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
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