THE NEW (tm) VOTE

Great Debates
1

Ok, though I mentioned the following in another thread over three incoherent posts, I think it is really a hijack and so I will put it here.

THE NEW VOTE FOR PRESIDENT[sup]TM[/sup]
Rules:
[li]Each state’s electoral vote(s) must be determined by a popular vote cast by the residents of that state.[/li][li]All persons, no matter what, have a right to vote which is only removed after they have cast a vote in the election in question. After that election is over, everyone can vote again. IOW, no one can be disenfranchised, for any reason.[/li][li]Once a person registers, they are required to vote.[/li][li]If it is determined that a registered voter did not vote, a “no vote” is assumed. “No vote” boxes will also be required on all ballots.[/li][li]In order to become president, the following criteria must be met:[list=1]The person must meet all existing Constitutional requirements regarding age, citizenship status, etc.[/li][li]The person must have received a relative majority of affirmative votes.[/li][li]Including “no votes,” the affirmative votes must be at least one third of all votes.[/list=1][/li][li]If the requirements above (1-3) are not satisfied, no new president is elected and the president currently in office will stay in office.[/li][li]If the president currently in office has served, or on this election will have served, eight years of service then elections will be held yearly until a new president is elected.[/li]
So, who’s with me?!? I’ll start one of those phony email petitions and we’ll soon have Bill Gates sending us food stamps by the bucket-full! Err…

Ok. Serious proposal. What are your thoughts on why this would be a bad, or good!, idea.

2

Haven’t given it a lot of thought, but doesn’t that basically kill ANY chance for a successful third party? If you have three candidates, and the winner gets, say, 40% of the “yes” votes that were case, then voter turn out has to be somewhere around 85%. Perhaps instead of the winner getting at least 33% of the total possible votes you could say something about minimum voter turnout?

3

I’m not sure how it would change the chances of third party candidates at all.

My goal in this proposal is two-fold: getting more people to vote; abolishing the idea that a good president must step down; ensuring that there really is public support for the president.

I can’t see that any of those are a bad thing.

4

What makes you think that getting more people to vote would be a good thing?

Convince me that our founding fathers intended this country to have universal suffrage. They were quite specific about disenfranchising felons. This wasn’t exactly one of the more contriversial issues when the Constitution was written, nor has it been since. I cannot see how they were wrong about that.

5

Another point I forgot to make. What is so wrong about the philosophy in the statement “If you didn’t vote, don’t bitch.” Voting is about nothing more than choice. Not voting is a choice, too.

6

sewalk, not voting is a choice I’ve implimented since I became of voting age. However, that “no vote” is meant to imply that I do not approve of any of my choices. The “no vote” does not represent that politically; in fact, there is no way for me to demonstrate that politically except by not voting, and that “vote” isn’t counted. What do you think?

7

Okay, I’ve had more time to think about this…

If all you mean by this is mandating that a state’s electoral votes (all states must have at least3, right?) are chosen by a popular vote, then I agree completely. I presume it’d still be up to each state to decide whether it’s a winner take all process?

Or, more simply, in any election, each person can always vote once and only once. I don’t suppose I have any real problems with this. I’m leary of allowing people convicted of things like treason to vote, but such people would be a truly insignificant part of the voting public anyway.

Hmm… I’m not as sure about this one. What if a person wants to express disapproval of the choices without risking invalidating the election?

I presume based on one of your earlier points that you mean electoral votes here. Or do you mean that a person must both win the electoral vote and the popular vote?

I’m still leary of this, for reasons that I’ll get to in a bit…

Can we make it every other year? I’d worry that you’d have the possibility of the country being in almost permanent campagin mode for, say, 2 or 3 years. The people who are running for president have other things they probably ought to be doing, after all.

Besides, political ads get really old really fast, so I’d take it as a personal favor if you’d modify this one… :wink:

Well, I count three goals, but that’s okay. :stuck_out_tongue: Increasing voter turnout is laudable, but I don’t know that this is the best way to do it. After all, what if you don’t approve of any of the choices but don’t want to risk having no result at all? To abolish the idea that a good president must step down, why don’t you just eliminate the term limit? And I’d rather see public support for the president reflected by the votes for Congress. If the public ousts legislators who support the president’s policies, I infer that the public doesn’t support the president.

