Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

There are two ways to prevent elections from being future nervous breakdowns -- but they would require such change that they wouldn't happen in our lifetimes, if ever. They are:

1. HOME E-VOTING. The news hacks will do their Our Town routine and protest that the great thing about elections is that the bring the PEE-PUL together and encourage socializing and blah blah blah. What rot. People speak to a polling official, they go into the gloom of a voting booth, they scratch their heads, they stand around for five minutes, they scratch their heads, they vote -- reluctantly -- and they come out, and that's it. Home e-voting could encourage families and communities to think their votes through, rather than be put on the spot. To those who say this would encourage a kind of moral blackmail, I ask, what do we have now? They would further protest that current encryption schemes are unreliable. Well the cretins of Palm Beach County made hash of paper ballots. And if it's possible to blog without being hacked, if it's possible to shop on the Internet knowing your credit card is secure, why can't we electronically vote? It might also put an end to EXIT POLLING -- and while a requirement for e-voting might be to forbid the voters from speaking to pollsters (probably unconstitutional even if it weren't against human nature), a reliable e-voting system could be far more private than what we have now. One other thing -- the e-voting polls must all open and close at the same time, no difference for time zones.

2. A WEEK TO VOTE. Why the requirement that people vote on ONE DAY? Absentee ballots and other forms of advance voting have pretty much eliminated the need for a dedicated voting day. With a week to vote the mood swings we've seen today would be spread out, giving the MALICIOUS WONKETTES AND WALTER WINCHELLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! less chance to influence an election. And to be sure, with the Internet getting ever more efficient in spreading rumors and flat-out lies, the next time will only be more maddening and more dismaying. One other possibility: give, say, ten days for the election, but stagger the voting so that each voter would only have a set time frame to vote (say, three days.) This could reduce peer pressure.

Although I still like the idea from National Review, when it was still sane: choose public officials by LOT. We can scarcely do worse.