Yes - the paper ballots themselves are anonymous, but they are held up in front of the crowd so everyone can see which candidate got stamp-mark voted for.
Exactly. Far easier to make large donations to the candidate you want elected, which is why significant restrictions on campaign financing are a feature in most democracies other than the US.
I live in a municipality which is in a county which is in a state. Everyone in my municipality is in the same county (and state), but not everyone in the county is in the same municipality. I also live in a Federal Congressional district, a state House district, a state Senate district, a local school district, and a regional soil and water commission district. (For tax purposes but not voting purposes I also live in a special fire district). And those overlapping electoral districts have overlapping election cycles. I won’t have a ballot with all of those on there at once, but my ballot will have some combination of:
- Municipal offices
- Municipal bond issues, if any are put forward
- Municipal referenda, if any are put forward - I don’t think I’ve ever seen this
- County offices
- County bond issues, if any are put forward
- County referenda, if any are put forward
- School district offices
- School district bond issues, if any are put forward
- Regional soil and water commission offices
- State House Representative
- State Senator
- State-wide offices
- State-wide referenda
- Federal House Representative
- Federal Senator
- U.S. President (technically a slate of electors to the Electoral College)
Everyone in my precinct will have the same ballot, but within a single county, there will be multiple precincts, and due to overlapping jurisdictions, pretty much every precinct will have its own ballot.
Thanks for all the great replies. I’ve now learned a lot about it’s done in other countries. BTW, I didn’t say I thought it was easy to vote twice or to vote for a dead person. Just that I’ve heard people talk about it as if it was easy and that Democrats do it all the time. I know. Consider the source.
It seems to me that 1) there are a number of concrete things we could do to improve voting in the US and 2) getting the US voting system changed would be nearly impossible. Mandatory voting, making Election Day a Federal Holiday, Automatic registration, Mail-in ballots, and Non-Partisan Election Commissions would go a long way to getting many more people to vote, in as honest a way possible.
Given the current political climate, I don’t think there’s a chance in Hell to make any significant change to how voting is done. My follow-on question is why weren’t these issues addressed many years ago when some kind of compromise might have been possible? Making voting easier should always have been encouraged. These are not new issues for the US.
Yes. On Fox News and elsewhere in the Right-o-sphere, “people are talking about it” is simply coded language for "We just made up some bullshit, talked about it, and are now claiming that “people are talking about it”. See! We’re not lying!
Making voting easier has been a partisan issue since the Republicans threw in with the racists thanks to Nixon in 1972. Since then, making voting harder for the “wrong kind of voters” has been a core Republican strategy.
Is it simply a numbers game or is there more to it? There are more Democrats than Republicans so the fewer people vote the better our chances of winning? Why wouldn’t the Supreme Court see that as being clearly undemocratic? How did the Republicans get away with it for so long, or at least since 1972?
That is intensely complicated. Even if you have a centralised counting location, it still has to be done by precinct. Not saying that opens up to vote-fiddling, but makes the process much more complex.
Chief Justice Roberts’ answer appears to be that if you don’t like the way the electoral system is set up, your remedy is to vote to change it.
Yes, there is an issue lurking in that syllogism…
Bear in mind, before it was the Republicans and the Southern Strategy, it was the southern Democrats who wanted to make it difficult for “certain people” to vote. It is a long-standing issue.
Republicans have now had three decades of becoming comfortable with the idea of permanent minority power in the federal government. IMO, they are severely underestimating the difficulties of governing when a constant majority of the electorate sees them as illegitimate.
At some point we should note on this board the ever so slowly growing interest around the country in voting systems that are not first past the post. Some issues, and I think this could be another one, really do follow the pattern of “first gradually, then suddenly.”
This is demonstrably true.
This is demonstrably false
To be fair, our elections [Australia] are only for representatives at national, state and local government levels and as already pointed out, these occur at different cycles and only for an elected rep [usually one name from a list] and reps to an upper house [senate style]. Two bits of paper. The elected term for each is either 3 or 4 years, so we are not flooded with too many chances to vote and the apathy that could engender. Referendum questions are rare.
Compulsory attendance remains high [91.9% at last Federal election], so you should feel you own the result. Elections are held on a on a Saturday so easy for most to make time, and become a bit of a family event as they use school halls a lot, and there are cake stalls and democracy sausages.
Sidebar, please: what are “democracy sausages”? are they community fund-raisers at the polling stations?
Indeed they are, a barbecue is set up and sausages (and usually onions) are served on slices of bread. Tomato or barbecue sauce as you prefer. The sausage sizzle is a pretty standard fundraiser in Australia and definitely part of every Election Day
This really stupid parody piece has a great pic
Tomato sauce is Australian for ketchup by the way.
Do you really think changing/improving the voting system across all states isn’t nearly Impossible? Please demonstrate how you would get it done in this political environment,
Apparently, it’s also UKian for ketchup, too. According to Stephen Colbert.
And this is why Canada has a much simpler electoral system. Elections are never combined and we don’t have the vast array of referenda.
Federal and provincial elections are single race ballots - put an X next to your candidate of choice. Municipal can be slightly more complicated, as you are picking a Mayor, a Councilor, and a School Board representative. Back when Toronto had a senior level of government, Metro Toronto (a hold over from the old County system essentially for shared services) you also voted for a Metro councilor.
For instance, we’ve had one national referendum in my lifetime, the Charlottetown Accord. It wasn’t held in conjunction with an election, and neither were the Alberta votes last fall on daylight savings time and federal equalization. Saskatchewan, however, did hold a referendum on three matters in conjunction with the 1991 election. Depends on the way the government wants to handle it.