I’ll grant that a third party candidate is basically screwed as it is. But if you have one with enough popular support to materially affect the election (i.e. Perot), it becomes far too easy for the result to be no election at all. I assume that it’s highly unlikely that someone like Perot would win the presidency under the current system, but under your system, even in the elections in which such a candidate might actually win the popular/electoral vote, the election is quite possibly invalidated because it’s difficult for such a candidate to get 33% of all possible votes.

I merely propose that what you do is instead say that if the voter turnout is below a certain limit, the election is invalid. Normally, this wouldn’t be any different from your suggestion, but if there are three of even more candidates with a decent amount of support (not that this is at all likely), it wouldn’t almost automatically invalidate the election.

Perhaps you could do something really odd like allow a vote for first choice and another vote for second choice, and require a person to get a certain percentage (50%? 60%?) of first + second choices? I.e. if it’s 50% and there are 100 voters, the winning candidate must be either first or second choice on at least 50 ballots.

8

Well, the most important idea to me is having “no vote” count, literally, as a no vote, not as a “I don’t care.” I certainly do care. I actively wright senators, house reps, and other political persons on all levels to explain to them exactly why I don’t vote. Think I even get a response? Heh, once I did, and she was very bitter about the affair.

I mean, if 55% of the entire voting population says “these guys suck” why do we need to be subjected to a new president?

Your comment on every other year is interesting… lemme get back to you on that.

Now, some more direct answers:
[li]State’s votes: I think it would be best, in fact, if electoral college votes weren’t all or none, and perhaps I should include such a clause uin my scheme to make that clear.[/li][li]33%: Ok, while I’m not happy with implimenting a first-choice/second-choice scheme unilaterally, I can see that it would ease the burden a little bit. How about this. Once you’ve satisfied the first two points, your (first choice) + 0.5(second choice) affirmative votes must equal 33% or greater of all votes, including the no-votes. While that may ease your concern, it almost certainly rules out third party candidates at all, hence my hesitation in such schemes.[/li]
Political science people may know Arrow’s Theorem, which states something along the following lines: given more than two choices, it is not likely that any one choice will receive a majority backing. This is especially true in the most recent election, where Bush “stole” the election from Gore. Heh, well, no sense in debating that any more, but the point is, if “no-votes” had been assumed, more people may have gotten off their keisters and supported their guy. Thus, while no opponent can be gauranteed-- or even expected-- to win a popular vote unilaterally, winning both a relative majority and a solid third of the popular vote whould be more accurate. It will be even more accurate given that it is no longer a winner-take-all mentality in the electoral college on a state-by-state basis. (this can only help the third party candidates)

Bottom line: people aren’t active enough in politics, and a new voting scheme might just do the trick. If so, we may get some better changes going in congress because people will care more by mere association.

9

:stuck_out_tongue: hehe, so maybe that’s why they don’t respond.

10

Even little babies? I dunno if they have the hand-eye coordination to pick their choice.

11

In fact, I think that the all or none thing is rather ridiculous, but if one splits the electoral votes according to the popular vote by state, is there really any need for an electoral college at all?

Well, that might work. I actually think that it would even help some of the really small parties out, because I know of many people who don’t vote Libertarian (for instance) mostly because they think their candidate has no chance and they’d rather see a Republican win than a Democrat. It becomes a vote against candidate X rather than a vote for candidate Y.

I actually had this whole crazy scheme where what one did was vote for a first choice, a second choice, etc etc. At the end of the day, you counted up all the first choice votes, and if no one achieved a plurality among votes cast, the candidate with the least first choices was dropped and those votes instead went to the second choice candidate. So it would go until eventually SOMEONE managed to get more than 50% of the remaining votes. (You’d have the option of not indicating a second choice, so that if your first choice candidate lost, we simply ignore your vote for purposes of determining plurality. I can’t imagine anyone would do this, but I wanted to leave the option open to vote for, say, Nader and only for Nader.) Do I think this is practical? Not at all. But it was an interesting idea to ponder.

