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Computer Problems Already Affecting Florida Voters
TAGmclaren writes "The Sun-Sentinel is reporting on computer glitches already affecting the election in - you guessed it - Florida. Of the 14 early voting sites that opened in Broward County on Monday morning, 9 were reporting problems. In Orlando County, the touch screens crashed. More generally, SFgate.com is keeping track of all voting issues across the country - including lawsuits and other ballot problems." Update: 10/19 03:38 GMT by T : Thanks to reader Dale J. Russell for pointing out that "there is no Orlando County. The city of Orlando, Florida resides in Orange County."
Orlando is in Orange county.
Was that I was watching the local news (Washington, DC) and they were discussing electronic voting machines and some of the concerns surrounding them. Then, the reporter ends his report basically blowing the concerns off and saying it was just people were afraid of computers raising a fuss. What? It seems to me that the more people know about computers and know about the systems, the more concerned they are. It's not people afraid of computers and to be dismissed like that simply blows my mind.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNew s/1098121671320_93530871/?hub=World
"And in Orange County, voting ground to a halt after the touch-screen voting system crashed for about 10 minutes.
A senior deputy elections supervisor could not explain the brief outage, but speculated a faulty Internet connection may have been to blame."
Yeeeehaw! Let the games begin.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
"Of the 14 early voting sites that opened in Broward County on Monday morning, 9 were reporting problems."
Upon contacting their support center, the issue was resolved shortly after the operators were instructed to turn the power ON.
My new
I'm posting this message from a Florida Voting machine. Browsing under IE is great! Had to download and install flash plugin for a few sites, though. I have no idea why all these posters are saying this electronic voting system is insecure. Everytime these popup windows appear telling me they need to confirm my credit card information, the numbers are displayed as asterisks (*) when I type it in. This voting machine seems plenty secure to me.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
The machines aren't too fancy -- certainly not fancy enough to run bloatware like Windows. However, they follow a simple low-tech protocol that works and shut down if tampered with. And, as with all things India, they cost $200 a pop, compared to $3000 per machines in the U.S.
The U.S. election authorities can learn a lot from India's last election. Read all about it here.
I'm confused by this flip flop mantra that republicans keep chanting. Surely changing your position on an issue in the face of new evidence is a "Good Thing". It implies an open mind and critical thinking, whereas sticking doggedly to a position that has since been shown to be wrong is just stupid.
For example, on the Iraq war vote, Kerry voted for the war on the basis of the evidence made available by Bush. We now know that the evidence for war was wrong, incomplete and selectively chosen by a broken system. If you believed the evidence that was presented at the time then voting for war was the only option (as it happens I didn't believe the evidence, but that is a freedom a popularly elected official doesn't really have if he wants to be re-elected). In the light of new evidence it appears that the case for war was not based in fact, but speculation (if you're feeling generous towards Bush), or greed (if you're being less generous). Faced with the new information I would be deeply concerned if someone did not change their point of view. It is a deeply valid thing to do.
Making a decision on the best available information is a good thing. Making a decision on ideological grounds and the selecting evidence to support your position is not a good thing.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine