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Indecision 2002
The most common story submission about the U.S. elections held today seems to be that the consortium which typically conducts and reports exit polls has encountered technical difficulties. If only they'd had an open beta program... There have also been a number of stories highlighting problems with new electronic voting machines, a topic Slashdot has hit several times in the past. CNN, the NY Times, and essentially every other U.S. news outfit are following the election results as best they can.
The most interesting thing I've heard on the news today is that one of the international organizations that monitors elections in the Third World is monitoring the election in Florida this time.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I currently reside in South Korea so I have to vote via absentee ballot and I often wonder if my vote is really counted. I am reassured now though to hear that everyone else who has "turned out" to vote in person, will have the same insecurites that I have towards voting. Perhaps someday they will have a system that works...
...for now I guess we are stuck with the same 'ol buggy systems...kinda like a Microsoft Product.
"A show of hands from those who vote for the Republican Nominee"
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
Now, if VNS were as good at predicting the outcome of software development projects, as they are at predicting election results... Hmmm, maybe the problem is, they are.
Speaking of elections--Today was the election, but slashdot didn't even run a story asking geeks to vote. You'd think that a site that cares so much about "Your Rights Online" would at least point out a couple of candidates who have either very bad records on such things or very good records. You know, if all we do is whine about the DMCA, congress-critters will continue to screw us over. Voting, and getting other people to vote will make them sit up and take notice. Well, maybe 2004.
Does anyone have any information on how (and to what extent) voting machines are audited? I saw a show (on TLC, I think) showing how heavily slot machines were audited in Las Vegas. I'd like to know if voting machines are held to the same standards.
Sounds like what Montana did with their speed limits during the 55 era. If you never drove through back in the day, it worked like this. If you get pulled over, coverage is pretty limited here, they only time I still see a highway patrol is near a city, or highway patrol HQ, you paid the cop a $5 ticket that didn't get written up to your insurance. Most people in the state, drove with a stack of of 5s in the glove compartment. Technically the speed limit was 55 so they got their highway money, but enforcement was very limited.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
The 93,000 people that were not allowed to vote during the 2000 election in Florida were still on the list this time around. The company who created that list of supposed felons and dead people for Katherine Harris says that if Harris had not crossed off most of their checking processes off of the contract and they were allowed to process that list that the end result would be a list of approximately 3000 names. Ninety-one thousand people (mostly African American Democrats, curiously enough) would be allowed to vote today (and two years ago) if they were allowed to do their job.
The State of Florida, when confronted with this information, admitted that the list was flawed and that they would get it fixed...some time in 2003. After the current election.
For more information check out Greg Palast's book "The Best Democracy Money Could Buy". It's a heck of a read. There was also an article over at Salon late last week but it is in their premium contect section.
(One quick clarification: I hate using the term geek.)
/.-eers hates Senator Hollings? Do you find yourself actually paying more attention to politics now than you did even 3 or 4 years ago?
Call it flamebait/offtopic/troll/whatever if you want, but it's an honest question:
When was the last time having a good working knowledge of senators and politicians was necessary for the average geek? Is this the first time period in American history where politics play a vital role in our daily lives insofar as the comingling of our PCs and freedoms? DRM? Napster? RIAA invasions into our home PCs? The Patriot Act? Before recent years, can you think of the geek community despising someone for the same reasons as a great deal of
It's not really an issue of the technically-literate (is that better? Yeesh) being socially responsible citizens, but I'll bet that at the past 2 or 3 elections, geek turnout has been higher than normal at least in part because issues that directly affect us have been in the spotlight. Perhaps we feel that it's our responsiblity to at least sort of steer things in what we believe to be the proper direction? I dunno. I'm stuck at work until 3am, I'm bored and I thought I'd see if anyone would bite.
No, you can't.
And the company that manufactures the most widely used ones is owned a major Republican supporter. There is at least one shareholder who is an actual politician. They've started suing news outlets publishing this information, though.
You're not so good at economics eh?
How else could you fall for the capitalist propoganda?
Sweden has a lower AVERAGE INCOME than america.
That's the because the exploiters at the top 10% of america ARE SO RICH.
The middle class in sweden and america are equal.
The poorest 10% of sweden is 60% richer than the poorest 10% of america. Only 6% of swedes live on less than 11$ a day where as 14% of america lives on less than 11$ per day. That's more than 1 in 10 americans living on less than 11$ per day!
Just taking away bill gates wealth from the average puts a hit in it, go on and take away the other CEOS of multinational corporations that are currently harbored by america and all the sudden sweden is looking pretty sweet.
