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By Global Public Square
For more What in the World watch "Fareed Zakaria GPS" this Sunday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET.
Imagine a country on election day where you know the results the instant the polls close. The votes are counted electronically, every district and state has the same rules and the same organized voting procedure. It is managed by a non-partisan independent body. Sounds like the greatest democracy in the world, right? Try Mexico. Or France, Germany, Brazil. Certainly not the United States of America.
America has one of the world's most antique, politicized and dysfunctional procedures for its elections. A crazy quilt patchwork of state and local laws with partisan officials making key decisions and ancient technology that often breaks down. There are no national standards. American voters in more than a dozen states, for example, don't need ID. But even India, with a GDP just 12 percent that of ours, is implementing a national biometric database for 1.2 billion voters. The nascent democracy in Iraq famously dipped voters' fingers in purple to ensure they didn't vote again. Why are we so behind the curve?
The conservative columnist David Frum recently wrote an excellent article for CNN.com and he tells a story about the 2000 presidential election. The city of St. Louis, Missouri had outdated voting equipment. So there were long delays in voting. But St. Louis was heavily democratic, so Al Gore's campaign asked a judge to extend voting by three hours.
The judge agreed. But then George W. Bush's campaign protested, and the judge was overruled. Meanwhile voting had already continued 45 minutes past the legal time.
More from CNN: Election day should be a holiday
Is that how elections should work in the world's greatest democracy? In most other democracies, an independent national body would make the big decisions. There would be non-partisan observers at the polls. And of course, there would be modern, functioning equipment. Even Venezuela, which had elections last month, had electronic voting booths with biometric technology across the country.
We've been criticized around the world for this. I saw a scathing 116-page report about our electoral process published by, of all places, Russia. Here's the Wall Street Journal's translation of it: "The electoral system and electoral laws of the United States are…contradictory, archaic, and, moreover, do not meet the democratic principles that the U.S. proclaims are fundamental to its foreign and domestic policy."
I hate to say it, but Moscow has a point. (On the other hand, we do have one thing the Russians don't: actual free elections.)
This election season we've seen attempts to shorten the early voting period to further one party's chances of victory. Our ballots can be as long as a dozen pages. In some places they are paper ballots, and in some they are electronic. And Election Day always falls on a Tuesday – a working day. Every four years we see the chaos of American elections, but nothing changes.
Last week, international election observers were banned from nine states. Some of these men and women were threatened with arrest. Maybe we should start learning from election officials from abroad, not try to throw them into jail.
In Finland it has been AGES AGO since we developed from all kinds of electorates (or whatever You call it) To simple and honest, EACH CITIZENS PRIVATE VOTES. Yours truly Ralf Finland.
I am very upset over our voting process. This is insane.
Florida is a joke and many other states have voting laws that are obviously in favor of the party in charge.
They change congressional districts that favor the ruling party in many states as well. It is upsetting and wrong.
When will someone stand up and say this is wrong and no matter what party you belog to, you will not put up with it.
At about the same time that we have campaign finance reform and a ruling that businesses are not people. In other words, never.
you do realize its fake right? why get upset with something as real as professional wrestling or do we all still believe in that to, along with santa clause and the tooth fairy. the reason our elections are outdated are simple... it make the results easier to lie about. food for thought
the conspiracy theories are getting tiresome. as patraeus shows (again), government officials can't even keep their hidden affairs a secret. what makes you think they can pull off voter fraud on a gigantic scale, jay?
The scariest part about Jay is that he has no doubt. And he's not alone in this country.
Evidently Bethnor is not aware of how voting in Chicago has worked for over a century.
Sadly, it is no accident that we have such a terrible and easily corruptible voting system. We should be embarrassed and ashamed that Mexico, Venezuela and Russia all have far superior voting processes and rules than we have in the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave" where we are supposed to be the paragon by which the rest of the world measures democracy.
Both parties take advantage of changing voting district boundaries to benefit their party. If youi aren't aware of that, you just haven't followed politics for very long.
No, Ray is not alone. He and millions of us who no longer bother voting because of the rigged system. But I guess millions no longer voting is just a conspiracy theory, right? Maybe you are the one with the tin foil, fact repelling hat.
This foolishness will stop just as soon as the people of the US start to think and behave like objective, thoughtful, level-headed adults. So, I guess the answer to your question is... never.
people do it all the time, but as most major media outlets are for profit corporations who have vested interest in the party they favor, nothing will be brought to the light. Media went from a golden age back to what it was about 100 years ago, arms of political power from those who believe that public service is a career they deserve, instead of a calling that requires sacrifice, its why they voted to make it so lucrative, and why they basically ensure constant entertainment for the 24 hour news networks. If a network operates based on ratings, which determine its ad revenue, then it is going to have to sensationalise, you saw this not only with FOX and CNN, but with the freaking weather channel...Its why many of us stopped watching cable altogether and bought netflix, sure the service isn't mind blowing, but not having any commercials is nice, that way if I want to be exposed to partisanship, I can expose myself without the worry of someone doing it to me.
I have to go with Jay on this one. Its all a show, all this partisan antics is just to keep us divided, and it works, because they have basically boiled it down to a finely tuned weapon against your mind. Furthermore, I don't care if our voting sucks compared to Brazil or any other country, because though that may be the case I still have far mor oppurtunity and wealth here than they do, and if you have good voting it doesn't matter if you can only vote for criminals, its why theres millions upon millions of illegal immigrants in this country where the "voting sucks and is outdated". so the bottom line is, regardless of how modern your voting system is, if you can only ever vote for criminals, tools and liars, what does that benefit you?
@Jay – Exactly. The election is a illusion for the American people to make them think they actually have a say in the political process. The Presidency has been bought and paid for way before the election began. Follow the money and find the people that actually control the government.
Have to agree with Fareed on this one, especially since we are one of the very few civilized countries in the world that does not have a national voter ID card requirement.
Democrats don't want voter ID, because that would impact the use of illegals from voting Democratic. Dogs, Cats and People who are dead vote every year in Chicago (Democrats) and by chance the home of our newly elected President...wonder where he and his campaign learned how to get the votes????
I agree, hey we don't even enforce E-Verify in all states they claim "it's too expensive"! The 15 million estimated folks that are in this country illegally according to government stats 57% are receiving some kind of government handout. Hey if you can receive bene's with no ID verification you might as well go to the polls as well. The whole system here is broken. When countries that are not as wealthy as us and have a bigger population have better systems in place, that is our should be our first clue.
boo hoo hoo Honest John. You lost the election!! get over it!!
proven over and over again that voter fraud in the USA is not an issue, but republicans insist this is why they lost...badly!!! LOL!!!
Honest John, with a name like that, you'd think that your response would be more honest.
Only instances of voter fraud in 2012 seemed to come from the REPUBLICAN side, not the Democrat side.
For those naive souls who keep spewing the talking point about not being any voter fraud – you are either naive, clueless, ignorant, blinded by your allegiance to your party, or all of the above.
The very FACT that you hear in the news about someone dying, and someone else being able to cash the dead person's social security checks for YEARS should PROVE to you that instances of fraud do exist – just because they haven't been caught doing it, and just because our voter roll purging workers are SO overwhelmingly understaffed does NOT mean it doesn't happen!!
If a person dies, or if he moves away, then more than likely his name is NOT purged from the voter roll in the district he was in – and so (stay with me, little brained ones) – ANYONE can take his voter card & take it to the polls & show it & then vote – because they do NOT have to show ID. That's been PROVEN (just because your "news" sources refuse to report on it does NOT mean it doesn't happen).
There is NO reason NOT to have to show ID to vote – but there are TONS of reasons why we SHOULD have to show ID – if I have to have ID to rent a movie at Blockbuster, but NOT to vote, then something is WRONG w/ that picture!!
- NAACP maning a whole polling place in houston and gave out free bottle of water and wore Obama shirts. When an observer brought it up to an election judge she was told to shut up.
- Philly kicking out every single republican election observer and only let back in after a federal judge ordered their return.
- Homes shipping mentally disabled people to polling stations and telling them who to vote for (their families find out afterwards).
These are just a tip of ice berg and was reported early hours of election day. What haven't we been told yet?
Yeah, there's no voting fraud.
Honest John, if what you say is true, your ideology and your party is truly toast. Both parties spin it if they can get away with it. Do you remember the "chads" in Florida when it was Bush versus Gore and Gore lost by a few votes? I suppose you think it was a coincidence that Jeb Bush was gov. of Florida at the time...
For so called "HONEST JOHN'... Statements like that with no proof along side it are getting old... Stop with the Fox News garbage....yawn... Everybody with half a brain and yes even that dead cat you talk about knows if EVERY citizen in this country HAD to vote republican party would be obsolete.. and thats BASED ON FACTS... The growing percentage of democat votes even in so called red states is growing alarmingly.... Again that foreign word to some republicans FACTS.... You're making most of us republicans look stupid..
I would have to disagree with you on the 'civilized' part. The rest, I agree....
Honest John, if companies are considered people and donate billions to political campaigns then my dog or cat should be able to vote. I mean what's more rediculous, one false vote or companies investing money into politics instead of employees and technology?
Strange, a liberal actually saying that we need IDs to vote? I agree totally and am amazed at the many articles I'm seeing, some written by other CNN commentators, about how racist and incendiary it is to ID people to vote. Honestly, I do not think you can have a functioning democracy if you are not IDing people in order to insure they are who they are in fact saying they are and not some dead person or made up person altogether. Total joke. Shame on the Dems for pushing this as a false issue and using it as a complete red haring to encourage blacks to vote – all in some strange effort to get back and evil white guys. Really, we just want integrity in our voting system, something we fight and die for overseas but do not have the courage to enforce in our own country.
The Democratic voters in Minnesota overwhelming voted down a state amendment that would require all voters to have an ID.
"Democrats don't want voter ID, because that would impact the use of illegals from voting Democratic. Dogs, Cats and People who are dead vote every year in Chicago (Democrats) and by chance the home of our newly elected President...wonder where he and his campaign learned how to get the votes??" -- Still going with that logic, huh? You can't prove ANY OF IT. Do you honestly think that ILLEGALS, some of whom you may assume have been here quite some time, would show up and risk deportation so they can help elect a Democrat? Are you listening to yourself. Where is their incentive to do that? Also, my mom's neighbor in MN said he personally witnessed a felon try to vote and was caught and demanded what the "left" planned to do to fix that. I pointed out that he was caught...so what was the problem? You people are just paranoid. You refuse to accept that no one likes your beliefs in 2012.
I am from Michigan, and I show ID every time I vote for the past 60 years. I don't understand what is all the fuss is about showing an ID. If you have nothing to hide, you should be fine. And about these collage electro votes they suck. People elect the people not michines.
Voter ID and standardized voting is the only way to prevent fraud and ensure fair elections, which the US does NOT have.
Democrats use lack of voter ID to win some states while the GOP uses local laws and changing districts to do the same.
I am from Brazil, poor or rich, black or white, you must have a voter ID or you don't vote. Everybody votes on the same day and vote is obligatory or you get a fine. Laws and process is exactly the same in all cities and states. Within minutes, you know who won the election. The US voting system is as good of that of a banana republic. Pathetic.
Changing voting district boundaries to benefit one party is not a uniquely GOP pratice. It has been around since the 1800's. It is called gerrymandering. Both parties use it frequently.
It's different here. A truy refined system would not permit all the fraud, corruption, like dead people voting or non citizens voting! In California, the Polls closed at 8:00 PM & at 8:01 the State was called as going to Obama! Fastest vote count ever, even though there was no way he'd lose California, but keeping up appearances would have been tasteful.
California could have been "called" for Obama a week in advance, everybody knew he would win the state. The same thing applied for states like Oklahoma and Texas and Alabama. Only the TV networks "call" a result, the official result has to wait until the votes are counted
I are hope their privates don't vote. Yikes!
Sorry. Terrible touch screen on Galaxy Nexus phone!
Unlike Finland, the US is a land of scams, cheating, selfishness, arrogance, and dishonesty. These principles are what drives every aspect of our (very strange) culture. The reason we don't choose our leaders and laws by a straight popular vote using modern technology and non-partisan moderators is that such a scenario would make it nearly impossible for us to do what we (on BOTH sides of the aisle) do best: lie, cheat, and steal. I know it sounds ugly. I know it IS ugly. But it's the bottom line.
Why change a system that helps you stay in power. As long as the Democratic Party can use dead people and register pets for votes why change?
Based on your response I have to assume you are a Republican. Please face the facts that Republicans lost based on their ideas and policies, not because a dead cat or person voted. Sure there is voter fraud...to the tune of some 2,000 actual instances since the year 2000 according to people who study fraud. Wide-spread voter fraud doesn't exist. I'm proud Minnesota voted down a voter ID measure. You'd be wiser to spend your time figuring out how Republicans are ever going to win another presidential election thinking the U.S. ethnic and racial make-up looks like the 1950s...with a social agenda that's closer to the 1600s. Really. Good luck with that.
I agree with Ralf, it should be simply popular vote, the same electronic machines throughout the country, and they should incorperate biometric tech for Id (thumb or fingerprint). How simple would that be to do? Our country wastes trillions on an over-bloated military budget (we spend 35% more than the next ten top spending countries combined, and 40% more than the entire rest of the list combined) yet can't be bothered to solve small problems like this.
People have learned to cheat the biometric systems. Gummy fingerprints (over real fingers to produce body heat) as well as iris photos to hold in front of iris scanners. Plus as mentioned before, the current system is to the benefit of the government, so reform can't come from within. It would have to take something radical to push forth a genuine reform .
Sorry, but I could not find where to properly post this....about 30 minutes ago I heard Fareed (whom previously I held in somewhat of a high regard) say on Pierse that the Gaza strip was 1, the most densly populated place on earth (wrong...the region of Dhaka in Bangledesh is), 2 Gaza was the poorest place on earth ( I heard him with my own ears.)..(wrong...Democratic Republic of Congo is) and 3 Mothers there do not want their Sons to be suicide bombers (wrong, I remember seeing myself on CNN mothers saying that with Allah's help their sons would praise Allah and give them self's up in martydom........I've read his first book and watched his show alot.....I now conclude that he has gotten use to the limo's and fancy dinners and clearly like most of the "enlighten intellectuals" have lost contact with the real world and it's inhabitants.
American voting system stays so ridiculously outdated and convoluted because the result does not matter: simple as that! Why to spend any resources and time on it: the show will go on disregarding!
Clearly all those other countries are suppressing voters. I wonder which ones?
What utter rot – nobody is supressed in Europe – every four years I tune in for a good old laugh at your 'system'. Pathetic.
I couldn't agree more. In Canada we don't have issues like these at all. We also only give the people who work for us 50 days to run a campaign. We don't need 2 years to figure out whether or not they are doing their job and if they can't convince us they should still work for us in 50 days then they shouldn't be working for us in the first place. We also don't care what religion they are. I don't have a clue what religion Steven Harper is, I couldn't care less. Either they can do the job or they can't. If they can't...their gone.
Not to mention that only around 60% of the U.S. electorate bother voting.
You're obviously lying. Most European countries require IDs to vote, they're obviously suppressing everybody.. or so liberal logic would have us believe.
