Election Reform

Now that the inauguration is over, we can focus on election reform. The place to start is the computerized voting machines. A paper trail should be a minimum requirement, though it would be merely cosmetic since full hand-recounts are rarely accomplished, thanks to arbitrary deadlines or monetary concerns. Unfortunately, this is probably the only legislation with a chance of passing.

Perhaps more machines could be allocated in minority districts. The lines were unreasonably long and constitute in itself a clear case of disenfranchisement. However, if the machines can't be trusted, it wouldn't be reassuring to have more of them.

Voting machines need to be publicly owned, both touch-screens and tabulators. Allowing private companies to control source-code is a recipe for disaster; there's no accountability. This should be a non-partisan issue, and conflicts of interest should be avoided at all costs.

Provisional ballots should be minimized; 150, 000 in Ohio is unacceptable. This allowed too many votes to be taken off the table on election day. The 10-day wait before they could be counted was a true killer to John Kerry's chances to contest. They needed to be validated, but why so many in the first place? A provisional ballot should be a last resort, not standard. This is indicative of a problem with the whole process.

The best solution would be national mail-in voting, thus eliminating most of these concerns in one fell swoop. Also gone would be precinct location mix-ups and absentee ballot confusion. It has worked in Oregon for several years, as I can vouch. Getting nationwide support would be hard, though, unless a major scandal hits. I'm not holding my breath, but it wouldn't be surprising, since the scandals already exist.