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opinion:
our view
Voting system
needs fixing
After the election
fiasco in 2000 in which the U.S. Supreme Court appointed George
Bush to the presidency, the prevailing sentiment throughout
most of the country was that some sort of election reform is
drastically needed in this country.
This week, a panel
headed by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford delivered
its recommendations to Bush and Congress, both of which greeted
it with muted enthusiasm.
The irony of having
Ford head a commission on elections should not be overlooked,
either.
The biggest suggestion
from the commission was for a national voting holiday, structured
to follow Veteran's Day.
If Americans cannot
stop off at the polling place on their way home from work,
why would they cut short the chance at a four-day weekend?
Another major problem
that needs addressing is standardizing the methods of voter
registration. This would be too unwieldy on a national level,
so each state should have to take responsibility for their
voters.
One reform that
should be adopted is the limited returning of voting rights
for convicted felons. The concept of rehabilitation and paying
one's debt to society by finishing a prison term is inconsistent
with the notion of losing one's voting privileges forever.
Putting in a system
whereby voting rights are restored five years after the end
of a prison term might restore some hope for a reformed person.
Finally, and most
importantly, is the idea of provisional ballots for those
turned away at the polls. After numerous reports of people,
mostly minorities, getting turned away for flimsy or questionable
reasons, some sort of redress must be established.
Voting electronically,
whether from home or at a polling place, should be the method
of the future.
Since many of the
current problems are exacerbated by a lack of money, fixing
the bugs in a potential electronic ballot box are probably
low on any list of reforms.
No matter what
reforms are undertaken, something must be done to prevent
a repeat of last year's comical images of ballot workers holding
ballots up to a light trying to discern if somebody intended
to vote for a candidate.
Without legitimacy
in our elections, we are no better than an underdeveloped
country. Now, with Bush and his environmental policies in
office, we're also starting to smell like one.
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