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Evoting Problems in Ohio
deus_X_machina writes "The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that a computer error involving one voting-machine cartridge gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct. Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, says the cartridge was retested yesterday and there were no problems. He couldn't explain why the computer reader malfunctioned."
I'msure this is only the first of many, many such stories we wil hear.... No paper audit trail in many places. fun fun fun
I reject your reality
As the article says, that's why election-night results are unofficial. They don't just count these things once and then throw them away. It's already been corrected, so it's not even a problem. blah blah blah well what if it wasn't detected blah blah blah. That is a valid concern, but posting this article on slashdot is just flaimbait.
if you multiply the number of precincts 30x or 40x.
Everybody knows the evoting machines are shit.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I don't think the article is really concerned with WHO the extra votes were for, it is just indicating that there are problems with a electronic voting system that does not include paper trails to provide a more reliable count. The article is trying to indicate that we should not just blindly trust electronic machines, and I agree with them. Whether the extra votes were for Bush or Kerry is beside the point really.
--David
If you find any such stories of equal magnitude, be sure to let us know.
Sure... as soon as the liberal media reports such an event, I'll get right on it. :)
blah blah blah....
drightler@technicalogic.com
No recounts. Nothing to recount. No Audit trail.
Consider the following:
"committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Walden O'Dell, CEO Diebold Inc.
The presidency has been stolen again, and this time they apear to have pulled it off without they lesser evil giving it the good fight.
Realities just a bunch of bits.
Yeah, whatever - Fox news would have been all over a story about Kerry getting extra votes, so don't fucking call the media "liberal" because there is more than one media outlet, and they slant both ways.
FWIW, you are allowed to use the conservative media too.
Hyperbole is the worst thing ever.
Indeed; and a further point is that an error does not matter so much if it is random, but if it can only favour one candidate rather than the other. Therefore it is key to track down the cause of the error.
but that requires intent, not just incompetence.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I might be treading into the realm of flaimbait here, but I will proceed anyway. The reporter for this story found out about the miscount somehow and my bet is that it was a Democrat that tipped him off. Had it been a miscount in Kerry's favor a Democrat wouldn't tip a reporter off and, at least in my experience, neither would a Republican. A republican would have nothing to gain, their candidate already won. On the total reversal, if Kerry had won, a Replublican STILL wouldn't have tipped a reporter off.. at least in my opinion. This is simply because, as Democrat friends of mine have said, "Democrats are whiners.".
YMMV and all that jazz.
blah blah blah....
drightler@technicalogic.com
Do you really think there is no intent to steal votes during an election? On both sides.
A blog about stuff.
>I might be treading into the realm of flaimbait here ;-)
Got that right
>On the total reversal, if Kerry had won, a Replublican STILL wouldn't have tipped a reporter off.. at least in my opinion. This is simply because, as Democrat friends of mine have said, "Democrats are whiners."
No. Republicans are also whiners. Whining about the "liberal media". Whining about judges "legislating from the bench". Partisans are partisans, and they will act accordingly. If Republicans are so noble and stoic, why did they try to impeach Clinton over a blowjob?!? They saw they had a chance to score for their side and they did it.
Really it doesn't matter. The race is over. Bush won. Get over it.
:(
I guess this damn politics section isn't going away.
Then why do republicans whine so much about "the liberal media"?
A blog about stuff.
Personally, I would love to be a diebold programmer who was tasked with stealing this election.
My statement would go into a pair of safe deposit boxes controlled by attorneys with secret instructions to open the contents and make them public if they don't hear from me in 180 days.
I'd have Diebold by the balls.
This is why it would be stupid to try to steal the election this way. It's too hard to keep secret.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Meta-monkey-- how did the grandparent post get a +4:Insightful, while your post languishes? Oh, that's right, you're not toeing the Party line.
Ok.. I'm going to bite.
From Wikipedia:
Impeachment is the process by which a legislative body formally levels charges against a high official of government. Impeachment does not necessarily mean removal from office; it comprises only a formal statement of charges, akin to an indictment in criminal law, and thus is only the first step towards possible removal. Once an individual is impeached, he or she must then face the possibility of conviction via legislative vote, which then entails the removal of the individual from office.
Washington D.C. criminal codes:
22-201. Adultery Definition and penalty. Whoever commits adultery in the District shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by a fine not exceeding $500, or by imprisonment not exceeding 180 days, or both; and when the act is committed between a married person and a person who is unmarried both parties to such act shall be deemed guilty of adultery.
The President was indicted for a crime... seems only right to me.
blah blah blah....
drightler@technicalogic.com
There's a strong likelihood that your an idiot, and a bigot to boot.
Heh. I'm thinking the mods didn't try to load the story within the first few minutes of it being posted. Instead of loading up the story page and comments, it just loaded a page that said "Nothing for you to see here. Move along."
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
What really happened is that fear won. Fear of terrorism, fear of gay marriage, fear of a lot of things. Most of the people I talked to that voted for Bush didn't do so because they thought he was good, they did it because he wasn't Kerry. And vice versa. On top of that only about 30% of eligible voter voted for Bush and if Kerry had won it would have been a similar percentage.
On another topic, what happened to "no taxation without representation"? How easily we forget.
A blog about stuff.
Apparently the republicans are invulnerable to truth and reason. Fairly or unfairly, they've taken the election. Since the conservative trolls and their mod abusing partners are still running rampant, let me cut to the chase.
We as democrats face a strategic gap. Our agenda of promoting civil rights and defending the lower class and the environment isn't grabbing the middle aged voters. In order to turn back the tide of partisan villification and party unilateralism we need to have referendum.
As americans we already have the ability to contact our representatives. Because of the situation we are in, we need to do something more than that. We need our democratic representatives to lead us by calling us together to share our insights and regroup as democrats.
If we do not act now we will be swept away. Discussing our hopes and desires with our neighbors is not going to cut it. Similarly just contacting our reps isn't enough. We need to professionally analyze and resynthsize our mode of operation. Clearly something has to change. We can do this the dumb, easy way, and go about business as usual. Or we can take a comprehensive accounting of ourselves and act.
