Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Dispute over the voting in Florida

There is a dispute over the election of the senator for Florida. This puts a black mark on the democratic process in America.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/florida-recount-senate-scott-nelson.html

This is not the first time. In the presidential election in 2000 between George Bush and Al Gore, there was a similar dispute.

To solve this dispute, the candidates have to take their case to court. Many litigation lawyers are engaged at high cost to argue the case for both parties.

What are the candidates disputing over?

There are three problems with the voting system:

a) Is the counting of the ballots accurate?
b) Are the people who actually voted eligible to vote, i.e. are they citizens?
c) Are the people voting fraudulently by taking the identity of the real voters?

The problem in America is the lack of a register of citizens and the difficulty of identity the person, in the absence of a nationally controlled identity card. There is also a problem of identifying the actual residents of the eligible voter, as they move from one city to another.

America should put its house in order. If they do not, it will be a shame to the voting process of a country that claim to be the champion of democracy.

America should set up a national register of citizens. This register should be updated with people who became citizens by birth or naturalization. Those who died should be removed from the register.

There should also be a means of identifying a person using photographs, fingerprint or facial recognition. An identity card should be issued. There should also be a system to register the latest address of a citizen, to identity the state and local government that they are eligible to vote.

The voting should be done electronically, with the means of preventing fraudulent changes to the actual votes.

Surely, with the technology available in America, these challenges can be overcome? Maybe the USA government should engage Google or Facebook to handle this work?

Tan Kin Lian








No comments:

Blog Archive