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No More R's and D's on Ballots | |||||||||||||||||
Why not remove those letters on ballots that indicate to which party a candidate belongs? This would motivate people to actually research the candidates, not just vote blindly for their party. Maybe some day, we can do away with bipartisanship and end the political convictions that seem to be turning us against one another.
CDugan, Aug 26 2004
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Because some people have party allegiances, regardless of whom the candidate is, or what the candidate stands for.
It wouldn't necessarily impede true party allegiance; someone who considers themselves a hard-core party member would be required to know who their party is sponsering.
As a result, they'll get exposed to additional information such as what the party and candidate are pushing for. And that may cause some people who normally vote straight-ticket to think about what they're pushing for.
As an addition, allow each candidate for office to include a paragraph about what they intend to do if elected. That would raise awareness of the aims and intentions of third-party candidates.
I like that idea of the summary paragraph next to each candidate's name. So even if you didn't know all of your facts, or were getting confused (think Primaries with multiple candidates), you could still vote meaningfully.
I realize this would add significant time to the voting experience, but that leads to another question: Why does everyone have to vote on the same day? Stretch it over a week to give everyone a chance to fit it in and avoid long lines. I think in Tennessee this past election, citizens could participate in "early voting" - which I believe was anytime in the 2 weeks leading up to Election Day.
The problem is that in some areas, the number of races on theballot can be as many as 80! In many cases, the voter issimply not aware of who all these choices are, so voting theparty line, is a safe way to vote in seats/races where thevoter is unaware.
I concur that bipartisanship is a problem, but this problemis not because of the ballots, but that we do not allowcoalition governments. As well, we should hold runoff elections when races come in within 1%. This would make surethat there are clear, uncotested victories, that needn't befought in the courts.
I like the idea of non-partisan elections, but to implement them, we'd have to get rid of the partisan primaries. Use some sort of runoff election, perhaps Instant Runoff Voting.
A two-sentence summary with each candidate sounds ideal. Like Google Adwords.