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[edited repost from yesterday]

An MIT/Caltech study of voting technology found that paper ballots are the most accurate.

The 2004 Democratic primary had a turnout pattern of primary-specific apathy (lower than expected votes) and caucus-specific inspiration (high and record high votes). Why did the New York primary record a 20-year low turnout on the same day that the Minnesota caucus recorded a 33-year high turnout?

We could start with the 16-year old exchange student from Thailand (who cares about 18-year minimum age U.S. citizens) or a Feb 22 blueprint for process tampering ("... DFL is essentially conducting a primary at the caucuses. and through ineptness or design they've opened the door to more voting fraud than the Florida Republicans could ever imagine ..."). DFL will not provide official results until Mar 29th, nearly 4 weeks after the MN caucus.

South Carolina's state Dem party fought pressure from the national Dems to institute a loyalty oath for voters, which would have torpedoed Edwards. State officials chose to hand count paper ballots for security, even though machines were available. South Carolina was one of the few 2004 primaries to report record turnout and the only state where Edwards won.

Hand counted paper ballots are the gold standard of voting. Cheaper and faster are neither necessary nor desirable properties of biennial elections. The elimination of counting as a fraud source allows more resources to be deployed for voter authentication and registration (age, citizenship and proof of precinct residency).

Vulnerable processes are easily attacked by malicious precinct captains who plausibly deny competence. Don't let humans hide behind distracting machines. Securely log poll officials and reduce the cost of distributed auditing.

[edited repost from yesterday]

An MIT/Caltech study of voting technology found that paper ballots are the most accurate.

The 2004 Democratic primary had a turnout pattern of primary-specific apathy (lower than expected votes) and caucus-specific inspiration (high and record high votes). Why did the New York primary record a 20-year low turnout on the same day that the Minnesota caucus recorded a 33-year high turnout?

We could start with the 16-year old exchange student from Thailand (who cares about 18-year minimum age U.S. citizens) or a Feb 22 blueprint for process tampering ("... DFL is essentially conducting a primary at the caucuses. and through ineptness or design they've opened the door to more voting fraud than the Florida Republicans could ever imagine ..."). DFL will not provide official results until Mar 29th, nearly 4 weeks after the MN caucus.

South Carolina's state Dem party fought pressure from the national Dems to institute a loyalty oath for voters, which would have torpedoed Edwards. State officials chose to hand count paper ballots for security, even though machines were available. South Carolina was one of the few 2004 primaries to report record turnout and the only state where Edwards won.

Hand counted paper ballots are the gold standard of voting. Cheaper and faster are neither necessary nor desirable properties of biennial elections. The elimination of counting as a fraud source allows more resources to be deployed for voter authentication and registration (age, citizenship and proof of precinct residency).

Vulnerable processes are easily attacked by malicious precinct captains who plausibly deny competence. Don't let humans hide behind distracting machines. Securely log poll officials and reduce the cost of distributed auditing.

[edited repost from yesterday]

An MIT/Caltech study of voting technology found that paper ballots are the most accurate.

The 2004 Democratic primary had a turnout pattern of primary-specific apathy (lower than expected votes) and caucus-specific inspiration (high and record high votes). Why did the New York primary record a 20-year low turnout on the same day that the Minnesota caucus recorded a 33-year high turnout?

We could start with the 16-year old exchange student from Thailand (who cares about 18-year minimum age U.S. citizens) or a Feb 22 blueprint for process tampering ("... DFL is essentially conducting a primary at the caucuses. and through ineptness or design they've opened the door to more voting fraud than the Florida Republicans could ever imagine ..."). DFL will not provide official results until Mar 29th, nearly 4 weeks after the MN caucus.

South Carolina's state Dem party fought pressure from the national Dems to institute a loyalty oath for voters, which would have torpedoed Edwards. State officials chose to hand count paper ballots for security, even though machines were available. South Carolina was one of the few 2004 primaries to report record turnout and the only state where Edwards won.

Hand counted paper ballots are the gold standard of voting. Cheaper and faster are neither necessary nor desirable properties of biennial elections. The elimination of counting as a fraud source allows more resources to be deployed for voter authentication and registration (age, citizenship and proof of precinct residency).

