Fair Elections in Afghanistan - Could America Be Next?
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Insight on the News - Commentary
Issue: 10/11/04
By Mac Johnson

Elections were held in Afghanistan Saturday. The elections were supposed to be marred by violence -at least according to the mainstream American press, longing for a disaster just three weeks before US elections. But the widespread bloodshed did not materialize. So the Western press was left to speculate on just how indelible "indelible ink" is and to report on the "Chaos" caused by the losers not recognizing their loss (perhaps they should call for a recount).

The polling stations were guarded by Afghan police. Voters stood in line and studied sample ballots, which included a picture of each candidate, lest anyone become confused and vote for Pat Buchanan. As each voter entered the voting area, they were asked for ID and their name was checked against a registration list.

Moreover, before leaving the voting area each voter had his or her thumb blotted with indelible ink to mark him or her as having already voted. By this simple mechanism, double voting was prevented -touch screen balloting was apparently unnecessary.

When the ballot boxes left the polling station, they did so in the company of police, who guarded the sealed boxes along city streets, back roads and donkey trails. Isolated attempts to interrupt the ballots return was the only violence of the day. Three police died protecting the integrity of the ballots. For their trouble, 25 insurgents were killed. The ballots remained intact. Ten million Afghans voted for the first time.

This was "Chaos", and a "flawed election".

No policemen will be killed defending the ballots in the upcoming US election. Beyond that, our election process will not be as legitimate as the Afghan one. No police will supervise our polling places, lest they intimidate the allegedly timid American voter by enforcing election law. Instead, the polling place will be supervised by volunteers drawn from the local political party faithful -undoubtedly the most unbiased observers possible.

As the voters enter, they will not be required to show ID, again in deference to the timid nature of the American electorate. Having to show ID leaves a scar on me every time I enter a bar, buy a beer, cash a check, fly on an airplane, or get pulled over for speeding -so I am glad the trauma is not compounded by ID being required for something as trivial as choosing the leader of the free world.

When the American voters leave, their thumbs will be ink-free, so the relative indelibility of the ink will not be an issue. This could theoretically allow a person to get on a bus full of other un-inked and unidentified "mystery voters" and travel from poll to poll in a corrupt attempt to skew the election, but at least there will be no chaos in Chicago or Indianapolis.

After the voters have all voted for the last time that day, the absentee ballots will be counted. These ballots will be carefully certified as having come from a real absent voter by having the self-identified name on the ballot checked against the publicly available list of registered voters. The legitimacy of the voters on the list was carefully certified by the registration forms having arrived in the mail one day.

The election results or sealed ballot bag for each precinct will then be thrown in the floorboard of a Mazda 323 by a single poll worker and driven through the night, via Burger King, to polling headquarters. There the results will be duly recorded in an official book and immediately released to the media, so that anyone driving around with a sealed bag of "overlooked" ballots in their Mazda 323 can watch the results unfold, and -if necessary- show up at 4:00 am to enfranchise another bag-full of the electorate.

Everyone can then go home, confident that another crop of local, state, and national leaders has been certified legitimate by the will of the governed. And we can all feel superior to the benighted Afghans, who -being so new at this- don't know how to hold an honest election.

Mac Johnson is a freelance writer and medical researcher living in Cambridge, MA.. He is a frequent contributor to Insight.

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