The neatest thing about democracy in its American form are voter initiatives, which, if I understand them correctly, are yes-or-no referenda on state-level and county-level issues. We don't have anything like them in British Columbia—initiatves are state-level, so the appropriate comparison is between states and provinces, not between countries—but Adam Gessaman and Ole Eichorn have posted how they will be voting in their local initatives, though only Ole has posted why he is voting the way he is voting.

This is going to be a strange election, in part because this time the only channels I have are Canadian, though they might feed in one of the American cable news networks, but in part because it's shaping up to be the closest in history (though I've seen landslide predictions from both sides). The people with money are predicting Bush, the people with polling data are predicting Kerry, and—other than the army of lawyers salivating at the chance—the only people with an interest in such a thing (i.e. the political hacks in the media) are predicting a tie. My prediction is the following: I don't know.

If you're an American and registered to vote, you might have to stand in line for a few hours, but you'll be doing what billions of others are prohibited from even asking for the right to do so. I don't care for whom you vote as long as you do it. Really.

Richard Posner: “technological fixes for the sorts of problem that emerged in Florida in the last election, the simplest fix being to replace the punchcard ballot (especially when the votes are counted at the county rather than precinct level) by the optical-scanning (Marksense) system, are likely to be opposed by incumbents. Incumbents have adapted to whatever system they were elected under and are reluctant to take their chances with a new system. This is one example of the uneasy relation between law and technology, and another is the indifference (at least until 2000) of most students of election law to the serious technological issues involved in our election methods.”

I still favour the paper ballot system, but I grant that it probably works better for a small country like Canada than it would for a country like the United States.

Karl: “J'ai eu de nombreuses fois ce débat avec mon entourage et notamment sur celui du « devoir d'aller voter » comme élément fondamental du respect de la démocratie et surtout du reproche fondamental que si on ne se rendait pas aux urnes la démocratie était en danger. Combien ai-je vu ces personnes oublier leurs « devoirs citoyens » pour le reste de l'année. En effet, voter n'est pas l'ultime outil de la démocratie, il est un des moyens mais qui n'est pas suffisant et loin de là. La déresponsabilisation des individus face à leur environnement est généralisée et plus personne ne veut prendre part au débat social (social pris dans le sens relatif à un groupe d'individus). De nombreuses personnes diront : « C'est inutile » , « C'est inefficace » . Il est vrai que cela semble difficile, mais encore une fois avec cet abandon du terrain social, les personnes ont oublié la nature de l'engagement et de l'effort de cet engagement.”

Karl's article could well be read in conjunction with Jay McCarthy's article on democracy and natural rights. He defines democracy as “A regular [say] in the government that you are citizen of.” The difficulty with that definition is that people are not citizens of a government, but rather citizens of a country (or possibly more than one country, since some countries' governments think it's possible to be loyal to more than one country). Those of voting age—but even those who are not, since many non-voters also pay taxes, and many voters don't, legally and otherwise, meaning by definition, voters usually outnumber taxpayers—comprise the government. In democracies, they generally elect representatives to serve in the legislature on their behalf, since they, the people, have better things to do than argue the merits of the amendment to paragraph 3 subparagraph c. Also, in democracies, the courts and the executive—sometimes, like in the United States, elected, often not—are usually independent of each other. This is especially true of the United States, but not so much Canada since the executive (the head of state) is an appointed figurehead and the judiciary is de facto appointed by the prime minister.

Getting back to Jay's argument, he says that voting is not a natural right, and I actually think he's absolutely correct. Voting is a learned and socialized behaviour, and while some—like those who say the market should decide, or that a "benign" dictatorship should—think that this learned and socialized behaviour is bad, there are others—the majority, it turns out—that think otherwise. Karl argues that democracy is more than just voting: it's participating in social life and, however small the impact, participating in the decision making process.

Their articles touch different aspects, Jay focussing on rights (especially those of minorities and how they can be reconciled with those of majorities or other minorities) where Karl focuses on the market and its troubled relationship with democracy.