the bigdumbHoosier Archive - 11.15.2005
Elected by accident
In my previous bigdumbHoosier I pitted the pen against the voting machine, to write-in Ralph Nader for President. It was a Quixotic project, no doubt, but interesting and with no impact on the Gore/Bush competition as Indiana's electoral votes were declared for Bush even before the poles closed in the northwestern and southwestern parts of the state.
My vilification of Starke County Indiana's ageing voting machines now seems very much misplaced. After looking at the voting process in Florida, my little town looks like the model of efficient democracy. With our old voting machines there's just about no way anybody can mess up their vote, and lost or dissallowed votes are practically unheard of (I've served as a polling place officer in prior elections - I don't recall a single disallowed vote). If there's anything in the whole election processs that I found shocking it was the cavalier attitude with which thousands of votes have been discarded, year after year.
The problems were not limited to Florida. Here in Indiana hundreds, possibly thousands of voters who believed they had registered at Bureau of Motor Vehicles license branches appeared at polling places only to learn that their registrations had not been forwarded to the necessary authorities. The BMV is known for their 'it's your fault' world-view, and this was no exception. It started out with the proposition that driving was a privilege not a right; evolved into a situation where the BMV developed what seemed like a perverse enjoyment in suspending licenses. Now, it seems, voting is a privilege too.
America's youth are constantly criticized for their low turnout. They're assured that every vote count. But does it? How many thousands of votes are simply trashed? Would the local government be more attentive if there was a property tax check stapled to that ballot - here's the deal; throw out my ballot, and the check goes with it. I'm guessing they'd do a better job then, but I'm just a bigdumbHoosier.
It's almost impossible to imagine how these issues can be remedied for this election. As Gov. Bush's people point out, we only have one election day. I don't agree with them very often, but this time I think they're probably correct. The final results are still in doubt, but I expect what we're going to get is George W. Bush as our next president. He'll have the dubious but memorable distinction of the first U.S. president elected by accident.