Vulnerable processes are easily attacked by malicious precinct captains who plausibly deny competence. Don't let humans hide behind distracting machines. Securely log poll officials and reduce the cost of distributed auditing.

An MIT/Caltech study of voting technology found that paper ballots are the most accurate.

The 2004 Democratic primary had a turnout pattern of primary-specific apathy (lower than expected votes) and caucus-specific inspiration (high and record high votes). Why did the New York primary record a 20-year low turnout on the same day that the Minnesota caucus recorded a 33-year high turnout?

South Carolina's state Dem party fought pressure from the national Dems to institute a loyalty oath for voters, which would have torpedoed Edwards. State officials chose to hand count paper ballots for security, even though machines were available. South Carolina was one of the few 2004 primaries to report record turnout and the only state where Edwards won.

Hand counted paper ballots are the gold standard of voting. Cheaper and faster are neither necessary nor desirable properties of biennial elections.

John Kerry doesn't talk about that stuff (except recently when he started cribbing Edwards' speech), but he's the only Dem candidate people remember because his face is plastered all over the TV.

It would be more accurate to say you sound like John Edwards.

Ok, here's a topical example with links to spell it out.

Go here and look at "A New Approach to Control Spiraling Health Care Costs". Kerry wants the government to pick up 75% of catastrophic claims, which accounts for 15% of health insurers' costs, in return for a promise that they will pass the savings on to consumers. This is just cost shifting with a shallow guarantee of savings on the other end. Years of hospitals double-charging Medicare and Medicaid show that the government has real difficulty figuring out how to oversee health care businesses. I have no doubt that insurance companies will find ways to make it look like they are passing on savings without lowering premiums a damn cent. As a free-market guy, you understand that's exactly what the companies will do thanks to the profit motive. Next, look at "Lowering Costs with New Technology", which gives a "technology bonus" as an incentive to health care providers and insurers to update their procedures and switch to electronic records. In other words, we'll pay hospitals to switch to electronics across the board, regardless of whether it saves them money now or in the long run. Even if it does save money, what about the companies that have already done the analysis and made a sound investment in technology? It seems like they'll be left in the cold, while the ones dragging their feet get a bonus for doing so.

Kerry's "Give Every American Access to the Same Plan As Members of Congress" makes more sense. Edwards' has a similar plan, except it emphasizes competition between the national and private systems by giving tax credits based on family status and income. These can be spent on enrolling in the federal system or to pay for private insurance through the employer (essentially health vouchers). This too is cost shifting, but since the savings are in the consumers' hands, there's no chance they will be lost due to creative accounting by insurance companies. Edwards "Require Parents to Cover Their Children" covers the case of parents who have enough money to cover their children but don't bother to out of greed. Localized responsibility seems more logical than giving the responsibility to a blanket federal program. Edwards also wants to support small businesses by helping them pool their resources to get insurance. Having known people working for small businesses, I realize how much of a problem this is. Kerry is silent on this issue.

Now the real kicker: look at Edwards' "Stop the Hospital and Insurance Company Paper Chase". Wow, someone gets it and is actually trying to fix the market. Rather than duplicate tests and records that hospitals have no real motivation to share (well, they pretend to share, but effectively they don't), force providers to use a compatible standard so your information can move with you. Now you can move to a different hospital without a huge switching cost. Unlike Kerry's "just spend money on technology", Edwards' plan should actually achieve a cost reduction by commodity information storage. It also allows the hospital to save costs itself: rather than being locked into a proprietary storage format from a vendor, they could choose to change to a better system without losing their data. Note the similarity here with proposed OSS use in governments; They care less about the "free software" aspect and more about the open, accessible data storage guarantees.

Edwards also wants to increase the nursing workforce. This is a huge problem right now, which again, Kerry does not address. Kerry's main point that Edwards lacks is the "Strong Enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights". However, his idea sounds more like a Doctor's Bill of Rights to me. Right now, doctors and hospitals are as much a part of the problem as insurance companies. They have no incentive to cut costs, because they don't actually pay them. Most in the profession are well meaning

Credits for hiring US citizen IN the US.

I hope this doesn't sound trollish, but I thought I should mention that someone proposed this very idea last summer: "give a 10 percent tax cut to corporations that produce goods here and keep jobs at home." (Read more here.)

Not all trial lawyers are evil, some actually help people. Remember, the client has to walk in the door.

