Possible use of Python for a voting machine demo project -- your feedback requested

[Alan Dechert]

"Paul Rubin" <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote in message
news:7x8yqstzf3.fsf at ruckus.brouhaha.com...
> "Alan Dechert" <adechert at earthlink.net> writes:
> > You make a lot of good points.  As I understand it, Canada administers
> > national, province, and local elections separately.  They happen at
> > different times and are conducted by different entities.  The U.S. is
one of
> > very few where you see federal, state, and local contests on the same
> > ballot.
>
> The US does not have federal contests.  All elections for federal
> office are actually state contests.  That includes Presidential
> elections, which are a bunch of state contests for slates of electors
> from the individual states.  That all the elections are state contests
> and not federal ones is one of the reasons it's hard to impose uniform
> national standards on how the elections are run.
>
I think you have a point but there is a symantics problem.

It's true that the U.S. Constitution gives most (almost all) of the
authority for conducting elections to the states.  You're correct to say
that this makes the establishment of "uniform national standards" highly
problematic.  Nonetheless, we plan to address this.  This is a *very*
involved subject.  Have a look at our proposed Election Rules Database

http://home.earthlink.net/~adechert/ucvs-proposal.rtf

Some other details can be found here:

http://home.earthlink.net/~adechert/votingstudydialog.txt

Then there's the concept of "Regulatory Capture."  We intend to drive the
discussion of how to resolve contradictions in the current voting system.

However, to say that "The US does not have federal contests" leaves me
nonplussed.  Federal elections involve the election of federal officials --
e.g., Congress, President, Vice President.  We have the Federal Election
Commission, which looks like it's being replaced by a host of commissions.
You'll find the phrase "federal election" quite a few times on this page:

http://www.fec.gov/hava/eac.htm

--Alan Dechert