BAE Subsidiary Gets OK to Acquire Lockheed Military Electronics

This time it is Florida. Next time? This election proves that our system has too many flaws.

Constitutional reforms are essential: Use standard federal ballots in all states. Return to marking ballots (less chance of fraud, they can be read by machine and are easier to recount). Have automatic recounts in close precincts or precincts where there seem to be discrepancies. Scrap the electoral college altogether. Make a “winner rule,” e.g., “Candidate must win by 5% of all voters or there will be a runoff between the top two candidates,” or require the winner to have a simple majority. Have contingency plans for deaths, illnesses, unforeseen events or discoveries in the lives of candidates for president and all members of Congress.

JOANNE HILL GRAM

Altadena

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A country that can afford to design a spacecraft to land men on the moon should be able to afford simple, acceptable and easy-to-understand ballots for states to use in elections.

B.R. BAUM

Brea

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For the first time in my life I am embarrassed to be a citizen of the U.S. We, the richest of nations, the leaders of the free world, the guiding light of democracy worldwide, have failed to fairly administer a simple democratic election.

In our great democracy, to still have the archaic electoral college system designed to limit democratic participation is unimaginable. In our great democracy, to have a hodgepodge polling and balloting system with 40-year-old technology capable of 5% error is unthinkable. In our great democracy, to have a presidential candidate win the popular vote and lose the election is unconscionable.

If only our leaders had had an ounce of foresight to reform the electoral college system and upgrade our polling technology, none of this electoral nightmare would be taking place. I can only wonder what the other nations of the world that look to us as the model democracy are thinking right now. The entire process, including our presidential candidates’ postelection political and legal wrangling, is simply an embarrassment. We have learned our lesson the hard way; let us not miss this opportunity for real reform in time for our next general election.

CLARKE M. PAULEY

Newport Beach

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I want the Constitution amended so that the president is elected directly by a majority of 50% plus one of our nation’s voters. Provision should be made for a runoff election if necessary.

JOSEPH MORTZ

San Diego

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The debacle that we see in Florida is one we should view as an opportunity to review our laws and our procedures about the election process in the entire country. It would seem that we are deluded into thinking that each vote is important even when absentee votes may or may not be counted, depending on the circumstances. When people report that they were turned away from the polling place and others were not allowed to have a marred ballot voided and another ballot issued, we have problems in our process.

Our election procedures (national and state) should be a national priority--worthy of a congressional hearing. We need to clean up our voting act.

JUNE DeBODE OXSTEIN

Santa Monica

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Re “The Case for Internet Voting,” Voices, Nov. 18:

James Toomey obviously could not have read “FBI E-Mail Trap Far More Powerful Than Advertised” on Nov. 18, reporting that the FBI program Carnivore could capture all transmissions over the Internet, as well as lifting information not only from a computer hard drive but also from floppy disks. This means that the vote of any citizen sent over the Internet could be captured, saved and reviewed by a government agent.

Our rights to vote by secret ballot and to refuse to disclose how we voted are too important to trust to a system that would allow a government agency to record and preserve an individual’s vote with the potential of using it against him at a later time. As such a program exists, no citizen can ever be sure that it, or another one capable of the same intrusion into privacy, is not in use by government agents. Americans have been lied to by government too often to give credence to denials that it would be so used.

ALLAN W. WALLACE

La Crescenta

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Toomey makes a good case for electronic elections. And in this electronic age, what better direction to go than to the Internet?

I do have some immediate thoughts, however. There are the complexities of configuring PCs to voting and the security difficulties. Indeed, I have read that any good hacker could make very sure his man (or woman) won the election. And Toomey suggests that as a voter you could “log on, punch in your Social Security number and check that your vote really was tallied.” If my ballot can be checked on through my Social Security number, then my Social Security number is somehow connected to my vote, which means, whoops! there goes my anonymity.

Toomey states that electronic voting would be an improvement over the methods we have now. I would want to be very sure that such an “improvement” was in the voters’ favor and not just replacing the problems we have with other problems we can’t even imagine. If we haven’t learned anything else, we should have learned that something as important as the leadership of the greatest country on Earth demands the most intelligent of selection systems.

JOAN M. PETERSON

Culver City