Voting On The Old Worlds
By; Speaker Gerald A. Polley
As we have been in the middle of the current political crisis, we haven't been able to put much in the magazine about The Old Worlds. But the current situation has brought up the question "Were there elections on The Old Worlds? And did they have any of the problems that we have, here?"
Well, there is no one answer because each of The Old Worlds was rather different. The Holy Godden Empire, all the Haven worlds, had no elections, whatsoever. The system of government was a military dictatorship with a hereditary hierarchy. The Lord God appointed all system governors, and they apointed the next officials under them, and so forth. The Lord God was somewhat sensitive to the local community's desires, and if an individual was not really liked in a particular place he would be apt to appoint someone more suitable to the local people.
There was very little corruption in the political system, as the pentalties for such were so severe that very few dared to challenge The Lord God's wrath. So actually things usually ran rather smoothly.
The Spiritist Republic did have elections. But they were somewhat different from the way elections are held on Earth. Each official had a five year term; local, state, national, and world. But the elections were staggered. The local elections were one year, the state elections the next year, the natiional elections the year after that, and finally, the world elections. And there was one open year where usually there were no elections unless there was some emergency, some sudden vacancy that had to be filled.
The elections were held in this way so that the people could concentrate fully, on the particular officials they were electing that year; governor's races wouldn't interfere with The Presidential Races and visa versa. No popular President could help a governor of his same party get into office by running at the same time.
There was one major difference in the political system. The governors, Presidents, and world leaders were elected to open terms. At each regular election there would be spaces at the bottom of the ballot that read "For Continuance," "For Departure," after each of the major leader's names. If the major leaders failed to obtain a majority in each election they would call for special mid-term elections, resign, a temporary person would take over, and they would campaign telling the poeple why they should return them to office. The special election would be held, and the people would either return the person to office, or vote in someone else. This system really kept the political leaders on their toes.
However, in all of The Republic's history there was not one successful campaign for departure. All public officials served until they felt they had completed their mission and retired. But that the system was there showed the incredible intuitiveness of Spiritist Law. There could never have been a situation like we just went through in The United States. There were brief flirtations in The Republic with electronic voting machines and punch card type ballots, but these were extremely unpopular, as the populous believed they could be tampered with too easily. A simple paper ballot system was used in all elections, that could be mechanically read, but easily hand counted, if necessary. If there was no clear mark in a candidate's box, there was no vote for him! It was that simple. The Hashons had very few referendems. Usually any problems were settled through the usual political process. Though they did have laws allowing referendems, they were very seldem used in their society.
The Hashons took voting very seriously. Voting day was a paid holiday. All businesses shut down during polling times. Places like theaters, and other places of entertainment, did not open at all. Grocery stores and other necessities opened for a few hours after the polls closed. But only very limited business was done on voting day. And turn out was very high, considering you could lose major priviledges if you didn't vote, such as driver's licenses, and even some business licenses. Each person was issued a voting card that was signed by the polling master at each poll when they voted. An unsigned card indicated a person hadn't voted, and could result in the loss of privileges. The Hashons not only considered voting a right, they considered it a requirement. As you can understand, they had a very high turn out!
The Peepian system was very much like the system used in The United States, except they used a colored marble system. Each voter was given a tray with colored marbles in it. They took it into the voting booth where the candidates' pictures were displayed with a color under them. They dropped the appropriate colored marble into the candidate's slot, and dumped the rest into a no vote bin. I know it sounds like a silly system, but they used it for untold ages and it worked! The Peepians had a lot of referendems. A black marble meant no, a white marble meant yes. Like I say, it worked!