[LINK] Why Electronic Voting?

[Jan Whitaker]

At 02:55 PM 18/11/2006, Craig Sanders wrote:
>ps: another concept that the US needs to import is the idea of voting
>for the lesser of two evils. there's no point in voting for someone good
>(because odds are that by the time they get to be a candidate they are
>well and truly corrupted by the party system), so the rational choice
>is to vote for the least bad. if one of them has got to win, it may as
>well be the one that will (likely) do the least harm. defensive voting,
>a form of minimaxing the system.
>
>this, of course, means voting according to policies and track record
>rather than on personality or party.

No need to import. It's already there. Just because one registers for 
one of the parties to vote in a primary, doesn't mean that the person 
is aligned or would, as we say there, vote a straight ticket. Party 
alliance is lower in the US than here in Australia.

 From wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_(voter)
While <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_of_2006>as of 2006 
approximately 38% of Americans identify as independents in national 
polls, only 1 out of the 535 members of 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress>Congress, 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Senate>Senator 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders>Bernie Sanders of 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont>Vermont, is Independent, .

According to a September 3, 2006 Washington Post article, A Nation of 
Free Agents, by Marc Ambinder: "Independent voters comprise about 10 
percent of the electorate, but the percentage of persuadable 
independents has shot up to about 30 percent. In the 27 states that 
register voters by party, self-declared independents grew from 8 
percent of the registered electorate in 1987 to 24 percent in 2004, 
according to political analyst Rhodes Cook. Consistently, about 30 
percent of U.S. voters tell pollsters they don't belong to a party."

--
Those are high figures, I reckon.

Jan



Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/

'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, 
there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005
_ __________________ _