Beyond that, I have some minor opinions of what we need to do; but these are just guesses in the dark on my part. To firm up our strategy we need to organize. Here's my 2 cents:
The republican agenda is set at the top and their rhetoric is uniform - they listen to Rush Limbaugh and everyone knows what lie to use, what button to push to aggravate us, and which slur to accuse us with. IMHO, we need to fight fire with fire on this. I've heard that we democrats function best as a party when we work from the grassroots up. If this election was our best, we're screwed. We need to oppose fundamentalist christianity's drive to weld their theology to the federal government, but we can embrace christians in the middle and on our side without giving up that goal. Republicans often go against the teachings of Jesus. We need to bring christianity to the fore so that we can counter their "blah blah bible" arguments. We can still embrace non christians by preserving the constitutional foundations of the separation of church and state, and the freedom of religion.
We may want to look at the South, and see if there is room for compromise with southern ideals. Personally, I view the north-south differences in terms of slavery. It appears to me that the big issue we have to face with the south is bigotry against non-whites and non-fundamentalist christians. We can embrace southerners without embracing racism and theological intolerance.
Finally I think we have all seen how much damage the conservative media bias has done to the national discourse. Their spinjockeys and pundits pound out two messages continuously to all their members: The first message is one of reinforcing hatred of democrats. They brand us all as communists, all as unamerican, all as unpatriotic and they're getting cocky about calling us terrorists. We have to give them a few bloody noses or it's never going to end, and America will spiral into theocracy and or fascism.
The second message of the conservative pundit is the party message of the moment. They always have ammo. If you win a discussion on one topic, they turn on you with another. Every time you argue, you're arguing with Karl Rove. It's like playing chess against an army of Kasparovs.
We need to reassert our party identity, and then we need to fight tooth and nail.
One last thing... we need to use our philibuster ability. We may need to compromise unduly... but we can not give up entirely.
As Barak Obama said, the Arc of the Universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
We shall overcome.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
someone--anyone--
As we saw in 2000, the popular vote count means nothing. It's what happens in a few particular places that makes all the difference. Makes it that much easier to screw with things too. Especially when the half of the country that got what they wanted will deliberately ignore and play down the many many problems that caused a lot of votes to be lost. I guess being in touch with the rest of the country means being willing to ignore serious problems with the the systems we use for voting and the people who put those systems in place. On top of all the other things we've heard about the republicans doing, this isn't too surprising though. Party of morals and values my ass. You guys are pretty selective when it comes to ethical standards.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Probably the same reason FOX News takes so much heat from liberals. Nobody likes a story when it isn't slanted in their direction.
blah blah blah....
drightler@technicalogic.com
How does crap like this get modded insightful? You've got to stop drinking the tainted Kool Aid and wake the hell up. The exit polls were wrong everywhere. The networks began to realize there was a problem with the data when exit polls showed Kerry comptetative (and in some cases, up) in places like South Carolina, where Bush preformed strongly in 2000 and where polls leading up to the election had consistantly showed Bush preforming very strongly. Then the actual election returns started coming in, which which was the nail in the coffin for the exti poll data. Bush won South Carolina by 58% to 41%. Early exit poll data had them neck and neck. Exit poll data was wrong everywhere. Why you ask? Exit polls data is notoriously unrealibe, especially in a close race.
On the total reversal, if Kerry had won, a Replublican STILL wouldn't have tipped a reporter off.. at least in my opinion. This is simply because, as Democrat friends of mine have said, "Democrats are whiners.".
If that Republican gave a shit about democracy and the sanctity of the election system, then he damn well should start talking since that's the only way the problems will get fixed.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Way to make an argument there asshat.
All I hear from the citizens who voted for Kerry is "Let's move to Canada". Yeah right, move away and abandon fighting for democracy in your own country. Instead of fleeing to the Canuck Haven, they should stay and demand a re-election, with paper (trail or ballot) only. The remaining americans might have voted for Bush, but they don't deserve being deceived.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Welcome to Our Nightmare
By DONNA J. VOLATILE
It is now the morning after, the morning after, and Kerry supporters should be moving from mourning into anger as the ice cold splash of reality begins to settle in.
Your guy lost, plain and simple but was he really your guy to begin with?
Most of the people who got behind Kerry were people vehemently opposed to the war in Iraq and the use of pre-emptive strikes. Most of you are caring, thoughtful and intelligent people who truly wanted to make a difference. Yet, in mass you got behind a man who didn't represent your ideas and values, a man who couldn't define himself or differentiate himself from his opponent, a man who supported the invasion of Iraq and continued to do so throughout his campaign. Was Kerry really your guy?
All of you claimed you wanted regime change! Some of you really believed your guy would be capable of saving the country by implem! enting real change but many of you got behind Kerry because anybody would be better than Bush.
Hey, don't feel too bad, you were in some pretty good company! You had a wagon load of intellectuals, progressives and even some down right radicals that climbed on board the same bus. You all fed into the fear factor, not the Republican one, spewing trumped up terror alerts and threats but rather the one put forward by the Democrats: DON'T VOTE FOR NADER OR ELSE!
The Republicans cleverly played the fear factor and the terror card but the Democrats were equally duplicitous and devious in their political maneuvering. I wonder if it ever occurred to any of you just how un-democratic the democrats truly were throughout the course of this election? The Democrats didn't promote democracy, they impeded it and in the end, they decimated the third party alternative and spent billions of dollars doing it.
Regardless of whether! or not the Bush cartel stole yet another election (and there is plenty of evidence to suggest they did...), you backed the wrong horse. A chimpanzee was able to figure out a Diebold electronic voting machine faster than any of you pushing buttons for Kerry. I'm sorry, I don't wish to be mean. The truth hurts and you've got to hear it, better to hear from a friend who knows that in spite of good intentions you all behaved like naive and errant children.
So, here's the reality, slowly sinking in, as another day dawns over the evil Bush Empire: we cannot change the system from within. The Democratic party is washed up. You were failed by Kerry and by the party that foisted him upon you, against your better judgment.
There was no choice in this election! Repeat after me: There was no choice in this election, only the illusion of choice, more than that, the bill of goods you were sold was the illusion of democracy. Maintaining that illusion cost billions of dollars, like an over budgeted Hollywood epic that fails at the box office, that money would have better spent elsewhere.
Now, those of us that didn't jump on the Kerry bus were greatly relieved and yes, we gloated just a little bit but by the time John Kerry conceded, few of us had any doubts: the fix was in. Kerry caved before they had a chance to tally the remaining votes! Once again, just as in 2000, the democrats didn't put up any fight and instead called for unity. Unity?! Everybody just fall in line, get with the program, let bygones be bygones, let's all learn to get along, after one of the most emotional and divisive political campaigns in our history?!
