Former US President Jimmy Carter has taken on the Florida Electoral Commission for the upcoming election. Whilst many have dismissed this as partisan politics, Carter has been responsible for overseeing many elections the world over through the Carter Centre. In a Washington Post Opinion Piece [try bugmenot.com for a login name if you don't want to register] has stated the following problems as he and the Carter Centre sees them.
- A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official who will be responsible for organizing and conducting the electoral process before, during and after the actual voting takes place.
- Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy.
The first issue that he has is the fact that the Floridan Electoral Commission is not an independant entity, as it is in Australia, and real conflicts of interest exists. Just think of the last election when the person in charge of the election - Katherine Harris, the Florida Secretary of State - also co-chaired the GWBush Election Campaign in Florida. Had this happened in, say, Zimbabwe or another developing nation, the US would rightly be chiding them for their lack of independance and obvious conflict of interest.
The second issue is with regards to the method of voting. Some bright spark has decided that the voting system will be done via touch screens. Only problem is - have they engineered the system to ensure that they can NEVER lose the data? The punch card system would be good if only they’d sharpen the damn punches and institute an educational campaign on how to vote properly. Surely the American voters are worth that small amount of investment, right?
Sometimes I love living in Australia. Compulsory voting combined with a preferential voting system makes everything so much easier… Had the US elections been run by Aussies, Gore would no doubt have won and the world, well, what a place it may or may not be…