No one else would have come up with the throw down quote below.
Who Needs to ‘Help’ America Vote? – washingtonpost.com:
“Having fixed Iraq and New Orleans, the federal government’s healing touch is now being applied to voting. As a result, days — perhaps weeks — might pass after Election Day without the nation’s knowing which party controls the House or Senate. If that happens, one reason might be HAVA, that 2002 bit of federal helpfulness.”
From my point of view, this administration and congress attacked the problem just like it has every problem…They threw money at campaign contributors hoping to come up with the answer. That that did necessarily lead to the same results it always has…A large percentage of the population believing they have been cheated, is not surprising. Believing themselves cheated both on their vote and in their pocketbook.
My problem with the George Will quote is he starts from the position that the government will always screw these things up. I don’t agree with that basic premise. I think this administration will fail because it starts with the same premise, therefore not putting in the effort to prove their basic assumptions wrong. That belief is based on the same example quoted by Mr. Will, Iraq and Katrina.
“The gross defects of American voting practices were laws that established or permitted discrimination and other abuses. Tardily, but emphatically, those laws were changed and other abuses were halted.”
This assertion that we have changed the laws to stop the abuses is naïve at best. All you have to do is look at the way the voter rolls are being manipulated even in this election to doubt that the changes have been effective. And the unsurprising news that the same states that have led the news in the past three elections are again in news isn’t surprising. If there is one thing we have learned in recent years about politicians (of both sides) is that if something worked once they’ll run it into the ground, abuse it, and force it to be made illegal before they will (maybe) stop using it.
“Democracy is not a mere game. But — write this on a piece of paper, using a No. 2 pencil — neither is it an activity from which it is sensible to demand more precision than can reasonably be expected when, on a November Tuesday, 100 million people record billions of political choices.”
Exactly when, in the course of human events did it become necessary to “KNOW” the election results at the end of election night? What I take away from George Will’s final paragraph is that yes, Democracy isn’t a game. And unlike a game, I don’t need to know the winner at the sound of the final whistle. For my money we could take a roll of paper with each candidate in a row and scratch out all but the one we want. Take a couple of weeks to sit down and count the votes, and let the campaigns go on with life for a week or two before they have to figure out what to do with life now that they have won or lost an election. Hell, if they are paranoid they can sit in the room and watch the count…