Well, all of this may have come as a shock to many of you and some of you are probably still reeling from the aftermath but most of us: the anybody but Bush and Kerry crowd, those of us who voted our conscience, not out of fear, tried to warn you early on that this would be the probable outcome.
Okay, all that being said, where do we go from here?
THE OLIVE BRANCH AND THE SWORD
We invite all of you back into the fold but understand, we're not among those who want to reinvent the Democratic part
I'm sure we all know the truth - these missing votes were all cast for Bandarik.
The real question is, with all of these maps of every county in every state - why can't a third party candidate even take his HOME COUNTY?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Clearly someone at Diebold screwed the pooch.
Fucking sore loosers
"He couldn't explain why the computer reader malfunctioned." I can. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.ht m
First you say republicans don't whine, then you admit they do. And as someone who is most definitely not a liberal I must say that my big problem with FOX is not the spin, it is the complete disregard for unbiased commentary and the abandonment of any sort of journalistic objectivity. I have seen a "reporter" roll their eyes and dismisively laugh while reporting the statements of democrats, leftists or foreign governments.(only the ones that oppose US actions of course)
The sad part of it all is that I used to watch FOX news much more often, before 9/11, because they had a lot more real news than the other networks, and I could see through the bias. Now it's absurd.
On a side note, it would be nice to see a news channel that is closer to the content of "the economist". I'd love it regardless of the bias, just to get the damn news and not the fluff that everyone has today.
A blog about stuff.
I don't think you read the post to which I responded. Because of these 3,000 extra votes for Bush, which were discovered and eliminated, he was prepared to claim the election had been "stolen" again. We have an isolated problem, which was identified and corrected, and regardless of the results of the electoral college or the general will of the people expressed in the popular vote, he was already willing to spend the next four years decrying a "stolen" election, rather than reflecting inward, discovering what about his party's message (or lack thereof) failed to connect with the majority of voters, and attempting to correct it. It borders on cognitive dissonance.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
While I agree with you about rational people being able to discus the best canidate, that hasn't been what presidential elecctions elections have been about for quite a while now. They are about image.
And to add to my first post on fear. Kerry would have won on the ffear vote as well. The fear of illegal abortions, the fear of bush, the fear of a draft, and the fear of an increasingly religous government.
A blog about stuff.
Cheers,
Craig
Corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
We have an isolated problem, which was identified and corrected, and regardless of the results of the electoral college or the general will of the people expressed in the popular vote, he was already willing to spend the next four years decrying a "stolen" election, rather than reflecting inward, discovering what about his party's message (or lack thereof) failed to connect with the majority of voters, and attempting to correct it. It borders on cognitive dissonance.
First of all, the problem is not isolated. There have been many reports of malfunctioning machines coming in. And how can you expect people to not be suspicious, given the criminal or borderline criminal acts that republicans engaged in prior to the election? How about Jim Toobin? How about Jeb Bush and his felon list? If you want me to get out the list, I will.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
...would account for GWB's entire lead in Ohio. Keep an eye out, folks.
I think the bigger problem is we are starting to see reports of voting problems (votes not tallied, extra non existant votes, ect) roll in from mor then 1 precint in Ohio.
While I think that unless there is a bombshell among them, bush won the election. I as an American, and Patriot, will not rest until all the votes are counted and any problems/irregularities identified and dealt with.
I am allready starting to do what I can to put preasure on the people in my area of government to fix the issues I ahve seen.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Paper ballots are not as usuable by the blind and people with limited use of the hands as touch-screen balloting.
E-voting also makes providing multilingual ballots to all precincts easier.
In low-turnout elections it also facilitates combining polling stations.
On the down side, there's that nasty lack of an audit trail on SOME machines.
Memo to America: Listen to Nevada.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Hey, I respect the will of the people (at least those who bothered to vote). If the country wants to convert to a god-fearing society where it's survive or die, where there is little-to-no support for those that fall on hard times, etc., then that's fine; but I don't want to be part of it. Canadians seem so much more relaxed about these issues.
These errors do not change the election result! Bush won by too big of a margin in Ohio and Florida, any assumption that the machines threw it for Bush would mean that those counties would have had to vote in tremendous numbers for Kerry (like 70%), which is impossible. But that does NOT mean we should not investigate them. In fact it means it is the BEST time to investigate them!
Unfortunately I see way too many Republicans saying "it's those sore loser Democrats trying to cause trouble". And quite a few Democrats saying "this proves the election was wrong"
We MUST investigate these machines. This is the best time to do so, there is now tons of proof that they are screwed up, but the investigation can be just into the machines themselves and the people behind them, without any threat to the stability of our government.
But as long as people keep whining about "sore loser Democrats" or "election was wrong" then it will discourage any investigaton. This is BAD, BAD BAD!! These machines may throw the NEXT election. And Republicans had better realize that a single wild hippie Liberal in the wrong place could use them to throw it toward the left, this is NOT a partisian issue! Everybody should be in agreement that these machines need to be gotten rid of NOW. Don't blow our best chance by making this a partisian mess.
I dunno who tipped the reporter off, but the vote data is posted publically and the reason it was found was because someone who cared, looked and saw something wrong.
No matter who or what side was involved this basic action needs to be done all the time to catch any problems either accidental or intentional.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
I think it's funny how Ohio can't even be their own state. On the news they said, "Ohio is the Florida of 2004". How can a state be another state. Oh well, I digress.
I think it's pretty clear that they mean it in the same sense as when people say "pink is the new black."
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a glitch occurred with software designed for the city's new "ranked-choice voting," in which voters list their top three choices for municipal offices. If no candidate gets a majority of first-place votes outright, voters' second and third-place preferences are then distributed among candidates who weren't eliminated in the first round.
When the San Francisco Department of Elections tried a test run on Wednesday of the program that does the redistribution, some of the votes didn't get counted and skewed the results, director John Arntz said.
"All the information is there," Arntz said. "It's just not arriving the way it was supposed to."
A technician from the Omaha, Neb. company that designed the software, Election Systems & Software Inc., was working to diagnose and fix the problem.
"He couldn't explain why the computer reader malfunctioned"
Perhas the computer reader didn't malfunction; perhaps it functioned precisely as designed.
It still boggles my mind that anyone could ever suggest that a voting machine could be better at counting votes than actually, you know, counting them.
And how can you expect people to not be suspicious, given the criminal or borderline criminal acts that republicans engaged in prior to the election?
