On voting, from Molly Ivins

[politicat]

I know it's hard for young people to envision old age or illness, or the sick feeling of frantic despair when your old wreck of a car finally dies (it always does this in traffic) and will not start again. Poeple who work two and even three jobs to support their kids get so tired -- you can't imagine how tired -- and guilt and depression and anxiety all pile on, too. The difference between Gore and Bush matters to those folks.

This is an old argument between radicals and liberals; sometimes I'm on one side, and sometimes I'm on the other. In the primaries, I vote to change the world; in November, I bote for a sliver more for programs that help the needy.

I do not believe that things have to get worse before they can get better. I think you will find that most mothers object to the idea that you would deliberately do something to make a child's life worse in order to bring about some presumed greater good in the long run. I believe that the best can be the enemy of the better. I believe in taking half a loaf, or even a slice.

And how do we ever change the whoe rotten system at that speed? Brick by brick, child by child, slowly, toward liberty and justice for all. The urgent, crucial need right now is to fix the money in politics. It can be done, it will be done, and it is being done, and we will get better politics.

In Texas, we'll vote for Nader and a perfect world. You swing-state progressives need to make the hard choice -- but you're not making it just for yourselves. Good luck to you all.

-- Molly Ivins, The 2000 Vote, October 2000, reprinted in Who Let The Dogs In? : Incredible Political Animals I Have Known Random House

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These words were written before Bush v. Gore, before 9/11, before terror became the tool that it is today. But they still hold true. Every election is about making things just a little bit better, improving the situation just a little bit. Brick by brick.

Throwing all the bums out only replaces them with a new set of bums that are unknown quantities, bums that may make it worse because they don't have any experience. Refusing to vote at all is giving up on a process that is creaky and clanky and prone to failure, and when it does work it often takes curses and kicks, but it does work. And a working, if laggy system is better than none at all.

Take half a loaf. Take a slice. Rage and yell and write letters to the Dem pols in your district. Make them be accountable, but put them in office because they're a better bet for the single mom with two kids and three jobs than the alternative. When we win the Senate or the House, when we take back the Legislature, we have a place from which we can work. But we can't do the work we have to get done if we're locked out of the building because no one could be bothered to bring the keys.

[texpatriot2004]

1. Our voting system is broken nm

[politicat]

2. It is impaired. It is NOT broken.

The issues with voting can be handled -- if the rest of the industrialized world can handle counting pieces of paper, then so can we.

The problem is in considering results to be needed instantly. Every adult in the country can count. There's no reason to go to high tech when France proves that low tech works better than high tech. The only reason that anyone wants touch screen voting is because it gives fast results. We don't need fast results - a couple weeks after the election is more than enough time, and more than enough time to count the votes. I would be delighted to get election results the day before Thanksgiving; if nothing else it would improve the table conversation.

I live in a county of about 400,000 people, an average sized county. We can and do have complete results from paper ballots in about three days, including provisional ballots and clearing uncertain ballots. We use optical scan for the basic input, but we don't have to. We can hand count ballots if we are willing, as a culture, to be patient on results. It would take us less than two weeks.

Voting is not broken -- it's a system that has been in place for thousands of years. The problem is not the system, it is the technology.

Touch screen systems can be fixed, not easily, and not in a way I'm quite willing to accept, but they can be fixed. I'm going blind - I will desperately need an automated system of some sort within the decade, else I can neither confirm that my vote is tallied accurately nor ensured the right to a secret ballot. The computerized system (with headphones and a keyboard) is the only way I can vote secretly if for some reason I no longer have a partner I trust. The punch machines, if properly maintained and serviced, are the most reliable machines available. Being mechanical, they cannot be hacked. The problem is keeping them functioning, and that requires people who are mechanically inclined in the ranks.

And voting on real paper and counting by hand is going to be expensive -- we have to pay competent and capable people to count and observe. But it's less expensive than destroying ourselves.

Stop being defeatist. We can't win anything if we don't bloody well fight.

[texpatriot2004]

3. In my opinion it is NOT IMPAIRED, it is broken. Certainly, it can

be fixed EVENTUALLY IF people actually want it fixed, especially those making the decisions about how we vote.

All due respect, I don't appreciate your "defeatist" comment and I am still in this fight.

[politicat]

4. By saying it's broken, you're saying there's no point in using the system.

After all, why use a broken tool?

We can't give up this power -- the power we own. We brung 'em, they have to dance with us. But if we go wallflower, we lose completely.

I'm sorry you don't appreciate the comment, but you replied with a single sentence that basically said that voting was not functional. It's more functional than not voting.

[texpatriot2004]

5. I never said I wasn't voting. nm