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serynSomeone asked about e-voting. I went off on this tangent which I'm sharing here since the person said they're too busy to reply to comments, so I might as well try to garner my own instead of wasting this there:
I'd like to see governmental voting done electronically with the tallies for every single vote put up on some government website every day, which news sources would be encouraged to mirror as content. Not the droning video feeds of C-SPAN. And the expanded view of each vote would show who had introduced it, who had added shit to it to weigh it down, and who could not stay on topic to save their own asses... those people would get demerits and be booted out of Congress automatically. Then a random citizen would be chosen to replace them and get the best most excellent health care for life. We could even set up a system where the truly unqualified people would muddy up a standing non-voting bill, get their demerits and allow someone else to be sworn in.
For the in-person e-votes, I'm not sure how to deal with the guy who stands up and shouts that his vote was mis-counted though. Or how to deal with the neighbor's elbow jostling or pressing your neighbor's button when they're late. Seems like we could make vote fraud a felony (oh right, it already is) and make it illegal to be a member of Congress if you're a felon. (Can you believe it's not? Seriously. New Jersey even re-elected someone who was indicted on a buttload of felony charges... he didn't even have the honor to not run. Now The Daily Show says that New Jersey is poised to special-elect that guy who caused nation-wide race riots. Seems like since the states all have the power to choose how vacancies are filled that the people of New Jersey should demand that there be a lottery of all citizens instead of that asshole getting to make laws.)
I was watching Poirot yesterday and Poirot informs them that there is prosecution for perjury. We don't do that here. I was a juror on a trial and it was blindingly obvious that people were lying (their lies conflicted with each other, not just with the other side) and afterward when we were allowed to ask questions of the prosecutor, I asked if we could be notified when the perjury trials would be scheduled. The prosecutor said, "We don't go after perjury cases like that." Which, to me, explained the inherent problems in our justice system. There's no penalty for lying, there's only punishment that doesn't fit the crimes available (if you're even moderately wealthy, the fines are not onerous; but a single day in jail or even a felony indictment (not even conviction, just being put on trial) can keep you from being employed forever. And the biggest crimes get "life" in prison which hurts us far more than them. Then the people get out and are angry at being "abused" by the system.) And there's no real incentive to do the right thing when everyone else is cheating.
So I imagine that Senators here would be constantly screaming that their e-votes (even if we required them to be in-chamber and not remote) were miscounted just to cast doubts on their political stances to the public, but internally there would be this sniggering about deluding the stupid public.
I'd like to see governmental voting done electronically with the tallies for every single vote put up on some government website every day, which news sources would be encouraged to mirror as content. Not the droning video feeds of C-SPAN. And the expanded view of each vote would show who had introduced it, who had added shit to it to weigh it down, and who could not stay on topic to save their own asses... those people would get demerits and be booted out of Congress automatically. Then a random citizen would be chosen to replace them and get the best most excellent health care for life. We could even set up a system where the truly unqualified people would muddy up a standing non-voting bill, get their demerits and allow someone else to be sworn in.
For the in-person e-votes, I'm not sure how to deal with the guy who stands up and shouts that his vote was mis-counted though. Or how to deal with the neighbor's elbow jostling or pressing your neighbor's button when they're late. Seems like we could make vote fraud a felony (oh right, it already is) and make it illegal to be a member of Congress if you're a felon. (Can you believe it's not? Seriously. New Jersey even re-elected someone who was indicted on a buttload of felony charges... he didn't even have the honor to not run. Now The Daily Show says that New Jersey is poised to special-elect that guy who caused nation-wide race riots. Seems like since the states all have the power to choose how vacancies are filled that the people of New Jersey should demand that there be a lottery of all citizens instead of that asshole getting to make laws.)
I was watching Poirot yesterday and Poirot informs them that there is prosecution for perjury. We don't do that here. I was a juror on a trial and it was blindingly obvious that people were lying (their lies conflicted with each other, not just with the other side) and afterward when we were allowed to ask questions of the prosecutor, I asked if we could be notified when the perjury trials would be scheduled. The prosecutor said, "We don't go after perjury cases like that." Which, to me, explained the inherent problems in our justice system. There's no penalty for lying, there's only punishment that doesn't fit the crimes available (if you're even moderately wealthy, the fines are not onerous; but a single day in jail or even a felony indictment (not even conviction, just being put on trial) can keep you from being employed forever. And the biggest crimes get "life" in prison which hurts us far more than them. Then the people get out and are angry at being "abused" by the system.) And there's no real incentive to do the right thing when everyone else is cheating.
So I imagine that Senators here would be constantly screaming that their e-votes (even if we required them to be in-chamber and not remote) were miscounted just to cast doubts on their political stances to the public, but internally there would be this sniggering about deluding the stupid public.