'You're obviously lying. Most European countries require IDs to vote, they're obviously suppressing everybody.. or so liberal logic would have us believe.'
Except liberals do not have an issue with voter IDs. We have an issue when they wait and wait and wait and then try to introduce it right before an election.
If they tried to inroduce it now, in time for the next elections, then we wouldnt have an issue.
There are at least two problems I've seen here so far:
@cedar rapids – I have not heard of on "voter ID" law that liberals have supported; irrespective of any sort of timeline for implementation, they all seem to be vehemently opposed. In fact in MN, the Democrats where severely opposed to the voter ID amendment that would have implemented voter ID in the future.
Secondly, excepting India - not sure we really want to emulate that state - all of the examples cited are tiny in comparison to the US; they have different issues. There was a town in main that knew at 00.01 local time the outcome of the election for its district; they have 10 voters in the town.
"American voters in more than a dozen states, for example, don't need ID. But even India, with a GDP just 12 percent that of ours, is implementing a national biometric database for 1.2 billion voters"
All 1.2 billion Indian voters are being "supressed", what a shame. And, @cedar rapids, the Democratic Party doesn't want voter ID at all, anytime, anywhere. If you don't believe me, just try to push for voter ID now, directly after an election. I wish you good luck.
Two problems.... I'm not sure you are thinking your argument through. You stated that the other examples stated in the article were tiny compared to us. Are you aware that Brazil has about 200 million people? Germany and Mexico are very large countries as well. So... why shouldn't we try to emulate their success?
And the tiny town with 10 voters you referred to is not in Maine, it is Dixville Notch and is located in New Hampshire
I agree, it is almost as entertaining as english parliment.
Two different things are being mixed up here: the election and the voting process. The voting process in my native Brazil as Fahred explained is all eletronic and has been adopted for more than 15 years with bareky a glitch, and ( with even 30 different parties??) almost no complaint of voter fraud or suppression. If we can safely transfer millions of dollars by computers and internet what excuse can the most advanced country in the world give for not using fully eletronic voting procedure ? It is unbekievable this banana republic type election , specially in Florida. As to the election process we have the same trend in the US , which little real discusiion of the issues and millions of dollars on PR people marketing candidates like soap or deodorants,
You've never even been to any of the countries you allude to, and you have the gaul to say "clearly"? What a jerk...
Bruce – you mean GALL (not Gaul) – or was that your attempt to sneak in a pun that swipes the French?
If you're talking about Fareed, I'd be willing to bet he's been to most, if not all, of the countries mentioned in the article. Not everyone spends their entire life inside the U.S. borders. Those who travel see that other countries often have things that far surpass what we have in the U.S.
Iit is "gall" not "gaul"
Some people have never been out of the country, have a below-standard education, and zero inkling of what happens outside of America, and yet have the gall to have an opinion.
Zakaria is correct: Compared to many other countries our voting systems are antiquated and laughable. Kinda like our healthcare system.
We had this in the Soviet Union where I grew up. People never traveled anywhere and were convinced that life there was the best in the world.
I think you have one thing wrong. Our healthcare system is probably one of the best in the world. That's why people from around the world come here for treatment. Our insurance system has flaws that need addressing, but messing with the whole healthcare system is like throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I don't think you have to necessarily travel to another country to appreciate their strengths and weakness. Traveling to somewhere in Europe for a week isn't going to show you whether or not their system of government works or doesn't work. I know I would love to go oversees and see how other countries do things but as someone who make less than thirty thousand a year it is very unlikely I will ever be able to afford it. I think that is why most Americans do not travel oversees much. Even going to Mexico can cost a couple of grand and in this economy a good portion of us don't have that kind of cash.
Footnote: I lived and worked in Germany and The Netherlands for 20 years.
Our healthcare is NOT the best in the world. It's ranked 37th in the world. Far below almost every European country and many other countries. "Medical tourism," in which U.S. citizens seek medical care in other countries because it's far less expensive and often superior in quality, is becoming a huge industry. But if you don't get out of the US much, you might not know that.
Scotchguard – I think you are misrepresenting the statement. Our ranking of 37th is significantly weighted on equal access to healthcare. What he is saying is that in terms of medical facilities, research, science ... we rank among the world's best. That is, if you have access to it. Texas Medical Center is frequently ranked as the most prestigious in the world. The Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, etc. are world-renown. What we fail miserably at is providing equal access to all americans. If you can afford it, you can receive the best medical care in the world, right here in the United States ... if you can afford it.
Those countries aren't suppressing their voters. Here's an idea, mandatory voting, with an entire month available for voting, with voter IDs that are issued by each county. That way everyone has an ID and everyone votes.
We can even make the ID like a credit card and put the voting information on that.
That is the best idea I've heard regarding voter I.D. – when one registers, send them a voter I.D. card with their photo on it. Genius!
If we repaired our election system (can't say 'fixed', can I?), then they would be harder to steal. That is not in the interests of our political parties, as evidenced by the decades of gerrymandering, deep-pocket, anonymous 'campaign contributions', etc. The worlds greatest democracy has become corrupted and it is up to us apathetic voters to repair. Or not.
Procrastinators UNITE! (Tomorrow)
On the contrary, if we "repaired" our election system so that all vote tallying was electronic and centralized (as suggested by the author), it would be the easiest system in the world to manipulate. If you control the central tabulator, you control all of the results.
That's why we need one standardized cardstock ballot that allows for general & local election sections. Everyone must use black ink & have them immediately scanned into the computer & then also counted by hand & monitered by independent observers. They can announce the electronic results immediately & that winner can be declared the presumptive nominee. We should all wait patiently for the process to be finished. Even if it takes a couple weeks to officially announce winner.That way we are double sure & Americas voters protected.
The winner should be determined by popular vote and nothing else!
that would be a democracy......unfortunately (for you) we're a republic.
"Democracy" and "republic" are not mutually exclusive, but not identical either. Democracy means "rule by the people" while republic means "rule by elected officials" (as opposed to hereditary rulers). A representative democracy is a type of republic. A direct democracy is not.
In a "pure democracy" or "direct democracy", the people vote directly on every issue. In a "representative democracy", or "republic", they instead elect representatives to study and vote on the issues for them.
Direct democracy is a bit unwieldy for anything much larger than, say, a small town, and so primarily exists only on the local level. Examples of direct democracy include New England town halls or the Athenian government in ancient Greece. Most national governments that are called "democracies" are representative democracies or republics, not direct democracies.
A Republic is a form of Democracy, in fact it's the only form of democracy currently in effect anywhere on the planet.
Couldn't agree more. People seem to forget about our federalism. Each state decides how to choose it's electors. It just so happens that all states except for NE and ME award them winner take all based on statewide popular vote. A state can do whatever it wants (short of violating the voting rights act) to choose it's electors. I can imagine a state where the state legislature votes to choose it's electors and perhaps that results in some proportional choice, or perhaps still winner take all. Or, perhaps, governors (yes dubious to put that much power in the hands of one man, but possible). That is the beauty of the U.S. is that we are a federation of independent states. Some states have even gotten together and attempted to nullify the electoral college via the national popular vote interstate compact (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact), whereby these states have decided (conditioned on enough states joining the compact to equal 270 electoral votes) that they will award their votes to the winner of the popular vote, even if their state has a plurality of it's people voting against that candidate. This would basically usurp the electoral college and result in the popular vote always determining the winner. The point is, states decide what to do for themselves, the federal government does not, and I think federalism is important for a nation as large and diverse as ours. I can understand how for Germany or France it makes sense in the same way that some states have all electronic, instant voting, but not at the national level.
Thanks Mbele Matombo! Great Explanation!
We need more smart people in America. Putting tax dollars into the efficient & effective education of our children & adults to inspire innovation & betterment of our nation as one people should be our main priority!
actually we are a federalist country which is a democracy and a republic combined
FYI President Obama won the popular vote by 3 million! Anyhow you look at it, it was a LANDSLIDE defeat for Romnesia!
"Anyhow you look at it, it was a LANDSLIDE defeat for Romnesia!"
2% is a landslide? Thanks for the tip.
Less than 1% of the population is a landslide?
Ah, the mathematical IQ of a Bammy supporter shines through again.....
Yes, it was a landslide because our President swept all the swing states. Even CNN called it a landslide sweep of the swing states. Its a LANDSLIDE. Four More Years!
it's not hard to do when 47 million of your people are on welfare and thinks the reps will put you to work. CNN money said 33% of you do not work and will not look for work.
I have alot of white friends who refused to vote democratic but they're all on welfare and food stamps. Can you figure that out?
Technically to all the Whiney-Baby Trolls, it was closer to a 3% victory and over a 100 Electorate vote advantage. That's about as close to a landslide that we have had since 1996. But hey, keep watching Fox News... I'll use numbers I find on CNN, since they are fairly impartial compared to FoxNews and MSNBC.
It's only considered a landslide if it was for the Republicans in 2004.
@rich – 2%? Umm... in the Electoral College President Obama won 332 to 206... how is that 2% again? That, sir, is a landslide victory in what was supposed to be a 'toss up' election just days before.
What an odd definition of landslide. If CNN is calling it a landslide then I call it sensationalism (no, I don't watch Fox News). Reagan beat Mondale by 18% in the popular vote (525 to 13 in electoral votes) ... Nixon beat McGovern by 23% (520 to 17 in electoral votes) ... Johnson beat Goldwater by almost 23%. Those were landslides. Obama beat McCain by 10 million votes and 192 electoral votes ... a much bigger win than this election. Just calling it like it is ... or isn't ... and what it isn't is a landslide.
Hey folks check back to when romney was getting out of college.they only give out one class 4D deferment per ward every 6 months.talk about romney luck!Or did he get some BIG time help?And where did romney go while our troops were getting wounded,killed or MIA' He was in france.Now my only trip to france was to bring back american equipment after the french kicked us out of france.And can you guess he thought is was good of the french to do that?You only need one guess.Willard mitt romney.Now im glad he lost.Wounder how he will make for the money he spent on trying to buy being our next president?Even some republicans think he was a bad choice to run for president.guess they got their heads out of the sand a little late to find that out.
I totally agree and the electoral college should be either done away with or the electorals should be split depending on the percentage of votes per state. i.e. Virginia has 13 electoral college votes if one candidate takes 51% of the state then they should get 6 1/2 of those votes. The system we have in place is archeic to say the least. I voted on a paper ballot, the county next to mine voted electronically so even with the state it isn't consistent.
And what if the results were the other way around, would you teapugs be complaining about the electoral system??? Of course not! Take a lesson from Paul Ryan...he said the President won fair and square. If you teapugs have a problem with that, then you can go ahead and seceed! Good riddance! Bye bye. Good bye.
The problem is that people don't actually understand why the electoral college exists. You just assume it was because of the level of technology in the 1700s, which is absolutely not the case.. and makes absolutely no sense if you think about it.
If a state could send people to cast an electoral vote, they could have sent a piece of paper with a vote tally on it with them. The electoral college exists to make sure that every state is important and encourages every presidential candidate to show some interest in every state. That is still a important and shouldn't be done away with.
"The electoral college exists to make sure that every state is important and encourages every presidential candidate to show some interest in every state. That is still a important and shouldn't be done away with."
Actually the electoral college makes a Republican vote in Massachusetts and a Democrat vote in Texas not count for anything. It also makes candidates campaign only in swing states. Officials, including the President, should be elected through a popular vote. ID should also be required of voters. Why complicate something that should be simple?
we tried to secede once and you burned everything from virginia to the sea and then said you were doing it to free the slaves rather than over the taxes started the fight.
I basically agree with you but there cannot be a split of a vote under current law. There are actually 538 people who will gather to vote soon and at that moment the election is certified. Federal law governs the electoral college voting mechanism but each of the the states decide how to allocate their votes. The greatest majority of states have a winner-take-all rule and the few remaining states use a pro-rated system.
SomeRandomGuy is correct – we elect a President in order to preside over a collection of states – not over the population of the country. Each state is voting for who it wants – which is the point of the Electoral College. Popular vote is meaningless for electing the President. For example, if you had every person in California, Texas, Florida and New York vote for the same candidate, that would be sufficient numbers to elect that candidate – regardless of what the people of the other 46 states decided. IT'S NOT A POPULARITY CONTEST. Again, it is about presiding and governing over 50 relatively independent states – which each have their own Governor and representatives in Washington. Remember – there is a House, which is determined by popular vote. It is appalling how little the average person understands our system.
Whether you like it or not, you are essentially voting for who your state is going to vote for in the presidential election. Your vote does count, but only at the state level. If you think about it, we call it a federal election ... but it isn't. You are voting for who your state is voting for president ... you are voting for your state is sending to the Senate ... you are voting for who your district is sending to the House. That's it. All other offices you are voting for are at the state and local level.
I agree. Bush should have lost the 2000 elections because he had less popular vote than Al Gore. Unfortunately, Bush had 271 electoral votes to Al Gore's 266. Yet the Republicans turned a blind eye to the results. The Country was even more divided then than now. Republicans should stop practicing hypocricy.
And the liberals screamed to high-heaven about the electoral college and how broken it is. Now, they are telling Republicans to quit whining. Who's the hypocrite in that scenario (assuming you understand what the word actually means)?
Well since Obama won both the Popular Vote and had a CRUSHING electoral win it seems pretty silly that conservatives are crying foul about the election.
I believe the forefathers of this country knew EXACTLY what they were doing, without the electoral college, no telling, what elects would look like in this country. You people of TX and GA who want to no longer be a part of the United States of America, because President Obama has FOUR MORE YEARS need to grow-up.
i agree i live in ga i voted Obama but we have a lot of goobers here and i dont mean peanuts. its is embarrassing to be so many people who dont vote for their own self interest. but what fox says, they like rush hannity .
Are you saying George W. Bush Stole the Election in 2000?
I don't know about 2000 but I seriously question the results of the 2004 election. Basically I couldn't find a single person I knew was a 'registered Republican' who said they voted for the man. Not one and I know dozens... yet he won. If he couldn't get his OWN party to vote for him and Democrats most definitely didn't vote for the Bush Administration then... how did he win? Gerrymandering and hacking electronic voting anyone?
No I'm sure GW was safely in a classroom somewhere. I would say it was Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris & the ballot toting Republican elected Sheriffs who stole the elections for Dubya.
Obama still would have won even without the Electoral College. So Republicans really can't say they were cheated...unless they insist on saying that it was all fraudulent votes that re-elected the President, which is nonsense. They just aren't liked.
Romney didn't lose, the Free World and the entire human race lost.
The Mayans were right, 2012 is the end.
The LORD has doomed us and the liberal trash is to blame.
Every end is a new beginning. Here's to the beginning.
Maybe some prozac or other medicine would help your problem?
Thorazine is probably called for here...Chlorpromazine is used to treat the symptoms of schizophrenia (a mental illness that causes disturbed or unusual thinking, loss of interest in life, and strong or inappropriate emotions) and other psychotic disorders (conditions that cause difficulty telling the difference between things or ideas that are real and things or ideas that are not real) and to treat the symptoms of mania (frenzied, abnormally excited mood) in people who have bipolar disorder (manic depressive disorder; a condition that causes episodes of mania, episodes of depression, and other abnormal moods). Chlorpromazine is also used to treat severe behavior problems such as explosive, aggressive behavior and hyperactivity in children 1-12 years of age. Or maybe just some new tinfoil...
