1) Nobody should be able to vote without a state or federally issued ID.
2)You must live in your district for at least one year. If you've just moved, you'll get an absentee ballot from the district you were last registered in.
3) NO MORE OF THIS ELECTRONIC VOTING BS! Whether it's on the up-and-up or not, it will only serve to undermine confidence in our system. If you want to utilze technology to take the human error out of vote counting, have a machine that prints a paper ticket the voter can look at before having it counted. It would eliminate illegitimate "chads" of every variety, butterfly ballot confusion amongst morons and those suffering from senility (cutting out one of the left's myriad disenfranchisement straw-men), and leave a paper trail that can be verified in a relatively objective fashion.
4) No precinct shall report results until at least 75% of votes have been counted in the latest-closing district in the USA.
5) Outlaw exit polling. If the limits on free speech inflicted on us by campaign-finance-reform bullsh!t passes constitutional muster, a ban on exit polling certainly should as well.
5) Require randomly selected federal marshalls to be stationed at every polling booth with orders to arrest anybody who engages in intimidation or attempts voter fraud
6) Do away with provisional ballots. Anybody who doesn't register in time doesn't care enough about our democracy to deserve to paticipate in it
7) Anybody who's not an election official caught with voting machines, ballots, or other election-related items within 30 days of an election will spend the rest of their life in Levenworth breaking rocks and being sodomized.
8) All ballots will be printed in english, with the exception that those held on Indian reservations may be printed in the indegenous language of the tribe in question.
9) It is illegal to speak any language other than English in a polling place, with the same exception as #8.
10) Any district in which more than 15% of ballots are absentee shall not announce any results until all absentee ballots are counted.
11) Any precinct in which more than 2% of voters are military personnel deployed or stationed overseas shall not announce any results until all military ballots are counted.
These are 11 reforms I want now. Right the f%$k now, to be more precise. I guarantee they would be immensely popular. I'm sure I can come up with more if given time.
They're popular with me, but they wouldn't be popular with a voting majority. They would be seen as overly restrictive and "too harsh."
*applause*
And if I can add one more thing to your list. I think that Iraq has the right idea... You need to be marked to only allow a person to vote one time, like ink on the right index finger. And have police stationed to disallow anyone with the inkstain from entering the building. Of course the same people who opposed showing ID when you vote will oppose this... So, if an amputee doesn't have a right index finger, use a different finger on the same hand, If he's missing his hand, use the left index finger. If he's a double amputee, mark his nose...
Mark
I don't disagree with the overall feeling of outrage over any voting disenfranchisement.
However...in this country in general, we need fewer laws, not more.
If we have to put all these rules on voting, especially at local levels as in voting, then we may as well pack it in as a country.
The only way we're gonna get your suggested reforms is if people adopt some common decency and respect.
Otherwise you're talking a Robocop force of national proportions.
And they'd work too... which is why neither political party will want to impose these limits on themselves.
On to Box #4....
Lesser_satan for President!
12. Require all registrants to pass a basic 20-question multiple choice test on U.S. History and Government. If a written test is required by the freaking DMV, it may as well be required to make voting decisions that affect the states and the country.
I am standing with you.
If the Republicans had done this, they would still be in power. Instead, they refuse to take voter fraud seriously.
I agree that its time to see voting laws improved. I sat there this year....having been a Colorado resident for several years, and then four years ago...switched to Alabama (I live and work overseas but pay US & state taxes). As I received my Bama license...I registered to vote in Bama. So about six weeks ago...I get a nice little card in the mail from Walsenburg, Colorado...reminding me that I am registered to vote there. I sat there and started laughing. I haven't been back to Colorado in seven years. My Colorado license ran out in 2002...yet they still keep me on the voting rooster.
I'm willing to bet...that with $12k in pocket money to cover traveling expenses...over a 2-month period...I could probably register in 40 states. Anybody want to take me on for this bet? Of course, at the end of this episode...I couldn't advertise myself too far or there would be some kind of charges for this kind of stuff...but then I don't see Uncle Benny who lives in Jersey four months out of the year and in Florida the other eight months...and votes in both states....getting into much trouble. In fact....I can't recall many people ever getting into much trouble for dual voting, yet we know they all do it.