Slow vote to nowhere

As a registered Parliamentarian, the subject of placing conditions to encourage voters to exercise their right, even in the face of motives of the highest purity, is disconcerting. ["Vote ‘no’on apathy,” Editorial, Aug. 14, 2003.]

Not to vote is also a right along with the right to vote. One can make the voter enter the voting booth but there is no assurance that the ballot has been duly used to fulfill the casting of the vote. Ballot marking is a secret. Your proposal to charge a fee to be refunded is worthless in assuring the purpose of casting the votes by a ballot.

Getting rid of Electoral College requires us to examine your statement, that the present person in the White House is there not because the voters chose him but rather because the Supreme Court members, as friends of his father, anointed him. Do you not think that this kind of characterization of the Supreme Court is tearing down the very fabric of our great Constitutional Republic? The basic difficulty here is that it was the other side that initiated the court proceedings.

Perhaps you are unaware of what the Electoral College is and how the election of the person for the office of president of these United States is really done. In the hoopla of the campaigning that starts two years in advance, we all forget that on the fateful Tuesday in November we vote for, in each respective state, the members of the slate of the electoral college, and not the candidates. The election system has been prostituted and perverted, and needs the emphasis on electing the members of the Electoral College, who in turn exercise their conscience.

Instant runoff voting is a very intriguing idea. The electorate cannot handle the casting of the vote for one person—how do you expect the voting for more than one person for the same office on the same ballot will fare? We all know how there were no only hanging chads in the last presidential election, but that votes were cast for the wrong person.

As for providing free media for viable candidates, who is going to pay the bills for the TV and radio time? Obviously the voter. It is antithesis of Parliamentary rules as to who decides who is the viable candidate and why should I pay for the campaign?

Finally, one cannot vote for or against "apathy." One can educate the electorate as to what ‘apathy’ is and what it does, in that it elects the unworthy to the office. The causes of ‘apathy’ cited by you in fact arouse voters to throw out the bastards by exercising their vote.