Category Archives: Op-Eds

Op-Eds

Election 2016: “One Person, One Vote” Kills Real Choice

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RGBStock.com Vote Pencil

As you may have noticed, we’re in the middle of yet another American presidential election (our 57th). The news is full of musings about party primaries and delegate counts and possible brokered conventions, but if things proceed as usual,  as many as 130 million Americans will cast votes in November. A winner will be declared based on popular votes in the states as transmuted into a total of 538 electoral votes (if no candidate receives at least 270 such votes, the US House of Representatives chooses the next president).

Seems orderly and natural after 56 such exercises, doesn’t it? But “one person, one vote, the first candidate past the (plurality or majority) post wins” is a polarizing and not very representative way of doing things.

Many of us vote for our second choices — the “lesser evils” — because our first choices “can’t win.”

Many of us could live with either of two or more candidates, but vote for the one who “can win” rather than the one we may like best.

What if you could vote for ALL the candidates you like, instead of just one, secure in the knowledge that your vote(s) would not be “wasted” on a loser, or “spoil” the chances of one of your preferred candidates, resulting in election of the “greater evil?”

You could, if the United States adopted any of several far more rational voting methods. Of the three that come to mind — Instant Runoff, Single Transferable Vote and Approval Voting — I’m going to describe only the last one both to keep this column short and because it’s my own favorite. Here’s how Approval Voting works:

You vote for as few or as many candidates as you like. All the votes are counted. The candidate with the most votes wins. Yes, it’s really that simple.

Assume that this November (as seems likely), your ballot offers you the choice of Republican Donald Trump, Democrat Hillary Clinton, Libertarian John McAfee or Green Jill Stein.

If you’re a progressive, you prefer Stein to Clinton, but reluctantly pull the lever instead for Clinton because you really, really, really don’t like Trump and Stein “can’t win.”

If you’re a libertarian, McAfee’s the only even remotely acceptable choice. Maybe you’ll just stay home and watch re-runs of “Modern Family” instead of bothering to vote for someone who “can’t win.”

Under approval voting, progressives could vote for Stein AND Clinton, libertarians could vote for McAfee alone … and both candidates would likely receive second or third votes from people who also vote for Trump or Clinton. Every vote — every VOTER! — would count.

I’m not sure what effect Approval Voting would have on this year’s presidential race, but over time I suspect we’d start seeing successful independent and third party candidates for seats in the state legislatures and Congress — and eventually the White House.

Better election outcomes require better voting systems. Visit the Center for Election Science (electology.org) to learn more about Approval Voting and how to help put it into action in your city, county or state.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Op-Eds

Strong Crypto: An Offer in Compromise for President Obama

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President Barack Obama talks with FBI executiv...
President Barack Obama talks with FBI executives after a speech during a visit to FBI headquarters. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For months, US president Barack Obama played coy on the developing controversy over law enforcement bureaucrats’ demands that American tech innovators be required to build “back doors” into their products. That changed on March 11. In a talk at the Austin, Texas SXSW Interactive festival, Obama warned against “an absolutist view” of individual privacy and strong encryption.

“[I]f your argument is strong encryption, no matter what, and we can and should, in fact, create black boxes,” said Obama, “then that I think does not strike the kind of balance that we have lived with for 200, 300 years. And it’s fetishizing our phones above every other value.”

Weirdly citing the unconstitutional institution of local DUI checkpoints on our roads and the US government’s barbaric post-9/11 practice of subjecting air travelers to sexual assault by Transportation Security Administration employees in the nation’s airports, Obama appealed to the American tradition of “compromise” to support his argument. All, of course, while averring that he is “way on the civil liberties side of this thing.” With civil liberties friends like Barack Obama, who needs civil liberties enemies?

With apologies to the late Barry Goldwater, absolutism in defense of individual privacy and strong encryption is no vice, nor is moderation in their defense a virtue.

But if President Obama really is interested in a compromise, I guess I’m willing to offer one. It begins with four words:

You first, Mr. President.

In 2008, you promised Americans “the most transparent administration in history.” You’ve since not just failed to deliver on that promise, but taken things in exactly the opposite direction.

Your administration has denied or redacted parts of more Freedom of Information Act requests than any since the Act became law in 1966.

Chelsea Manning languishes in a military prison, Edward Snowden lives in exile, Julian Assange remains trapped in Ecuador’s embassy in London, and numerous other whistleblowers have been imprisoned or otherwise persecuted, all for the “crime” of telling us things about the US government that you didn’t want us to know.

You’ve even assumed the power to order American citizens assassinated — while refusing to let the rest of us know who they are or why you had them killed.

In theory, YOU work for THE REST OF US. Since when does the employee get to read the boss’s email on demand, but not vice-versa?

So show us you’re serious. Start with pardons for Manning and Snowden and an end to the pursuit of Assange. Then start fulfilling instead of denying FOIA requests. And the thing with murdering people? That needs to end, completely, permanently.

Get on those things, then we’ll talk. But I’m going to go ahead and predict that this isn’t the kind of “compromise” you meant.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Op-Eds

Jail Fees: Adding Insult to Injury

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RGBStock.com Prison Photo

While traveling by bus earlier this week, I made the acquaintance of a fellow passenger who had just been released from jail in Alachua County, Florida, after spending a year fighting charges he was eventually acquitted of. Interesting guy with an interesting story, and one that puts a burr under my fur about how the law treats those accused of crimes.

As you read this, keep in mind once again that he was acquitted — found “not guilty” of any crime. He was kept in jail without bail through the lengthy trial process because he was from out of state and considered a flight risk.

When he was booked into the jail, he was assessed a $50 fee for the processing.

While he remained in jail, he was assessed a fee of $4 per day for his room and board (which, he told me, consisted of a hot breakfast, then bologna sandwiches for lunch and dinner every day).

There may have been other fees, too, but we’re already looking at $1,500 he was required to pay just to remain in a place he would cheerfully have walked right out of if allowed.

When family and friends sent him money for “commissary” (the in-jail store where inmates can buy candy and such to supplement the jail diet), the fees were deducted from it before he got any of the money. And, he said, if an inmate is released “owing” the jail money, he’s issued a letter detailing a payment plan, with a warning that the matter will be referred to a collection agency if the money isn’t forthcoming.

There’s a term for that kind of scheme, but I can’t use it in a family-oriented column. It refers to uncastrated male cattle and what they leave on the ground behind them.

This is the third time I’m mentioning that he was acquitted. Do you suppose the sheriff’s office cut him a refund check for all those fees? Nope.

And  if he had been convicted? So what?

The theory behind the American criminal justice system is that it works on behalf of all of us innocent folks out here enjoying our freedom. I have my doubts about that theory, but if it’s true, shouldn’t “we” pick up the check for keeping people — even guilty people — in jail if that’s where “we” want them kept? This evil “fee” system needs to go.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY