I had to dig around the internet to figure this out... but there are states in the US that require you to register a party affiliation in order to vote, right?
So, that sort of answers my question about how on earth anyone would know who you were voting for... but I must be missing the leap between having a registered party preference, and that magically embedding itself into your medical records. Am I missing something obvious?
What about states where you don't register a party affiliation? What about people who don't vote at all? (Or is everyone registered, but voting is optional?)
Sorry, far too many almost-sensible questions from me.
Nnnnoooot exactly: All voters have to be registered in order to vote. To be technically correct about it, some states (like mine) require you to *declare* your party affiliation in order to register to vote, and you do have to be registered by no later than a certain date before an election if you haven't been registered before. Moreover, you are told at which polling place you must cast your ballot. But you're not registering to register your party *per se.*
You can register and never vote, but if you never register you are not allowed to vote: only registered voters may vote.
Having registered (and declared your party affiliation), you are not required to vote your party's ticket: theoretically, a Republican may (for some reason, right now I can't see Republicans doing this) vote a straight Democratic ticket, meaning they select the option on the ballot which automatically casts their votes for all the candidates for that party. Democrats may, also theoretically, vote a straight Republican ticket. But usually "straight tickets" or "straight ballots" are cast or voted for one's own party. Any registered voter may cast his ballot for the candidate of his choice regardless of party affiliation. Ballots may include candidates who are not of either of the two major political parties; usually those who show up are the Libertarians, The Green Party, and others, and some independent candidates. Not everyone is registered; if you're not registered you are not allowed to vote. Voting is always optional in this country, but it's mightily encouraged and in my opinion rightly so. (But we need to crack down on our elected officials and insist they represent the will of their constituents instead of private interest groups who happen to be in their constituency.) If you move to a new district (something many municipalities keep tabs on for you), you must vote at a new polling place.
Actually, the ballots remain secret. The government really has no need to know which citizen has voted for which candidate, because of the way the Electoral College works. Each state's representatives to the Electoral College are in all probability going to cast their electoral ballots for the candidate who received the majority of votes in that state, but they **are not bound by law to do so.** In other words, it's possible for a presidential candidate to win the popular vote in every state, and yet still lose the race for the White House (Al Gore had the popular vote almost straight across the board but lost to George Bush in the Electoral ballot-casting), but usually each state's Electoral College members will vote the will of the people.
Now, the way the connection between political affiliation and your health care is made is, the political information doesn't go directly to your medical records and the connection isn't obvious. At least, the one I'm thinking of may not be obvious to someone who doesn't live and/or vote here. But your name and party affiliation can be put into a huge, computerized directory, which, along with your address and your Social Security number will confirm who you are when it's checked against all the other Mary Joneses in the nation. And that Soc.Sec number is the key. In a computer age, it is possible to determine within minutes, or even seconds, with what political party "virginiadear" aligns herself, at least nominally (I do tend to vote by candidate, rather than by party.)
Eons ago, when I was in high school, Sinclair Lewis's "It Can't Happen Here" was recommended reading, although it was not required. ("Babbit," unfortunately, was. What an incredible bore.) On a summer job right after graduation, I was endeavoring to explain to my workmates, not much older than I, Lewis's premise: that US voters would unwittingly elect as President a man who had his military take-over machinery already in place, placing the country into the grip of a lawfully elected iron dictator. And these people laughed at me as though I were imagining with an imagination beyond wild---beyond the Twilight Zone, beyond the Outer Limits, beyond Tales From the Dark Side---something fantastic and impossible. And as though this book didn't exist. They didn't seem to get the premise: that a politician looking for an office, prestige and above all POWER would intentionally misrepresent himself, his views, his aims, his agenda and then, in the twinkling of an eye turn the country into a military dictatorship. They just kept laughing, interrupting me and repeating, ironically, the title: "It can't happen here. We wouldn't do that. We would never elect a dictator. This is America, we're a democracy."
Now: what do you think the answer to your question is?
Or, I suppose that question can always be answered, "It would and it will if, if, and if."
Aha! Of course! The ever-ubiquitous social security number is the missing link I was grasping for. Thank-you.(Although surely there would be privacy issues in combining databases, depending on ones' faith in the government.)
But it does assume that all states require a declared party affiliation, when registering to vote, and how effective this proposed discrimination would be without compulsory voting is also something that logically makes the entire idea sound very unlikely. At least to me.
(And thank-you for taking sympathy on the foreigner who has trouble with the idea of non-compulsory voting.) :)
I'm going to have to start checking on the other forty-nine states, now. You're right: that Social Security number is just about ubiquitous, and I'm remarkably stubborn about sticking hard-and-fast to the "Social Security purposes ONLY [my emphasis]" and not giving it out. The public library doesn't need it and in fact shouldn't ask for it. My state used to require it on one's motor vehicle operator's license, but enough people protested that, in this age of identity theft, that we've finally made it a foolhardy option. Credit card companies insist on it, but I can't see any reason why they should have it. I can see where they find it *useful,* but not that they should have it. Employers do need to have it. They are paying into either Soc. Sec. or to FICA , whichever applies, for their employees. Ask yourself: if you were living under this system of government, and a medical care facility requested your SS number and, barring an actual emergency, was going to withold treatment until you told it to them...how long would you hold out?
Regarding voter registration, I made an error in fact: I said that no one who is not a registered voter may vote. That's incorrect: the State of North Dakota does not require its residents to register for voting and is the only state which does allow voting without voter registration.
Re: privacy issues. I agree: combining databases does raise privacy issues. "For the benefit of---" would be the most likely and likely the most immediate response, and "just party affiliation and SS number, and we'll allow the following categories of health care providers access to those records, et cetera." Right now I have no solutions to this, not even half-baked ones; or at least, I have no succinct ones.
