Default Democracy

When buying a wooden boat, a common test of soundness is to drive an ice pick into the hull. Solid wood stops the pick, but dry rot gives way. In the past election, the mechanics of ballot casting and counting was given the ice pick test and failed. Our system of translating the intentions of voters into the selection of a candidate is full of holes, varnished over with slick assurances of "every vote counts," and "one person, one vote."

As many Americans discovered during this past election, buried within the process are decision points that disconnect the voter from the results and provide opportunities to alter the original intent. Never mind the complex issues of educating the electorate or supplying accurate information on candidates and issues -- tallying votes is simple addition, and the counting at least should be as solid as an oak plank.

However, in the past election, erroneous felony record lists were used to eliminate some from casting votes. Many voters live in a voting district for which the boundaries were drawn to empower or weaken certain constituencies. Some ballot cards were obviously confusing to voters, and even the tally was subject to political bias. Even though the disputed ballots were a tiny minority of the total cast, the count failed the ice pick test. The final decision is not the issue. Were the positions reversed, the legal arguments would be reversed as well. The issue is the soundness of the count.

But the final absurdity was yet to come. Electors of each state -- who are not necessarily penalized for voting contrary to the voters of that state -- met to cast their ballots, the only votes that really count. Vice President Gore said that if electors who were pledged to other candidates attempted to switch their votes to him, he would not accept them. A noble gesture, but since when must the voters rely on the goodwill of a candidate to have their votes translate into a valid selection? And once again, the popular vote of the public was usurped by the vote of the Electoral College, the final step of our lesson in fuzzy math. Lets get real and make members of the Electoral College wear powdered wigs, as befits this anachronism.

But there is a bright side. Many citizens received an in-depth education in the electoral process on commercial television. A number of organizations that have long supported election reform are finding renewed support. On the Web site of the League of Women Voters, for example, president Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins listed a series of election-system problems, including antiquated voting machines, a "crazy quilt of voting systems," confusing ballot systems and "an Electoral College that is archaic and unnecessary."

In the September issue of Government Technology, I said that electronic voting was a bad idea. Ive changed my mind. At a recent exhibition of electronic voting systems, most if not all of the requirements of voting systems -- privacy, secrecy, one vote only, accurate counting, audit trail, etc. -- were met. One of the more advanced systems for voting over the Internet burns the voters encrypted ballot into a write-only CD in a central location. The votes can be decoded and verified on a vote-by-vote basis
if necessary. All the systems have backups for power failure and have some sort of independent verification of totals. All are ADA compliant, or soon will be, and many of the systems have already been certified by various states. And since the past election fiasco, most of the companies have more queries than they can handle.

Fisher Ames once said, "A monarchy is a merchantman, which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock and go to the bottom; whilst a republic is a raft, which would never sink, but then your feet are always in water."

Our raft republic didnt sink, our feet are still in water, but as many discovered, the citizens hand was not securely on the tiller.