Voting for the President--A New Type of Transparency

[beachguy in thongs]

Imagine being in the voting booth and the only thing you have to go on is the candidates' stand on the issues. Imagine voting purely based on a candidate's record. Imagine not knowing anything about a candidate's personality. Imagine not even knowing a candidate's gender or race. Imagine that nothing would get in the way of making an educated, informed decision.

The Upper School Student Council imagined such an election and on October 28, 2008 five candidates addressed the entire Upper School. Under the direction of teacher Taylor Black, they presented issue-oriented platforms, presenting their stance on Iraq, Afghanistan, healthcare, abortion, the bailout, gay marriage, drilling for oil, immigration, death penalty, public education, and Israel.

The students listened and then they voted. It was only after they elected Bari Saltman that they learned they had elected Ralph Nader (Bari received 46% of the votes). Zak Sawyer stood in for McCain and received 4%; Emily Graham, being Obama, got 29% of the votes; Nia James represented the Libertarian Bob Barr and earned 2% of the votes; and Jesse Goldberg was Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney and took 17%.

The Berkeley Carroll School: News » News Detail

beachguy in thongs Reviewed by beachguy in thongs on 11-10-2008. Voting for the President--A New Type of Transparency The Berkeley Carroll School: News » News Detail Rating: 5

[dragonrider]

That is an interesting experiment.

Policy and record are the most important things, but in reality, you also want to know something about a person's personality, temperament, and party affiiliation too. Those things are important because they have a bearing on how effective a person will be in enacting their policies and dealing with the unexpected. So I don't think it could work in the real world, but it is an interesting experiment.