You're welcome, and I hope I haven't forgotten *too* much since my days of Civics and US Government classes...
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-28 02:27 am (UTC)So, that sort of answers my question about how on earth anyone would know who you were voting for... but I must be missing the leap between having a registered party preference, and that magically embedding itself into your medical records. Am I missing something obvious?
What about states where you don't register a party affiliation? What about people who don't vote at all? (Or is everyone registered, but voting is optional?)
Sorry, far too many almost-sensible questions from me.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-28 01:59 pm (UTC)But you're not registering to register your party *per se.*
You can register and never vote, but if you never register you are not allowed to vote: only registered voters may vote.
Having registered (and declared your party affiliation), you are not required to vote your party's ticket: theoretically, a Republican may (for some reason, right now I can't see Republicans doing this) vote a straight Democratic ticket, meaning they select the option on the ballot which automatically casts their votes for all the candidates for that party. Democrats may, also theoretically, vote a straight Republican ticket.
But usually "straight tickets" or "straight ballots" are cast or voted for one's own party.
Any registered voter may cast his ballot for the candidate of his choice regardless of party affiliation.
Ballots may include candidates who are not of either of the two major political parties; usually those who show up are the Libertarians, The Green Party, and others, and some independent candidates.
Not everyone is registered; if you're not registered you are not allowed to vote. Voting is always optional in this country, but it's mightily encouraged and in my opinion rightly so. (But we need to crack down on our elected officials and insist they represent the will of their constituents instead of private interest groups who happen to be in their constituency.)
If you move to a new district (something many municipalities keep tabs on for you), you must vote at a new polling place.
Actually, the ballots remain secret. The government really has no need to know which citizen has voted for which candidate, because of the way the Electoral College works. Each state's representatives to the Electoral College are in all probability going to cast their electoral ballots for the candidate who received the majority of votes in that state, but they **are not bound by law to do so.** In other words, it's possible for a presidential candidate to win the popular vote in every state, and yet still lose the race for the White House (Al Gore had the popular vote almost straight across the board but lost to George Bush in the Electoral ballot-casting), but usually each state's Electoral College members will vote the will of the people.
Now, the way the connection between political affiliation and your health care is made is, the political information doesn't go directly to your medical records and the connection isn't obvious. At least, the one I'm thinking of may not be obvious to someone who doesn't live and/or vote here.
But your name and party affiliation can be put into a huge, computerized directory, which, along with your address and your Social Security number will confirm who you are when it's checked against all the other Mary Joneses in the nation.
And that Soc.Sec number is the key.
In a computer age, it is possible to determine within minutes, or even seconds, with what political party "virginiadear" aligns herself, at least nominally (I do tend to vote by candidate, rather than by party.)
Does this help at all?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-28 03:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-28 05:13 pm (UTC)On a summer job right after graduation, I was endeavoring to explain to my workmates, not much older than I, Lewis's premise: that US voters would unwittingly elect as President a man who had his military take-over machinery already in place, placing the country into the grip of a lawfully elected iron dictator. And these people laughed at me as though I were imagining with an imagination beyond wild---beyond the Twilight Zone, beyond the Outer Limits, beyond Tales From the Dark Side---something fantastic and impossible. And as though this book didn't exist.
They didn't seem to get the premise: that a politician looking for an office, prestige and above all POWER would intentionally misrepresent himself, his views, his aims, his agenda and then, in the twinkling of an eye turn the country into a military dictatorship.
They just kept laughing, interrupting me and repeating, ironically, the title: "It can't happen here. We wouldn't do that. We would never elect a dictator. This is America, we're a democracy."
Now: what do you think the answer to your question is?
Or, I suppose that question can always be answered, "It would and it will if, if, and if."
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-28 05:31 pm (UTC)But you know what they say about opinions....
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-28 05:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-28 05:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 10:58 am (UTC)But it does assume that all states require a declared party affiliation, when registering to vote, and how effective this proposed discrimination would be without compulsory voting is also something that logically makes the entire idea sound very unlikely. At least to me.
(And thank-you for taking sympathy on the foreigner who has trouble with the idea of non-compulsory voting.) :)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 02:48 pm (UTC)You're right: that Social Security number is just about ubiquitous, and I'm remarkably stubborn about sticking hard-and-fast to the "Social Security purposes ONLY [my emphasis]" and not giving it out. The public library doesn't need it and in fact shouldn't ask for it. My state used to require it on one's motor vehicle operator's license, but enough people protested that, in this age of identity theft, that we've finally made it a foolhardy option. Credit card companies insist on it, but I can't see any reason why they should have it. I can see where they find it *useful,* but not that they should have it.
Employers do need to have it. They are paying into either Soc. Sec. or to FICA , whichever applies, for their employees.
Ask yourself: if you were living under this system of government, and a medical care facility requested your SS number and, barring an actual emergency, was going to withold treatment until you told it to them...how long would you hold out?
Regarding voter registration, I made an error in fact: I said that no one who is not a registered voter may vote. That's incorrect: the State of North Dakota does not require its residents to register for voting and is the only state which does allow voting without voter registration.
Re: privacy issues. I agree: combining databases does raise privacy issues. "For the benefit of---" would be the most likely and likely the most immediate response, and "just party affiliation and SS number, and we'll allow the following categories of health care providers access to those records, et cetera."
Right now I have no solutions to this, not even half-baked ones; or at least, I have no succinct ones.
You're welcome, and I hope I haven't forgotten *too* much since my days of Civics and US Government classes...