They were probably balanced out by the criminal and borderline criminal acts the Democrats engaged in prior to the election. There are lists of those, too. Any voter fraud is unacceptable, but to claim that Republicans are the only sinners is wilful blindness.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Because there is a box on the ballot that says "Vote for all Republicans" and one that says "Vote for all Democrats", but there are no boxes that say "Vote for all Green/Libertarian/Natural/Independant/Socialist". People are lazy, and don't want to have to think about their candidates. They just pick one of the two sides and stick to it.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Insofar as you turn this into a political flame war, you're just distracting people from the real issue-- the use of electronic voting either needs to be reformed or ended.
The Diebold machines have told us that President Bush won the election. Why can't the Democrats be satisfied with that? I mean, the integrity of the votes was secured by a Microsoft Access database, which as we all know has *password protection*. The only way someone could have tampered with the results would be if the designers were somehow partisan and wanted to promise the election to a particular candidate.
And as if the people in the USA would stand for their black box voting machines to be designed by a pro-Bush partisan. It's just not realistic, so stop doubting and Praise Jesus. God Bless America.
501 Not Implemented
When will the current President be indicted for having cabinet members lie to Congress? I'm pretty sure that's not encouraged, is it?
I agree that we should strive to make our voting system as perfect as possible, but we also have to recognize that perfection is a goal, not a state of being. Think back to the first chapter in your high school physics book on weights and measures. Read the section about "accuracy" vs. "precision." We can try our hardest to eliminate systematic errors in the voting process (i.e. increase accuracy) but we will never be able to eliminate random errors (i.e. achieve prefect precision). There will always be user errors, power failures, cosmic rays flipping bits, etc. My argument is with people like the one to whom I originally responded who, faced with a random error, immediately assumed that the entire election was a sham.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Or for war crimes, far as I'm concerned. 100,000 Iraqi civillians already dead, and we're gearing up for a major assult on Fallujah - you better believe that number is about to get bigger.
That would be up to Congress now wouldn't it? But of course that won't happen because Congress is filled with Republicans. Did you ever hear me say it was a perfect system? I think our political system sucks... don't blame me.
blah blah blah....
drightler@technicalogic.com
Here is a good and recent study on media bias. http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:Fkq8waWxVNIJ: www.yale.edu/isps/seminars/american_pol/groseclose .pdf+study+media+bias&hl=en
Awesome!
First he tries to make a joke out of the political statement I made. There's nothing humorous about my post, but trb0001 takes it upon himself to try to take the wind out of my sails. He's consistently partisan.. we see a lot of people like him here lately.
trb, I know you know this but I'm going to say it for the benefit of anyone who might be confused by your little tirade. My post is not a joke. I am addressing fellow liberals (of which trb0001 is NOT one). So of course he wants to disrupt any discussion.
People like trb are not going to shut up. We need to do more than just reorganize; we need to restrategize. We need party unity and party discipline. If we turn our backs on politics now, we can forget about civil rights and a whole lot more. We can forget about freedom of religion. And we can look forward to the rich paying no taxes, the rest of us paying higher taxes, and our taxes going solely towards services for the rich.
But frankly all that is moot. We liberals have a lot of work to do and I'm not talking about our leaders alone.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Looks like Bush even got the voting machine's votes.
Slashdot - Where the slash is most definitely to the left.
I'm not exaclty a huge democrat and I don't want to see the results overturned
While overturning the current result would cause a lot of issues with people, the official counts have not been reported. Therefore, there is not an official result, just the preliminary counts.
It will be interesting to see what blackboxvoting.org turns up. Really how difficult is it to do some quick checks on the vote counts to look for irregularities on election night?
"When I die, I want to go quietly, like my grandfather, in his sleep... not screaming, like the passengers in his car."
Hey come on, the elections are over. It's time to focus on other things. Slashdot politics has been solely posting about USA elections for 5 days. It's getting boring. There's a lot more going on in the world.
Somebody must read Instapundit...
Because there is a box on the ballot that says "Vote for all Republicans" and one that says "Vote for all Democrats", but there are no boxes that say "Vote for all Green/Libertarian/Natural/Independant/Socialist
Where do you hail from? In New York each party has a separate line on the voting machine. If you want to do a party line vote all you need to do is find the line for your party and go all the way across pulling levers down.
Maybe the true problem is that the Libertarians and Greens didn't bother to field any candidates for any office other then the US President (and in New York the Senate race). Haven't you ever heard the expression "All politics are local"? I didn't decide my local votes until a day or so before the election -- after I personally met with and talked to the people on the ballot. Perhaps the little parties should focus on some county executive/mayoral/assemblyman races before the White House. What's more effective? Trying to appeal to 1,000s to 10,000s of people on local issues to build a base or trying to compete with the DNC and RNC warchests?
Just my two cents on the issue. Of course I'd rather see more use of Electoral Fusion to bring the major parties back into the mainstream -- rather then running third party candidates that either sabotage their own cause (Nader in 2000/Perot in 1992) by putting the other ideology into power or third party candidates that fail to accomplish anything (Nader this go around). I realize that's a minority opinion around here -- and I'm not trying to flame -- that's just my opinion on this issue.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The crime he was impeached for was perjury. NOT Adultery.
In this country we have political traditions, One People in power use that power to get what they want, frequently this includes sexual favors
Two, We'll forgive you if you apologize(It doesn't matter what, if you murdered your grandmother we'll forgive you)
Three, If we catch you lying in court, we'll get pissed off.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
OOPS, hit send too soon,
four, you can apologize any time.
Five,If you keep lying after we catch you, we will be even more pissed off.
six, You can apologize any time.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Apparently, you have not grasped the magnitude of this election.
More than half the country voted for a candidate who most of the other voters consider one of the worst presidents in our lifetimes. Furthermore, it seems a sizeable number of those Bush voters voted for him because of their "values". Like the value to hate gays and amend the constitution to actually REMOVE civil rights. When have we ever gone backwards on civil rights?
I don't blame people at all for wanting to leave. I wish to stay and fight but you have to admit the future is not looking very bright for open society in the U.S.
Even if it is proven that Kerry one Ohio or Florida, we still have to face the fact that a majority of the people of this country are diametrically opposed to the principles of the open society. Frankly, this scares this shit out me.
"Maybe the true problem is that the Libertarians and Greens didn't bother to field any candidates for any office other then the US President"
0 04
That is simply untrue. The LP had 707 candidates running for elected office nationwide in positions ranging from Township Advisory Boards to State Senator and everything in between.
http://www.lp.org/campaigns/candidates.php?year=2
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Fuck yeah! You're fucking dead on, you fucking know that? Fucking media fucks fucking slant the fucking shit both fucking ways.
