Shouldnt voteing be made easier rather than harder ?

Question

considering so many dont vote in Us elections it seems the richest can just buy a presidency.

By DEBORAH HASTINGS, AP National Writer Thu Oct 12, 5:32 PM ET
this appeared on the net for about 10 minutes today then was buried away ,was this intentional?

NEW YORK - Some states have enacted laws that make it harder to vote instead of correcting ballot problems that have plagued various parts of the country since the 2000 election, according to a study released Thursday.
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Describing their findings as "troubling," voting reform advocates sampled 10 states with past election difficulties. Especially worrisome, the report said, were laws passed by a handful of states, including Arizona and Georgia, that require a government-issued photo identification card and proof of citizenship before being allowed to vote.

Though both state laws were later blocked by judges, "the damage has already been done," confusing would-be voters and severely hampering voter registration drives, said Tova Wang of The Century Foundation think tank, which conducted the survey with Common Cause and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

Also troublesome was a lack of electronic voting policies that could make voting lines in the upcoming midterm contest even longer than those in 2004, according to the survey.

Such delays especially affected Ohio, where people waited hours because of problems with computerized voting.

The study found that the problems with electronic voting were not just malfunctioning machines, but also the lack of available machines. "There were long lines because there were inequitably distributed voting machines," Wang said. Since 2004, most states have only vague guidelines. Florida and Washington, for example, have no formula for determining the number of voting machines in each precinct, the study said.

After the 2004 debacle in Ohio, a law was passed mandating one machine for every 175 registered voters. But it is not enforceable until 2013.

The study contained some good news. Many states have aggressively recruited young people to serve as poll workers — an effort to correct poorly staffed precincts and aging volunteers not familiar with new electronic technology.

But overall, of the studied states, "none have come close to addressing in full the major problems that plagued the system during the last federal election," the survey concluded.

The states were Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.

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On the Net:

http://www.tcf.org

http://www.commoncause.org

http://www.civilrights.org

Answer 1

Being able to vote is one of our greatest freedoms. Why to people treat this like buying a pack of smokes? Why shouldn't you prove who you are before you vote? In Georgia, the state volunteered to issue free ID's to people that couldn't afford them. I fail to see the problem of having a valid ID to vote. You need it for everything else you do in life.

Answer 2

Sounds like these studies where done by people who are a little biased.

Electronic machines are by far the best way to cast your vote and make sure that it is counted. There are some in a particular party, namely the DEMOCRATS, that can not thwart the electronic voting. In other words, it is not as easy to defraud the voters by stuffing the ballot boxes and letting the dead vote when there is a machine that will help verify and take the Human error out of the equation.

Most of the problems that plagued the last election where simply people yelling and screaming and complaining. Most of which where politicians who did not like the fact that it could be done by machine and that they could not stuff the ballots. (Old trick)

The ONLY real problem they had last election cycle was a machine that was not handled properly took longer to get the vote tally from it then others. Other then that, it was almost flawless..

Answer 3

1) Unanswered questions exist. 2) Prophets claim to have the answers. 3) These prophets forward some unsubstantiated beliefs to the population. 4) Since people haven't conceived of any way to determine answers to these questions, they believe what these prophets say. 5) Eventually, a prophet comes along and says that they are the ONLY true prophet. (Polytheistic religions were generally made compatible with each other, so you could believe in Zeus and Horus simultaneously, even though they were parts of different pantheons) Call the ideologies of such profits "exclusive" ideologies. 5) Someone in power becomes attracted to one of the exclusive ideologies for some reason, and decrees that this ideology should be followed by everyone. Anyone caught practicing another ideology will be brutally killed (so basically, what Constantine did with Christianity). 6) Because the old ideologies aren't practiced anymore, they fade away, and we are left with the endorsed, exclusive ideology. (i.e. - Christianity) 7) Eventually, we develop ways to test the ideologies of the prophet of the "exclusive" ideology, and find out that many of the things that they said was simply incorrect. (i.e. - the shape of the Earth, evolution, the Big Bang) 8) Many people become disillusioned with the "exclusive" ideology, and move onto other ideologies. Some stay, and try to explain away the problems that have arisen with their prophet's story, but more start to move away. However, the other ideologies are being proven wrong as well, so many people are simply abandoning their beliefs in such ideological systems. (thus, you get things like you're seeing right now, where Atheist/non-religious numbers have gone up around 500% in the last 14 years) There isn't a "God" gene (though there might be a "spiritual" gene, per the most recent studies). Many religions don't have Gods at all (i.e. - Buddhism (some renditions), Daoism, Shinto). The gods of other religions are also substantially different from each other; and they tend to represent the values of the society in which they were created. Compare the Norse Gods to Yahweh, for example, or Kali to Jesus. They're superficially similar (for example, they might all say that you shouldn't steal, but they're quite different on who you can kill, how you should treat your enemies, how you should approach your emotional relationships with others, etc.) @Ingsoc Aaron: The Bible says that Jonah survived 3 days in the belly of a whale. It also implies that the Earth was created in 6 days sometime around 6000 years ago, that the Earth is flat, and that the stars are really crystalline spheres suspended in space. While I could understand a god of some sort being consistent with physics, I don't see how that comment could possibly be true of Christianity, or religions in general

Answer 4

What's wrong with requiring photo ID? I'm allfor preventing voter fraud.
The 2000 election had more known voter fraud than in any election in history.
And guess what?: it was pretty even between both parties.
How come the media doesn't report this.

To be completely honest: I don't care. I wont get to vote for another 26 months.

Answer 5

I don't know that the problem is with the method of voting but with the motivation of the voters. In countries with high voter turnout the people genuinely care about the outcome.
Going to vote has to be as important as going to get a mocha latte.
Cute picture, too.

Answer 6

I've never had a hard time voting. You do have to register, and you do have to go to the polls. If you can't be bothered with those two things, you are probably too lazy to keep up to date with world, national, and local events in order to form an opinion on who you would like to vote for.

Answer 7

Only people who pay attention to the issues should vote. When voting for a candidate, you should have to take a test that proves you know what his platform is and his opponents platform. It shouldn't be biased in anyway, it should just be "What does this person say he is going to do? What does his opponent say that he is going to do?" People who know very little about what's actually going on should not be encouraged to vote. All they do is add a component of randomness to the voting process.

Answer 8

every person that votes should have an id. and if they are later not found to be citizens , then they should be found to be a criminal and put in jail, with the e lectronic. no paper trail voteing of the future, we will lose all our rights and votes.as we will be controled by the political party and the powers that be. because they will fix the votes in there favor.

Answer 9

Yes, voting should be easy, but more importantly, gay men like yourself should not be so HOT. It bums me out to see such a good looking man who plays for the wrong team! What a waste. Oh, and yeah, voting should be made easier.

Answer 10

You would think it would be made easier,wouldn't you.Should we just hand over the country now or wait another 2 years?