Let's improve democracy

[RogueIce]

Yes. If you can find a homophobic pediatrician who will argue that gays are a threat to our children, they can stand for election, and vote for candidates. They would also have the power of initiative as private citizens.

What about teachers from private religious schools? Can they sit on the Education Committee and decide on whether or not to teach evolution in schools?

Small town rural sheriff gets to decide on whether profiling is good or bad law enforcement policy?

And then there's the military. Are we going to have generals and admirals in your Upper House? They are, after all, the best experts to sit on the Military Affairs Committee. Doesn't this degrade the concept of civilian control of the military, having actual military officers in your legislative body? Or are they specially excluded? Do we also exclude other Experts who happen to hold a government job for the conflict of interest they present (let's get more funding for our department so it'll be better when I go back!)?

You seem to be overly idealistic if you think your Panels of Experts won't just push their pet projects and causes, regardless of who is selected to sit alongside them (ethicists and lawyers can't be partisan?).

[Uraniun235]

I don't know if there is any serious fraud or coercion going on with it or not, but the point is that there is potential for it.

If you're in a position where you can stand over someone's shoulder as they fill out their ballot and coerce them into voting how you want them to, you would already have enough power over them to intimidate them into not going to a poll anyway.

Somebody can always lie about whom they intend to vote for. Also, it would be more difficult to find people who tend to vote a certain way and bribe them not to vote than it is to just offering a couple bucks to vote a particular way.

Let's say someone wanted to coerce me into voting for the Constitution Party candidate for governor. They have to find out that I received a ballot, and either intimidate me into letting them know when I received it or otherwise intercept my mail. They would then have to literally stand over my shoulder as I open my ballot, fill out my ballot as they intend, seal it in the secrecy envelope, sign the postal envelope, and then either drive with me to observe me drop it in a ballot box or take the ballot themselves to drop in a postal box. If any of those provisions don't take place, I can still turn around and vote as I want. Then they have to hope that I don't call the police or the elections office to report that I had been coerced.

Bribery would be a labor-intensive process because you would have to inspect each ballot to ensure that they voted as you wanted, then watch them seal it in the envelopes, then sign the envelope, then hand the envelope to you, and then you would pay them and then you would have to go drop the ballots off in a mailbox. If any of those conditions aren't met, the person in question could turn around and go vote the way they wanted anyway. Then you have to hope that nobody rats you out because each instance of bribery is a felony. The reward isn't nearly worth the risk or cost.

[Uraniun235]

As for my idea on how to best improve democracy, I'm inclined to favor better education - educating people on how the system is supposed to work, how special interests (both monied and ideological) are inclined to subvert the system for their own gain, and how that negatively affects both the individual citizen and the society as a whole. Basically, to inculcate in youth the belief that society cannot function properly without vigorous oversight and the desire to hold authorities accountable for their actions.


I don't care how many rules, regulations, laws, or constitutional articles you lay down; it's all worth a cold, turgid pile of shit if the electorate is shiftless and unwilling to take their civic duty seriously.

[blahface]

Let's say someone wanted to coerce me into voting for the Constitution Party candidate for governor. They have to find out that I received a ballot, and either intimidate me into letting them know when I received it or otherwise intercept my mail. They would then have to literally stand over my shoulder as I open my ballot, fill out my ballot as they intend, seal it in the secrecy envelope, sign the postal envelope, and then either drive with me to observe me drop it in a ballot box or take the ballot themselves to drop in a postal box. If any of those provisions don't take place, I can still turn around and vote as I want. Then they have to hope that I don't call the police or the elections office to report that I had been coerced.

I think most coercions would be from family and would mostly be implicit. For example, a spouse may be standing over your shoulder. Or, the parents of a young adult that still lives with them might be standing over his shoulder. Someone in either of those positions might not want to deal with the arguing that would ensue if he votes differently. I remember my dad asked me who I was voting for once. I told him that I was voting for Nader and not Bush and he gave me a long lecture about how liberals are communist Nazis. Situations like this could be a real problem if a particular candidate is relying on the youth vote.

[blahface]

As for my idea on how to best improve democracy, I'm inclined to favor better education - educating people on how the system is supposed to work, how special interests (both monied and ideological) are inclined to subvert the system for their own gain, and how that negatively affects both the individual citizen and the society as a whole. Basically, to inculcate in youth the belief that society cannot function properly without vigorous oversight and the desire to hold authorities accountable for their actions.

I don't care how many rules, regulations, laws, or constitutional articles you lay down; it's all worth a cold, turgid pile of shit if the electorate is shiftless and unwilling to take their civic duty seriously.

I couldn't agree more with that. We definitely need to teach more about civics and we also need to teach about critical thinking. We need to teach kids to seek out arguments that go against their world view and not to just isolate themselves with sources that just confirm their own bias. We need to build a culture of debate.

This is why I suggested that there should be centralized message boards in which candidates for office and PAC's would be expected to debate. Citizens should be able to easily seek out and find debates and find information about what the candidates stand for. Students in public schools should have assignments in which they have to use these resources to find out and explain what the candidates stands for what.

[Jaepheth]

One simple improvement I'd like to see is a "radius of accountability" set up around certain offices (President, senator, Representative, cabinet member, etc) where they and their aides are ineligible to receive a Presidential or Gubernatorial pardon.