You are not helpiing your side by throwing out conspiracy theories. And Fareed Zakaria, you should be fired for what you did. Plagiarist.
Now,now. Take two aspirins and call the GOP in the morning of Nov 7th, 2016. Until then, do try not to be a sore loser
you are either a nut or a troll.
either way it doesnt look good for you.
Tinfoil hat alert.
Thanks. Let us know when the mother ship lands.
Ah great. Another religious nut giving reasonable, moderate conservatives a bad name. I wish the religious right would go jump off a cliff (along with the extreme liberals), so we can actually enjoy a somewhat moderate group of elected officials that can actually work together and get things done. Instead, we have the worst partisanship in our history fueled by the two most vocal (and least intelligent) extremes.
Or perhaps he's a troll. Ever think of that?
Government is now accurately representing the people. Our beloved bleeding heart progressives have embraced and promoted extreme multicultural pluralism until we no longer have the ability to agree on anything. We are like a giant centrifuge with viewpoints being forced to the narrow far ends of the left and right wings.
I would bet you are a white person who bleieves that God only takes of white folks. Where is the God in you. I would bet again that it is not in you, it is only on the outside for people to see, never for you to see.
I was wondering when some kneejerk would bring up their religious medieval feudalism. "Lords" went out in the 16th century, you know.
Go F Yourself . If 2012 is the end I hope I get to see your sorry know-it-all, Christian zealot, Bible-thumpin', Tea Baggin', Take Back Our Country, Closet Racist, righteous butt get swept up first.
The Mayans didn't predict 2012 as "the end of the world", only the end of their calendar, which would subsequently start over. Not relevant to the election debate, but it sure would be nice if people would stop repeating this ridiculous myth.
Well Romney's God lives on planet Kolob so maybe we can move their & the Christian God is clearly not done with humanity yet as per their own prophecy.
The teapublicans tried to supress the vote but it backfired. Instead of limiting Democrats' access to the polls, what they did was inadvertently energized the Democratic base and motivated more people to register to vote and even stay in line for up to 8 hours to send Romnesia packing. That's democracy for ya! But then again, it was not just Democrats and Independents but many Republicans crossed party lines to help re-elect President Obama. Thank you thank you thank you! Now if only the righ wing extremists led by the likes of Limbaugh, Trump, Nugent and Head would just go ahead and seceed...
Whatever you want to tell yourself. Half the people voted to FIRE Obama. All Obama offered in his campaign was lies, ommissions, misrepresentations and deflection. No plan (until the final week, and weak), no merits, no addressing his prior campaign commitments he failed, no validation of the dismal performance for 4 years that impacted every American; from double gas prices, utility/energy bills up 11-18%, food prices up, tuition up, even bus fares and public transportation up. During these 4 years of hemoraging public workers burden unchecked due to Labor puppet mastery and lack of fiscal reform, the middle class was crushed by all the above things that hit every household every day, the real impacts. No word of all that fiasco from the 4 years out of Obama's mouth, nor the biased media who simply printed whatever Obama's campaign spouted in lies, nor the Labor organizations who continued to spout the nonsense to their Koolaid drinking ignorant voters who went along with the rhetoric.
There's your mandate. A house of lies.
No, that songs like what GWB and the GOP gave to America and the world for 8 years. What President Obama did was cleaned up 8 years of right wing mess to move our country forward. If you have a problem with that well that's too bad.
And by the way, shouldn't your name be red??
BLUE SKIES, NO red reign!!!
Four More Years baby! Swallow two of that and call Rush!
It's funny that not a single expample you mentioned from gas prices to public transportation had anything to do with Obama's policies.Those things are all state or municipal or market and resource-based and have nothing to do with executive actions. So, do you actually have any factual reasons for disliking Obama, or this just another example of the straw man narrative that permeates politics right now?
I keep hearing this line that half the people voted to fire Obama like this is some revelation or something that's never happened before. Do yourself a favor and look at the history of our presidential polls and the percentage of the popular vote that the winner received. There's only a handful of candidates that even reached the 60% mark, and one of those was Nixon. Bush Jr. won by what, 400 votes in Florida but lost the majority? Many people on both sides agree Clinton was a great president but he never won the popular vote at all. Neither did Kennedy or many other presidents. By all accounts this was a firm victory for Obama.
Really though, can't we put this behind us and move forward with the problems that need to be solved instead of all the bickering?
OK, here we go, another person blaming high gas prices on this administration. Gas prices are mostly driven by world oil prices by the barrel and then taxing authorities add their levy in. I invite you to seek out a graph which shows the relative gas prices for EVERY first-world country and you will see that the relative price of gasoiine (petrol) goes up and down at precisely the same rate for every one of them at the same time. So, you either have to believe that the price is driven by world oil prices or you have to believe that the leader of EVERY first-world country is committing political suicide at the same time by somehow magically driving fuel costs up. And guess what? Those leaders can't agree on much at all, so why would they agree on this? Please do your homework before you make statements that are not grounded in fact.
Wow... you must be watching Fox News 24/7. And you call yourself Blue? Your color should be Red... as in Republican or Communist.
Do you actually read what you write? If you actually believe this tripe you have been dipping way too deep in the Limbaugh Kool-Aid. Just tell it like it is. You're white and you can't stand the fact a black man is POTUS. And for the record here, I am white and I voted for Obama. He was the only candidate who showed concern for the PEOPLE of this country.
The desperate words of a man clinging to false reality. The fact is that EVERY presidential elections is decided by 1% or 2% so saying HALF the people voted against him his useless. in 2004 nearly HALF the people voted to FIRE GWB, but it wasnt enough. I thought it was HILARIOUS when that was FOX NEWS' only way to try and heal their pride to say well half the people still voted against him... Happens every election no matter who wins... YOUR POINT IS...? What exactly?
Sadly, people like you represent the quintessence of Bammy supporters. After the inevitable financial collapse that's coming, it will be amusing to watch people like you desperately trying to support your messiah. So blind, so mentally sub-par, and oh so misguided.
Financial collapse? GM is alive and Bin Laden is dead!
First of all....a finacial collapse is FAR from "inevitable". I suspect if you had any education on economics and politics, you would realize that. Secondly, the economic issues this country is having that lead you to your "the sky is falling" reaction, are the DIRECT result of your party's mismanagement for 8 years. The buck starts and stops with the GOP. You simply CANNOT spend trillions to wage a decade long war, while you systematically cut the revenue income from the wealthy. It's as simple as balancing a checkbook....you can't spend what you don't have. UNFORTUNATELY for America, your party is ignorant to basic economics...along with half the country.
Want the problems in America fixed? Then I suggest this country start investing here at home with education and rebuilding our own infrastructure and stop focusing on the social issues that divide us.
Why do you want to see the US fail so badly? Most of us want it to succeed regardless of what party is in control
This financial collapse you speak of... you right-wing extremists all seem to have some kind of ability to predict the future. I should buy my lottery tickets from you.
Its not in the interests of politicians to fix the voting system. Otherwise how could ofailure get 108% of registered voters in a county to vote for him?
Same-day voter registration.
We are behind the times because the entrenched political parties want it that way.
If any of the parties actually cared about voting they would fix these longstanding problems but they don't care about anything except holding on to power.
Al, I think you hit the nail on the head. I'm not an American, but what I observe from the elections is that each party (but more noticeanly the Republicans) use every political avenue available to them to either get more voted their way (Democrats) or suppress voters (Republicans). The Republicans in particular would neveragree to an independant election delivery unit because they would assume that there are more Democrats than Republicans and if they couldn't suppress the vot they would only lose if the Democratic candidate was in significant disfavor, such as Carter in 1980.
That said, an independant body to run elections (like every other major democracy) is probably overdue.
independent bodies can suck our fat ones. america is a federation of states first and a central government third. states run the voting and while i think that some serious updating in many states is overdue it certainly isn't something that should be done by the federal government or an independent unelected third party
You Americans certainly have your voting problems, and I wish you the best in your attempts to resolve these. But, as a Canadian, I am greatly disappointed with my fellow Canadians; almost 4 out of 10 choose not to vote. This past November 11, we Canadians celebrated Remembrance day, commemorating those Canadians who gave their lives in wars so the rest of us can experience freedom. At every election I wish the ghosts of our dead soldiers could stand in silent vigil to remind everyone of the price they paid and our obligation to preserve democratic freedoms.
Does it really matter what the world thinks of our system? I think not. We decide how our system is run, not the world.
Fine with that, but then we also need to stay out of other countries' effort on running their place....
Thats not the point. Having an efficient system that works well is a lot easier to deal with. a lot cheaper too!
Leaning from other progressive countries is not a bad thing Folks! Dont you learn from YOUR neighbor?
I agree, just embarrassing. After the deficit, taxes and such are dealt with, make this a priority. The question is, are we capable of making a system without turning it into a frankenstein because each side is trying to gain an advantage? People have to understand that over years and decades there is an ebb and flow and what goes around comes around. It can't be your day every single day. There are checks and balances in our system for a reason. Do any of our leaders have the foresight to accomplish something like this? Lets hope so! Are you all listening?
We don't need to change the voting system. As long as right wing extremists in this country continue to display their blatant bigotry, racism, hate and evils and continue to wage their hateful wars on other Americans who do not fall into their definition of who is fit to be an American, they'd find it harder to win elections for here on out.
Embarrassing that 57 million people would actually vote for Mitt.
How can Ill. vote Jesse Jackson Jr back into office. This is why stupid people shouldn't be allowed to vote. Yes i'm talking about democraps..
Only dumb people vote for an incompetent fool who gave us two decade long wars and an economic crisis.
That's should come as no surprise after all. Just remember half the country, particularly the slave south fought a civil war against the Union to seceed. So when 57 million people vote for Romnesis, all it implies is that he got the backing of the offsprings of the confederacy. But thank God the Union won again.
Congratulations President Obama! Four More Years!
your an f-in idiot! lets see how bad obozo does in this four years. last four were dismal. nothing but a fraud and liar, you'll be the 1st to get whats coming your way you liberal demorat!
Not only the voting method, but the campaign method. 1) this campaign was full of slanderous and misleading statements, it was all that Obama's campaign was based on... no actionable plan, no tangible measures demonstrating progress or even a telling of what mattered to that party, if not what would be tangibly expected – just mud slinging with lies and 1-liners. 2) we cannot be a democracy when the two parties stranglehold the process and themselves are on the strings of campaign contributors – chiefly Labor and PACs. It has to be illegal – and economically viable – for any candidate to take 1 dollar from anyone other than federal campaign financing and salary. Hold a primary for parties to be selected by popular vote, then provide the top 4 parties' candidates federal campaign funding and campaign support (such as web presence for posting plans and tools). Run your party on the Federal dime, everyone on even footing, the people vote. Done. Corrupt system eliminated.
Oh yeah, also need to eliminate the Electoral system that provides 55 EV's to one candidate for a massive state like California, who is not 100% voting for one candidate... not even close. It's time for the people to vote, and let them vote with a clear conscience that they're not drinking Labor organizations' Koolaid of self-serving rich leaders who will always remain rich while all citizens suffer from a non-thriving and crashing economy.
Where were you on the night Americans waved Ole Glory, sang patriotic songs and chanted Obama got Osama, Obama got Osama, Obama got Osama? O' my bad! Where were you on the night Americans waved Ole Glory, sang patriotic songs and chanted Four More Years, Four More Years, Four More Years???
What's more embarrassing is that the US citizens, in 21st century USA, receive bias treatment by their legal system, where "everyone under the law should have been equal." And you want to be our beloved country for which we should live or die?
Every article Fareed writes does more to confirm that he just doesn't get it. Its very funny how Fareed quotes communists to solidify his position that America doesn't know how to run a democracy.
Try again Fareed.
taking of not getting it.
he quotes russia because if even russia is talking of issues, then the US has issues.
and communists? really? join us in the modern world why dont you.
the 50's called. they want their boogeyman back.
I voted for Romney! I hate black Obama!
How does it feel to be on the loosing end of history?
It's "losing", not "loosing" loser.
Why are you teanuts on the keyboard. Aren't yall supposed to be attending a rally to seceed???
He's also white..
We hate Berk! Where the hell are you from anyway? D the U.S. a favor and take the next thing smoking BACK!!! LOL
Berk, you are not alone. Most white people who are not very intelligent find it quite difficult to live under a white President (also black) who is smarter than them.
This is commonplace in the South (and in your country Germany), where the level of education in whites is quite low. People become racists when they realize that they are not very smart, so they look for other groups (religious or minorities) who others put down, and they jump on the bandwagon.
Being racist helps relieve your realization of how stupid you are, and for a moment, you feel smarter than someone.
Hmmm! so that explains why obozo is a racist! We learn best from our leader who spouts revenge! What a jerk!
The fact that you had to mention the color of his skin says millions about you.
Go away.
Please continue to voice your racist opinion. It helps to ensure the GOP goes back into the cellar, where their ancient corrupt code belongs.
Fareed is right... Mexico and all those other countries have learned how to create corruption-free politics. No politician in any European country has been involved in fraud (else we would have heard about their sleazy dealings in, say, Oil-for-food in Iraq or illegally dumping toxic waste in Brazil and Africa or breaking agreements to sell weapons to third-world dictators)... Only the US allows money to influence politics...
dumping toxic waste has nothing to do with how elections are held.
Miss Demeanor's is implying that corruption-free voting requires corruption-free politics... which doesn't exist...
Our system is not only antique, but it is a system where fraud can be easily done. when I voted, I handed my ID and they siad, not we don't want your ID, tell us your name they said. I put my ID away and I said my name was jose and then last name, I could vote for anyone who was my family who was not voting, or vote twice or three times or more. I could have known someone who died and vote for that person, so if some one wants to do fraud, then our system is the one, well it is new york and if they required IDs then the democrats will get upset over that and I ask, why would that be? they keep winning new york every year? sad, very sad
Let's face it. The united states is overated in many aspects. Don't get me wrong is still a great country, but many things need to be updated. We are behind on many social issues this electoral system is just one example. The problem is that certain people stick to the no moving ahead policy, or even worst, if you want to go ahead just carry me. Selfishness is stopping the future of this great country. The good thing is that people everyday less.
It makes for great TV, though. And who could undermine the most important part of democrazy, capitalism?
Please, please, PLEASE enact a time limit like Canada. That would help so many issues.
While they are at it, repeal "corporations are people too" and the legislation allowing "super PACs". The best government money can buy usually favors the golden rule. You know, "those with the gold get to make the rules".
People, you can't compare a country of 310 million people with tiny countries of 5 million. Yes, it is a lot harder to count all our votes than it is in those tiny nations. And it's an embarrassment when Zakaria seems to suggest we should be more like India. A country whose government is utterly corrupt to the core. I don't think so, Fareed.
Corruption is every where. It is just the degree of corruption that is different. In India, despite everything, elections reflect the will of the people. Governments fall and power changes hands. It is a working democracy that is much younger to US. It deserves some credit.
Not to mention India is a country of some 1.2 BILLION (meaning several times larger than the US) with lower standards of living. NOW how do we compare?
