Dump The Electoral College

The New York Times calls for dumping the electoral college. Maybe it will resonate with Bush because he came within 150,000 votes in Ohio of winning the popular vote comfortably but watching another man become President. Since he is also on his way out, no one could accuse Bush of partisanship or trying to gain undue advantage. In fact, he's the perfect person to push for this, since Bush has been on both sides of the issue.

That reform -- I believe it would be a constitutional amendment -- would fly through both Houses and the States as long as it's unencumbered by any other addendums. It would end the absurd practice of politicians running for President ignoring 3/4s of the population to focus on folks in a minority of states. Smaller states with fewer voters would still have the leverage of two senators. And since political ads would now be national buys, they'd still be able to get sick of all that campaigning in Iowa. And naturally it would be a great encouragement for civic duty since people living anywhere in the country -- Texas or California (red or blue) -- would know that their vote really did matter.

Other common sense reforms are desperately needed:

1. Optical scanners have the highest accuracy and lowest default rates of any machines. But choosing one system nationally might be tricky. Let's stick with this, at the very least: it must be against federal law for votes to be cast on machines that don't produce a paper trail and don't provide for a recount. That paper trail must be available for the voter to verify before leaving the booth. It must also be against federal law for a state to provide different voting machines in different counties. One standard must apply to all voters. Cheaper, older machines tend to be located in poor neighborhoods and have a much higher reject rate, disenfranchising those voters. Your ability to vote and the likelihood of your vote being valid should not depend on what neighborhood you live in.

2. All voters must provide some form of state or federal id. (Copy of birth certificate, driver's license, state id, passport, voter registration card, Social Security card, Medicare card, Veteran's card, welfare card, etc.) It need not have a photo. If a voter does not have that, proof of residence -- a cable or phone or electric bill -- will allow them to vote if they swear to their identity. If they don't have that, the voter will be given a provisional ballot and ten days to meet those standards set out above. I voted in New York City and I came with a driver's license (which had a different address than where I am registered), a voter's registration card, a cable and electric bill and about a dozen other forms of id and they asked to see nothing. I told them my name, scrawled my signature and voted. That's ridiculous.)

This will be a problem for the elderly and the poor -- all of whom are less likely to have what most of us would consider a given, such as a driver's license or state id. But including this will bring aboard many Republicans (who have been pushing for a crackdown on voter fraud) and frankly it's a very reasonable step. The Democrats will simply have to make a major push to make sure their constituents obtain one of the necessary IDs.

3. There must be an automatic recount for any statewide or federal office under the following circumstance -- in any race where the total of absentee ballots, provisional ballots, overvotes (ballots rejected because it included a vote twice) undercounts (ballots automatically rejected because it didn't register a vote for any candidate) and other ballots rejected for whatever reason are equal to or greater than the margin of victory. If this were in place in 2000, Al Gore would have been President.

4. And of course the number of voter machines must be consistent statewide based on the number of potential eligible voters (say 1 machine per 1000 voters, or whatever makes sense) -- not based on voting in the previous primary or previous presidential election, etc. People should not have to wait eight hours in line to vote and not surprisingly this happens in poor neighborhoods, again meaning they are disenfranchised.

It is our representatives' fault nothing was done about this after the last fiasco in 2000. It is our fault if nothing is done after this one. Again, sending a letter to your Congressperson and Senator letting them know the value you place on this issue is an important step you can take right now. On your local level, do the machines in place meet these standards? When will they replaced? By what? Get involved. (NYC is replacing their decades-old machines with electronic ones, but I have no idea what type. I intend to find out.)

If we can spend $225 billion (and counting) in Iraq to get them the right to vote, surely we can spend $2 billion to throw out all the antiquated machines in this country and ensure WE have the right to vote.