democracy

The Right* to Vote

June 2, 2012

Last month I vacationed for 14 glorious days in the Bahamas, dividing my time between the islands of Exuma and Eleuthera. During my week on Exuma, the Bahamians voted in national elections, held every five years. Their fervor was inspiring. Nearly every car was festooned with flags of one of the four main parties. Many […]

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Election Bonds and Divides

November 5, 2008

Post-election observations keep washing over me, none more powerful than this: democracy worked when I had lost faith in it. The doubt was well-founded, I continue to believe, but today I’ve never felt better about the country. I’ll feel even better when the sins of the last eight years are reversed and daunting problems confronted. […]

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Democracy Gone Awry

November 2, 2008

Sometimes I look at things too simply. Take, for example, U.S.-style elections. Because we live in a democracy, the people decide who gets elected to make the big decisions that affect our lives. Therefore conducting free and fair elections should be the most efficient and effective thing we do as a nation. Oh silly me. […]

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Democracy Under Seige

October 29, 2008

Four years ago on Election Day, I saw the face of voter intimidation. It belonged to a tall thick-chested man standing outside the elections office in Portland. He glowered at the people waiting in line, looking them over head to toe. He was among Republicans dispatched to “protect” us against voter fraud. Of course there […]

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Voting Like the Bear

October 23, 2008

No presidential election has consumed my life like this one. And it will soon be over, creating an emotional and intellectual gap that I’m not sure how I’ll fill. What will I read about incessantly? What will I talk about with family and friends? All signs point to Barack Obama winning. Unless something momentous happens […]

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Votes lost in the ether

August 22, 2008

After reading this account of programming errors plaguing touchscreen voting machines in Ohio, can anyone have any confidence in a free and fair election? Too bad the story doesn’t detail if there’s any pattern to the dropped votes. For example, how do they correlate to the party registration of voters whose ballots aren’t counted? And […]

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