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So -- with no time to spare -- where can we learn how to run a presidential election? Apparently it's Iraq. There are no "hanging chads" in Iraq, only "hanging people." That is, if they don't vote for Saddam.
In the recent Iraq election one hundred percent of the people voted and it was all for Saddam Hussein. One Hundred Percent! Who tabulated the votes? Arthur Anderson? That number is so overwhelming for a dictator it may even lead Fidel Castro to call an election someday.
Not only that, all the ballot counting was done the same day. That's faster than Peter Jennings can say, "The state of Florida goes to Gore, I mean Bush." Why can't we be just as efficient? All we have to do is implement some changes from Iraq's system of voting.
First of all, voting in Iraq is mandatory. Sure, mandatory voting in a democracy like ours may sound strange and would probably work as well as prohibition -- but you have to start somewhere.
I wonder what would be the punishment if someone doesn't vote? Maybe just stick them in a room and force them to look at Richard Nixon's face in the Kennedy debate.
The next part of the Iraqi election is there is only one candidate.
This will probably never happen here because everyone who was elected class president in the third grade feels they have the qualifications to be President of the United States (The only difference between the positions is no one wanted to eat lunch with the person running for class president but for President of the United States they will pay a thousand dollars a plate to do it.)
However, if there was just one candidate you could scratch all that talk about Campaign Finance Reform. After all, if there's one candidate he doesn't need to raise any money and won't be beholden to any special interest groups. However, I don't think we can expect everyone to agree on one candidate when we can't even get people to agree on one pizza topping! So I think it would be best to skip this reform.
This may sound dumb but is our electoral system any smarter?
This will help because in any political race we never really like the candidate. Our choice is usually the lesser of two evils. Since most people don't like politicians, most people would vote "no."
This way a politician can win an election but know we really don't like him or her. This would save them from getting a big ego once they get into office.
Now getting one hundred percent of the vote like Saddam may be tough. Even is his last election in 1995 Saddam only received ninety-nine percent of the vote. Unfortunately, the one percent of dissidents couldn't make it to this year's election because they had a previous engagement - death.
Saddam the brilliant politician that he is, figured something out. He did not campaign for his election (but hey, Gerald Ford did not campaign for his election either). As a matter of fact, Saddam hasn't been seen by the Iraqi public in two years. This is smart because the only thing we hate more than politicians is political campaigns with their negative tones and constant commercials.
Saddam must have figured "If I leave people alone they will like me better even if I am taking them into a ruinous war."
It turned out he was right.
Bush and Gore should take note that the campaign that annoys us the least will get the most votes.
With America's large and growing prison population, it would be a stroke of genius if any politician here tried this. You can have murderers, robbers, and rapists all supporting you. So what if felons lose there voting privileges? Hey, at least they'd be able vote to take them back. You have a better chance with this than relying on whether people in Florida have learned how to fill out a ballot yet.
The interesting part about this election in Iraq is that a number of media outlets reported on this like it was a legitimate election. What if more people voted "no" rather than "yes" for Saddam? Do they think he was going to voluntarily leave his office?
I'm sure if this happened Saddam would say, "The people of Iraq have spoken and want a new dictator, I mean president -- I always confuse the two. I just want you to know, as far as those threats of war with the United States, that was just political blustering. I knew I shouldn't have listened to my political consultants. Those idiots even told me I didn't have to campaign. Where's James Carville when you need him?
"So now we will get set for our next election. Who knows in that election we may even have two candidates and voting will only be mandatory for people who voted for me in the last election. But for those who didn't vote for me there are no hard feelings and no need to worry that you had to sign your name and address on the ballot."
NEW YORK, NY, USA - Before the attacks of September 11, the big topic was election reform. It was embarrassing that the United States -- the biggest supporter of democracy -- could not even figure out who won their Presidential Election. When the night was over Bush had a slight edge over Gore and for the first time in an election we heard terms such as undercount, voters intent, and hanging chad. With the next presidential election coming up in 2004, what have we done about it? Absolutely nothing.
Another difference is on the Iraqi ballot you don't pick which candidate you like the best. You are given a candidate and vote either "yes" or "no." The candidate who gets the most yes votes wins the election.
Even though Saddam did receive all the votes in this election, he is not resting on his laurels. To get ready for his next election in seven years and to celebrate his victory, he agreed to free prisoners from Iraq's jails if they met certain standards. It turned out he freed everybody. What was his standard? I guess anyone who killed less people than him gets to leave.
STUART ALTMAN - Says of himself: "I am an attorney in New York City who enjoys writing humor articles. I came in third in the Funniest Lawyer in New York Competition(Then again I don't know if that's saying much because the guy who won was still telling O.J. jokes)." This is his third contribution to The World's Magazine.
WEB SITE PICK OF THE WEEK: The United Nation's World Health Organization has a plethora of information you could probably use. Visit their Web site when you're not with us. Cheers!
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