Slashdot Mirror

In Clark County, Nevada (county that Las Vegas resides in), you can search properties based on the owner's name.

http://www.co.clark.nv.us/ASSESSOR/Disclaim.htm

The problem most states have is that they do not have a large pre-existing and non-partisan based bureaucracy in place with a tech background, that possesses an understanding of the potential pitfalls with electronic voting machines, along with vast experience in enforcement. These States should look for help from one that has a long history of dealing with honest and transparent auditing from electronic devices.

In Nevada, Dean Heller, the Scretary of State, decided to tap the knowledge of the Nevada Gaming Control Authority when deciding upon a system to choose. They rejected Diebold machines, judging them to be easily tampered with, and instead went with Sequoia Voting Systems, but only after a paper trail model, which was satisfactory to the state had been implemented. Sequoia's name for this version seems to be, AVC Edge® with VeriVote Printer.

Nevada was the only state in 2004 to require a paper trail in their electronic voting machines, and the election was smooth. Here's the current URL for The Clark County, Nevada(Las Vegas)Election Department's voting machine guide.

Today was my second use of the machine (I didn't vote in the primary-it tends to be pointless for non-partisan voters like me), and I have a fairly high degree of faith in its veracity. This faith is contingent on believing that any tampering from the government side would require too large of a group of individuals to keep it quiet, and that Nevada Gaming Control Authority values its integrity higher than short term partisan interests. The vote begins with signing a registered voter print-out next to my name, then a card with a programmable magnetic strip is given to me whereupon I go to a machine and insert it. Then I make my election choices using a touch screen screen. After finishing those, I am given an onscreen recap of my intended vote, and if acceptable, the vote is then printed on a continuous register tape that can be viewed behind a glass barrier, and if it is the same as my vote, I finalise my vote.

Perfect? Hardly, but it fewer problems than the punch card balloting, and the old lever voting machines that were in use before those.

Here are a few links:

• Rachel Konrad-AP, "'Paper trail' voting system used in Nevada Electronic ballot machines equipped with printers", MSNBC, September 7, 2004
• Marsha Walton, "Nevada improves odds with e-vote: Slot machine experts consulted on voting technology", CNN, October 29, 2004
• Jim Drinkard, "High-tech voting accessory: Paper", USA Today, August 8, 2005
• Associated Press, "Nevada's Seamless E-Vote", Wired, September 13, 2004

There is at least one dissenter in Nevada though:
Martin Griffith, "Citizen activist sues provider of electronic voting machines", Tahoe Daily Tribune, October 30, 2006.
Maybe a grain of salt would be a proper prescription with this link though, as 'activist' does seem to be used properly in this headline, and it is the only complaint of this nature I am aware of.

It's very easy to use. I just click on the "Cross Streets" button, enter "Highland" and "Coronado", and I can see my neighborhood from the air. Click on a property, and I can see what they paid for their house. Neato.

Can't the RIAA just find a nice frat house to terrorize?

If you think the information about 10604 Bristow Road is bad, try looking at the Clark County Nevada information.

Check out these assessor records 7959 Bermuda Dunes Ave or the Search by Name or the always fun Search by Address. Or checkout a house owned by the Las Vegas Mayor.

It's a great way to find out how much your neighbor paid, previous owners, or tracking down that obnoxious salesman/lawyer.

Just thinking of the stalking potential on these websites is a nightmare.

If you think the information about 10604 Bristow Road is bad, try looking at the Clark County Nevada information.

Check out these assessor records 7959 Bermuda Dunes Ave or the Search by Name or the always fun Search by Address. Or checkout a house owned by the Las Vegas Mayor.

It's a great way to find out how much your neighbor paid, previous owners, or tracking down that obnoxious salesman/lawyer.

Just thinking of the stalking potential on these websites is a nightmare.

If you think the information about 10604 Bristow Road is bad, try looking at the Clark County Nevada information.

Check out these assessor records 7959 Bermuda Dunes Ave or the Search by Name or the always fun Search by Address. Or checkout a house owned by the Las Vegas Mayor.

It's a great way to find out how much your neighbor paid, previous owners, or tracking down that obnoxious salesman/lawyer.

Just thinking of the stalking potential on these websites is a nightmare.

If you think the information about 10604 Bristow Road is bad, try looking at the Clark County Nevada information.

Check out these assessor records 7959 Bermuda Dunes Ave or the Search by Name or the always fun Search by Address. Or checkout a house owned by the Las Vegas Mayor.

It's a great way to find out how much your neighbor paid, previous owners, or tracking down that obnoxious salesman/lawyer.

Just thinking of the stalking potential on these websites is a nightmare.

I would like to help solidify your platform.