12

What if they submit an invalid ballot? What if they choose not to vote? What if they wish to refrain from voting as a means of protesting the election? In short… how can you realistically ensure that nobody gets “disenfranchised” (whatever that means)?

13

The idea is that any citizen who is affected by politics (ie- everone) has a right to vote.

Dead people, alas, become disenfranchised upon demise. Persons in comas continue to not have the ability to vote.

The idea is that we, as a country, will not remove that vote from you. Nothing prevents you from not registering, nothing stops you from screwing up your own vote. We just won’t act to remove it from you (like felons, for example). By being alive, and being a citizen, you may vote if you so choose to register.

The act of registering, of course, does affect criminals on the run. Somehow, I think, they aren’t too upset about not voting compared to just surviving. YMMV tho, :slight_smile:

And captain, I think the standard once-you’re-no-longer-a-minor thing can apply here, although for the record I think once you can drive you should be able to vote.

14

I’m all for universal at-will registration by the easiest means feasible. I think anyone who wants to be enfranchised and isn’t a felon or mentally incompetant ahsould be allowed to vote.

That being said, erislover, there is a major flaw in your “no vote” proposal. You are equating “I don’t think either of these guys is worth my vote” with “I couldn’t give a shit less, just leave me alone.” Say 67% decide they couldn’t be bothered while the remaining 33% all vote for the same guy. (I know, it’s unlikely, but you have to allow for all the possibilities). 100% of people who cared enough to cast a ballot wanted the same guy. The other 67% of the population wouldn’t care if Saddam Hussein had just been elected President of the United States. The winner ends up being someone whom no one wanted in the first place (assuming it was not the incumbent who got all the ballots cast) How does that serve the democratic process?

15

We shouldn’t force a person to vote, either. Your requirement of a “no vote” ultimately removes a person’s right to refrain from voting.

Each person has a voice… but they can choose to remain silent.

16

No, they just don’t register, then. Once you’ve registered, then your action is required, or your inaction is assumed as a no-vote.

There is no requirement to register.

17

What makes you say that?

Apathy: don’t register.
Don’t like any of the lot: register, don’t vote.
Like someone: Register and vote.

What are you missing here, or what am I missing in your comments?

18

What you talking about, Willis? Just did a quick search through the U.S. Constitution, and there are three mentions of “felon” or deriviatives thereof:
Art. I, sec. 6, cl. 1 - concerning Congressional immunity;
Art. I, sec. 8, cl. 10 - concerning piracy and felonies on the high seas;
Art. IV, sec. 2, cl. 2 - concerning interstate extradition of criminals.

In contrast, Art. I, sec. 2, cl. 1 requires that members of the House of Representatives shall be “chosen by the People” of each state. This is the only portion of the Constitution that deals with who may vote.

I have no deep thoughts about whether felons should vote, but I don’t think you should be relying on the Constitution to support your POV.

Sua

19

What if a person only wanted to vote for some of the things on the ballot? For example, in the last mayoral election here in southern California, I refused to vote for either candidate for mayor. However, I really wanted to vote for some of the other positions up for grabs, in addition to some of the proposals on the ballot.

Following your plan, I would have been “disenfranchised”, forced to either vote for someone/something that I didn’t want to vote for, or have no vote at all.

20

If I understand your OP, if more than 2/3 don’t even bother to go to the polls, neither candidate is elected, yes?

Sorry for the error, Sua. When I stopped to think about it, I realized that it dates back to Blackstone, not the US Constitution. The various state consitutions, OTOH, did generally deny suffrage to felons. This was not considered contriversial in those days since felons were often not even considered as citizens. After doing some more research, I was somewhat surprised to discover that at least three states (this has been a recent matter of debate in Massachusetts over whether this would be allowed to continue) do not deny felons the right to vote, even when incarcerated. I was similarly surprised to find that only thirteen states permanently deny the right to vote following a felony conviction.