Our real national embarassment is Fox News, Trump, Palin and teabaggers.
True Americans know how to acknowledge and engage in lively debate and argue facts without resorting to over simplified notions such as yours.
don't forget to include yourself you f-in rat, rachel maddow and chris mathews coming to dinner tonight, maybe you can use your EBT card and call in on your obama phone......i voted against obozo because his utter lack of values and character,,,as time will tell..how proud you must feel
Yes, it is a failed system, and we should have Federal regulation of the voting.
Thank Goodness the American people got it right though and voted for our strong President Obama, and voted in women and minorities to Congress to better represent America.
Fact is, the GOP is outdated, and presented a very poor candidate.
Looking forward to 4 good years with our President, who is the best Foreign Policy President we've had in 20 years.
I agree, we should be making changes throughout the country to modernize our electorate system. I hope the President and Congress take the time to do something about this.
Imagine a country where the most qualified, most experienced candidate in the race ISN'T ignored by a mass media with an opposing agenda, isn't kept off state ballots for sketchy reasons and isn't excluded from having his groundbreaking ideas to the countries problems excluded from the national debates by a "commission" controlled by the two party political machines in co-ordination that violates the spirit of fair election laws.
I'm one of 1.2 million Americans who envision such a country and who voted for Libertarian Gary Johnson, despite the fact he was outspent 667-1 and out reported 1,500 articles – 1 in this last election.
So less than 1/2 of one percent of our country care about your guy but he should be given equal attention?
Reality is that you better be very well known before beginning any national campaign. And there is no media conspiracy, They just know that you have a snow-balls chance in a general election.
Remember it is at least 70% a popularity contest.
Who is going to propose and implement electoral revisions?
Sarah Palin – The most qualified person in the GOP. Which really says alot.
This is simply what comes of being the oldest running democracy. We have an entrenched system that is antiquated with too many people in power dependent on it staying that way.
In one way it reflects our rich history. On the other hand that is where this current "system" belongs. History.
Brilliant observation, but wasted on Republicans who are angry at being #2.
Every two years (and I'm no spring chicken), I have voted in cities, suburbs, and exurbs, red and blue, East Coast and West Coast, always in person on Election Day, and never have I had to wait more than a few minutes to cast my ballot. I just don't get these long lines. How is this possible?
So who did you steal that idea from?
Farad, the whole point is that every vote counts. If it were by popular vote only, the election would be determined by the top 30 cities and nobody else. Nobody would go to NH or Maine or Vermont or Wyoming etc. because the populations are so small. The electoral college offers them, a small one, a chance to be heard. Your drive to make us some nationalistic model of europe is stupid as you are. States are the only hope against consolidation and concentration of power that lead to what. You know the answer. I have traveled much of the world. Good people in most places, but I would keep our system as problematic as it is. An example, should a NY Mayor – because he has a population bigger than Vermont, be deciding what people from Vermont want – or how big their cup should be – and we have the evidence that he would if he could, wouldn't he. All these obstacles and irritations are a good thing, not bad.
That's a bunch of hooey. The electoral college needs to be done away with. Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000. If that had mattered we wouldn't still be dealing with all the problems caused by the Bush administration.
Sadam Barak, only guys named Hussien get over 100% of the vote, Sadam in Baghdad, Barak in hundreds of inner city districts.
Amazing isn't it, the USSR could only get 99%, so The Democrats have out done their heros and role models.
tell you what doug, lets wait and see if the gop has any issues with the results and file official complaints about same.
if you want to hold your breath whilst you wait, please be my guest.
Why does Fareed Zakaria stay in the United States? He's always going on about how better it is someplace else. I will agree here though: something is corrupt or broken about the way we manage elections.
So just because Fareen Zakaria shows examples of other working, voting systems outside the USA he should go home? Just because he tells us things that are difficult to hear.Believe it or not we aren't the only developed country in the world and others have worked out some of the difficulties in their voting systems. This is how we improve, by looking at alternatives, discussing the pros and cons like adults and coming to an informed decision. Maybe congress should try it instead of scoring points against one another so they can pound their chest and say they stood for their "pricipals".
isnt spotting a problem and trying to fix it a good thing to do then?
is it more patriotic to claim nothing is wrong and just chant USA USA over and over?
Also, I imagine we would need some Consti.tutional amendments to nationalize the election process. THAT is never an easy or likely to succeed process.
I find it even more embarrasing/disturbing that we have so called presidential debates where legitimate presidential candidates are excluded – with the net result that we are only allowed to listen ( in effect ) to what the two picked ( by who, and why? ) candidates have to say. I would submit that this is hardly democratic and is not challenging to those picked candidates as they are not exposed to the comments and questions which may have come from the excluded candidates. This is wrong.
Every single voter in Baghdad voted for Sadam Hussein, every single voter in dozens of Philadelphia districts voted for Barack Hussein.
Difference, some Sadam voters didn't want their neighbors harmed for their political views, every person who voted for Barack Hussen wants their neighbors rounded up by the government and all of their wealth taken from them.
doug I can see you're really having a hard time with this thing that you can't understand. It's okay it will go away.
As much as i hate to admit it, our system is pretty antiquated. Letting partisan biased officials decide how elections are run, are we crazy? It may be time for a national conversation about updating our elections to the modern era.
In America you don't need to be a member of a punk band like Russia, you just need to be a person with morals, values, decency, and integrity (aka not be and support Democrats).
Dear leader Obama said that every American who doesn't vote Democrat is the enemy and must be punished for their poltical views. Man, I can't believe these Repubicans wont work with our tolerant, open-minded president lol!
'Dear leader Obama said that every American who doesn't vote Democrat is the enemy and must be punished for their poltical views.'
no he didnt.
see all you are doing doug is exposing yourself to be a serial liar. Eventually you will be the boy who cried wolf.
Liar, those are Obama's exact words, typical Democrat, trying to rewrite history.
Obama stated on Univision in 2010 that every American who doesn't vote Democrat is the enemy and that we punish our enemies and reward our friends.
Obama said it because he knows his lapdogs like you dream of taking out every American right of center, he is not the problem, you are.
Hey Doug, a quick search of the internet brought up the transcript from that 2010 interview, and he did not say what you implied he stated and you took it out of context. His words were:
"We're gonna see how well we do in this election and I think a lot of it is gonna depend on whether we still have some support not only from Democrats, but also Republicans, but they're gonna be paying attention to this election. And if Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, we're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us, if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2."
And what he's referring to is immigration reform. He was trying to get the Latino community to get out and vote Democrat if they wanted to see immigration reform because so many Republicans were blocking it. Maybe try reading something for yourself before making inaccurate statements.
Thanks for finding the real quote, but I suspect that you are wasting your time. Reading comprehension is not a strength of the Dougs of the world.
Follow the money. Elections are big business now.
America does NOT have Free Elections. Our elections cost BILLIONS of SPECIAL INTEREST DOLLARS. This is the opposite of FREE, not because of the COST, but because of the corrupt Special Interest Groups who twist the election into something that it was never meant to be, VOTES for Money.
The Republicans have turned elections into CASH COWS. GOP Politicians cash in directly, while GOP Contributors get their taxes pushed onto the working class for triple digit returns on the contributions they then write off.
Huh? I thought voter ID laws were being thrown out by the court. As politicians and cheaters keep saying, why do people need ID? It would discourage people from voting. Right? Mr. Zakaria, you got what you asked for. So what's the complaint?
Embarrasment? Doubtful. Those other countries are not comprised of individual states. In the U.S.A. there is a difference between federalism and states rights. The states can hold elections however they want, within reason. It makes us once again unique and diverse. You don't like how your state ran the election then speak up and vote, or even move. That's your right here. I am not embarrassed to be an American. I have lived abroad and the grass is not greener people.
What no poster here seems to understand is that the U.S. is a collection of States. If you do away with the Electoral College and go with popular vote, then every election will be decided by California, New York, New Jersey, and other states with large metro areas. The people of smaller states will essentially have no say in the election - their states and their issues won't be discussed, the candidates won't go to the smaller states, and they, in turn, will all stop voting. Is that the democracy that the liberals are going for?
The same thing happens in the Electoral College....do you not see that? Tell me how the Electoral College in anyway gives a state like Indiana (11) the same power to have their issues recognized that a state like California (55) has! C'mon now! Popular vote, Electoral vote....at the end of the day, neither system does anything to level the playing field for the states. The ONLY way to have a level playing field between states, would be if all the states had the same number of electorates...period.
But asking someone for an ID is racist and discrimination. Black and hispanic people aren't smart enough to go to the DMV and get an ID. Its takes someone of at least an IQ of 75 to even read a map to be able to find the DMV. Getting an ID might as well be quantum physics to them.
They are, however, smart enough to take the election away from the dumbtards who tried to suppress them. What does it say about you and your party, when your opponent has a Sub-75 IQ (according to you and your party), and yet manages to beat you by a HUGE margin.
I think it says alot, but most of it will be above your capacity for grasping it.
bet you also moan about the race card
John, many white people feel just like you.
It is common for less intelligent white people to feel bitter when they see a minority (or in this case, a white President) who is smarter than them.
This happened in the South, and in countries like yours (Germany), where there are many uneducated white people. Naturally you look towards other religious or racial groups that are also largely uneducated, and you try to put them down.
This makes you feel better about your lack of intelligence for awhile.
Not my fault the inferiors can't get an ID. Its not their fault either. They lack the mental capacity to conceive things that you and I can understand with no effort. Blame evolution for leaving this sad simple racial groups behind.
Obama is a hybrid. Though he is black, he is also half white. The white in him put him above the neanderthals we call black and hispanic people.
Expecting them to get an ID is like expecting a chimp to paint Da Vinci's "Last Supper".
If they can figure out how to get the grocery store, pick up food they will eat, along with essentials and other items to indulge their time, and if they can figure out how to register to vote, they can figure out how to get an ID. If community organizers can figure out how to get them registered to vote, the community organizers can figure out how to get them IDs. Its not that hard.
As long as we are in a reform-the-electoral-process mode, maybe it is time we copied another facet of the Mexican political system: the 6-year, one-term presidency. No more re-election worries!!!!
At face value, not a bad idea.....but I suspect you'd just escalate the re-election worry from the indivual level to the party level. I'm sure the party in power would put tremendous pressure (like now) on the person in office to take actions that show their party in a favorable light.
I do think the longer term might be a good idea though. Given the complexity of the problems we seem to have these days, 4 years isn't nearly enough time to "right the ship" and solve the issue.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, NorCal415. You make good points as well. Since I am in SoCal maybe we have this state covered as to the idea of a 6-year term. Now to just get the other 40 million or so between us to go along
Who REALLY wrote this article?????
The problem I have is that the President is being paid taxpayer dollars to run around the US to campaign for another 4 years of earning taxpayer dollars. I'd rather he do his job. And while I agree the way the elections work is absurd, I agree more that they way we allow people to campaign is absurd. Months and months of time and over a billion dollars spent so we can finally decide if we're on Team Jacob or Team Edward? Do like other countries do and set a time and spending limitation.
No ID no vote
No more electronic voting machines
No votes counted from counties reporting more votes than registered voters
Yawn! That's so the United States of America.
India has 1.2 BILLION voters,...... I think not, people maybe but not voters.
Some good points, Fareed, and it's getting worse. Most foreigners read/hear about the US system and how it doesn't work, and they just laugh and shake their heads. And world's greatest democracy? The US??? Not even close. It's a plutocracy, run by corporations and the rich for their benefit. Any country that – to all intents and purposes – cuts off the head of any group that tries to start a real third party, an option for Americans, is NOT a democracy.
Ya' know what's embarrassing, Zakaria? The fact that CNN is so hard up that they'll actually employ plagiarists.
The electoral college is one of America's great inventions. Sadly, most individuals don't understand what the electoral college is and what the benefits to it are. First, the number of electors per state is determined by congressional representation (i.e. the number of electors is the addition of the state's senators and representatives). So, a small population state like Wyoming get 3 (two senators plus one representative) and a large population state like California gets 55. Second, the true benefit to the electoral college and the "winner takes all" approach is that smaller states have a disportionate advantage over large states (again, Wyoming gets 3 electors for 600,000 people while California gets 55 for 38,000,000 people, now do some math on how many people per elector). Also, the previous situation creates so-called "battleground states". If we based our entire election on the popular vote, do you think anyone would care about New Hampshire and its 650,000 people. No, the candidates would spend their entire time campaigning in states with large populations, encouraging more and more people who live there to go and vote. Smaller states would lose their relative appeal because the candidates knew that those states would offer fewer popular votes.
Next, assume we have an election based on the popular vote. President Obama wins California by 4,000,000 votes. This would mean that the state of California could essentially erase the effect of other states just by its sheer population.
In essence, the electoral college benefits smaller states with less people, which at least currently is where Republicans trend to win in elections.
Yes Bill, the Electoral College system was designed by individuals who were far more intelligent than your average American blogger.
Good points, and I'm sure some folks here will understand most of them.
@Bill, you are correct that the Electoral College, in theory, gives a little extra power to smaller states on a per-capita basis. But as a practical matter, neither Obama nor Romney did much campaigning in California (large and blue) or Wyoming (small and red). Campaign dollars did not buy ad time here, candidates did not make promises here. The EC does not currently benefit the small states – it benefits the swing states.
Andy, I agree 100%. As discussed in my post, this is one of the benefits of the electoral college. The post was primarily to highlight its advantage over the popular vote, one being to create battleground states. Wyoming and California were used since they have relatively small and large populations, respectively.
But all that does is shift the focus. A direct popular vote throws the focus into populous states like New York and California while the EC throws the focus into contentious states. How about a system where neither one alone is sufficient? How about three different tallies: the votes as a nation (so every person counts), the votes grouped by district (so every representative district counts), and the votes grouped by state (so every state counts; place DC here among them to provide an odd number). If a candidate can get the majority in two out of the three, then that should indicate true broad appeal and should be declared the winner. It's like the Connecticut Compromise; votes as votes get a say and yet smaller states get more influence as is fair.
CNN is TNN = Tabloid News Network.
And Fixed News isn't? Last time I looked the Murdoch family owned most of the tabloids on the planet. Nothing like Fair and Balanced; NOT! If you keep hearing crazy voices, turn off Fox News.
Hrm...seems you are the one hearing voices...Dude didn't even mention Fox News...Axe to grind?
Election is a huge event to organize. Remember that the Roman Democracy could not get far just because all the Roman citizens can not go to the Seneta square (or whatever it was- not the necrapolis as far as I can remember) to raise their hands. Information technologies are just too young to cover a Nation of more than (let's say) 10 million voters in (let's say) 20-30 cities. Older people (such as my mam-80 years of age) do not trust a machine but has to receive her receipt from a human being to be assured that a deal has been done.
My personal amazement in USA election process is the money spent on advertisement and the promotion events ran to market THE PRESIDENT. Politics is a respectable action that calls for devotion and noble commitment; not circuit shows.
Our lagging behind in election policy and voting equipment MIGHT have something to do with a political party that thinks government is bad. The advocates of "Government shouldn't spend money" economics MAY have something to do with why no research is done–and hence, no action taken–to bring the electoral process into the 21st century. But it's POSSIBLE that "'Murica is never wrong!" hyper-partisans think that history stopped in 1789 and hence nothing written before that should ever be changed or updated.
