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Early
Voting
Ancient
Greece
Ancient Greece had one of the earliest forms of democracy, since at least 508 BC. Each year, the Greeks had a negative election -- voters were asked to cast a vote for the politician they most wanted to exile for ten years. Votes were written on broken pots, ostraka in Greek, and from this name comes our present word to ostracize. If any politician received more than 6,000 votes then the one with the largest number was exiled. If no politician received 6,000 votes then all remained. If there was a fairly even spread of votes, nobody would get over 6,000 and no one would get exiled -- hence only very unpopular politicians were ostracized and exiled.
Voting rights in ancient Greece were only for male landowners, so the number of voters was small. Today, there are few politicians who would survive 6,000 negative votes!
Medieval
Venice
The Venetian state was built up in the 13th century and they elected a Great Council of 40 members. The Venetians introduced "approval voting": electors cast one vote for every candidate they find acceptable and none for those whom they deem unacceptable. The winner is the person who is acceptable to the largest number of voters.
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Voting Rights
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The history of voting in America is a story of ever-increasing voting rights. The rules for eligibility have changed substantially since America's founding, and continue to change today. When America was young, only white males over the age of 21 were allowed to vote. Some of the landmark changes since then:
Black
Suffrage
The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution were passed following the Civil War, in the later 1860s. They outlawed slavery and extended civil rights and suffrage (voting rights) to former slaves. The LEGAL right to vote for African-Americans was established, but numerous restrictions kept many blacks from ACTUALLY voting until the 1960s Voting Rights Act.
Direct
election
of Senators
The 17th Amendment made it so U.S. Senators were directly elected by popular vote. Prior to 1913, Senators were appointed. The President, of course, is still not elected by popular vote, but by the Electoral College. For example, in the presidential election of 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote but George Bush won the electoral college vote.
Women's
Suffrage
The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920. This amendment resulted from an international movement of "Suffragettes". Women still lacked the right to vote in Switzerland until the 1970s, and as of 1990 women could not vote in Kuwait.
18-year-old
vote
The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. This occurred in 1971, amid the Vietnam War, when 18-year-olds were routinely drafted and sent to war without the right to vote.
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Voting Systems
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The system in use in the United States is by no means the world standard. For that matter, voting systems differ from state to state. Some voting systems you may not be familiar with:
Parliamentary
System
The American voting system elects legislators based on one geographical district, by majority or plurality (whoever gets the most votes in that district wins). The districts are whole states for Senators and parts of states for House members. This is known as the "First-past-the-post" system.
In the parliamentary system, all legislators are elected at-large, meaning from the entire country's electorate. Voters choose one party, and the party's total votes determine how many legislative seats the party gets. The legislators are pre-determined on a list of party candidates. The Prime Minister is the person who is first on the list of the party which got the most votes.
The first-past-the-post system tends towards two parties, as we have in America. The parliamentary system favors multiple parties, since any party getting enough votes for even one seat, gets a voice in Parliament.
Instant Runoff
Voting
I.R.V. is a system intended to help third party participation in a two-party system. Voters choose a first choice, second choice, and third choice. If their first choice loses, their vote transfer to their second choice candidate. For example, in 2000, voters might have voted first for Nader and second for Gore -- allowing more expression of political preferences while eliminating the "spoiler effect".
I.R.V. systems are in effect in several nations abroad, and also in numerous municipal elections in the U.S.
Fusion
Voting
Fusion voting allows candidates to run under several party labels in one election. The largest example is New York State. Candidates often run as both Democrats and Liberal Party nominees; or as Republicans and Right-To-Life Party nominees. Third-party participation is encouraged because voters can choose a person AND a party, since the person's name appears once under each party. Much negotiation occurs to get the third-party nominations by major-party candidates, which is absent in states without fusion voting.
Voting
equipment
The Supreme Court case of Bush v. Gore in 2000 highlighted the inadequacies of Florida's voting equipment. Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to address some of the problems. Now voters have the right to cast a provisional ballot if their status is disputed; and people with the same names as felons are not routinely removed from voting rolls. Future controversy may center around electronic voting equipment because of the lack of a paper trail for manual recounts.
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Future of Voting
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World
Democracies
What's the world's largest democracy? It's NOT America!
In the 2004 election in India, 380 million people voted -- more than the entire population of the United States. India conducts its voting on multiple days, moving thousands of voting machines from one province to the next.
Perhaps America will take some ideas for future electoral reforms from other democracies around the world. Some ideas follow.
Ballot
Box and
Donor
Box
Voting was not secret in the United States until the mid-1800s. Prior to that, voters would be sworn in and announce their choices by voice. The secret ballot box was seen as a means to increase voter participation (because voters would not be scrutinized for how they voted) but also has problems with fraud (because there's no direct verification that the voter's intent was followed).
Some reformers want to apply the secret ballot box to campaign donations. Campaign finance reform is an ongoing debate in the U.S. Congress -- with the McCain-Feingold rules taking full effect in 2004 -- and this area is open to further reform. One such reform idea is to hide all donor information from the candidates, like votes are hidden, so that elected officials never know from whom their donations come, and hence cannot inappropriately reward their donors. The opposite reform for he same goal is to make donors as public as possible, to allow scrutiny of elected officials and their donors.
Future
Voting
Reforms
Many reformers in America call for multi-day voting as a way of increasing participation. Other reforms include:
- Same-day registration: In Minnesota, people can register to vote on election day. This greatly increases turnout and was widely credited with Gov. Jesse Ventura's 1998 electoral victory.
- Weekend voting: Why do we vote on Tuesdays? Changing to Saturday and/or Sunday voting would increase turnout substantially.
- Mail-In Voting: In Oregon, all voting is conducted by mail. In many other states, absentee voters must sign a statement that they were unable to get to the polls on election day. Removing restrictions against absentee and mail-in voting are coming in several states.
- Non-partisan primaries: Why can't Democrats vote in Republican primaries? Independent non-party-aligned voters are the majority in some states now. Cross-over voting in primaries would transfer power from the parties to the people.
- Under-age voting: 17-year-old voting in municipal races would get candidates to campaign in high schools, and students could get used to voting before setting off on their own.
- Immigrant voting: Several communities with high immigrant populations allow Green Card holders (non-citizens) to vote in municipal elections. Municipal immigrant voting increases civic participation at a level that matters to residents, whether citizens or not.
- Controversy over voting rights: Increasing voting rights is always controversial, because incumbent politicians are always weakened by having more voters (and hence more potential challengers' power bases). For example, in Cambridge Massachusetts, the voters approved immigrant voting rights, but the State Legislature declined to enact the approved bill.
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Sources
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- Black suffrage:
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/dp/pennies/1870_black.html
- The history of voting:
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Voting.html
- Women's Suffrage
http://www2.worldbook.com/features/whm/html/whm010.html
- African-American Voting rights
http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/golrec.html
- Voting equipment:
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Voting.html
- Voting history:
http://americanhistory.si.edu/vote/intro.html
- India voting:
http://www.neoncarrot.co.uk/h_aboutindia/india_election_stats.html
- HAVA Act:
http://www.fec.gov/hava/hava.htm
- Instant Runoff Voting:
http://www.massirv.org
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