This may be more appropriate for GQ, but I’ll let a mod decide.
Why doesn’t the US use the voting ink? If it’s good enough for all the countries we’re been liberating then shouldn’t it be good enough for us? Is there any legal reason why we can’t use it? Is it effective at stopping fraud? Is there any easy way to remove it?
Can you imagine the lawsuits?
How do you account for absentee voting?
Most of the controversies in recent US elections stem from people being prevented from voting, not voting too much. Do you have any evidence that there is any need for such a measure.
First things first…do YOU have real evidence that this is true? Or do you simply mean that in this past election, most of the left/Dems screeching was about voter disenfranchisment…thus making it quasi-controversial depending on your political affiliation?
There is another thread on this in one of the other forums. I don’t rememeber which one, even though I replied to it. Anyway, we don’t use the ink because most American’s wouldn’t like it. It would be a mess, get on their clothes, and basically make their finger look purple. I actually think it would be a great idea for all those reasons, but its not going to happen…American’s being the soft whimps they are. 
I don’t think it would be very effective in stopping fraud, as I don’t think this is a major issue, but it would be an interesting symbol of who voted and who didn’t (disreguarding the absentee issue for a moment). Perhaps it would become a symbol of pride and encourage more to vote…but again, knowing American’s, it would probably discourage more from voting as they wouldn’t want to be messy.
-XT
Actually, I imagine there are a lot of people voting fraudulently we just don’t know about. Of course, if they’re really determined, they can dissolve purple ink pretty quickly with the right chemical help (& even keep it off their fingers with coats of glue). The ink isn’t foolproof. As for Americans not voting if they’d get “messy,” I find that idea bizarre. Maybe things are different in “The Great South West,” but people I know here in Missouri would be proud to wear a blue finger to show that they voted.
Actually I was thinking more of the East Coast. I don’t think folks in The Great South West would have too much of a problem…though I imagine California might be another place where folks might not like the mess.
-XT
Heh. Americans are so comfortable we’d end up fighting over the color of the ink. “We’re a blue state, not a purple state, and we should be proud!” “I don’t care about no red or blue states, I ain’t wearing no commie ink on my finger.”
In all seriousness, it would probably have been a good idea not that many years ago. But the clear trend in the US is away and not toward poll-place voting (again a manifestation of how comfortable and spoiled we are). If an appreciable percentage of the electorate has cast its vote prior to the election then the deterrent effect of the ink is negligible.
Actually, I think a lot of Americans would get behind it – provided they were allowed to choose the marked finger!
Because voting ink is for poor people.
Voting ink is a low-overhead system that is useful for ad-hoc elections, but it is not as rigerous and flexible as the US system.
Voting ink (by itself) guarantees that each person can only vote one time and they can use any polling place. It does not support absentee-voting nor can it be used to verify criteria-based eligibility (the person is a citizen, the person is not a felony, etc.)
The US system, or at least the system that I am familiar with in IL, requires pre-registration, validates registration eligibility, and guarantees that the person that shows up at the polling place is the person that they are claiming to be (using a signature comparison and ID card check). Also, absentee-voting is supported using the registration list.
The events in Florida in 2000 included cases where people were unable to vote when they should have been allowed to, as has been well documented. But really I was using ‘controversial’ in the sense of ‘something that causes controversy’. I’m not really sure what quasi-controversy is.
I only had to show ID the first time I voted. My parents haven’t had to show their ID in 30 some years. There’s really nothing stopping some random person off the street from going in with a name in mind and forging their signature (no one ever checks it), although I don’t think that’s very common.
I just find it funny there’s more safeguards around renting a movie at Blockbuster than our voting process.
Because the real problem is easily hacked voting machines designed so that there is no audit trail.
In my polling place, you only had to have a name and matching address. There was no check of a license, voters registration card, etc. I could easily have come back and voted as my roommate or anyone else if I knew they hadn’t voted yet.
Not that I think voting ink is a good idea for the US, but what would be the grounds of the lawsuit?
Last election I voted absentee ballot. I just had to supply my name, address, and signature. Years ago I worked as an election inspector here. While theoretically I could challenge any vote, unless I had personal knowledge the person was obviously ineligable (as in didn’t live where they claimed they did, or I knew they were a citizen of another country), it would have been pointless. Basically, I got the job as a declared Democrat in a Republican dominated place, and was there to make sure some Republicans didn’t vote early, and often.
Voting ink by itself prevents only one problem - preventing a person from voting more than once.
In IL, a person could vote a second time if they successfully forged another registered voter’s signature or state-ID card. IIRC, the signature is compared to another signature on file - so they would have to be somewhat similar. The crime would go undetected only if the victim did not vote themselves (about 50% of the time). A signifigant number of detections would flag the polling place and presumably set an investigation into motion. I think it would be difficult to get a signifgant number of illegal, second-votes without getting detected.
With that said, I think that there are weaknesses and problems in the US system and improvements can be made. I just don’t think that voting ink addresses the most important problems and its bang-for-the-buck would be low.
I guess I should take a detour for this topic: Why don’t we have to show ID everytime we vote? It just seems like common sense.
In the last election, at least, the voting staffers in my precinct in VA asked to see my ID. I do seem to recall there being complaints in other places when the idea of mandatory IDs were proposed. Some people complained that it was discriminatory, but I’m not really sure why.