What the fuck. What I'm fucking sure of is that fucking slashdot post are more fucking reliable and fuckloads more readable if their fucking authors use strong fucking language that fucking gets the fucking point across. All the fucking way across! It's really fucking important to use the word "fuck" as abso-fucking-lutely much as fucking possible.
Thanks for that, fuckhead.
I'm from Michigan. Libertarians were running for every (or almost every) position: federal, state, and local. Greens were running for most positions. But only the dems and pubs have the boxes.
As for the style of ballot, it's pencil and paper, with an optical scan.
I'm just going to keep holding on for Instant Runoff Voting.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
I'm just going to keep holding on for Instant Runoff Voting.
IRV has it's own problems and is overly complex. Moreover there is absolutely no tradition of it in our Republic that I'm aware of. Electoral Fusion was/is commonplace and has more advantages IMHO.
Of course this is still America and we are free to disagree.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
That is simply untrue. The LP had 707 candidates running for elected office nationwide in positions ranging from Township Advisory Boards to State Senator and everything in between.
Then where were they in my state? They didn't bother to field a candidate for dog-catcher -- let alone any county or state-wide offices.
And don't tell me New York is too blue. Upstate is fairly Republican/ (but not religious right Republican) and the LP message would probably find quite the audience around here.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I agree with you about accuracy vs. precision. I was just seeing a lot of :
Someone points out some vote problem, second person launches off into "why cant you liberals accept...".
Granted there are a few nut jobs (originally I typoed that as netjobs, maybe we need a new word for netkook) saying the election has been stolen, but like I said, I doubt once all the errors are found (that we can find) and fixed the overall outcome would be still Bush in the White House.
I think the entire race up till 2nd day after was a sham. Not the votes, but the way the candidates and the supporters behaved towards each other and the public who was voting.
I've finally (after only legally being able to vote for 4 presidential elections) gotten sick of things enough to try to find out what I can do to change things.
On a different topic. In your sig, are you referring to a Native American or someone from India?
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
actually i think it's more accurate to say that bush won on the "baseless anxiety" vote, whereas kerry would have won on the "rational fear" vote.
A paper trail is only as accurate as the machine producing it. The latest E-voting machines have problems. But then again, so does every other voting system that has been used in the past. Nothing is or has been perfect. They're simply adequete.
So stop complaining about voting machines, I'm sure if you did a study you would find that voting systems in 1800, 1900, 1950, 1990, etc. had problems too. The only thing you could have a valid complaint over is any accuracy claims by the machine manfacturer--but realize that these machines are NO WORSE than any previous solution.
Well, I called home election morning, to discuss the outcome. I was informed of the progress of my vote through the system. No...they dont work at the polls. Apparently I was the only person in my district to vote for Badnarik, and some people found it amusing... I have renewed faith in the secrecy protection of the current system, as well as the intellectual level of poll workers/my fellow voters.
Not that I intend to stop voting Lib...just get others to do the same.
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
if bush understood the problem, wouldn't his "problem-solving" methods have made the middle east situation better by now, instead of much, much worse?
personally i doubt that bush understands much of anything beyond how to fasten his pants in the morning.
-a "librrrl" in florida
I was just seeing a lot of :
Someone points out some vote problem, second person launches off into "why cant you liberals accept...".
Which is the same point I made in my original post, which has now been modded to -1 Troll. The post to which I responded did not just point out a vote problem, he pointed out a vote problem and said this was obvious proof that the Republicans rigged the election and stole it from the democrats. Then I launched off into "why can't you liberals accept..." I'm not denying vote problems. I'm denying that the Republicans stole the election.
My sig is from Aqua Teen Hungerforce, when Ignignot, one of the Mooninites, declares that his god is an indian (native american) who turns into a wolf, and he will come for you with his razor. That's the plot of the horror camp classic "Wolfen." It's all very silly, really. Hilarious show.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
There was a LP candidate running for Congress here that I saw in the debates. He wasn't too impressive while the republican incumbent Ann Northrup was. I seem to remember winning my a decent margin. The LP candidate didn't have much suppoer.
The problem with the third party candidates for me at leasst is that their ideas are too extreme for me. I consider myself a moderate who leans slightly to the right on some issues. The problem is that I agree more with both the Democrates and Republicans than I do with the third parties.
Third parties seem to take a more ideological stance than a practical one. That's just my opinion though. In order for a 3rd party to get my support, they are going to need to tone down their idealism and propose solutions that make sense instead of taking the "turn the country inside out" approach. I am all for change but I don't think sudden drastic change is the way to go.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
Franklin is the only Ohio county to use Danaher Controls Inc.'s ELECTronic 1242, an older-style touchscreen voting system. Danaher did not immediately return a message for comment.
(and it isn't me)
Is it more important for you to be a Republican than an American? Who exactly is your "enemy"?
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
why isn't this showing up on google news unless you search for it
Okay, turned on the news wondering what kind of spin CNN would have on this. Didn't come up. So I started doing searches....
CNN
Foxnews
BBC
CBC
Aljzeera's search engine is not working properly today; oh well.
Ohio News Now
Anyone care to tell me why this simply isn't being reported at all? I've never heard of the Columbus Dispatch. Nor have I heard of the Washington Dispatch (one other place I've seen run the story).
Is it too new to be picked up?
Is it not considered newsworthy as just correcting a routine error?
Is it being censored? And if so then why by every news company including those outside of US juristiction?
Forgive me for being a bit skeptical on this story, but I do tend to assume that vote talliers can spot an order of magnitude error.
Ya know, I voted for Kerry, and yet a lot of my closest friends are Republicans. It's hardly as if 50 million of your neighbors are bible-thumping mindless bigots. And although I disagree strongly (and sometimes bitterly) with my friends, I get more irritated by those who paint them with a broad brush. These are people trying to make a living and trying to do the right things.
Stay and fight? What the hell is wrong with you people? Kerry lost the election. It ain't the end of the world. The democrats need to stop letting the republican party leadership define what the democrats stand for. That's when you'll see things change.
IMO, the problem is with the democrat party leadership, not your fellow citizens.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
They were probably balanced out by the criminal and borderline criminal acts the Democrats engaged in prior to the election.
Umm, actually no, they weren't. Read about it here. You may want to skip about 2/3s of the way down the page to this part:
This sums it up though:
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Exactly...we don't see the problem the same way. I see it as a long-term problem, as does Bush. We see it as a cultural problem, that Islamo-fascism will not stop until the Arab world is changed, and reshaping Iraq is part of that long-term plan. Things will be worse for a little while, and eventually much better once freedom and democracy spread through the middle east.
It's kind of like saying that FDR's plan for halting Japanese agression was bad because more people died after Pearl Harbor. Things have to get worse before they get better.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Clearly, you need to brush up on your uses of the word fuck:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/fwordflash.html
It's hardly as if 50 million of your neighbors are bible-thumping mindless bigots
I never claimed all 50 million of them were bigots but since you brought it up:
approximately "one-fifth of voters who pointed to 'moral values' as their prime concern, 79 percent of them voted for George Bush." - bpnews
That is at least 39 million of them.
It's kind of like saying that FDR's plan for halting Japanese agression was bad because more people died after Pearl Harbor. Things have to get worse before they get better.
The Japanese government attacked us. The Iraqi government did not. This time we were the ones pre-emptively striking.
Big difference.
Typical right-wing lies. That didn't happen.
OK for the mis-informed users. Hacking of these machines is not that hard. Get a copy of SQL for dummies and a vbs shell script and BLAM! Votes Galore! You can check all of this out on the Washington Post web site. The boxes are based on MS Access! My brother (The Dummy) saw the video and stated... That's It! Maryland Security Co got into the machines within 5 minutes!
oops, that first link should have been to Jim March. he goes into how COTS (commercial, off the shelf) hardware and software is used in these machines because it doesn't have to pass such stringent certification process. the idea being that you can just compare the software from a factory install with the software from a store and confirm that the company didn't make any changes. but winCE is not COTS -- diebold has the source code and windows specifically considers it non-COTS.
fear is the mind killer
I am sorry. I misread the quotation and must correct the number to roughly 18 million -- which is still roughly 1/3 of the people voting for Bush. How many of those hold homophobic values is anybody's guess.
The fact remains that was enough to tip the popular vote in his favor.
*sigh* I know I'm only preaching to the converted here; whatever....
What really happened is that fear won. Fear of terrorism, fear of gay marriage, fear of a lot of things.
Why does the left always try to dismiss things as "fear" rather than try to understand why people actually hold different opinions than they do? You're hardly the first to make this error, as phrases like "homophobia" demonstrate.
Here is a revelation for you. People can disagree with the opinions and values of others for reasons besides fear. Does the ACLU oppose prayer in schools out of "fear"? (oh no, if I hear someone quote the Bible I might spontaneously convert to Christianity, give away all my worldly belongings, and go off on a missionary trip to some remote part of the world) Do opponents of the Iraq war criticize it because of "fear"? (Any day now Saddam is going to break out of jail and launch a counter attack that will kill us all!) Of course not. Trying to trivialize the different values and opinions of others by dismissing them as "fear" is arrogant and highly intolerant of the diverse reasons for which people take positions on issues which, believe it or not, involves more than just fear.
You make a post on Slashdot - read my millions of nerds - on a thread about defective voting machines, saying that Diebold machines have told us that Bush won the election.
I post a clarification along with a link describing the actual manufacturer of the defective voting equipment and explain that these were not Diebold machines - and for this you call me an uppity right winger with no sense of humour?
"freedom and democracy" - which really means the freedom to hand over your natural resources to the US, and enjoy a new puppet regime, installed by the US under the guise of a phony election, which is more than glad to facilitate such process.
i'm sure the Islamic world would appreciate your view that their culture is a "problem" and we must solve it by replacing it with our culture. nothing like total homogenization for a stronger future, right?
it's just laughable to compare this situation with World War II. if our actions are so just, where is the support of the rest of the world? looking around, i see condemnation and refusal of support, and rightfully so. this is a war for money, for corporate plundering rights, and half of this country, along with the rest of the world, sees right through this "stay the course" "presidenting is hard" bullshit.
the terms freedom and democracy have received more than enough abuse from the right in the last four years. this must be some new definition of those terms that only exists in Webster's New Republican & Libertarian Edition.
Please read this post in which I explain the nature of the Islamic threat and the war on terrorism.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
"What really happened is that fear won. Fear of terrorism, fear of gay marriage, fear of a lot of things."
Fear of a draft, fear of loss of freedoms, fear that old people won't be able to afford their medicine. You know you can say it was fear that made people vote for Bush but an equal number of Democrats voted in fear as well. From my perspective it is rather clear why the Democrats lost this round: The Democratic party's own intolerance and mockery of religion is what caused their loss. Until they realise that the US is a very religious nation and fixes their lack of tolerance for them they will never win another election. Also making fun of people living in rural areas and calling them stupid isn't going to win their support IMHO.
Creative Demolition
AP story
the cartridge was retested yesterday and there were no problems. He couldn't explain why the computer reader malfunctioned.
/cynic
Because yesterday the date wasn't November 2nd.
On a hopeful note I saw an article on CNN's website that MIT and the California Institute of Tech has requested logs and raw data from machines from every county that had electronic voting to study the data and look for possible mistakes. I believe if there is a problem these guys will find it.
Truly amazing. That this got marked down to "-1, Flamebait" indicates that the Democrats not only lost the election, they lost all sense of humor too.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I.
Wall Street has volume in the hundreds of millions per hour. Every transaction must be documented and has a paper trail (or backup report) somewhere, and every participant can be held accountable. Failure to comply with the law can and does result in jail time for offenders.
II.
We have a world-wide network of ATM machines. Each produces a paper receipt, often with an internal duplicate copy for auditing purposes. Each customer has a unique network ID and a secret PIN. Many systems automatically detects fraud-like activity automatically notify customers via cell-phone within one minute of transaction being completed. Again: hundreds-of-thousands, even millions, of transactions happening hourly.
III.
The Federal Reserve processes millions of "paper ballots" (cheques) daily. Each "ballot" is optically scanned and routed to the correct party, with errors approaching zero. Fair system: errors totaling 0.01 dollars or greater are penalized with a monetary fine. 100% accuracy rate built-in and required by law.
Even during the 9/11 terrorist attack, the New York Federal Reserve - one block from WTC - managed move their operation to New Jersey and complete day's "ballot" processing.
Conclusion #1
"Help" America Vote Act is Orwellian double-speak at its finest. Federal Elections demand a Federal Employees, Federal Training, Federal Standard. We can have separate elections with their own method for local/state/federal offices. State/Local constitutions can easily be amended to this end - should be uncontroversial.
Federal elections should be fully staffed and trained, just like the TSA (Transportaion Security Administration). Some will argue that Federal Government is wrong solution for problem and will advocate private corporations as a solution. Some people are morons. TSA is many magnitudes superior to pre-existing private security (equivalent: Diebold), which allowed 9/11 slaughter. At the very least, system can be audited without resorting to lawsuit.
Conclusion #2
As with securities exchange, ATM, Federal Reserve examples cited above, electoral process can & should have accuracy approaching 100% accuracy and same-day efficiency. Primary obstacle is lack of incentive. All examples cited involve monetary transactions, which Americans are notorious for valuing above Liberty.
Ergo, values of average politician/American must change to value liberty. Of course, the only party that can change things is the party in power, and as long as they are in power "the system works" (Note: not a cut at any particular party, as this cuts both ways).
Real change will only occur after nation-destroying election scandal and ensuing violent revolution. Call me an optimist.
Unfortunately, many choose ruminate about voter irregularities as being part of a imperfect, but practical, system. We often hear these folks, when confronted with vote tally irregularies, shake their head and sigh "perhaps we'll never know for sure."
This attitude is completely unacceptable when elections are being decided by 1,000 votes out of 2 million.
Consider:
If my employer's Daily Statement of Condition was off by $1,000 out of $2MM, and I told our Controller that "perhaps we'll never know" why the difference existed, I would be fired immediately.
It's mind-blowing that certain parties feel this is acceptable standard for United States electoral system.
Problem: how to make voting analogous to monetary transactions?
A MODEST PROPOSAL
Make the election a lottery. Ten lucky voters get $10,000,000 tax-free. Winning chances would be better than "Powerball," which has far more than 100,000,000 tickets and odds of winning approaching zero. Turnout would easily top 60% each election, and voters would demand election integrity to ensure their chance for jackpot.
This is a no-brainer proposition that will never become reality in current America. Sometimes genius isn't a
Flaws in computerized voting could explain why the exit polls were so inconsistent with the election results. Other explanations have been presented, most notably in this recent article from Greg Palast:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-36.htm
Is that merely wishful thinking? I'm not convinced. I am convinced that it's a shame that so many votes in poor neighborhoods are routinely thrown out. Is anybody expecting this to be fixed by '08? Frankly, I'll consider it a minor miracle if we last that long.
It didn't matter who was elected do you not see? Both are pro-corporate politicians with big business agendas. Politics in this country no longer care about the individual. We DO NOT LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY OR A REPUBLIC!!!
From Wikipedia: "A democracy is a form of government under which the power to alter the basic laws and forms of government lies with the voting citizenry, referred to as "the people", and all decisions are made by "the people".
Hmmm, does that sound like us? Lets continue. "A republic is a form of government (and a state so governed) where the head of state is not a monarch. The word is derived from the Latin res publica, or "public affair", and suggests an ownership and control of the state by the population at large. The concept of democracy, however, is not implicit to that of a republic. The republican form of government may involve a limited democracy, where such rights are available only to a limited group of people. In some cases, a republic may be a dictatorial or totalitarian state. The term is also broad enough to include representative democracies."
Ok, getting closer.
"Fascism (in Italian, fascismo), capitalized, refers to the right-wing authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. The name comes from fascia, which may mean "bundle", as in a political or militant group or a nation, but also from the fasces (rods bundled around an axe), which were an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of magistrates. The Italian 'Fascisti' were also known as Black Shirts for their style of uniform incorporating a black shirt (see: political colour)."
Now were doing pretty good!
We need one more component though.
"Theocracy is a form of government in which the governmental rulers are identical with the leaders of the dominant religion, and governmental policies are either identical with or strongly influenced by the principles of the majority religion. Typically, the government claims to rule on behalf of God or a higher power, as specified by the local religion."
And there you have it.
I voted for Bush because of his stance on the war on Islamic fascism. Terrorism is their method, but it's not their method we're fighting...it's their culture and ideology. I voted for Bush because I don't think Kerry understands the nature of the problem or how to correct it. I think George Bush does.
I've heard this argument quite a bit. The problem I have with it is that it makes that assumption that war can be a successful method of fighting terror. Can you provide a 20th century example in which war succeeded in stopping terrorism?
Because I can name several examples in which it hasn't. I even have an example in which negotiations (ie. being soft on terror) have succeeded:
Ireland - terror ended through negotiations
Israel - regular terrorist attacks continue despite 50 years of war
Sri Lanka - War didn't defeat the Tamil Tigers; negotiations/ceasefire are progressing
Colombia - terrorism shows no signs of stopping despite huge military expenditure
Can you name an example in which military force has worked? I'm restricting this to the 20th/21st century here because methods of warfare and terrorism have changed dramatically since the days of the Barbary Pirates.
Don't you hate meta-sigs?
The odd thing is, I voted against Bush and against Utah's gay marriage ban. If asked, I would have said that my vote was compelled by "moral values". I consider it a moral imperative to protect the environment, assist the poor, treat homosexuals like real people with real feelings, and to improve the lot of the average person.
For other people, "values" is a code word for curbing abortion rights and marginalizing gays. People like that confound me, even though I think I'm making an honest effort to understand. I'm left thinking that there are a few very rich, very active people laying out a political strategy whereby they can get public support for policies that steal that public blind for their profit.
Somehow, I don't think telling fifty-eight million people that they're a bunch of dupes is the winning message that will return the Democrats to power in 2008.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Don't move to Canada. Move to Florida and Ohio.
I've heard this argument quite a bit. The problem I have with it is that it makes that assumption that war can be a successful method of fighting terror.
No, you're right. War is not a successful method of fighting terror. In fact, foreign wars only create terrorism as they create conditions which make individuals turn to such things as extremist religions.
Unfortunately, what you fail to see is that our strategy isn't based upon killing as many terrorists as possible. We can agree that such a plan would be stupid. And as many have criticized the Bush Administration for, we have much better targets than Iraq if that were the plan.
The real goal is establishing an economically successful, democratic muslim society. Now THAT would completely undermine the arabic cultural influences that promote extremism, which WOULD lead to less terrorism. And Iraq is the most ideal place to establish one. They have just been freed from the oppression of a brutal despot. Unlike Saudi-Arabia they have a large middle-class. And, most of all, they have abundant the technology and natural resources that will bring prosperity and trade with the rest of the world.