And yes, a really good one wants to be your next president. I for one think he'd be an awesome president.

(Not that a wet dishrag wouldn't be an improvement over what we have now..)

Someone making ridiculous claims and wanting a huge heaps of money isn't actually news. Much more people do this for a living than you might guess.

Yes, they're called trial lawyers...and one of them wants to be your next president

(If you cruise over to Larry Lessig's blogJohn Edwards is guest blogging on a variety of tech topics this week.)

We use a handful of open-source tools here at Campaign HQ. Why? Cost and reliability. The same reason you guys choose this stuff.

Oh... And our entire Web Team runs on Mac OS X. Contrary to one of the comments posted earlier, Senator Edwards made it clear during Tuesday's debate that he prefers his Mac.

I hope you folks have a chance to learn more about John Edwards.

(If you cruise over to Larry Lessig's blogJohn Edwards is guest blogging on a variety of tech topics this week.)

We use a handful of open-source tools here at Campaign HQ. Why? Cost and reliability. The same reason you guys choose this stuff.

Oh... And our entire Web Team runs on Mac OS X. Contrary to one of the comments posted earlier, Senator Edwards made it clear during Tuesday's debate that he prefers his Mac.

I hope you folks have a chance to learn more about John Edwards.

(If you cruise over to Larry Lessig's blog John Edwards is guest blogging on a variety of tech topics this week.)

We use a handful of open-source tools here at Campaign HQ. Why? Cost and reliability. The same reason you guys choose this stuff.

Oh... And our entire Web Team runs on Mac OS X. Contrary to one of the comments posted earlier, Senator Edwards made it clear during Tuesday's debate that he prefers his Mac.

I hope you folks have a chance to learn more about John Edwards.

(If you cruise over to Larry Lessig's blog John Edwards is guest blogging on a variety of tech topics this week.)

We use a handful of open-source tools here at Campaign HQ. Why? Cost and reliability. The same reason you guys choose this stuff.

Oh... And our entire Web Team runs on Mac OS X. Contrary to one of the comments posted earlier, Senator Edwards made it clear during Tuesday's debate that he prefers his Mac.

I hope you folks have a chance to learn more about John Edwards.

As we swing into the thick of the 2004 electoral playoffs, it's interesting to see what kinds of platforms are running under the candidates' official campaign Web sites. Netcraft has a handy feature called "What's that site running?" that lets us see combinations of Web servers and OS platforms. So here's a quick rundown, in alphabetical order:

• George W. Bush: Microsoft IIS on Windows 2000

• Wesley Clark: Apache on Linux

• Howard Dean: Apache on FreeBSD

• John Edwards: Microsoft IIS "behind a computer running NetWare"

• Richard Gephardt: Microsoft IIS on Windows 2000

• John Kerry: Apache on Linux

• Dennis Kucinich Apache on Linux

• Carol Mosely-Braun: Apache on FreeBSD

• Al Sharpton: Apache on Solaris 8

• Joe Lieberman: Apache on FreeBSD

For what it's worth, the Republican National Committee is running Microsoft IIS on Windows 2000, while the Democratic National Committee is running Apache on Linux.

As of this writing, November 5, 2003, the RNC has an uptime of 4.26 days (maximum of 39.04) and a 90-day moving average of 16.91. The DNC has an uptime of 445.02 days (also the maximum) and a 90-day moving average of 395.38 days.

Draw your own conclusions.

Doc Searls is Senior Editor of Linux Journal.

That individual worth could somehow beat out nepotism and favortism.

This could've come straight out of a speech by John Edwards.

From his site:
"It's no coincidence that America is the most prosperous nation on Earth. Our country was founded on values like the honor of work, responsibility for our actions, and an equal opportunity for every American to build a better life for their children. We reject special privileges for the few and the empty promise of a free lunch."

Rather than repeat, and possibly misstate, the positions of the candidates I'd suggest you take a look at each of the candidates issue statements.

• Howard Dean
• John Kerry
• Dick Gephardt
• John Edwards
• Dennis Kucinich
• etc...

Most of the candidates have answers (or ideas) for each of these questions posted on their page. There is no single unified platform for the democratic party at this point.

Just for the record, John Edward is the guy who talks to the dead, while John Edwards is running for president.