Break The Voting Monopoly!

By Michael Kinsley

George W. Bush has shown tremendous restraint during the past few days in declining to point out that the big mess we're now in is a perfect illustration of what he was saying throughout the election campaign--that the government always screws things up. After all, compare the conduct of this election with the way things are done in the private sector. Private corporations hold elections all the time, and they routinely deliver victory to the management's nominees for the board of directors by huge majorities without any fuss. Only an election run by government bureaucrats would be handled so incompetently that it produces a close vote, let alone so irresponsibly that a Democrat is even allowed to win every now and then.

In the private business sector they manage to count the votes without wandering into a jungle of butterfly ballots and dangling chads. Actually, for all we know, they don't even count the votes. But we trust the management to do it right. Or rather, since none of the candidates can claim to be protecting Social Security from any other candidate, we don't much care whether they count the votes right. Trust and indifference amount to the same thing.

In fact, in a typical corporate election, most shareholders trust the incumbent management to cast votes for them by proxy. In general, shareholders don't even know they have voted, since even the decision to let someone else decide is made on their behalf by mutual-fund and pension-fund managers. Obviously, huge blocks of votes are easier to count than individual ballots. Only the government would think to insist that every voter cast his or her own individual ballot, thereby making the process of counting them so needlessly onerous and prone to error.

Now that we have experienced the perils of electoral uncertainty, it's clear that the private sector has many lessons to teach the government about how to achieve a preordained result. Among the reforms the next President must consider are:

VOTING CHOICE Why should people be required to vote in the precinct where they happen to reside? This consigns all too many voters to third-rate jurisdictions where the result is a foregone conclusion. It also removes any incentive for jurisdictions to make their votes more important or exciting. Under a system of voting choice, each voter would be able to redeem the right to vote anywhere he or she wanted. Some might choose Palm Beach County, where the fun never stops and you can never be sure exactly whom you voted for. Others might choose Cook County for the chance to vote twice or more.

With voting vouchers, private voting jurisdictions would flourish. Many of them would be run by nuns, both Christian and Buddhist. They would offer healthy competition to the current government voting monopoly. Some would allow dangling chads but not pregnant ones; others might do the opposite. Some might count the ballots by hand, while others would trust a machine, and others still would simply throw them away. Competition would bring vast improvements, simplifying your ballot just as it has simplified your telephone bill. You'd be able to choose a ballot from a variety of decorator colors, or one without Pat Buchanan on it to guarantee that you don't vote for him by accident. Hate the butterfly ballot? Get one folded to look like some other insect. Prefer your punch holes all lined up on the same side? Left or right? The choice is yours.

PRIVATE VOTING ACCOUNTS The voting rights of current elderly voters must be preserved, of course. But why shouldn't younger voters be entrusted to cast a certain fraction of their votes in the private sector rather than for a narrow, preimposed list of government offices? Instead of picking from a boring list of unfamiliar names for state senator or municipal judge, voters could choose their favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, or which Phish album is the best.

TURN VOTING OVER TO THE STATES The government cannot abdicate all responsibility for conducting elections. But when government must play a role, that role should be entrusted to state and local governments, which are closer to the people, and not to a lot of bureaucrats in Washington. If the State of Florida had been running this election--or, even better, if every county had designed and counted its own ballots--you can bet things wouldn't be as f__

Wait a minute. O.K., scratch that last one.

Michael Kinsley is the editor of Slate.com