Fairness of The American System

[daveymck]

Over here we are seeing a lot already of the problems over there with voting, whether not enough machines, ballots lost, machines making mistakes, party workers apparently not helping people when they had made a mistake and they wanted to vote against their candiate, law suits being file all over the place and the chances of a lot more to come.

It seems to me that the system over there is a lot worse than over here (I realise there is a differance in scale). In particular the system just seems so incestious with everyone involved in the process from the people at the top down to the workers recruiting voters are affiliated with one of the two parties and i am sure both are as bad as each other for unfair play (and I am sure some workers who pride themselves on dillagence and fairness what ever party they serve)

So couple of questions.

1 Do you have a 100% confidance in the system of voting.

2 If not 100% confidant do you think the problems have a bearing overall on the result or do you think it evens itself out.

3 Do you expect to know after the results who is President or are you expecting it to be dragged through the courts.

[MMMMMM]

Now I'm curious: how does the British system avoid such problems?

[lorinda]

Now I'm curious: how does the British system avoid such problems?

A simple equivalent would be to say that a state with 27 ECV would actually be broken down into 27 different regions with one rep from each region gettting one Electoral College vote.

This means that each individual vote (or seat as it's called here) is not really worth rigging and to rig a whole area would just be too difficult.

Lori

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]

A simple equivalent would be to say that a state with 27 ECV would actually be broken down into 27 different regions with one rep from each region gettting one Electoral College vote.

This means that each individual vote (or seat as it's called here) is not really worth rigging and to rig a whole area would just be too difficult.

Lori

[/ QUOTE ]

Each state can allocate its votes as it wishes. Two state have systems similar to what you describe. All the rest have chosen winner take all.

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]
Now I'm curious: how does the British system avoid such problems?

[/ QUOTE ]

They have a monarch. Let's not be giving anyone any ideas over here.

[daveymck]

[ QUOTE ]
Now I'm curious: how does the British system avoid such problems?

[/ QUOTE ]

To Clarify I dont mean the process I mean the actual voting element.

Here when you move house you send a form to the council (if you wish) to sign on the electoral register. On voting day you goto a voting station get a form tick the box and put it in a sealed box. All the boxes go off to the counting place where the count is done supervised by a returning officer. You get a letter a few months before each election with a new form with the current voters listed is sent and can be amended as appropriate.

In recent council local elections there were experiments with postal and inenet voting with mixed success, one party was caught on film getting people to either hand ver the form and they ticked it for them and posted it and a couple of other similar things and there has been some problems of 50 people being registred at one address.

But over here I think if you asked anyone who voted they would be 100% sure that A) there vote was counted and B) the correct candidate they intended to vote for is getting their vote.