The key is that election reform needs to be done in the first year or two of a President's administration. Not in the last year when both sides will cry foul at the other side's arguments, no matter what they are.
And there are so many people at the local, state and other levels that would be impacted by this change.. and they tend to be the most vocal and politically motivated.. so it's no surprise that this time of reform, which is so badly needed, isn't even on the horizon at this point.
I am fairly liberal and I believe an ID must be required. The voting days should be changed. Make the first Friday in November Veterans day and election day and then extend it to election week-end through Saturday and Sunday giving more people time to vote and close the polls on schedule each day.
What are you going to do with Armistice Day then?
I do not think the American public will ever know who should have won this Presidential election or the past few elections. It's so messed up I can understand why some people didn't vote. People believe it's fixed. The country is not being run by the voters any more.
From Sandy we had a cemetery flooded and coffins came up out of the ground and were floating around the street. Really was a shame, all these Democrat voters were about a week too early at the time, they normally wait until the 1st Tuesday in November to come up and vote straight ticket dem.
To a Democrat, stopping voter fraud with an ID requirement is voter fraud, say 50mil voted Obama, I doubt even a single one of 'dem has a remote trace of morals, values, decency, or integrity.
Oh dougie pooh pooh, we feel so sorry for you and all those floating coffins.
But I don't think you quite understand us Democrats: we absolutely have no decency or morals, and we pretty much hate folks like you and wish you would just die and float around in the next hurricane.
If we can cheat y'alls dumb azes and take your election, all power to us! We rule, you float around amongst all the debris and sewage.
What's wrong with that? Lovin' life right now, and for 4 More Years!
Man, haven't seen so many White Men crying in their panties since Dale Earnhart died. Heh heh heh!
I do think we can do better, but our democracy is one of the reasons there are so many differences and issues. We try to let everyone have a voice in the process and people disagree on how things should be done. Much like other national issues, sometimes democracy is it's own worst enemy. Not sure that's a bad thing.
Our sytem needs to be updated to the 21st century. We are one of the most technologically advanced societies with one of the most antiquated voting systems. Make election day a national holiday so everyone can vote or make it on a Saturday so more people participate.
First of all, United States is not a democracy in the word's orional and pragmatic form...leave alone the greatest one. Fom day one, it's been a plutocracy, and actually now not so much hidden under the foolish notion that it's a democracy...I might be able to consider it a democrazy...ok?
Where I voted, everything was smooth at the time I voted. However, filling in so many circles on a large piece of thick paper is ridiculous. Those circles are hard to fill, my fingers were hurting, I am not used to writing with pen, only push keys on a keyboard all day. In a developing country like Pakistan the voter picks up a Stamp and uses a stamp pad to and quickly stamps it next to the symbol of the candidate he or she is supporting.
Some technology company somewhere must have suggested to the federal government that filling circles like the SATs or MCATs is the way to go. That is why there were huge lines in some states. People should be able to stamp their choices and get out of there quickly rather than filling stupid circles. There were elderly people who had could not keep within the circle and had to go back to get a replacement ballot paper.
The USA definitely has the technology to make this process extremely faster for the next time. No more filling circles. Also, checking IDs makes sense.
One dot to fill in where it says steal from my hard working neighbor and gimme their ish, anything less is making it to hard for the Eichmann to vote Democrat.
Demand another election with paper.
Intimidating people at the poles really makes for a fair election. We saw that first hand in my town. This was not a fair election, just like the last few elections.
Of the 270+ million eligible voters in the USA the President won re-election with the support of 61+ million votes. That's 22.6% of us folks. If that US Census Bureau information isn't astonishingly eye opening for Americans as far as a need for genuine change in our outdated systems go I don't know what would get the job done.
Agree or disagree, he has as much right and opportunity to provide criticism of the system as any other extremist or moderate viewpoint expressed by everyone from joe america to the neo-nazi movement. Doesn't mean you have to feel threatened or accept his "ratings" rants. Journalism is about evoking emotional response which brings viewership-readership, raising ratings and increasing advertisement dollars. Mr Zakaria meet Mr Hearst, you have a lot in common.
Just as you cannot, jingoism aside, expect to imprint American-style Democracy onto a culture who does not share similar development and cultural ideals, so too the justification of imparting foreign election processes on the U.S. because what is here is "wrong" or "archaic", is incorrect as well. The current process is not without challenges, but the cotinuous practice of politicizing everything, liberal or ocnservative, shadows the real solutions.
People don't want to waste their time voting because they believe it's all rigged. From what I see, it may have been rigged.
Absolutely rigged.
Ever since the CIA developed the 9/11 plot and flew agents into the World Trade Center, politics has been fishy.
Americans should be outraged by the 'rigged elections', and the false imprisonment of the Good Coach Sandusky.
Also, in addition to all the rigged voting machines, they've rigged drug tests to falsely accuse our hero Armstrong of cheating!
I'm in California, and we all agree that Romney really won the popular vote out here.
While we're at it, who buried all those fake dinosauer bones all over the planet? Everyone knows God made Earth 9000 years old, and every one of those bones is a fake.
Disgusting how some people will lie and cheat and rig things.
The bones are from old holly wood movies. Everybody knows that.
Who are Armstrong and Sandusky? New political candidates?
This God thing is rigged too.
Sly, you're great. Enjoying your posts. Keep 'em coming!
I'm not sure India has 1.2 billion voters. The voter population and the nation's population are not necessarily the same (children, non-citizens, etc.)
That is why America is a United States of Americans. Each region of the USA is too far for the other regions to know by heart. Older countries of Europe are smaller. Sometimes their population is as much as one of the city of America. Maybe that is why an European can not understand the need of a car for the Americans. Because Europe has and promotes public transportation. Say the whole Europe is a New York. Or different districts of New York. Europe is somewhat consolidated and harmonized. It can apply similar voting processes.
Oh. My some commenters are still suffering the aftershock. May I kindly ask to be excused of this local vibrations please*
Everything Fareed wrote was right on the money right up until he espoused a "national biometric database" as being a good thing.
Fareed, F/areed, Fareed – isn't it really the fact that we have elections that you find embarrassing. Wouldn't you prefer voting like they do in Russia or Venezuala? You are the one who has suggested we do away with Congress and establish a dictator aren't you? Accordingly, you write foreign policy speeches for Obama. Interesting, CNN I think this is called propaganda.
It's all fine and dandy to compare the US to other countries to point an accusing finger at how bad we suck, but the simple fact is we are a union of states and they are not. There is always resistance to federal control over almost anything, even elections. Our precious, rugged individualism will always be in the way of consistency and fairness for any endeavour at a national level. Either we get over it, or shove more federal governance down the throats of the citizenry.
What is an independent non-partisan group?
Even my pizza is pro-life
You better hold on to your pepperoni.
I agree that our voting system has serious problems and I worry as Fareed does that there is too much opportunity for corruption. HOWEVER, I think these days we are all too quick to dismiss what our forefathers set up thinking simply that it is old and outdated without considering why it is the way it is. Unlike the thinking in most European countries (including Russia) our founders were very much afraid of the potential for corruption and abuse in a central government (something that is a real problem in the U.S. today). They very specifically saw the electoral process as a local matter for the very reason that they wanted to ensure that manipulating the vote could not be one-stop shopping. Indeed the very reason the much-maligned electoral college exists is to ensure that each state has a simple and direct way to verify that its voting results are counted accurately according to its own standards of fairness. Today we worry very much about local corruption and ignore the problem of centralized corruption.
I do very much believe that there needs to be a standardized voting process in the U.S. and that national and international monitoring needs to become the norm. But I still believe that administrative authority over voting should still always be a local matter, with the obvious exception of cases where a court determines that a local authority has violated federal law.
I hope
who did u steal from 2 write this story? and next x u c obama ask him a tough ? and people say CNN is not a liberal outlet for the dems...ha ha read some of this stuff this guy has written over the years and u tell me...Oh wait he stole it from someone else to write and put his own spin on it...nice journalism and u must be so proud to work at CNN..how did that TIME gig work out?
Regardless, Steve, the electoral college and the winner take all system ARE embarassing jokes. Please make an intelligent argument in favor of them. I'd love to hear it.
Yeah our election system is pretty jacked up. I do like the idea of a national standard and non-partisan observers in our elections. That could go hand and hand with the ID idea the GOP wanted to push through and maybe even get more voter turnout.
Elections in this country are a joke. We have them on Tuesday to keep working people from voting. Most countries have their elections on the weekend. France does it on Sunday – their "day of worship." Federal elections should be under Federal control. State government is notorious for incompetence, corruption and overt discrimination.
for the record, federal elections weren't designed for us to have any direct say in them at all. we were supposed to elect the state government and the representatives and the states would choose the president and senators. that the states use a pop vote to decide who to vote for was decided by them because most states were too lazy and argumentative to decide by themselves.
The electoral college is a relic with no current usefulness. And the winner take all states, which are most of them, is the best way to ignore and disenfranchise the most voters possible.
When I saw this headline, I I thought it would be either about the fact that only 60% of our citizens vote, the fact that we spend billions on our campaigns and virtually nothing changes, or the fact that many of us have been reduced to the likeness of rabid fans of two opposing football teams, lazy and uneducated about the stance of our "teams", quick to demonize and generalize eachother, and unwilling to listen to reason from the other side. As a U.S. citizen, these embarrass me more than our faulty ballot system.
This is the result of a very conservative country over the past 60 years, and it is clear in the lack of continuity, that these conservatives have attempted to avoid a vote that would result in them having no chance of winning. It is not a secret that as America became more diverse, the ability for conservative, white, male, ideals would become less popular. White males allowed blacks in school and women in the work place barely 50 years ago. You think conservatives are losing votes due to work day voting, bad machines, currpopt practices in general, nope, that stuff only prevents liberals from voting.
the "problem" with conservatism is with people like you who see everything and body as a group instead of an individual. the core value of conservatism is to allow people (within reason) to do what they think is right without big brother shoving his face into it. every vote against an affirmative action law or a hate crime law is not a support of racism, but rather a condemnation of the government forcing its beliefs on other people.
I'm glad that even Fareed agrees that we need some voter ID laws. Imagine that – India will have biometric info on each voter – maybe we need that in the US. How about just requiring photo ID. Better yet, let's actually require a certain level of knowledge to vote – a high school diploma for instance is a great start. We already don't let everyone vote – we don't let prisoners vote for instance. So requiring a minimum level of education to vote would not only insure a more educated and smarter electorate, but would also be one more encouragement to folks to take advantage of the free education services we offer in this country. Dropout rates would almost certainly decline. Think about it.
I can see that many people are unhappy with the voting process in the U.S. However I was not aware that the airports were closed. When the open you are free to go where the voting process is more to your liking.
The USA is what the 3rd largest county in the world by population? Comparing our election process with that of Mexico and France is apples and oranges. Mexico the biggest of them is just over 100 million compared to the USA and almost 315 million.
The only problem with that assertion is that India does a better job than US. They have less money but a lot more people (we're number three, they're number TWO–China's top of the list). And they can get it right. With a lot more people and a lot lower standard of living. The problem is that the old system benefits the parties, so no one's in a position to change things. All the other countries had much more recent changes to fundamental government structure.
Plagerism is also embarrassing.
Hey Zakaria,
I just found out the airports are open. When will you be leaving us?
He's contributing a lot more to this country than you ever will, so stop trolling....
Easy solution for politics.. Battle Royale inside Thunderdome. Two men enter, one man leaves.. There's your next elected official.
Thank you for keeping this story going. Maybe if enough rational voices keep on clamoring for change, somebody with the power to effect change will listen!
I was a volunteer poll observer in Wisconsin, and I cannot agree more: our election process is a complete joke. Piles of ripped up ballots at every polling station I visited (9 total) because people could not understand the ballot, how to mark it, the machines wouldnt read it, etc. One polling chief had to fix the ballot machine with a hammer! What is the problem here? Can we please get a user-friendly, computer interface that prints out the ballot receipt after you vote? That way people can easily understand how to vote and there will be a paper trail after. Embarrassing is all I can say.
But I'd rather these issues be fought through electoral chicanery than on the streets, like they are in most other countries.
Republicans are a national embarrassment!!!!!!!!! Hahahahahahahahahaah
Politics in general is a ......well you know....... Your guy lied better than mine.
I still waiting for one of you unhappy people to tell us when you are leaving the U.S.
I'm not leaving. More fun to watch all the st_pD Americans call each other names. The USA will be out of money soon, then we can watch the crazy people in the streets killing each other.
You better not be outside when we start killing each other.
I say we vote when we pay taxes every year. File your vote with your taxes. If you don't pay your taxes, you don't vote.
Obama won, so shut up.
It's OK for the system to be screwed up as long as the person you vote for wins the election. It may be different next time because of our messed up system. The Republicans acted the same way when Bush got elected. .... and it's still broken....
Last count I saw he also won the popular vote, so shut up.
This is a great video and article and yes the US has a lot to learn from the systems and structures set up abroad and working efficiently and effectively. Time to benchmark. However, there is one caveat to this entire thing called the NIH Syndrome – The "Not Invented Here" syndrome meaning "if it wasn't invented here, we will not copy it."
Hope we would also learn from the lessons that have happened in all of the states to date and create solutions to avoid the same problems..
It sure is an embarrasment. Especially, here in Florida. It convinces me all the more that both of Bush's Florida wins were in fact rigged election processing.
As the US functions today, few people actually support and endorse democracy at least when the term means equal and fair influence by all citizens over decisions made by/for the whole populace. Rather, people in the US (and most everywhere else, it seems) like democracy because it gives them a leg up, a disproportionate chance of gaining more influence over everyone else. If a candidate were to campaign with the slogan: Improving Our Democracy: Better Representation for All Citizens, he or she would lose, or be powerless if elected, since individual agendas favoring subgroups determine winners and power. This situation isn't going to change anytime soon. It's called RealPolitik.
Not bad Steel I see you get it.
Still waiting for rush at the airport.
Democrats and Republicans hope Rush get on the plane for.....anywhere but here.
There are groups of people that support 'states rights'. Anything else is 'socialism'. That group of people is in constant fear that some group that has been exploited will want revenge.
Finally a FZ article worth the bandwidth it was downloaded on.
Sadly interesting that in my own short lifetime the USA has gone from world superpower to an embarrassment – it's a bitter pill to swallow but it definitely is true – and we've done that to ourselves, by twisting "freedom" into "do whatever we please" – also known as a democratic version of anarchy...
This country must be great. The only people I see at the airport are trying to get in.
From these comments it's clear you're all jealous you aren't from 'MURICA!
Sarah Palin, please shut up.
This election i wondered, what is the use of an electorate college system for the presidential election when each and every vote is was counted right to the last digit.
I was told that even the supreme court had to settle the dispute when in last to last years election the total electorate votes were higher for the Republicans but actual vote was higher for the Democrats.
