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A Modest Proposal for Modern Ballots
By Deborah Taylor-Hollis
Politics--one of the three topics not discussed in polite company, along with religion and sex for those of us brought up after 1970--is now the No. 1 news item, discussion topic and the only thing everyone is talking about.
A dog-eat-dog campaign now hinges on how well a lone southern state can tally its election results.
I was a junior in high school during Watergate, and I spent the entire school year in both history and political science (social studies as labeled in the roster) watching the legal machinations of an entire party trying to undermine the election process. Now, the nation watches as both parties try to massage the legal system of one state to their own ends.
Some of my friends are so angry that their side hasn't just been crowned the winner that they won't even discuss it anymore. I have to call it sour grapes when anyone gets that angry over this kind of disagreement. Others have such problems following the day to day issues being brought up that they just want to start over.
Unfortunately, neither result will be a good one. We now have a nation where 49.95 percent of the population is at odds with the other 49.95 percent, and all of them are irritated with the third parties for just breathing.
I, being a political junkie, am rolling in this like a stray in the horse corral. I told my friends that, considering the animosity and disagreements of the last eight years, this kind of stalemate might just be the best thing we have ever seen.
No matter how sure anyone is of their position, no matter how much they dislike any candidate or issue, no one can ignore the fact that we have to work together.
Both sides are getting to spend a lot of time looking right into the eyes of their opponents--to ignore those opponents needs, to dismiss their fears, to try and sidestep the loud clear demands of half the nation is political suicide.
It's a divisive time, but as the leader of democracy in the free world, we know something about how to handle our own disagreements.
This time, no one is taking up arms, no one is nervous of political coup, and there is, unlike many other countries of the world, no fear of the military suddenly moving into the White House and changing the phone number.
We handle things in a logical, reasonable, nonviolent way. We pay lawyers to drive each other insane with legal arguments. And, if we lose a few lawyers along the way to malnutrition, exhaustion, or dysentery, it's no big deal. We have a lot of them and the fight will go on until they are all out of paper.
Meanwhile, our children are learning all about civil procedures and election policies. So are the voters of Florida. I don't think most of them knew they had such a poorly written constitution with so many legal holes in it. I am betting that within the next 90 days some of those holes will have been plastered over.
The rest of the nation is also better educated now on voting issues, most especially the need for a uniform system of voting. My friends and I have batted around electronic voting (too easy to hack), hand ballots (too hard to count), punch cards (outdated), and everything in between.
I have decided that we need freestanding, print-it-yourself ballots. Polling places will need electricity for plug-in, mini-computer-style units running simple software that gives a single screen for all the candidates and initiatives.
That way, voters can just touch the screen to choose which ones they want to vote for, and can change that vote on screen as often as they want. Once they have decided on their choice, they can hit a button and the machine will print out a single paper ballot.
These ballots will have the voter's choices printed on them along with bar codes next to the choices so machines can also count the ballots in seconds.
Oh, and my ballots would have photos of all the candidates on them as well, both onscreen and on that final printed ballot, so the voter can see the face they want to choose. If we are going to have a Mickey Mouse system, I think we need a Sesame Street ballot.
Vote for Deborah Taylor-Hollis at dthollis@metronews.com.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
