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-Election 2012
Foreign Election Observers Amazed By Trust-Based US Voting System
2012-11-06
The most often noted difference between American elections among the visitors was that in most U.S. states, voters need no identification. Voters can also vote by mail, sometimes online, and there's often no way to know if one person has voted several times under different names, unlike in some Arab countries, where voters ink their fingers when casting their ballots.

The international visitors also noted that there's no police at U.S. polling stations. In foreign countries, police at polling places are viewed as signs of security; in the United States they are sometimes seen as intimidating.
Posted by:RandomJD

#7  Decentralized systems are vulnerable to 'divide & conquer' strategies.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2012-11-06 22:56  

#6  "hyperdecentralized system"

Otherwise known as the United States. The federal gummint is supposed to be limited; the Constitution gives the states responsibility for most things, and the feds are supposed to be restricted to the few things a central government can do best, such as foreign policy and regulating interstate commerce. (See "enumerated powers.")
Posted by: Barbara   2012-11-06 20:21  

#5  From a partisan commentary in the NYTimes today (edited):
The reason for this is clear: making democracy efficient takes second place in the United States to the cherished notion of letting local officials run the election system. In this “hyperdecentralized system,” in the words of Richard Hasen, a voting expert at the University of California, Irvine, the process of voting is left in the hands of “volunteers or poorly paid workers, many of whom lack adequate training or formal expertise.”

Their supervisors are partisans, often making decisions about spending money on new machines or expanding the system on the basis of how it will affect their party.


In some parts of the US, a police presence is regarded as indicating the "rule of law" is in effect. In other parts, a police presence means "might makes right."
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2012-11-06 19:25  

#4  Ask the voters in Wisconsin's union/recall if the union policemen were comforting.
Posted by: Glenmore   2012-11-06 19:07  

#3  Depends on whether the police themselves respect the rule of law, besoeker.

I grew up with family who managed to get out from a place where they didn't. Other members weren't so fortunate and died in Stalin's prisons.
Posted by: lotp   2012-11-06 18:23  

#2  Police are "intimidating" only if you have something to hide or have no respect for the rule of law and those commissioned to enforce it.

Just my .02 cents worth.
Posted by: Besoeker   2012-11-06 17:30  

#1  We are too.

And the dhimocrats do everything they can to keep it that way.
Posted by: DarthVader   2012-11-06 17:24  

00:00