This mishmash of mostly low-tech systems exists because voting methods are decided not by the federal government but by county and state officials. And those local officials, constrained by thin budgets, are often reluctant to lay out the millions needed to upgrade their systems. Little wonder, then, that for many Americans–not just those in Palm Beach County–Election Day meant long lines, confusion and, we’re now learning, botched ballots.
There are better ways. Among the technological alternatives are an optical scanning system in which lasers read completed ballots and computer-based systems that use touch screens to record votes and then store them electronically. Internet voting is also on the horizon–the first official Net balloting took place in Arizona’s Democratic primary earlier this year. But critics warn that the new methods–which would cost New York state, for example, $100 million–aren’t glitch-free. And fears about privacy, security and the digital divide cloud the promise of online voting. Technology, many observers say, isn’t the only solution. “You could have the best state-of-the-art technology out there and still have problems,” says Deborah Phillips of the Voting Integrity Project, a watchdog group. One low-tech alternative, mail-in ballots, increased turnout in Oregon this year to an estimated 81 percent–but it also kept vote counters busy for days.
If ballot changes aren’t the ultimate answer, a broader overhaul of the process might be. Many voters now want to abolish the Electoral College, our indirect method of picking a president in which voters choose state “electors” who then cast their votes for the chief. “Simple fairness demands a change so the one-person, one-vote principle is what we abide by,” says League of Women Voters president Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins. Over the years there have been hundreds of attempts in Congress to scrap the system. The latest came Nov. 1, and last week legislators, including New York Senator-elect Hillary Clinton, promised that more are on the way.
Other, less drastic reforms are possible. One suggestion: keep the Electoral College, but replace the winner-take-all approach used by most states with a proportional system that would better reflect the popular vote. A candidate who receives 60 percent of a state’s votes would also get 60 percent of its electors. These ideas might catch on after this year’s chaos, but scholars warn of potential dangers. Without an Electoral College, candidates could wage big-money national media campaigns, concentrating their attention on select cities and suburbs, disregarding small towns and rural enclaves.
Any overhaul would face high hurdles. A constitutional amendment would have to win the approval of two thirds of both houses of Congress and three quarters of the states. Small states would be particularly inclined to block changes that might give bigger states even more influence. No matter what reforms come to pass, this controversy may already have improved the system. “Many people who haven’t really focused on politics or who walked away from politics a long time ago are going to get an education,” says Phillips. Now the question is what America does with its crash course in electoral minutiae.
