Las guaguitas están más dulces hoy!
Ayer fui al discurso de victoria. Pude escuchar muy poco por la cantidad absurda de gente que había, pero debo decir que me alegró mucho ver la diversidad de gente que había. Especialmente las disidencias con sus banderas y parejas sintiendose tranquiles por al menos un día.
Va a ser un gobierno muy complejo y con demasiados desafíos. Hay que moderar las expectativas, pero tengo fe en que al menos se va a poder defender la convención.
I can't vote here yet but goodluck and stay safe out there today guys. A few thoughts:
#1.) We need advanced voting here. This bullshit with the micros and the long lines in the heat and a million other reasons why this is just a no-brainer that you be allowed to vote weeks in advance of the actual election day.
#2.) Ignorant question here: why should anyone have to take a bus or travel more than 10 minutes by foot to vote? I have friends who live 2 hours away from where they have to go vote. Is this lazyness on their part not updating their registered address or can we not just have a system where you can vote wherever you are in the country at your nearest voting center?
Advanced voting also allows people who may live further from a voting center to do it at their own convenience with time and not run into potential public transportation fuckery like we are seeing today.
#3.) Again, open more voting centers maybe? No one should have to rely on public transport to vote, especially in a big city like santiago. Though I know this is probably easier said than done. Its just frustrating to think people have to travel long distances to vote.
#4.) This is just a random thought but I am not a fan of the two-round election system. Any thoughts on this? Pros/cons? Why cant we decide this in one go and avoid drawing this out and closing the country down for 2 election days? I am completely uneducated in most things political so forgive me here. Do many countries use this system for their presidential elections?
Well, the two round system comes from the Pinochet's constitution, as it wasn't like that before. Until Allende's election, it was a one round system, but if a candidate won by less than 50% of the vote, it needed congress approval. The idea of the two round system is so that candidates that are the most voted, but aren't total majority, create a government coallition and pull them out of their trenches, which is exactly what we saw in this second round. For all I hate Jaime Guzman, I gotta say this isn't a bad idea. The issue was bigger when there was the binominal system that basically gave us a glorified two party system. Now that it's more open and more parties exist, this mechanism can allow for alternative governments to run while also not being ideologically intransigent.
The cons is that it's exahusting because it becomes a very long election process. But thanks to our counting system, at least it works.
Now, for advance voting, it could be something, but I'm not sure I'm really into it. The best thing about our process is that votes are counted the same day, anyone can go and see it happening, and it becomes really transparent. The only way you can tamper with the election is through external methods, and it becomes so much obvious when you do it.
But yeah, where you get to vote is something to improve. We had the 2017 with a "random" re-sign of thousands of electors with new adressed. A lot of people didn't vote for that (Imo, that could've been fraud even). And you need to register your adress properly to get the closest possible place. Some people get prioritized I believe, but it can still lead to people having to vote too far away.
I think we need to keep the pen and paper vote for transparency, but maybe registry records could stop being books. But I'm unsure, our system has minimal flaws in the big picture. We need more voting booths and a better assignment of them, as well as mechanisms to avoid shit like what we saw with public transportation. But it works, and if it ain't broken...