2008 Presidential election percentages

According to The New York Times, the 2008 Presidential election could have seen the highest percentage of Americans coming out to vote.

Based on early figures, about 62.5 percent of all eligible voters cast ballots, just shy of the 62.6 percent figure that was recorded in the 1964 election. But that figure will climb and almost certainly set a new record as the remaining votes are counted..

I for one am really excited to see that more and more Americans are getting out to voice their opinions on important matters facing the country.  I am hopeful that we will see significant changes in the coming years that will increase political involvement even more.

In my mind, there are three issues that really need to be addressed with American politics:

  1. This is the no-brainer: Get a more accurate vote counting mechanism in place.  If you go electric, make sure the system can’t be manipulated and insist that the company that develops the machines are willing to stand up to critical – and open – testing.
  2. Get money out of the system.  Now that we’ve seen the longest and most expensive presidential election, let’s make it the last of its kind.  Mandate that elections get funded by a general pool of money rather than donations.  Mandate that TV and Radio stations (easy for those over broadcast) donate a certain amount of time for political advertisements so that candidates can get their messages out and not have to raise money to do so.
  3. Get rid of the current electoral college.  At the very least, have each electorate vote represent its own district’s popular vote, rather than a blanket state-by-state system.  It’s no fair that Texas and California get ignored because their outcome is a given.  There are electoral votes in Texas that would go Democratic and California votes that would go republican – and they should go that way.  There are too many disenfranchised voters in the current system.

Whether these issues will be addressed in the next few years is to be seen.  Somehow I suspect not; especially with everything else (ahem.. economy) that will need to be addressed.  But I hope that somewhere in the near future we’ll see some of these issues finally getting the attention they deserve.

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