-line. I would require that the answers be brief and not refer to the other candidates. In many cases, answers could be limited to three choices: yes, no or declined to answer.

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Electoral College

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I favor the abolition of the Electoral College so that my vote will mean something. I live in a red state as many others do and many others of us live in blue states. Elections are contested mainly in swing states and it is those voters who decide presidential elections. I want my vote to have equal weight with theirs. I also believe that more people will vote if they feel that their votes are meaningful. It may be more difficult to steal a close election if there is no electoral college, as long as we make electronic tabulation of the vote more secure.

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Voting rights

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I support universal suffrage (voting rights for all adult citizens) except for certain felons. Some want to restrict voting rights, but that involves the question of where to draw the line. I believe that elections should be fought and won on the issues. The winning side convinces 50% + one of the voters of the correctness of their position.

It appears that the GOP prefers another route, restricting the right to vote to people they believe will vote to support their position on the issues. The right of property to have a larger voice and vote is an issue that has divided supporters of democracy since the inception of democracy.

Aside: This is a discussion of voting rights. I know that the US is a republic, not a pure democracy, but that is not what this discussion is all about. We tend to use the term democracy a bit loosely. After all, we don’t fight to preserve a republic nor did we invade Afghanistan and Iraq to impose a republic. When the Iraqis and the Afghans held elections, we celebrated their democracies.

Back to voting restrictions. Picture identification to prevent voter fraud is a solution to a problem that is statistically insignificant. It does tend to restrict the voting rights of the poor and the homeless. We have not reached the point yet where one must be a member of a certain religion, denomination or church to vote, but certain politicians would move us in that direction if they could. English as a first language and ancestry from certain Western European nations are favored by some on the Right. These restrictions on the right to vote have appeared before in the US. Please see my earlier post, Know Nothings.

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One man/one vote

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Throughout history, democracy has divided between those who support universal suffrage, one man/one vote, and those who favor a property qualification for voting. The Founding Fathers too were split on this issue. Hamilton and the Federalists favoring a property qualification and Jefferson and the Democrats favoring more universal suffrage, at least among  free men. So when someone cites the Founding Fathers as supporting his/her position, ask which one.

Today the divide is between Democrats favoring universal suffrage and Republicans whose words and/or actions favor a property qualification. In other words, the votes of the wealthy should count for more than those of the poor or those lacking sufficient wealth. That is why Republican money is used to influence elections to such a degree and extraneous issues are raised to divert the attention and the votes of the many, so that the candidates favored by the propertied classes can be victorious in our elections.

In addition, it is true that organizations, like ACORN, that register new voters are vilified and rendered ineffective if possible or destroyed by doctored videos. Do you support one man/one vote or do you believe that wealth makes your voice and vote more important than your neighbor’s vote? Let us hear your thoughts on this subject.

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