PlanetSide Universe - View Single Post - The Beginning of the End of the Republican Party?
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Old 2012-09-05, 06:56 AM   [Ignore Me] #15
Figment
Lieutenant General
 
Re: The Beginning of the End of the Republican Party?


National IDs and a proper voter registry prevent the fast majority of fraud and that has nothing to do with violation of privacy. It is a basic necessity for a paper trail to check if fraud is committed. It would be a violation of privacy if they registered not just that you voted, but what you voted! Comparing ID requirement with the Soviet Union and other communist countries where a pass from a specific political party was required is absolutely ludicrous. Not having a proper paper trail you can check and verify if the elections were fair or manipulated, THAT is comparable to communist countries! Fighting to be free of any form of administration around elections is fighting in favour of corruption and about becoming a banana republic.



At our elections, you have to proof who you say you are so you aren't stealing someone else's vote. If you want to vote for your spouse or someone else, you need to have at least a copy of a valid ID of theirs and a signed mandate from that person. You can only vote for at most two other people and you have to vote for them while casting your own vote to prevent obvious mass fraud exploits. Like say people recruiting or purchasing votes, or people driving in busses from one voting booth to the next (ring a bell?).

Acceptable are basic IDs, such as a driver's license, passport or other official national or EU ID or at the very least a police confirmation that your passport was stolen.

We don't have district tied elections to avoid gerrimandering (proportional representation on every level of government where direct elections are involved, on a senate level (1st chamber) there's indirect elections by the provincialy, proportionaly elected representatives. Though the amount of voters are less due to only representatives voting, here again proportional elections is the rule).

You are allowed to vote anywhere in your home town, or you can get permission from your mayor to vote in another town, whatever is the case you can only vote once because every person gets a single voting pass with watermarks and other checks to ensure it's the real thing. People have to submit this at the ballots in order to get their voting form.

To be elligible for voting, you simply have to either be a Dutch citizen or a registered resident (meaning you have permission to live and work here). Illegals can't vote as they don't get a pass. People that died are put on a list of invalid passes. Passes of people that moved to another community after a pass has been provided are also cancelled and a new one has to be used (this to avoid someone voting twice).

Campaigning is not allowed indoors, this includes the voting booth committee who's not allowed to make any political statements or wear clothing that would suggest bias. People are not allowed to be with more than one person in the booth, unless so heavily handicapped they can't operate the pen themselves. Explanation of how to vote is allowed at the table of the committee, but not in the booth. All voting booth volunteers are assigned randomly to a booth in another district than their own. This to prevent intimidation and further manipulation by pressuring or pre-determining who's with you in the district's committee. At the end of the day, each volunteer must sign the end results, indicating that they agree with the count, if one signature is missing, it can be cause for a recount.

We had electronic voting booths in the past, but since there's even a minimal chance those might be hacked, pre-programmed or otherwise disrupted, we've gone back to voting on paper with a red pencil. When votes are count, any citizen has the right to observe the process, but they may not interfere (they may however file a protest).

We'll be having elections next week (the 12th) and I'll be part of a booth committee (responsible for tallying votes vs passes used and of course to help count the votes at the end of the day).


I don't really see why you would do it any other way, unless you're interested in manipulating the results, of course. I personally feel all the above are important for fair elections. Hence I don't think your elections are fair what with the arbitrary state rules, first past the post system and electoral college. Not to mention the legalised bribing of politicians by lobby groups and corporations.

That vid I posted yesterday I can fully agree with.

Last edited by Figment; 2012-09-05 at 06:59 AM.
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