• Abortion: Spot on, man. Making abortion illegal has the direct result of teenagers in bathtubs with coathangers, which are far more of a burden on our health care system. Besides, there's supposed to be separation of church and state, and anti-abortion is a religious stance in most cases.
• Taxes: Please read up on the FairTax initiative. My favorite part is that it taxes consumption rather than earnings, so those who reuse/recycle/buy used goods/consume less will end up paying less taxes.
• Death Penalty: Abolish it. If even 0.001% of the criminals executed are innocent, it's too many. And statistics show that it costs less to keep a criminal in jail for the rest of their life, than it costs to execute them. From both a compassionate and fiscal stance, eliminating the death penalty makes sense.
• Gun Control: This is a tough one. Why should someone be denied the ability (right?) to defend themselves and their family simply because of a mistake they made in their past? And requiring a license makes it easy to "round up the guns" which the Nazis did in taking over power. A disarmed populace is an easily controlled populace. The 2nd Amendment is important; however, there needs to be a balance because otherwise violence may get out of hand. Long story short I think I'd leave it the way it currently is, or perhaps put less restrictions on it.
• Space Program: Another post had a quote from Jerry Pournelle with a great plan: the government would give a tax-free reward to the first American company to cross a specific finish line. Here's a link to that post.
• Prayer in School: Your later response is correct: prayer should not be mandatory, led by school officials, or otherwise forced on students; and also, students should not be prevented from praying (as long as they don't do it out loud).
• Education: Web cams in classrooms will go a long way toward bettering the teachers; if the teachers are graded by the students then teachers might "dumb down" their classes so the students like them better. But having the parents grade the teachers makes sense -- the parents can watch the teachers in action through the webcams, and can also judge how well their child is learning by asking their child questions. Funding should be increased, and by funding I mean teachers salaries should be doubled (or so). Give financial incentives to enter a teaching profession and we'll get better teachers. So we can finally do away with the old saying, "Those who can't do, teach. (And those who can't teach, teach gym.)"
• War in Iraq: I'd like to say get out now, stop wasting money. We've spent $75 billion, and Bush is now asking for $87 billion more. Iraq oil could generate $12 billion next year and $20 billion/year for the next two years (can't find the article, I read it last week). Given this, we would need to appropriate 100% of Iraq's oil revenues for ourselves for 7-10 years in order to "pay for" our military action. I don't think we're going to see that money, which is why I recommend getting out fast and letting the UN clean it up.
• War on Drugs: Pot should be legal, agreed -- then we'd spend far less money enforcing laws that a majority don't want in the first place; and we'd also enjoy increased tax revenue. Treat it just like alcohol: enjoy your body and mind on your own time, but if you're in

One reason US elections are a mess is that the government here, at least in theory, does not keep track of where people live.

Maybe that's what they do wherever you live, but these guys manage to get sample ballots sent to voters by mail before elections. It'd be hard for them to do that if they didn't know where people live. (They'd also need to know that information to determine the offices for which people can vote.) I've only registered once (in 1992) and have only had to notify them of a change-of-address when I moved. Voter ID cards are printed and mailed periodically; you bring that with you on election day. (I usually keep it in the glovebox, since I'll need to drive to the polling place anyway.)

(You mentioned later in your post that you live in California. I suspect the lax voter-registration requirements you describe are one reason why that state is so fscked up.)

Big Labor can FOAD, for all I care.

And 25MpH... That's about twice the average speed of a bus in most cities. Seriously - look it up. In Oxford, where I came from, they did a survey in the mid eighties and found that busses there were driving at an average 8-15MpH while in service!

I outran this bus one day while biking home from work. We started nearly even at timepoint C (Lake Mead and Rainbow) and went south. By the time I had to turn eastward halfway between timepoints G and H (Tropicana and Rainbow), I was barely ahead of the bus. I made all the stops the lights imposed; the bus made the stops it needed to pick up and drop off passengers. I'm not exactly in the best shape (kinda overweight, actually) and my bike isn't a racing bike (it's a six-speed cruiser), but I didn't have to work too hard at keeping up with the bus. I think I did somewhere around 25 km/h (give or take a bit) most of the way, IIRC.

I only know what engineers were saying at the meeting. I agree that the containerization of rad material is extensive. I didn't do the analysis myself, but you will find that the problem is sufficient that there are rad hazard handling provisions (containment buildings, washing houses, etc...) in the plans where there previously were none. That is, and I am talking about the design of transportation canisters here, not fuel rod delivery cans, they expect some of the trucks to arrive dirty, and they are planning for it. This came as quite a surprise to a number of interested parties.

That being said, there is always another analysis out there that says that this isn't a problem, something along the lines of what you are saying. It's another reason I would not believe analysis from anyone other than a disinterested party. Advocacy has a way of clouding your thinking.

For example, here is something from the good folks at Nevada. Again, I take no side, here, guy. But I emphatically do want the Right Thing to happen. It may not be in the best interests of Clark County, it may not be in the best interests of Duke Engineering (or Framatome or whomever), but it will be the best path to take for the nation. And neither power companies nor hysterical zealots are the proper arbiters of that decision. Don't you agree?