Democrats and liberals are NOT opposed to voter ID, we're opposed to IDs that poor people have to jump through hoops and pay for. The countries that require national IDs provide them, free, to the adult population. I'm quite sure if legislators wanted to pursue free national ID cards the people complaining would be the conservatives. If you think IDs were proposed for any other reason than suppression of the vote for Obama, you're beyond naive.
exactly.....we need to push our legislators to look to other countries an learn......and the whole dem vs repub thing needs to stop.....its going to destroy our fine country
Next thing you'll know people will have to have IDs to check books out of libraries. Oh, heck, that's already the case. Seems like no one's complaining, though. I suppose the people complaning about having an ID to vote aren't that concerned about checking out and reading library books.
the tech that is available, though methods are antiquated
It's amazing that in this day and age a society that promotes itself as being hi tech and "the greatest democracy on earth" doesn't have electronic voting machines in every precinct, and allow voting online through secure websites.
Having voting booths with biometric data implanted in them would seem to be the best idea – no need to show id at the polls, bio scan would have to match thumbprint etc that was given when you registered. Great idea !
"Even Venezuela, which had elections last month, had electronic voting booths with biometric technology across the country."
In Venezuela the biometrics were introduced allegedly to avoid voter fraud. To date after several elections not one case have ever been detected. That wasn't the real purpose, after all we do have photo ID, we dip our finger in ink and we used to leave a fingerprint in the roll book. The real purposes for the introduction of biometrics were:
1.- Scare opposition voters into thinking that the vote is not secret which could mean losing their job for a public worker or a benefit of a social aid project.
2.- Create bottlenecks to slowdown voting in opposition strongholds.
3.- Track in real time the pro government voter turnout using the social projects databases and pressuring those who have gone out to vote and even going to their homes to pick them up.
Biometrics is not a good idea, not only they cost a lot of money and don't solve a problem that can be addressed with more conventional and effective methods, but they can be very easily abused in favor of one of the parties.
The only good thing about the elections in Venezuela is the electronic voting machines where the user selects their choice in the screen and the machines prints out a paper ballot that can be deposited in the box for audit purposes later on.
It is not like this in every state. In Washington State we have many options open to us. Hell I downloaded the ballot sheet online and printed my selection and faxed it in. I could have emialed it but tried this first. There are very few ballot boxes or booths for people to go to. We can do this from the comforts of our homes in seattle. This article seems to apply to some states, not all.
You want us to copy what other countries do, kind of like you copy what other writers write!!
Left yourself open for that one, didn't you??
I no longer have faith in this country..it's obvious there was voter fraud and intimidation..aka Black Panthers...some districts in Ohio reported 0 votes for Romney (CNN)...mulltiple arrests for voting more than once, and the list goes on and on...I have a neighbor who bragged all his family members voted, they are here on tourist visas, and no one asked them for any proof of residency or citizenship... This crap is happening and only idiots are choosing to ignore it...we have become a second world permanently divided nation of hard workers and slugs...and guess what, I voted for Obama..and I hate what the Democratic party has become and the behavior of some of its supporters..
"international election observers were banned from nine states" What were those nine states hiding? This does not sound like America, it sounds like some country with no free voting. Requiring IDs all of a sudden and changing district boundries and cutting early voting and all things that only non-democratic governments use.
Obama won the popular vote AND the electoral vote. Why is that not good enough?
We preach and preach about "democracy" – and then force working people to vote on Tuesday – and then wonder why we have a low turnout compared to other countries. Most other countries vote on the weekend.
Why must what others do be better than us? If Fareed likes the Indian or Russian system, so be it. It is ridiculous to ask someone voting in their precinct to produce a voter ID. What for? If I am registered, I do not need a voter ID. Why should I produce a voter ID when these IDs cost money. You know, we have poor people in America that cannot afford IDs. If other countries suppress the poor from voting, why should we? The idea that we have to produce IDs to vote is ridiculous! I have a right to vote with or without an ID. Please do not suppress my vote and I am not going to let you do that! Fareed, have you run out of ideas? You are sooo not serious!
maybe the government could provide the ID? idk......probably not....only thing we spend money on anymore is bullets and welfare......cant put aside money to build bridges or fund public transportation......definatly cant update our system of voting even though we gloat about being the best democracy in the world....
Election night is a really fun night full of suspense and emotion. The whole world stops to watch, why would we want to eliminate that? I fail to see a good reason, it isn't like they don't have time to figure out who won...
This will be the first time in American history (and hopefully the last) that America will be without a legitamite President for eight years straight. I never thought in my lifetime we'd be "led" by an african muslim....
Thank God my British grandparents weren't still here to see this. I don't think they would have been able to deal with the shame.
I'm glad your parents aren't here. I hope the same for your children.
Yeah, now the only shame they have to deal with is a waste of sperm like your toothless tiny pr1cked self! GROW UP Hate mongerer GOP LOSER! Tool bag BUSH B1tch!
its simple realy......abolish the electoral college.....dont report votes until all 50 states have closed thier polls( why should hawaii even vote if the election is decided before they decide??? and further more why should a republican vote in california.......or a democrat in texas.....)
also update out voting method......if we can afford the greatest military in the world.....why cant we afford the best tools to elect our government....
I have no problem requesting ID. The problem is when you request certain ID a month before an election. You can start the process now and have the law fully implemented 4 to 6 years from now. In addition, ALL people should register when they turn 18.
Your observation is not backed up by evidence. Many states put vote ID laws into effect over the past couple of years. And in every instance, the Democrats have challenged the laws as discriminating against some group of the other. It is insane to make that assertion given the fact tht ID is required for many activities to include getting a library card, checking into a hotel and visiting a doctor.
Voting day/s should be on a weekend or make it a national holiday. And early voting time frame should be the same nationally, say 3 weeks. If you want voter ID make it the law and standard now starting with the next Federal election in 4 years.
Fallacy that there could ever be a non-partisan body associated with voting in the United States.
Excellent points. Now what ? how do you get government to reform this system, while other comelling issues are taking higher priority.
what does "comelling" mean?
Who are we to complain of rigged election's in other countries.... After the republican party's attempted rigging, of the last American Election's
Since we know what the republicans plans are, we all should get some sort of gov't id now. You can get a non driver license id as an example to be one step ahead of the republicans. If the republicans can do this to a black man, wait until a Latin, Asian or some other non white ascends to the presidency.
Holy crap! Zakaria actually made sense to me for once! I must have had a flash of brilliance to be able to understand his towering intellect.
The nascent democracy in Iraq famously dipped voters' fingers in purple to ensure they didn't vote again. Why are we so behind the curve?
LOL. Behind what curve is that?
Plagiarists are embarrassing. Just not at CNN or Time.
The United States is a REPUBLIC, and that is why we have the electoral college; to prevent an occurrence as such happened in Nazi Germany. Believe it or not, a large population of humans will always be susceptible to mob frenzy. A republic rather than a pure democracy, prevents this from dramatic changes in governance.
We need Rick Scott to "show us the way" !
I will second JimRied I am surprised you are still allowed to plagiarize for this website. If you were a student at any public college you would have seen the door. You are embarrassing CNN by still writing articles.
The entire system is a mess, the networks want to be the first to say anything. The "new" president was announced an hour before the polls closed here (Alaska). There should be 24 hour period before any voting results are aired. This isn't fair to the people who live in Alaska, Hawaii or other territories that may have voting. Who will vote when the "winner" is already revealed. The entire voting system sucks. It needs revamped and the press needs a period of no reporting. Shame this will never happen.
With all the exit polls, do you think waiting 24 hours will keep things a secret? As long as we have national standards, early voting and everyone voting, that is the best you can ask for. (Maybe Alaska and Hawaii can vote the day before?)
I agree with Fareed here; however, to say that America has actual free elections and Russia does not leaves a lot still uncovered. What about the third party candidates who never get into the debates, nor get any media coverage?? What about the buying of presidential candidates by the big corporations through limitless donations? American presidential elections are skewed and are not absolutely fair and free as Fareed made it seem when he compared Russian elections to American.
This article is stupid. The electoral college is fine. I don't understand why California and RI still both get the same number of Senators but it is clear why that was originally the case. As far a as voting, in NC I thought it was remarkably efficient and easy. I also do not see how it would be easily manipulated for fraud. To me, the key is that we routinely have a peaceful transition of power. Even in the Bush/Gore election, that was the case.
Well Zakaria for a plagiarist you are quite jugementhal about the US. Never had anything good to say about it. May be you need to travel some more before trying to BS people because they can corroborate anything you say. Mexico and Brazil are you kidding me? The Comision Electoral can tell you who wan the election a month before it happen because the lection is rigged. How do you think Calderon got to beat Lopez Obrador? Different from you I lived in those countries and I am a citizen of one. May be CNN should take another look at your militant journalism and supend you for a year!
Yet another good reason to have a Federal Government!
YES–PLEASE!!! We need a national voter registry, standard national voting rules and regulations, and districts drawn up by non-partisan Citizens rather than politicians.
The ONLY reason the Republicans held the House this year was because they gerrymandered so many districts across the United States! NOT because of their policies and ideas, which were very much lacking over the last two years.
The onlny thing that is bizarre about the US elections is the electoral colleges system. It is not only archaic but unfair. It also skews the campaign process in strange ways where the more balanced states receive the biggest effort while the more partisans states are largely ignored. This method should be changed for a real national election where every individual vote counts the same.
If real progress is desired the voting system of "first-past-the-post" that perpetuates the two party dominance should be changed to a Range Voting system where every voter rates all candidates with a score 0-10 (or -5 to 5) that ensures that the winning option is a consensus candidate but most importantly it allows small parties to grow in time and become contenders.
Precisely what we have been trying to tell you.
To say there is no voter fraud seems nothing short of ridiculous considering how archaine our voting system is. I was a registered voter in CA and then moved to WA a couple years ago and registered to vote when I applied for my new drivers license. The state of CA is aware i am no longer a resident in the sense that my license is no longer valid and I do not recieve a tax form from them but what showed up at my old residence this voting season??? My absentee ballot. Meaning I was able, if I was one that thought my vote mattered in the presidential election in either state, to vote twice. I did not but it shows that there are clear issues with the current voting system. The system needs to be electronic and standardized. Who knows if there was fraud or not but the potenital is there.
Jason Mik you can leave this country anytime you want to if you don't like our elections! Iran, Iraq, N Korea, China, Afghanistan all of them would love to have you, you could see if you like their elections!
If you ignorents want something intelligent don't put an R or D after a candidate and eliminate all parties all together.Vote on a candidate on his qualifications and personality,not who his party affiliations are or who his backers are saying about him.Just the candidate like back in school for class president ,no party politics there just a personality contest,the best person wins..It could be worst like England with a reigning Queen for a hundred years right,boy that must suck!!
Boy Pete; do I disagree with you. I think everyone should be identified by their party. Especially on TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. All these writers and reporters give opinions – opinions they support with "un-named sources", and "people close to the source". They're lying and giving their political slant based on their preference and saying it like, "I'm really neutral, and this is what the neutral observer sees". That's why Rush Limbau, Bill O'Riley, Glen Beck and Shawn Hannity all say they're not Republicans. They're either Independent or Libertarian. "I'm not biased by the Republican party." Their's some on the Left but I'm too disgusted to list any of them.
@TomNPitt,you say Limbaug,Hannity, Beck and ORiley say enough about their party affiliations just being on FOX as you're that interested in seeing these political extremist.Just hearing any of them makes anybody of intelligence want to puke so your ignorence is showing so non partisan ,so neutral ,such BS!!I'm against the obstructionistic republican party,the unpatriotic ole white ones that cater only to the corporate lobbyist that line their pockets with dirty monies to continue their agendas of keeping the wealthy wealthy and the middleclass,poor at a safe distance because of their greed...You'll never see republicans do anything for the little people unless it has something to do with their corporate handlers,just do some reading you'll learn something I hope and stay away from FOX its bad for your mind!!!
You're right. It is an embarrassment. The further away from paper ballots we move, the less secure are our elections. Do you honestly have any confidence in the results? Both parties fix elections. Beyond that, both parties are, for all intents and purposes, the same. It's one grand charade that culminates every four years when we're given the "freedom" to "choose" between a tweedle dee and tweedle dum who will change nothing, do nothing to make our lives safer, freer, and better. Had Ron Paul been the GOP nominee we would have, at last, had a real choice. Instead we got Baritt Rombama.
Yes. It's an embarrassment.
Talk about bitter!
@Ken Margo,its an embarrasement to the republican party as a whole having a congress that's guilty of obstructing this president on job,infastructure bills and having a candidate who basically bought his way into the presidencial primaries and then the general election.That's ignorence beyond belief,but that's republicans isn't it with losers voting constantly for losers!!And yes Brians a sore loser isn't he!!!
If you feel that eletions are not run correctly–volunteer to work in your precint. Also you may ask to be an observer.
fnd out what what rules your s
ya know, every four years or so, some malcontent comes up with a bunch of idears on how the good ol' U.S of A. should change it's electoral process because "the rest of the world is watching"! Well guess what, dummiez, we DON"T CARE who's watching. We been doin' it this way for HUNDREDS of years and it WORKS. So take our ideas and................well, you know. Hey, that's how I won against Gore!
Fareed, the USA is a diverse republic, the United States of America. Our Democracy comes in 51 flavors. You really just want vanilla?
50 States + DC
The electoral college needs to go AWAY, every vote should count and there should not be a winner announced until the very last vote is counted.....period!
Wow. Maybe this guy never was taught that we broke away from the old world because we don't want to be like them. Maybe in India you can't trust people, but here in Minnesota we have one of the cleanest election systems in the world and we don't need to require ID. 'Splain that Mister Zakaria.
Minnesota with the Al Franken theft of a senate seat? ha ha ha ha ha... Ballots coming out of car trunks that were never counted, That state is joke, Franken is a joke, and should not have ever been given the seat.
Minnesota with the Al Franken theft of a senate seat? ha ha ha ha ha... Ballots coming out of car trunks that were never counted, That state is joke, Franken is a joke, and should not have ever been given the seat. Just an embarrassment to party and state.
So we have a broken electoral system. Other nations do not. And you want to stick with the broken electoral system just to NOT be like other nations. That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard.
"Imagine a country on election day where you know the results the instant the polls close".
Ummmm...China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran....
Also – India? Really? A country where the Prime Minister is changed by assassination as often as by election? Is this what you're advocating?
I am assuming that you are really a marine. If so, I think going around the world would have widened your field of view. Just for fun, can you give me the number of times PM is changed by assassination?
I think we should have voter ID's. We should decide right now, that in 2016 we all have voter ID's. I mean Voter ID's!! That makes it all even. Everybody – everyone has four years to get a card that specifically states where you are a voter and where you might also vote if you have a secondary address. Republicans have sent us absentee ballots the last two Preidential Elections and have advised us to vote both of them. They say one will cancel the other. Both sides are guilty of voter "issues". It's just this time, the Democrats did the better job. We have four years to fix this thing. Firt off, Florida is not allowed to have an election. They make the rest of us look bad!! Secondly, the only acceptable form of ID to vote is a federal Voter ID. No Driver Licenses, Hunting Licenses, Military ID's . . .nothing! !Just a federal ID Voter Card!!! Period!
Election on a Tuesday and a WORK day. No wonder the dems won!
Think about how much air time the Flappy Heads on the media would lose if results were known instantly and they couldn't drag it out pre-empting NCIS.
