Some On The Political Process And Voting

Topic(s): me,politics
2006-11-09 02:06:19 PST

It's always seemed to me that the political voting process isn't right. I think it could be improved. There are two obvious problems that I see.

1. Voting for a third-party candidate almost always means your vote is a waste.
2. It's too time consuming and difficult to educate yourself about the various propositions and candidates.

The first problem is easily solved. Rather than the style of ballot we have today, where you vote for one candidate only, the ballot should allow you to rank your preferences. So that if your highest preferred candidate receives some small percentage of the vote, and is thereby eliminated from contention, that your vote switches to your second-highest preferred candidate.

The elimination process would continue until either you have no preference for the remaining candidates (your vote is wasted), or there are just two candidates remaining in which case the candidate with over 50% of the vote wins the election.

I think it's a terrific idea. I also think the two major parties would never go for it. If such a ballot were ever allowed, it would make third-party access into politics much easier. And I think there is just one thing that scares each major party more than the other major party being in power: neither major party being in power.

The second problem is quite a bit more involved. I don't think it's reasonable to expect every voter to understand every proposition and every candidate's position well enough to formulate a well-educated vote. There are just too many propositions, too many candidates, and too many technicalities.

I think what is reasonable to expect is for every voter to know some other voter who can cast a well-educated vote.

Therefore, I think voters should be allowed to duplicate their ballot to some other voter's ballot. In essense, casting their ballot the same as some other voter's ballot. Perhaps you've talked to someone at some time and you completely agreed with their political stances. You know that if you were as politically conscious as that person that you would vote the same way.

The problem then is knowing how and why that person is voting. It'd be great if there was a MySpace-like web site just for political issues, so you could look someone up online and immediately tell how they're voting, and why they're voting that way. I've done a search and it seems there isn't yet such a web site. There is one that is mildly similar called essembly.

What I really want is a site that lists all the ballot measures and candidate races in your home district, and allows you to list how you're voting and why you're voting that way. Then allows other people to comment and ask you why you're voting that way.

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