Naomi Wolf: A Cure for America's Corruptible Voting System:

[amborin]

Last edited Sun Nov 4, 2012, 12:31 PM - Edit history (1)

A cure for America's corruptible voting systemToo many of us buy into the myth of US democracy.
In fact, the 'secret ballot' could use of dose of daylight and transparency


"When I went to vote last week in New York City, using an absentee ballot (because I will be out of the country on election day), I had a surreal experience that was also very ordinary: I marked my ballot – put it, as advised by the nice man behind the counter, into a sealed envelope, handed it to him and … nothing.

snip

Here is my modest proposal: let us end the secret ballot, because we have reached a point, with the internet, in which transparency and accountability is more important than absolute secrecy. Don't panic, because this is what I mean: your vote won't be publicly available, but why can't I get a number when I hand in my ballot, or when I vote in a machine – just as I do with bloodwork, or computer passwords, or other transactions in which I get accountability, but not disclosure of my actual name? Then, the votes get tallied and posted – with their corresponding numbers – online on a public site, and major media reproduce the lists. And I can check my number (unidentifiable to anyone else) to check whether my vote was correctly registered.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/03/cure-america-corruptible-voting-system

[Fridays Child]

1. Too bad that the cheaters will never allow a cure.

[defacto7]

2. This or a variation of it...

could be an excellent solution to our real and mounting problem with out election system. There are other ways to get into the middle in a case like this but the difficulty of trying to cheat the voter would be problematic at multiple levels. I think this would work. But I will venture you would never get the Republicans of this generation to even think of relinquishing their god given right to cheat. There is power in the fear and the mistrust that the ghost of fraud can provide. There is power in reducing people's interest in their government and their part in it. There is power in planting complacency.

The republican party has entered a dark era where logic and ethics are not a virtue. To this generation, a government of, for, and by the people are just pretty words on another holy document that has no philosophical value; it's just poetry to feel nationalistic during a history lecture. If there is no human value to the words our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution or Bill of Rights, then the only values of such a politically empty system are values of greed, control, and power that is extorted from the rest of us who become enslaved by the tidbits we are allowed so we can be profitable to our masters.

I have no political or personal respect for the party of ignorance and dogma. What that party once was is virtually dead and buried. I have no trust in their ability to rise to any sort of ethical reality that would include the rights of all the American people. Therefore, trusting them with our most prized civic responsibility is unreasonable and unacceptable. If I were to allow that to continue without a fight, it would be irresponsible to the egregious.

We must fight for the right to a fair vote. It's an historic time. We the people have to be the force that guides our nation through our own collective will, not filtered and twisted by the magicians and conjurers that glean the minds of the unthinking. The system we have is corrupt. It is broken. It must be changed because out freedom is at stake.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. I love her beautiful mind

I think I'd also like instant verification too . . . Since many are now similar to ATMs - why can't I get a "receipt" for my vote.

[Carolina]

4. Ditto to everything you said

about smart as a whip Naomi Klein and ATM-like receipt instead of those stupid "I voted" stickers