As far as states refusing to allow the international observers, it is STATE law in several of them that no one outside of the voters, officials, and official poll watchers can be there. So, no those international observers will not get in, if they want them to get in, then they have to be appointed by one party or another to be their official watcher (if it would be legal at all)
Voter fraud. It was the Republicans who tried voter suppression in the swing states. They tried to suppress the votes of American registered voter systems.
And Obama got 100% of he vote on over 99% turn out in Philadelphia? Right?
Farid Zakaria's daddy Rafiq Zakaria was a politician in Mumbai, India. Rafiq knows very well how elections go in 3rd world.
I do not see how anyone can disagree with this. Our elections are horrible.
One would think that plargerism would be more embarrassing
Honest to god...you people are too stunned to have democracy. You don't deserve it. You're so hung up on stereotypes and your entrenched positions – that NOTHING is possible. You can put stuff on Mars, but can't run an election. Implement a simple biometric voting mechanism, that could detect voter fraud......oops, I'm sorry...that means the New World Order government would have your personal information...blah blah blah.
A couple fewer brain cells, and you'd be officially declared plant life.
Blamng Bush again? You're just waiting to plagarize Frum's article I bet.
Many of the issues go back to the states' rights origin of the country. You have 50 states that aren't going to let the federal government standardize the voting process for all because they don't want to give up control over which party has the advantage when it comes to elections.
We could get rid of elections altogether.
The answer is very easy....... the Repubs don`t want people to vote . Stay at home and watch snookkii,we will take care of the country.Don`t worry !
I think you meant to say Repubs don't want illegal people to vote. Who shot down voter id laws??
Everyone I know voted at least three times for Romney, and we still couldn't get him elected. I sure he would have promised us better gifts than funky green paper with dead president's pictures on it. Now, if he would have promised us shares in Bain Capital, we could have bought more votes.
Here we go again, another so-called expert telling us that we should place non-partisan observers at the polling places. First of all where are we going to get that many non-partisan persons, and how can we know for sure that they are truly non-partisan? Why do we need to know immediately after the polls close who all the winners are? Why require an I/D at all if more than a dozen states manage to get by without it? There is an old saying about not fixing something that isn't broken, and that, I believe, is pretty good advice.
First off, allowing a ballot to have ten pages is ridiculous. Voter turnout would be much greater if there were NO LINES and the whole thing was simple. I get it...I live in a country where we don't have to vote for 287 things all on the same day, so the longest the entire voting process for me for any election we have in Canada is about eight minutes. However, our voting processes are uniform, whether it's a federal vote, a provincial vote or a municipal vote.
I really hope Obama (one of the single greatest presidents to ever lead the United States) is able to help the situation by instating federal guidelines for voting so that whether you're in rural Idaho or downtown NYC, the experience is the same. And the line-ups all but disappear.
The whole voting situation would improve if there were Federal standards, and the GOP was not allowed to suppress voting in the country. Nothing more need be said. The GOP wants only the Republican right and 1% of richest Americans to have a vote. It's only too obvious.
Actual free elections? Seriously?
I agree with your article- our election process is an insult to the democratic process, but to think that our elections are any less jilted than Russia's (or any other third world or highly politically controlled country) is either naive, or egregiously clueless.
first, we live in a republic, not a democracy. why does everyone confuse that? second, what magically secure electronic voting machines are these other countries using? if they are all designed and/or manufactured from the same company, there is always an inherent risk that something can be tampered with. i doubt voting machines are economically sensible are not 100% secure from a sophisticated hacker. third, how do these countries have non-partisan committees and poll observers? every human has opinions one way or the other, so unless the voting committees are made up of robots there is a bias.
I dont belong to any party. Why because every election both partys twist what the other says. Will play part of a statement said by the other (not all of what was said) to fit that partys agenda. I am sick of hearing the 1/2 truths. Plus they do not give a damn about the people of this nation. They care about themselves. This is not what i learned about when i went to school. if this was about us as a nation then the electorial vote would have been removed a lont time ago & the voice of the people of every state would really be counted not this bs electorial crap.our election process is so wrong & so outdated.
What??? Some sort of ID required for election...isn't that racist? At least that is what I have been hearing (whether it is an actual ID card or a finger dipped in ink–get over it America). I would like to know, but none of us ever will, how many people voted in this past election that weren't actual citizens of the GREAT United States of America.
you what all EU countries have? national ID laws. Germany requires you to have your ID readily available AT ALL TIMES. this includes when you go vote. how can you say we should have standards like in europe, and then when we try to implement those standards, you say it's voter suppression?
"America has one of the world's most antique, politicized and dysfunctional procedures for its elections." ..
Reactionaries want it that way. Most of our founding fathers were Indian killing, slave owning reactionaries.
I think what is embarrassing is the obvious though denied attempts, by Republicans to suppress the vote. All they accomplished was to tick off a lot of people and make them more determined than ever to exercise the right to vote. Please continue to try to suppress the vote. Please...................
I definitely did a double-take when I saw this article and thought it was being written by Fareed zakaria. Praising voter ID laws, giving credit to Republicans?
Then I saw that it was written by someone else and it made sense. Carry on.
Brian this has nothing to do with how the founding fathers set up the government and the election process. Between them and today stands progress that could have been made over 200+ years, this election proved that Democrats do not want voter ID laws in place. Some states even offered free or reduced prices for ID's on low income citizens. We do need laws that ensure everyone votes only once and that dead people aren't casting their votes from the grave.
Of course there will always be voter fraud, all we can do is try and make it so it becomes very difficult to do. Last point, I do not care for anyone from other countries coming to ours to monitor the votes.....especially monitors coming from countries that still actively suppress women, minority religions and free speech. They can stay at home for all I care.
It's about time!!!! Someone in the media has actually said that SOMETHING in our political process is an EMBRASSMENT. That's at least a good start. There is, in fact, nothing about our political system that is NOT and embarrassment, starting with our media's coverage of it. Our electorate is ignorant, the parties and political consultants manipulate it effortlessly, and we have a horrifically broken government to show for it. Only the media can play the role of critic, and only the media can educate the electorate, but apparently there is no money in doing that. We're f***ed.
If they want to do something they could start with being real journalists and telling the American people an unbiased representation of the nations problems, why those problems exist and what politicians really are planning if anything of doing about those problems. Instead of this biased crap they all spew.
That is what the Concerned Citizen just said. I agree with you both.
Well if Fareed the self proclaimed expert on everything does not like the system he can always move back home to India and take some of his liberal buddies at CNN with him. Maybe he and Cooper can have some manlove in Ganges under the moon.
I am way past tired as a former us army captain and us citizen of hearing CNN's Fareed Zakaria slam this country.
Don't think he is a us citizen. I can tell he has great disdain for this country.
I am very critical of my government but love my country. There is much I'd like to change -including getting rid of winner take all models in the general election and the primaries. That process stifles representative government.
I'm also angry as heck at the Supreme Court striking down term limits, campaign finance reform, and the line item veto and for allowing unlimited corporate and foreign money into our elections.
But Fareed's incessant trashing our country and saying Mexico is more modern? Mexico is a war zone, drug fueled, gang ridden, corruption filled state–and Europe–their Socialism?
Fareed–go live and work somewhere else–don't want or welcome your internationalist anti-American drum beat any longer
The United States of America is NOT a democracy. It is a Republic.
I pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.....
We elect local, state and federal government to make our decisions for us. One can argue that every two years when we vote at the polls, we are more "democratic", but we are still a Republic.
Can you image if we were a true democracy and we voted on every single issue with our antiquated voting system. Now that would be a nightmare!
But imagine if our voting system was not " antiquated "
It is the duty of all citizens to fix their government when it is broken. We have all forgotten that. It is the real cause of our decline and saddens me to see us all fail in this most important duty that was handed down by our forefathers and is owed to the next generation. Doesn't matter who gets elected, nothing will change as long as we neglect that duty.
I know of many things that are carefully designed so that they can not be fixed. The problem lying so deep within its circuitry than one has no option other option than to buy a new one.
After reading a lot of posts on here from both sides of the aisle complaining about each other when it comes to scoring votes, it's proof enough to me that our voting system needs to change. If we were truly a democracy, we would want every American's voice to be heard, and that goes well beyond party lines.
Both parties revel in the fraud that they can perpertrate at the polls. Neither side has clean hands and both are just as guilty as each other. That is the American way since we have had two parties wrestling for control of the government.
Zakaria, are you some kind of fool? Who cares what other countries think about the U.S. voting procedures. You hold up a country like the third-world failed Mexico as the standard for comparison. Russia?? Give me a break, you need to take off your dark glasses and see the reality of the rest of the world. And by the way, we are a Republic, not a democracy.
We have the best (most corrupt) voting system that corporate money can buy! Fortunately, even Tagg Romney owning a huge chunk of Hart InterCivic (which bought out the proven corruptible Diebold electronic voting machines) could not sway this election to his Mormon bishop, magic underwear dad from the planet Kolob who thinks all people can become god. In fact, I am not sure ANY voting system could have been rigged to make Mitt win this election. He was doomed by himself and his choice of running mate. He might as well have selected Palin to run with him.
Mexico, France, Germany. Really?
Mexico has such a great electoral system that half it's citizens pick up and invade their neighbor in order to influence it's elections in order to let them stay there. Got that.
France, great electoral system, hasn't done a darned thing noteworthy since Bonaparte ruled. Got that.
Germany, hands down the best trained citizens in the world, a fantastic electoral system that gives us the likes of Hitler. Got that.
And then there's Russia, a country that has yet to have a real election, ever, and hands down the most accomplished mass murderers in history (yes, they killed more of their own citizens than Germany did anyone else, go look it up), has the gall to knock our electoral system, taking 116 pages to do it.
A clue for the international clueless, we know our electoral system is screwed up. But you all need to remember that we are here because the aforementioned countries sent their "rejects" from their societies here, so they should expect a little dementia from us from time to time. And thanks to this recent debacle of an election (and with CNN) you'll get to hear how nutty we are, ALL the time now!
So cheers! And mind your own elections.
The point of the article is that America should reform its election system to make it more efficient. It is by no means a commentary on the successes and failures of other nations' policies, just their elections. You should learn how to properly read and analyze articles. Electoral efficiency has nothing to do with Stalin or Hitler, nor does it have anything to do with French geopolitical policies for the past two centuries.
Furthermore, if we as Americans want other nations to mind their own business on how we select our leaders, we should refrain from being hypocrites and not infringe upon other governments. It is the pinnacle of hypocrisy to dictate how other countries are run and then refuse to hear any commentary whatsoever on ours.
Grow up.
I love our voting process. For all its flaws, it does keep power away from one unified body to make all the decisions. Even electronic decisions can be coded to be skewered.
Agreed, but the article didn't even mention the nastiest part – the Electoral College system. Yes, the system that allows for a candidate to win the most votes but still LOSE the election. When I learned about this system 30 years ago in grade school, I thought it was ludicrous. Fast forward a few years, and we see George W. Bush as President as a result. Did we fix the system after that? Of course not. And this election came closer than many know to having a similar outcome. This country's inability to fix obvious problems is starting to get scary. When countries like Russia can make legitimate points and the facts actually back their side you know you've got problems.
Did Fahreed copy this article or wrote it himself?
well said. the united states voting process is a joke. many countries have a much better system. canada for instance. there should be a national mandate for the entire country. this voting system as it stands is a helter skelter corrupt system.
This dude just slammed both sides, it was awesome. But seriously, our election process is a joke. Electoral College made since 200 years ago, it does not make since anymore. Get rid of it, majority rules. I could go on...but no one really cares.
Free elections, Fareed? I heard they cost 2.5 billion.
This country had never been a true democracy,only a perceived one,starting with the electoral college nonsense.
You and any other liberal embraced by America should feel free to leave.
Dump the electoral college and go with the popular vote. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that's the right way to elect a candidate.
Candidates will spend billions of dollars in an attempt to win an election, but it's too expensive to implement state of the art voting and identification technology. Right....
Then there is no Mountain
Then there is.
So now Republicans are okay with national IDs, from the looks of the posts. Before they didn't want them, citing good, old, government infringement. But NOW it is okay. So much for principles lol.
Fareed! The answer is simple. USA isn't as advanced as those other countries you mentioned. Its young country with a long way to go before it will join the rest of the democratic countries in the world.
At the very least, we should abolish the Electoral College and move to election by popular vote only. This would eliminate an entire state's votes going to one candidate, regardless of how the populace voted. Let's modernize our voting process before we face another debacle in the 2016 election.
The extension of voting hours in St. Louis is a half truth. In the suburbs that are Republican heavy, I was able to vote in 10 minutes. However, in the city, lines can be so long that it takes 3+ hours to vote. This article implies that the democrats are "cheating" by extending the voting hours. What a load of potatoes! Everyone deserves to be able to vote, and the 3+ hour lines are clearly voter discrimination.
Fareed: Don't you have something constructive to do ? If not, please find something worthwhile for a change.
Sorry, the government already has far more data about me than I ever would consent to. There's no amount of fraud (which there's little evidence is happening) that will make me OK with a national ID with all of this info.
The voting is this way, because that is the way the republican party wants it. An easier, more sensible voting process certainly does not benefit them.
Your agreement is absurd as his assertion. And rampant election fraud is the result of the power craze of the Democrat party. Now that is by design.
So the Republican party implemented the electoral system? It would appear that your knowledge of history is lacking.
Historically speaking, the more people particpate in the process, the better it is for the democrats. Republicans know this and so do democrats. I don't have a problem with voter IDs. In fact, every American should be sent a voter ID card and registered to vote the day they turn 18. Replacement cards should be easily obtainable.
Just to let you know, we also calculate our national debt on a giant abacus. Any smart remarks about that, too?
Did anyone know that someone can win the Presidential ticket but only get 20% of the popular vote. Look it up on google you will find plenty of sources to back up my claim. There is even a youtube video on it, if you don't want to read. I find that fact increadible, to think that the next president can win only 20% of the poplular vote and still recieve 270 Electoral votes is insane.
ion many (smart) countries, campaining is limited to 6 months. Wouldn't that be wonderful.
This is all coming from the same guy (Zakaria) who said that the death of Bin Laden represented the end of Al Qaeda. His credibility is waning rapidly with every opinion he speaks (or I should say, misspeaks).
The US is a federation of 50 states. The presidentiail election is an internal state process, not a federal level one.
Blame those states that lag behind not the federal government!
Have the government issue voter IDs to anyone having a past or existing SocialSecurity card.Residents in nursing homes,hospitals ,the handicapped and disabled have just as much right to vote but are victims because these republican led states won't recognize them as viable voters,just numbers ..Most still pay taxes and can understand competently what's going on around them and they're mad because they're not included in the voting process because of their inability to go to vote in person ..Help these people feel involved again and get cards to all of them ,its your duty as public officials to make sure everyone with a pulse gets to vote if legal,they've paid their price to society so give them a chance to voice themselves,its the least we can do for these people..We are a civilized country aren't we,act that way!!
Its an AMERICAN election stupid! Foreigners don't like it, they don't have to watch or care.
America might want to try that policy out first before demanding it of others.
I am American. I agree.
