Final Report Link: With plenty of color photographs! Talk about publicity hounds. Anyway, here are a few things that catch the eye:[ol][li]Photo Id’s by 2010: Opposed by a commision member Tom Daschle, who’s either sincere about privacy issues, or hasn’t purged himself of his partisanship. Give me a 2-headed coin and I’ll flip ya for the answer. [/li][li]“We ask the states to allow restoration of voting rights for ex-felons”: Also known as the Crysal Gayle ‘Don’t it make my purple states, blue’ proposal. Of course, they covered their political asses and didn’t recommend voting rights for murderes and sexual predators.[/li][li]Internet voting: No concrete conclusions, other than implying agoraphobics rights to vote should not be infringed upon.[/li]Estimated Cost of Recommended Improvements: $1.35 Billion. And seeing that the commision is heavy on politicians and light on accountants, that number will most surely rise.[/ol]
And the debate is…? Or did you accidentally put this here instead of the Pit?
[QUOTE=JohnBckWLD]
Final Report Link: With plenty of color photographs! Talk about publicity hounds. Anyway, here are a few things that catch the eye:[ol][li]Photo Id’s by 2010: Opposed by a commision member Tom Daschle, who’s either sincere about privacy issues, or hasn’t purged himself of his partisanship. Give me a 2-headed coin and I’ll flip ya for the answer. [/li][li]“We ask the states to allow restoration of voting rights for ex-felons”: Also known as the Crysal Gayle ‘Don’t it make my purple states, blue’ proposal. Of course, they covered their political asses and didn’t recommend voting rights for murderes and sexual predators.[/li][li]Internet voting: No concrete conclusions, other than implying agoraphobics rights to vote should not be infringed upon.[/li][li]Estimated Cost of Recommended Improvements: $1.35 Billion. And seeing that the commision is heavy on politicians and light on accountants, that number will most surely rise.[/ol][/li][/QUOTE]
Sounds to me like you’re cherry-picking your least favorite elements and portraying the report as being centered on them. Here’s a better account – http://i-newswire.com/pr46773.html:
See also http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-elect0920.artsep20,0,5029273.story?coll=hc-headlines-nationworld and http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-09-19-voa70.cfm.
So please tell us, John – what exactly is wrong with any of this?
In the interest of maintaining “peace through democratic vote” my precinct is holding out for a nuclear power plant.
Former President Carter is a nice guy chasing windmills. Other than verifying a voter’s identity I don’t see anything changing in the near future. Except that I’ll probably lose my beloved punch ballot in favor of some overpriced boondoggle that will confuse the currently unconfused.
We’ve already lost those in many jurisdictions. I’ve done electronic touchscreen voting – it’s not one little bit more confusing (to the voter) than any other method. The problem with it is that you can’t trust the results.
I’ve seen them on TV and they may improve voting for the elderly if the info is larger (easier to read). I’ll still bet that people get confused over them. It’s the difference between a wall phone and a cell phone. Not much by my standards but significant by my mother’s standards.
They will also never be as cost effective as the punch ballot. We’ve had them in my area for close to 30 years. The only change I’d like to see is a reader/printer that you could put your punch card into that would read/verify and print our your vote.
I am in the same camp of people who will never trust an electronic vote.
Simple solution. Assign representation in Congress by number of eligible voters rather than general population. States that disenfranchise 5% of their population will lose 5% of their Congressmen.
:dubious: I think you are confusing electronic touchscreen voting with Internet voting.
It’s interesting to me that my primary concern about Internet voting was not addressed by the report (unless I missed it). As much as reasonably possible, I do not think it should be made easier or more convenient for a one economic segment of the population to vote over other segments. If we have internet voting, then those who can afford a personal computer and internet access can vote much more conveniently than those who cannot afford such things.
It’s always going to be somewhat easier for people with more money to vote (and do pretty much everything else too), but this disparity shouldn’t be made worse.
Even if the security issue addressed by the report are solved (to the point that it’s no less secure that old-style voting), I’d still be against internet voting.
[QUOTE=JohnBckWLD]
[li]“We ask the states to allow restoration of voting rights for ex-felons”: Also known as the Crysal Gayle ‘Don’t it make my purple states, blue’ proposal. Of course, they covered their political asses and didn’t recommend voting rights for murderes and sexual predators.[/li][/QUOTE]
There have been a couple of threads about this. I’m a firm believer in restoring voting rights to felons after their prison term/parole/probation is over. They should be integrated back into society, not exiled from it.
In what way? Not sure I agree with you here.
:dubious: Surely you don’t mean to defend the position that it should be easier for people with money to vote?!
Not sure how you came to that conclusion. Revtim made a declaritive statement and I was questioning it:It’s always going to be somewhat easier for people with more money to vote (and do pretty much everything else too), but this disparity shouldn’t be made worse
I thought you were contradicting the latter clause. As for the former clause, well, DUH!
Where’s JohnBckWLD, anyway?
Well, it would be pretty convenient for me, with my home PC and cable modem connection to the internet, to just roll out bed and stumble to the computer in my underwear to vote. It’s much less convenient to have to get dressed (as in wear more than underwear), perhaps have to arrange to take time off from work or shift my schedule, drive or take public transportation to the voting place, wait in line, etc.
Well, JohnBckWLD appears to have wussed out on his/her own thread, so let me address the key points of the Commission’s report:
A no-brainer. Astonishing this wasn’t done decades ago.
Lots of Dopers have raised objections to the idea of a national ID card, but not a single good one to date, IMO. See this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=277773
In any case, don’t forget that the REAL ID Act is already a done deal – it was signed into law last May. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act The Commission proposes only the use of such cards for voting ID purposes. If we’re going to have the cards anyway, why not get full use out of them?
Well, why not?
Number-one top priority! The only way to rescue American elections from global laughingstock status! This is addressed, BTW, by the “Count Every Vote Act” proposed in March by Senators Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton – see this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=307833
Another no-brainer . . . Most county supervisors of elections are elected on a partisan basis. Secretaries of state are either elected on a partisan basis or appointed by a partisan governor. And based on experience, it really does make a difference, to say the least. There’s gotta be a better way.
I’ve no strong feeling about that one way or another, but certainly it would simplify things during the presidential election cycle.
I’ve raised an excellent objection – that it needs to be more of an ID Brick rather than an ID Card. This has two essential advantages:
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A large object can incorporate more security features (e.g. a bigger and more detailed photograph, a more powerful processor that will support better electronic security, etc).
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A large object will naturally be limited to only those occasions where a requirement to prove one’s identity is specifically anticipated (e.g. voting), thus foreclosing the “mission creep” that makes the concept politically unacceptable.
And that was never satisfactorily answered in the earlier thread either – what the heck is wrong with “mission creep”? I doubt when states first started requiring and issuing driver’s licenses, they anticipated such licenses would be used as all-purpose ID cards; and when the Social Security system was set up, I doubt they envisioned any other use for SS numbers; but in both cases, the result seems to have worked out well enough.
Simple: it’s dishonest. State the purposes you want to achieve straight up, and I’ll consider them. Count on “mission creep” – forget it.
But “mission creep” is not dishonest. That’s like saying it’s dishonest to use telephones for two-way communication because Alexander Graham Bell originally envisioned them only as a one-way broadcast medium.