Asymmetrical Information

I can see it now...thousands of people paid on a "per vote" basis by wealthy backers. There would need to be a way to verify that they actually voted the way you paid them to vote, but the possibilities are endless...

Interesting idea, but there are some ideas that are just a little *too* wacky, and this is one of those. You're giving the election to the people whose backers have more spare time(and who live in districts with shorter lineups), not to those with greater popular support. We can get into the theory behind democracies here, and why it's a system we like, but basically that would be a system that rewards candidates aiming for the wrong things. Plus, from what I hear of your lineups, they're bad enough when they empty, let alone if they just kept getting longer and longer all day.

Have you suffered any head injuries lately?

"After all, as long as there's no systematic error--that is, as long as Democrats and Republicans are roughly equally motivated to cast repeat votes--" That's an awfully big assumption!

I'm against this, as I am sure my big sister would send me out to vote a couple of thousand times. However, maybe it would lead to some sister-sister road trips as we crossed the state looking for places they didn't know us to vote.
Or maybe making a run for the state line a la "Blues Brothers"? I can just hear the calls to the parents for bail money.

We can get into the theory behind democracies here, and why it's a system we like, but basically that would be a system that rewards candidates aiming for the wrong things.

Uh, isn't that what we have? Couldn't be any worse. Not that I care, anyway.

Slight side note, but I'm counting blog votes over at http://www.technorati.com/live/votes.html and Kerry is leading strongly, which might imply Kerry voters are more inclined to mess around with blog markup.
Beware of assumptions of uniformity.

OK, I've got one. On the morning of the election, they announce a year from 1950 to 2004. Each vote costs one penny from that year. The cool thing about this system is that it would set up all sorts of secondary markets and make the penny valuable again.

Which party has the most voters who've got nothing better to do all day than go through the lines again and again (unless a welfare appointment intervenes)?

cool, then we could enjoy the spectacle of polling stations in poor neighbourhoods shrinking (increasing line lengths, cutting the opportunities to vote) and polling stations increasing in number in affluent neighbourhoods (decreasing line lengths, increasing the net rate of return to voting often, by cutting opportunity cost of voting each time...)

dumb idea

I kinda like it.
Of course, this would reward the double-posters of the world for their obsessive-compulsive behavior....
All of a sudden I don't like it.

Thats some wishful thinking there :).

Mathematically, giving everyone one vote gives everyone a fair chance. When you give people unlimited votes, you deviate from the fair chance situation, unless you give everyone their own voting machine :)

I agree with markm's sentiments, Republicans dont't have time to be voting all day: we work. Dems would love your idea.

How about a voting system of "one net tax dollar, one vote"? (With net tax dollar defined as tax payments less income from federal & state governments.

Argocracy - rule by the unemployed.

Homeowners associations are a good example of that type of system. It's the people with no job, no kids, and no life who spend all their time at the meetings/polls and decide the fate of the rest of us.

This brings to mind Bill Gates' idea for reducing spam: implement a fee of one or two cents per e-mail. So 10,000 spam e-mails costs $100.00(I think it's an excellent idea.) We could list "acceptible" e-mail sources - - your friends, relatives, business associates, etc - - who would be charged NOTHING to send us an e-mail.

Your voting proposal should include some sort of relationship to make repeat voting more costly than merely standing in line. At present, the cost of repeat voting is to handle the records of dead or otherwise absent/nonexistant persons, plus having a "surrogate" go into the booth. Perhaps the "Chicago System" OUGHT to be available elsewhere or nationwide.

Let's see, this would lead politicians to cater to people who are willing to spend all of Election Day standing in line to vote (and re-vote, and re-vote...). Not sure what a government run by such politicians would look like, but I don't think I want to find out. It certainly sounds horribly inefficient. (Can I vote multiple times by absentee ballot, by the way?)

Heinlein had some thoughts along the same lines as Brad's and M's suggestions. Charge $1000 per vote, and run the government with the money collected (actually, I think he wanted to charge an ounce of gold). He was also keen on quadratic equations. Require each voter to solve one before voting, for example. Or, you pay for your vote, but get the money back if you solve the equation. He also offered a Darwinian form: if you fail to solve the equation, "the booth opens, empty."

But, we Republicans have jobs, we can't possibly stand in lines all day voting time and time again. But nice hyperbole.

I have to work. Otherwise a grand plan.

(Yes, I know you were being satirical...)

One person; one vote is a cornerstone of democracy.
It's the corrollary of "No taxation without representation". What you might want to consider is why your vote gets filtered through the Electoral College instead of being counted directly.

DaninVan, the people who wrote the Constitution were familiar with Parlementary systems, they didn't like them. They considered them to be dangeriously fractious.

The Electorial system encourages not only candidates but the voters themselves to work out majority compromise positions. The EC votes = # Represenatives + # Senators is a deliberate attenuation of high population states' influance.

Your method won't work as the extra votes will never be exactly the same for both parties. There would at the least be some random variance so what you would be doing is adding noise to the signal which would swamp out the true vote you are looking for.

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