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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 2000)
Monday Editor in chief: Jack Clifford Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Room 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL J. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com Impure thoughts on democracy LONE VOICE IN THE WOODS BRET JACOBSON uring the recent travails our nation has gone through in a debacle of an attempt to elect a president, there has been a surge of calls for the abolition of the Electoral College, citing a lack of fair and demo cratic machinery to fill the highest office in the land. This is just one more symptom of the blind rush to make America act like a pure democracy. But America is not a democracy, and citizens should start remembering that. It is a common notion nowadays that this coun try is a democracy and that all accompanying val ues are at the heart of our political machinations, though that is not our common beginning at all. Everyone knows the nation’s founders were dis trustful of big government, but it should be noted that some were equally distrustful of the masses. Decisions on policies and personnel should not be made directly by a relatively uninformed public, many founders effectively reasoned. Such a wariness is how we arrived at repre sentative democracy. Population dictates our representation in the house of representatives, but each state received an equal number of sena tors so that states could retain some decision making power of their own. Thus, when elec toral votes are tabulated for each state, it equals the total number of representatives and senators, so citizens from large states are actually under represented compared to their smaller state neighbors and total equality is lost. Proponents of direct elections, the very epito me of pure democracy, argue that each voice should be counted equally. This notion is entire ly frightening because it implies that every voice is equally well-informed and wise. Anyone ex amining the large audience for “The Tom Green Show” knows that not all citizens have the same intellectual capacity. If you need proof that the public’s wisdom doesn’t always trump that of political powerbrokers, examine several presidents in American history. Honest Abe Lincoln was approved by a group of men in a smoky back-room deal and became one of our most respected leaders, taking the country to civil war and back whilst freeing the slaves. On the other hand, recent popular elections have tapped Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter as leader of the free world. Now try to assert the public’s great wisdom. It is not all that hard to deduce why there has been this push toward democracy. It was important to give disillusioned Americans the notion that they still had a voice in their government, and during the civil rights movement it was important to know that every voice had equal value, regardless of race. One particularly interesting note on this push for a more perfect democracy is that one of the movement’s greatest proponents, a liberal-leaning media, creates an interest ing paradox. On the one hand they want high voter participation, theoretically the shining moment of a democracy, but are for the quieting of political discourse via cam paign finance reform that severely limits the voice of third parties to the system. In the media’s perfect world, elections would consist of high turnout and low voter infor mation. The answer to all America’s problems are not solved through a deep and abiding trust of the average man. We elect repre sentatives to use their knowledge and ex perience for the common good. The Elec toral College is just one aspect of that greater machinery that should not be tam pered with simply to feed an appetite for democracy borne of misunderstood civic history. Bret Jacobson is a columnist for the Oregon Daily Emer ald. His views do not necessarily represent those of the Emerald. He can be reached at bjacobso@gladstone.uoregon.edu. WHY THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS GOOD. V / \ I WAS UNINFORMED AND I VOTED. SO SHOULD YOU! The future according to Kleckner: A chad-free voting system MICHAEL J. KLECKNER Thirteen days after Elec tion Day we still don’t know who the president is. This is great for columnists, as it gives us time to think about what went wrong and point it out gleefully. And really, I don’t care who gets elected. Local issues are more important to me than some dod dering fool who will say all the right lies during the campaign and then do all the wrong things in office. What I really want to know is, why don’t we have results yet? We live in a digital world. My washing machine has a freakin’ computer in it, but we still punch holes in pieces of paper and have machines or other people try to . interpret the holes and tally a winner. What is the point of this antiquated system? Are we trying to invite difficulty and encourage corruption? In St. Louis, polling places couldn’t deal with the outpour ing of voters. Some people weren’t going to get to vote. The lack of facilities was the govern ment’s fault, so Democrats sued and got a court order keeping the polls open longer. Voters contin ued doing their duty until Re publicans appealed and a court shut the polls down. So voters in St. Louis were left standing in line, unable to vote. That’s sick and wrong. On the home front, Republi cans are claiming election fraud by Oregon’s secretary of state, Democrat Bill Bradbury, because he told an aide that they were go ing to “pull it out for Gore.” I could write a whole column about that, but the state only has seven electoral votes. As my co worker Jeremy Lang noted at 3 a.m. election night, Florida stole our sunshine. And wow, what fraud possibili ties the Sunshine State offers. From a supposedly confusing bal lot to “hanging chads” to a secre tary of state who is also one of Bush’s top cronies in Florida: Columnists and comedians across the country have been having a field day. But my point isn’t to make fun of the poor Floridians who don’t know how to vote or count. Too much Bingo isn’t the culprit here — it’s our sad excuse for a voting system. So I’ll engage in a little fu turism. It’s nearly 2001; let’s go on a voting odyssey. Imagine you’re in a mall in 2012. It’s the middle of Election Week; there are only three more days left to vote. Do you rush home to begin poking at pieces of tagboard? No. Just walk over to one of the digital kiosk voting booths in the mall and vote in less than three minutes. You step into the voting booth, seal the door and press your thumb on the touch screen. Your voter information is displayed for confirmation, and then the first item on the ballot appears. You must press the name of the candi date or the word “yes” or “no" for measures, and only one choice can be made before moving on to the next item. When you’re finished, a com plete list of your choices ap pears. If any of these need to be changed, touch the name and make a new choice. Your ballot is entered into the system, and when all the polls close, you’ll find out who won. The beauty of a system like this is its accessibility, accuracy and fairness. No news agency, no gov ernment body, no one would get results until the voting was fin ished. When the polls did close, the computer would release the fi nal results; no re-counts, no pro jections based on 2 percent of precincts reporting, no voters turned away due to lack of facili ties or scared away due to early results. Kiosks could be placed anywhere — malls, post offices, city halls or coffee shops. Unlike voting on the Internet, as some pundits have suggested, dig ital kiosks would run on an in tranet, so computer hackers wouldn’t have access. Each coun ty’s election office would have a nifun server, and all offices .would „ be connected by an intranet.'Peo^' ■ pie could register to vote up until the moment the polls close, and the computer would know in stantly if the voter was registered elsewhere. We don’t have to wait until 2012 to have a fair, sensible and accurate voting system. Kiosks like this are a possibility now. No one needs to be confused by butterfly ballots any longer. TV networks wouldn’t have to bal ance their sense of ethics against their need to be first — not that they’re really balancing now. And most importantly, voters don’t have to wait... and wait... and wait to find out the will of the people. We have a strong economy and a budget surplus; let’s use it to shore up our voting system and ensure that the legitimacy of our government isn’t questioned. On the eve of the new millennium, can we please stop punching holes in pieces of paper? Michael J. Kleckner is the editorial editor for the Oregon Daily Emerald. His views do not necessarily represent those of the ..EmeraJcL He C^n.bf /cached at qpjededj * tor@joamahst.ecwn.* * * >.- •
