How safe is your vote

Its feels odd watching and studying US elections, mainly for the mere fact I am not American.

I wouldn't care much for anyone who took exception to much of what my country does and can empathise with all Americans who don't appreciate people like myself who do comment on that nations actions.

However, my nation doesn't have the power, be it military or economic, to do what the US has been doing for generations - that is having so much power over the fate of how our world is run. There is so much that the US has given that has made our world both safer and a nicer place to live and unfortunately there is much that isn't so pleasant.

I buy into the almost disneyfied notion that the US can be a source of so much good for us all. The US has the power to enact real change that countless millions of us would benefit from. Unfortunatly this is not enacted upon much by the US in its dealings with the world, contary to what we are taught and how we are preached to that would have us believe otherwise.

The rhetoric spouted by all too many of the leaders of the USA plays on these notions and unless everyone is vigilent the unlimited power these people control can be used to impose a very ugly will on countires and their peoples.

One thing that as I learn more and more is that so many of the processes of goverence in the US are quite simply put, quite amazing. However whilst the processes are designed to reflect totally the democratic ideals that nation is built on, the modern day world of power elites and professional lobbying to name but a couple of the multitude of means that these processes can be circumvented and manipulated to gain a less than democratic result.

With the Novemeber 7 US Congressional Elections coming up the material on offer to take a look into some aspects of elections is fascinating. Not just when considering the massive implications for much of the world of the results of the US elections but also from a perspective of what has and is happening to the US election process could and most likely will to some effect have a direct implication on how elections in New Zealand are undertaken.

Already in NZ our politics are emulating some of that which we often read about in the US (and other nations too I must add), some of it is good but alas much of it is not the sort of politics and electionaring I want to see here.

Anyway to cut a rambling intro off, I read this article this morning and found it fascinating - I don't know how accurate it is, even if not very it raises a lot of questions about vote counting and continued speculation about voting machines and the like.

Whilst this concerns the US election process it could and may one day reflect that of here, I hope not but unlike the US, in New Zealand we tend to trust our government and the systems we live under a hell of a lot more than perhaps we should - this is both a positive and negative of our little land.

A nasty little secret of American democracy is that, in every national election, ballots cast are simply thrown in the garbage. Most are called "spoiled,"
supposedly unreadable, damaged, invalid. They just don’t get counted. This “spoilage” has occurred for decades, but it reached unprecedented heights in the
last two presidential elections. In the 2004 election, for example, more than three million ballots were never counted.

Recipe for a Cooked Election

I can't help but wonder, how many votes here are also discarded? Bugger all I hope.

I also wonder if we have such activists and people who care here who check to make sure our democracy is as free and representitive of the will of the people as we believe.

Strangely enough it is easier for me to find out such things about other places than in my own. Cause for concern perhaps...

Bugger it, I'll have to post this and open firefox to add a picture, damn, damn and LOL (tips hat to Simon)