By Eric Barr
Published June 29th 2008 in Kansas City Star
•We need to get rid of electronic voting machines. There were many stories in 2004 of people unable to vote because the machines had technical problems.
Even when the machines work, there is no way to verify that the total vote count that they output in the end actually matches what voters entered. The only way to guarantee they match is to have the machines produce paper receipts that are counted as well.
But if we have to count the paper receipts, too, then why do we need the machines in the first place? Is it just so we can count votes faster?
I think people are willing to wait a day or two for results to make sure we get the count right.
•We should get rid of the Electoral College. It was implemented by the founding fathers because they didn’t believe that all citizens could make well-educated choices when they voted. So a few elite citizens in each state were chosen as the electors.
We still have these special electors, but now they pledge to cast their electoral votes for the candidate that wins the popular votes in their states. This creates situations like the one in 2000, when a candidate can win the national popular vote but lose the electoral vote.
There is no reason to retain this antiquated system.The president should be elected through the country’s aggregated popular vote.
Many states are moving in this direction by signing on to the National Popular Vote agreement (see nationalpopularvote.com).
•Election Day should be a holiday. How many of us struggle to fit voting into our normal Tuesday schedule?
People often plan to vote after work and then something else comes up and they do not vote at all.
The United States has one of the worst voter turnouts of democratic countries and this is one major reason why.
Alternatively, many people support holding elections on Veteran’s Day rather than creating a new holiday.
These are only a few of the reforms that would do our country good. For more information on these proposals and others, see the Web site of the national electoral reform organization, Fair Vote (fairvote.org), or watch the movie “Uncounted” (www.uncountedthemovie.com).
The more votes that are cast and get counted in the future, the stronger our democracy will be.
Eric Barr is a member of Kansas City for Ranked Choice Voting. He lives in Kansas City.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.