............HEY, Romney got an Obama "GIFT"...........................a GOLD PLATED...............24 CARAT ...........................332..........................................hahahahahaahahaha
Are you on the computer at the local Library or something? Read a book.
When the US Supreme Court rules like they did in Citizens United, a verdict which said "corruption in politics doesn't exist in our country", the demand for change will have to start with the little guy on the street who will say "I'm mad as hell and I won't take it anymore".....this person will be the last guy in line who doesn't benefit from everything going on above him.
The US is a federation, not a unitary state. That makes a very big difference. In a unitary state, everything can be uniform throughout the nation and centrally managed. Not so in a federation of 50 semi-sovereign state.
Also, I would point out that many other countries have a parliamentary form of government. There is no national election for the head of government, but instead you vote for your local legislator and whichever party or coalition of parties forms a majority then appoints their head of government. That is a system that is every bit as round-about and indirect as is our electoral college.
Yes, we know. We have problems every election.
That being said, it doesn't matter to me what the rest of the world thinks about our voting process. It's our concern...... ours only Fareed. It doesn't concern me what those outside the U.S. think of what we do and how we do it. We are, and always will be, in my lifetime, the greatest country in the world. If I could find a country that has everything we have, and actually has a better way to hold elections, I would listen and consider........ I just have not seen a comparable country yet.
What would be so wrong with Requiring some form of ID (be it biometrics or photo id) to be required to vote? I have yet to hear how or why it would so dramatically unfair to any group.
The fear is governmental overreach. A national ID card inevitably means a national database (people already scream bloody panic about Social Security) which can mean the federal government can start creeping more requirements onto the card. People will start screaming of 1984 and Big Brother who always watches you. Remember, the US was founded on a DIStrust of central government, so the only possible way to streamline a national election (national oversight) is only possible by placing trust in a government people don't want to trust.
Oh you live in a country 1/20th the size of America? Geez how clumsy of us to let localities and states make their own laws instead of the idiots living in the DC bubble tell everyone they know better than the rest of the nation. No country is perfect, we have more freedom than these other countries. When legislation is introduced to have photographic ID it causes less people to vote and is deemed racist.
Cute that the international community has an opinion. It's super cute that Russia has anything to say about freedom or democracy when their 'elected' leader is ex-KGB and their massive country is a mafia state. Have fun with that and keep enjoying all that FREE US AID you get to benefit from with my tax dollars, kooks.
Why is it deemed racist? I have never understood that. Do non-white americans have a hard time getting photo id?
I find myself asking the same question. Why can you not obtain an ID? maybe if you can not obtain an ID you should not be allowed to vote. I myself and anyone I have ever known has ever had any trouble obtaining an ID. I am not referring to a drivers license
If you are poor and rely on public transportation, or your feet, to get places, it can be a problem. Cost can also be a problem although in MO simple state-issued photo IDs are free. BUT, there is only one place in my county to get one and it is 30 miles from the other end of the county to get there. That is a very long walk in a county with NO public transportation and impossible to make if you are old or handicapped. In fact, where I live, it is poor whites that are likely to be disinfranchised as our minorities seem to be doing OK financially.
maybe if the US had more "fair" elections we'd vote to keep all that US aid in America.
I must admit I cannot read this article with being annoyed. The United States has been holding elections for president since 1788. During that time the transition of power has not necessarily been smooth or even in the case of Abraham Lincoln nonviolent. But it has always occurred.
I won't presume to lecture anyone as to American history but perhaps the author of this article should review it. We live in a polyglot society and have at our origins as individual states. The whole principle of our government is based on these facts.
To compare the US election process unfavorably to Iraq, India or Venezuela would be insulting if it wasn't so laughable.
The system works and has for the last 230 years. Other than Great Britain what other country can boast that?
What about it bothers you? The Requiring of Id, the electronic voting or just the comparison between two countries? For as advanced in tech as America seems to be it dose seem a bit backwards for the most KEY part of the government process to lack in that matter.
Since we lag far behind in Internet connectivity and accessibility, but first in cost we'd find a way to screw it up.
I live in Florida and for a six year period we did have electronic ballots. It was a simple touch screen, but for whatever reason, some people were having trouble with it. It was dropped for paper ballots that are a genuine pain to fill out. They have tried voter ID laws here too, but there were complaints that it would used to prevent minorities from voting. I try to be as non-partisan as possible, but it seems to me that here in Florida, all of the complaints about some of the common sense reforms have come from the left. It was the Democrats in this state complaining that the electronic voting machines were undemocratic. It was also the Democrats who lead the effort to prevent voter ID laws from being enforced. And it's surprising that these complaints are coming from the left.
@Bill,you're the product of Floridas dumming down society,Democrates have been railing for years to give every tax payer or not voting rights and republicans were the ones trying to supress those votes at any cost.This politically inept governor in Scott says he's wants an investigation when it was he and his republicans cohorts that just caused this voting mess here.So please act intellligent in getting all your pertinent info before posting because you're sounding as ignorent as most of these republican posters here and they think they've got us fooled,yah right!!
you know what, democrats will never try to use modern technology on election, let alone biometrics technologies, because with it comes voter identification, aka no more illegal immigrants vote dozens times per people......
Just another instance that makes America a nearly third world country.
The author of this opinion piece has no respect or understanding of our form of government. The federal government simply does not have the authority to trample on states rights, even though they are allowed to do so way too often. Like many in the media today, the answer is simply to have a better federal government or to defer to a U.N. like organization.
America was founded on individual rights. States rights should not be so easily dismissed and the ease at which this author does so is troubling and typical of the mainstream media.
The trouble is, with something as important as elections for NATIONAL positions like the President, you NEED a national scope; otherwise you get what we have now: a ghastly mess. If this is what America wants, then it wants corruption: Anarchy would be preferable; at least you can fight for your say. Part of the understanding of the Federal system is that there are some things that are UNAVOUDABLY national in scope. That's why the military has a national scope, because it defends The State (the US as a whole). That's why a lot of commerce has national scope (because it crosses state lines). So too for elections because they involve national positions.
First of all, I am not convinced that electronic voting is necessarily superior. Here in my state, Pennsylvania, some districts had computerized voting machines, and at least 3-5 that I am aware of had to be taken offline for showing multiple Obama voters had voted for Romney. In my district we had a simple, one page paper ballot that was scanned and I felt very secure about it. Also, it it much more challenging for Tagg Romney to purchase paper ballots. I also find it hard to believe that States' Rights, small government Republicans would ever go for biometrics (of course they practically seemed to want to create a new federal Department of Uterus Enforcement Administration) However, the problem that Democrats have isn't that skin color magically makes it impossible to get the proper ID required by restrictive voter ID laws, but that economically and socially disenfranchised populations can have problems. Republicans argue that you need ID to drive, or go to the bank, or buy or rent a house, or have an account with the power company. The thing is, not every American does these things. This is what the Republicans are counting on. People that are living in a shelter, attending college in an urban area, just got out of an abusive relationship and don't drive, etc. there are a myriad of lawful American citizens that would not qualify under Republican Voter ID laws. But these people, not coincidentally, are also FAR more likely to vote Democrat. Years of unbiased political science studies have shown that the more Americans that vote, the more Democrats are likely to win. The article raises a lot of good points, but I don't think Voter ID is a problem here.
The "Obama vote goes to Romney" was a touch screen calibration issue. Fairly easy to fix, and likely an electronic error, not some vast conspiracy. In most electronic touch screen applications, recalibration is needed from time to time.
and recalibration was not done before voting? come on now are you even old enough to vote?
With all the social media outlets, why haven't more political parties entered the games?
because the Democratic and Republican parties pass laws that make it extremely difficult for a candidate to get on the ballot who is not a member of an established political party. Thousands of signatures. Gathering those signatures takes many volunteers and a significant coordinated effort. Third party candidates are at disadvantage.
There are good reasons to be very cautious about electronic voting, and if implemented it MUST be backed by foolproof, recountable paper coupons. Whatever the manufacturers of such equipment may say, it is a certainty that people will try to hack the system, and there has to be some means of ensuring an audited, foolproof recount.
Regarding the "world's greatest democracy" ... well, there's much to love about America, but not its politics, not its politicians. Arrogance, greed and hypocrisy are ugl;y to behold, and your leaders have them in disgusting abundance. If a revamped electoral system allowed the oxygen of rational debate to re-enter the horribly polarised political environment, America and her citizens would benefit greatly.
Our democracy remains compromised because we've lost our nation's conscience, fair media whose ownership makup poses flagrant conflict of interest!
So CNN, where were you before the election to help push for voter ID?? Oh Ya, it was discrimination then right? Obama steals the election and it is ok, as long as we fix things for next time . . . what a joke.
Good article. There is a lot of talk , but the problems remain-just like DC politics. Normally it takes me about 10 min to vote. Thjis years it took over an hour because a ballot was mailed to me and a number of us in the same situation blocked voting. I come prepared-I read all the articles ahead of time and I know exactly how I am going to vote ,so it should go fast. Something needs to be done.
well that doesn't work in inner cities and florida where most people who grew up there have the reading comprehension of people who are still in elementary school./ That is no exaggeration. This is why most people do not vote on the facts or the real issues, but based on things they identify with, as long as our education is worse than third world we will have this problem.
If you can only ever vote for criminals, tools and liars, how does having a modern system benefit you?
The nascent democracy in Iraq famously dipped voters' fingers in purple to ensure they didn't vote again. Why are we so behind the curve? Remember all the protests from the democrats about showing a picture id to vote. It does take a genius to figure this one out.
America's election system has become a big joke in Asia.
The television debates and the charades connected with it – is typical Hollywood technology.
And why have with 2 congress, which encourages a potential to derail and paralyse the nation?
The present election system is really a no brainer, cave man technology. When will America use rocket sicence in its election system?
It seems like the regulations were established to benefit the advertisers and television stations – and to grossly irritate voters!
Which could mean fence sitting voters end up voting for the candidate with the least frequent irritating ads, LOL
...and until a photo ID card is required to vote, by every voter, in every state...the lib-errorists will stay in power.
I would simply state, before you knock our electoral / election process, go fix China's, or North Korea's, Iran's, and about 75 other countries. The fact is, 90% of the worlds democracies wouldn't be democracies if not for the U.S. for all of you quick to jump on the bandwagon of denigrating your country, seriously go take visit to some of these countries and reflect hard on what the U.S. has literally given to the world... Freedom. I am a right wing nut job, but for better or worse, we lost the election Obama won, and we'll have to try harder to explain the concepts /virtues of conservatism to a very large uneducated electorate and do better next time...if there is a next time.
If popular vote was used then every vote means something and IMO many more people would vote...sounds like a good thing so its not shocking out politicians don't want it.
We have a messy process so get used to it, it's been happening since 1789.
Republican or Democrat the system is flawed.
Fighting each other as Republicans or Democrats is exactly what they want. We are the pawns in their game.
Leftist Liberals are really using every trick they can to push the U,S, into socialism/Communism. We should keep our nose out of other countries politics and the "International Community" should keep their noses out of ours. I agree that the electoral college should be done away with and only the popular vote should count. BUT we should never bow to "outside pressure" to change. And we should leave countries like Libya and Syria to settle their own political/civil wars.
He need to have a federal picture ID system. Then get rid of the electoral college. Americans are the dumbest people on the planet.
Speak for youself M0R0N! The dumbest person in the U.S. is most likely YOU! YOU GOP ROMNEY RYAN SKUMBAG A------HOLE!
We are the only country in the world where the New Black Panthers can stand in front of Polling sites and basically intimidate voters but if the KKK was to stand in front of a polling site, garanteed they be either arrested, force to leave or cause a race riot! Damn sounds like apartide in revese! If you can't see the problem here, you are the ones allowing our country and freedoms to die!
Yes the system is flawed in many ways. However, technology isn't always the best solution either. We do need some standardized rules – particularly in Voter ID. How far do we go then? Also, when you take in account what really matters in the age of the electoral college, the need for federal standards is minimized.
First, technology is flawed. In 2004, electronic voting machienes in Ohio added thousands of votes for Bush erroneously. So should we trust the machine? Although, a federal standard for voting should make use of Biometrics or PKI digital signature authentication technology. Which brings me two the second point. How far does a national voting standard need to go? Their is no one on the ticket in New York that the popular vote is important to the voter in Montana. The Presidential popular vote is simply an opinion poll. After that, the real vote is made by delegates of the Electoral College. One could argue if the Electoral College has outlived it's usefulness – which it hasn't if you study the true purpose. With this being the case, how a state manages the voting is within its rights – not the federal government. While I support many things at the federal level, outside of ensuring people only vote once in a federal election, is really outside of Washingtion DC's authority.
OH YEAH! This reminds me!
The election process in the United States remains under the control of citizens of this country– why should any "global" results be necessary?
"It is managed by a non-partisan independent body."
There is no such thing.
"Try Mexico."
Oh, yes. Mexico. Where corruption and drug kingpins rules.
No, thanks. I'll stick with our system. It's not perfect, but I'll take it over ANYTHING in Mexico!
In my rural Mo county, we use paper ballots that are scanned electronically as we place them in the computerized ballot box. If there is a problem, the ballot box will kick it out and an election judge can confer with the voter and, if necessary, mark that ballot spoiled and let the voter mark a new one. If there needs to be a recount or other problems crop up, those paper ballots, which have a number on them traceable to a specific voter, can be examined. With fully-electronic voting, there is no paper trail and if a vote is miscounted or lost, it will remain miscounted or lost. There were no Black Panthers or religious wingnuts standing around my polling place looking threatening but it was a cold day and some of the farmers were dressed up pretty weirdly.
Its incredible that only half of the US electorlate voted. And that at the polling station, it takes up to 4 hours of waiting for people to cast their votes.
To confuse the voters and waste time, a voter has to vote for president and at the same time decide who to be congressman.
Why cant the elected President be given the authority to chose his own merrymen to run congress? Why give him the President powers but denied him the authority to decide Congress. I am sure the President has more political wisdom than many racist cowboys.
So it begs the question why many voters want Obama to be President, yet they also want a Republican LHRs? Isnt this contradiction and fickleness? Maybe this sort of practice is applicable in the slow 1800s, but in this present fast pace scientific age it is discouraging the already apathetic American electorlate.
Where I am it takes only ten minutes for me to happily cast my vote, and the national voting turnout is consistently around 90+ %.
Debbie's math is wrong.if a guy gets 51% and get 61/2 votes and the guy who got 49% of the vote get 6 1/2 of the votes in a state that has 13 votes?Dont seem fair to me!
The Dems scream bloody murder if we try to require ID laws for voting. For some reason they claim it suppresses the poor (minority) vote... But the poor need ID to receive welfare! Do you see the contradiction!?
So this raises the question who really won the elections?
Mind your own business
No surprise here.....just reinforces the rest of the world"s opinion of Americans....a bunch of zombies and obama worshipers willing to sell their country for a free cheap cell phone and a tank of gas. And the Lame Stream Media of which CNN is one, are obama's cheerleaders. They helped sell America. Far as I am concerned, those worshipers deserve every single inch of what they get from voting for the lunatic.
Hate to break it to you but your party was at least half the problem in the elections. At least, and your worship of Fox propaganda is equally amusing to moderates like me.
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