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Journal smittyoneeach's Journal: Ah, That Voting 'Elephant' 8

https://redstate.com/beckynoble/2023/08/24/fox-news-and-the-other-elephant-in-the-room-no-questions-about-election-integrity-n2162993

I took in the bulk of the Tucker interview of the Eminence Orange on X, and listened to Shapiro's summary of the Fox debate on the drive home today. Both were farce.

For all I groove on tech and have made a living doing it, I am a total election Luddite. I want
- hard copy
- first past the post
- Australian ballots
- filled out by registered voters
- on election day
- who are in an audited poll book - with regularly audited results.
Certain, strictly scrutinized early voting may be reasonable.

Having a machine tally the paper ballots isn't unreasonable. I disagree with Vivek's ideas of raising the voting age. To my mind, if you're a taxpayer, you have a say.

This is a timeless, classic argument lacking a "correct" answer. Some fancy having competency tests to ensure that voters meet some knowledge threshold, to preclude Trumpian demagogues from getting too populist. This seems a cure worse than the mail-in-voting disease, to my mind.

Whatever reforms are undertaken, and mine would be in the direction of simplicity, the goals to balance are fairness and security. Nobody talks security, and that speaks volumes.
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Ah, That Voting 'Elephant'

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  • If you want a full audit trail of all ballots cast, then why are you opposed to early voting? You'd be able to tell right away if anyone was voting illegally with your audit trail. We know when election day will be, so why not allow people to cast their ballots the weekend before when they might not be strained by as many work and family commitments?
  • Many of us in the USA have been paying taxes since long before we were of voting age. A 14-year-old with a summer job who pays income taxes shouldn't be able to vote while his twin brother who is in summer school and not earning money is disenfranchised merely because one pays taxes and the other does not.

    Also, if I'm unemployed for a year, couch-surfing so I don't contribute to real-estate taxes, and only buying things like food that don't have sales taxes, that shouldn't automatically disenfranchise me.

  • Can we also have compulsory voting like Australia?

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