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Gore Vidal Savages Electronic Voting
gribbly writes "aging author and social critic Gore Vidal savaged electronic voting in an interview with the LA Weekly. The interview deals mainly with (what's wrong with) the Bush Administration, but halfway down he says: 'We don't want an election without a paper trail...all three owners of the companies who make these machines are donors to the Bush administration. Is this not corruption?'."
Sign the HR 2239 petition. It requires electronic machines to produce a receipt which is deposited in a lock box in case of a recount and mandates .5% of districts at random do a recount to verify accuracy of the machines.
Keep the freedom to vote.
The only corruption here is the horrible corruption of the English language that somehow lead to CmdrTaco thinking "to savage" meant "to ravage."
:to attack or treat brutally
:to wreak havoc on : affect destructively
From m-w.com:
savage v.
ravage v.
Seems like either of these is just fine in the context provided.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
Wally O'Dell has sworn to deliver Ohio's electoral votes for G.W. next year. That's well beyond the level of the generality you've just expressed.
And no, companies and industries don't give money equally. In some industries they do, in some there's a much more slanted bias. Think the energy industry's giving money to Howard Dean much? Trial lawyers give money to Democrats. HMOs give money to Republicans. For some mysterious reason, there's a very real Republican slant among these vote-counting companies. We're not talking about them covering their bases both ways, we're talking about openly advocating for one party while selling machines that count votes.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Most libraries keep archives of old newspapers indefinitely. You can go there now and probably find any New York Times paper since it has existed in one form or another. (not necessarily in paper form, but maybe microfiche?)
What?
The EFF is running an action alert on the Voter confidence and Increased Accessability act of 2003 which mandates public review of the machines (i.e. opening the source for review) and including paper recipts for recounts. U.S. Citizens can go here to submit a letter to your congressional rep.
What's a few minutes of your time for democracy?
Yes you will never find any company unbiased but we need a trial and the database should be public. Hell, the code should be owned the states and government!
People who count votes usually have both a republican and a democrat together looking over question ballets to decide. We need this as well.
Who does count the votes anyway? Diebold??
http://saveie6.com/
http://www.latimes.com/media/graphic/2001-11/10879 74.gif
If you count every ballot on which a candidate preference could be determined, including ballots in which a voter punched the chad and then wrote in the name of that same candidate, Al Gore wins Florida by 107 votes.
Why is it called COMMON sense when so few people have it?