More election babble

Just some random thoughts about the upcoming vote on Tuesday:

• Apparently I am part of the three dirtiest words in politics: San Francisco values. The GOP has created an all out war in trying to convince people that if the democrats win, Nancy Pelosi will become speaker of the house and the country will fall apart under the "far left" ideals of San Francisco. I'm not sure whether I should be offended by this statement or proud of this statememt.
  
• Voting machines. I find it extremely funny that computer experts everywhere are telling counties NOT to use computers for voting machines (well, except the computer experts that work for voting machine companies). There's even an HBO documentary about the situation. There's been reports of voting machines tallying the wrong votes to bizarre reports of hacking voting machines to play chess. Some counties put locks on the connections to the voting machines to prevent tampering. But if you break the lock while you are in the booth, then the machine must be declared hacked and therefore all votes will be discounted, which is just as dangerous as changing the votes themselves. I understand why people want e-voting machines: it makes figuring out who won the election very easy. But why are people so resistant to the idea that an e-voting machine also spit out an old-fashioned voting card, that the user needs to double check? That way, we get the benefits of both worlds - the immediate vote count of an e-voting machine, with an old style paper ballot that can be manually checked and counted.
  
• I don't think California's proposition system is quite ideal. First off, in election off years (i.e. 2005), these propositions are put on the ballot knowing that voter turnout will be extremely minimal. That seems completely against the whole idea of why the proposition system exists. But in the big years, the proposition vote just becomes so confusing that I'm not sure people know what they are voting for. On the one hand, I really appreciate being able to participate in the law making process and define the area I live in. On the other hand, if these propositions are costing our state so much money, why not just leave it up to the law makers that we elect? Isn't that their job? Oh yah, I forgot, even though we elect these people we don't usually trust them to do the right thing. It just gets more and more confusing and more and more expensive with each new vote.
  
• I sometimes wonder what the future of the USA political landscape looks like. For example, I think splitting California into two states would make a lot of people a lot happier in all areas of the state - it's pretty clear that there are two very distinct political ideals going on. But I also wonder if the religious right will spin off from the Republican party, to form a major political party of their own? The Republican party can probably only last so long trying to appeal both to the religious right and the "central" voters. The religious right certainly has the population to form their own party. What would happen to our current two-party system if this ever took place?