Not to mention they get more than 3 times as much vacation time per year and a national health care system so no one is turned away because they don't have the cash to be treated humanly.
Also life expectancy in swden is three years higher and infant mortality is half of what it is in america, so you can't claim the care is somehow worse, it's actually superior! Also illiteracy is at much lower levels in sweden than in america.
You where probably brainwashed by some tool spouting off about the GDP. Well everyone knows that GDP is about what is produced, it says nothing about how the value of what is produced is distributed. The value in the GDP doesn't really have to be owned by someone in the country, only produced there. In america all the value goes to the top, not the workers so it's a trick to use GDP average as some measure of economic wellbeing in a country.
I only have a hardcopy but if you search around the net i'm sure you can find the studies from UC Berkeley to back up any of these facts.
Of course like most americans you'd probably rather just believe the lies they tell you in the capitalist controlled media.
A proper voting system administered via computing with adequate security measures would be fine. This means primarily NO INTERNET CONNECTIONS. If the voting machines were hooked up to any network, then the results could be tampered with by crackers or others.
... ... ...
A proper voting system also means using Linux or OpenBSD as the OS, not Windows 2k/XP, both of which aren't nearly as secure (or as stable) as a well-configured Linux or OpenBSD system. Also, they aren't controlled by proprietary interests like MS which would find nothing wrong with tampering with an election.
Also, of course, a proper program is needed, with an easy to use interface, with clear instructions.
Something like this would do for electing the Congressman:
1. Choose a Candidate for the Congressman by touching his name with your finger: X, Y, Z
Click preview to preview your voting selections.
2. You have selected:
For Congressman: X
3. If these are the candidates you want to vote for, touch YES! with your finger. If not, touch NO! with your finger.
If person touches NO!, back to #1, with previous selections highlighted, and allowing user to change it.
Very simple. Very effective. Even someone in Florida could figure it out. At the very least, you won't be counting divits and chads.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I voted earlier this afternoon in Colorado (city of Lakewood). The system was very easy to understand, much as you alluded to.
There was no internet/network connection to each voting booth box. The people running the voting would take a hardware cartridge (like a Nintendo cartrigde of old) and plug in into the voting booth tablet to activate it, and then they remove it. Apparently they first "activated" it in some main computer. It was a touch-screen tablet PC with a straightforward interface... click the candidate you want with your finger. It then showed a big X next to who you voted for. If you wanted to change it, you could click a different candidate, and the X would move to their name.
Several pages of votes later, you get to review a list of all of your votes. If they look satisfactory, you push a "VOTE" button at the top of the tablet, which flashes red when you are ready to finish voting. Press it and you are done. I didn't see what happens after that. I imagine the computers keep a tally of votes on each, and they are plugged into the main server at some point, or the "cartridges" can be used to download the vote data and they plug into the main server.
But the main point is, there was no internet connection, no keyboard, a proprietary "cartridge" system for passing some kind of voter data or to activate the terminal for voting. Obviously I don't know the OS it was running, but it did seem fairly straightforward with no obvious ways to mess with it. Not to mention that there were 4 election representatives there overseeing everything and it would be way obvious if anyone tried to mess with the machines in any way.
I don't know if they had any kind of built in UPS, because someone could pull the plug out of the wall easily... but overall they looked like good voting machines with proprietary hardware, which is a good thing IMO...
Mark
In case you haven't noticed, the 10th admendment isn't really enforced anymore.
This is an important ammendment. Everyone talks about the 1st and the 4th, like they embody the bill of rights. The majority of the other ammendments in the Bill of Rights basically give civil liberties to the citizens. But the 10th is relatively unique in that it gives rights to the states.
To me, this means that if the Constitution doesn't say the Federal government can do it, they can't, but the states can.
To the government, this means nothing.
I think the U.S. needs to take a step back and re-evaluate a lot of laws and precedents that have been set. This goes beyond political bickering. I'm talking about the basic functions of government.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
For example, why is it a federal crime to use a hand gun near a school,
because it's NOT! This law was overturned on exactly the 10th Amendment argument you are making. Sadly there are still lots of laws that completely ignore the concept of federalism but at least the Supremes are *starting* apply it here and there.
From that point of view last night's election is good news. With control of the senate GWB will likely get to appoint much more conservative judges than he would otherwise - judges who are strict constructionists and much more likely to uphold the 10th ammendment in all it's chaotic decentralized glory. States will be much more free to follow their own course - more libertarian in AZ, more theocratic in GA, maybe even more progressive in VT.