Regardless of what you think of the man himself, Bush undeniably has some smart people around him. The evil-genius depictions on Slashdot of Karl Rove only serve to verify this. I believe that the military involvement in Iraq was a short-term piece of a cognizant long-term strategy. Is it risky? Yes. Is it popular? Obviously not! But if it works, the United States, Iraq, and the rest of the world will stand to benefit.
-Grym
The Republican party is winning America based on exclusion. The exclusion of the gays. Bush won out of fear of being terrorised (as if the red districts are going to be terrorised?) and fear of gay people.
The same thing that happened with desegregation is happening now. The Republicans became the white man's party. Now the republicans are the straight man's party.
Kerry was a Christian and Kerry was for the working man - he had labor union support and he wanted to curb outsourcing. Kerry was even AGAINST gay bewedding. But that wasn't good enough for the homophobes. Kerry was too compassionate towards the gay community. The homophobes wanted to hear "ban gay wedding" and not "allow civil union" because the first is more negative.
Right now many people are very angry that this president was chosen based upon 2 fears: gays and terrorism. These people are blaming the christians and the rural rednecks. The democrats are not going to cater towards this anger - speaking as an independent I hope they do not, just as I wish the Republicans wouldn't have done what they did.
In short. Fuck you Karl Rove for unearthing the most disgusting side of America. Goebbels would be proud.
You've never been out in the country I guess. I grew up in the South. People in the rural areas are a good 2 decades behind the city folks and nobody will ever admit to it. Their schools aren't as good. The amount of superstition is orders of magnitudes greater. And the amount of bigotry (not hate, I think that's equal) is much greater.
I kid you not that most of those Evangelicals (I was raised one, so I know) believe in demons and witches as if they are everyday occurences. It's not quite as bad as Haiti.
It was the same with the blacks as it is now with the gays. Racism is still not so great out there.
But the good news is that the city folk and the youth point towards the future. It is only a matter of time until the most homophobic generations die off and less homophobic generations have the majority vote. But eventhough, noone who was wrong will ever admit to it. They will die hating gays and try their best to pass it on to their children.
It's a sad day for america, but I have hope for the future.
People don't have to fear something to dislike it or find it disgusting or immoral. Most people are fed up with that behavior being jammed on them by hollywood. Who made hollywood the major lobby arm for pervs and chesters anyway?
No, you're right.
;-). Just goes to show how much flaming and lack of serious discussion there is (on both sides, of course).
OMG, I think this is the first time I have ever agreed with a Bush supporter
We still disagree on one thing, however. Namely, I don't think invading Iraq was a good first step towards setting up a functioning democracy there. By invading Iraq, the US has built up a lot of anti-American sentiment among Iraqis. Although it would be nice, I can't see a popularly elected Iraqi government being well-disposed to the West. Furthermore, if the aim is to replace a fundamentalist Islamist state with a democracy, Iraq was a pretty silly choice because it wasn't a religious state. Why not support the reform movement in Iran instead? The Ayatollahs there are already beginning to allow a little bit of freedom; why not give them positive reinforcement instead of threatening them by invading their neighbour pre-emptively?
There are many less intrusive ways of establishing a democracy. In Burma, diplomatic pressure helped Aung San Suu Kyi's democracy movement immensely (it's too bad that diplomatic pressure disappeared after 9/11 because the democracy movement has been swept under the rug since then).
Saddam Hussein was a corrupt dictator and he did what corrupt dictators do best (be corrupt). I'm sure the US could have offered him some sweet deals on the side in exchange for a gradual loosening of his power. Anyway, this is all speculation. The difference of opinion here seems to be that you think the occupation of Iraq might lead to a stable democracy. I think it won't, and that there are better ways to bring about freedom for people under oppressive regimes. I guess only time will tell.
Don't you hate meta-sigs?
Ballot-box stuffing has been going on for as long as there have been ballot boxes. Nothing short of a massive (and I do mean MASSIVE) public outcry is going to make the election authorities clean up their act.
Secure and verifiable electronic voting systems are possible, but we won't get them unless the people who bought the diebold machines are put behind bars.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
While I agree with you about rational people being able to discus the best canidate, that hasn't been what presidential elecctions elections have been about for quite a while now. They are about image.
Bingo!
Ever since Old Joe Kennedy beat Nixon, both parties got that message loud and clear. More radio listeners thought Nixon won the debates. More TV viewers thought Kennedy won.
Four years later, when Pierre Salinger came up with his brilliant smear ad that made it look like Goldwater wanted to kill children with nuclear weapons, that was all she wrote for substance in presidential elections.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It was so much fear as disgust. They're both reprehensible, and Kerry was somewhat more so.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
There is nothing odd about it. People resisted the Civil Rights movement with an appeal to their moral values. The emancipation of slaves was resisted out of an appeal to moral values. Chief Justice Taney acted out of his sense of moral value in the Dred Scott decision.
I believe there are two kinds of morals. Irrational and Rational. Irrational morals can be born from disparate sources such as religion and hate. There is nothing intrinsically wrong the concept of them other than the fact that they are not defendable. Rational morals are those that are derived from reason and discourse. We can argue about them and make informed policy decisions based upon them.
This is not to say that there is something wrong with religious values or that they are inferior. The problem is that we cannot govern our society based upon them. They cannot be defended. Not one person has made a reasonable argument for the restriction of gay marriage. They ramble about historical definitions and sanctity.
We are supposed to live in an open society where our laws are normative. We decide upon the laws and standards of our society based upon reason. They are not imposed upon us from the sky or from religion. The harm caused by this administration is that they are willfully eroding the openness of our society for political gain. It is reprehensible.
I beg to differ.
In PA, where i live, there is the option to vote Libertarian, Green and Constitution the whole way across.
The vote went in favor of republicans. So, why would those in power care to fix it?
"Israel - regular terrorist attacks continue despite 50 years of war"
You haven't been paying attention. There have been almost no terrorist attacks in Israel in the past 8 months or so, due to the combination of their hated wall and more hated assassinations of high level terrorists.
Israel has nearly won their war on terror, although I have no doubt it will continue on some level for a very long time.
Err... you're joking, right?
Right?
Please tell me you're taking off on his joke.
according to your logic, after a plane crash, we should just forget the whole thing, leave all the carnage at the site forever, no investigation , because after all the plane has crashed, so we should get over it and move on.
Electronic balloting is dangerous. Because it can be manipulated easily. Ballot used be a ball in which we can write candidate's name and throw in a box. Back to the most trusting way is the best answer.
Ancient Greek Philosophers -18c Enlightenment Thinkers -Slashdotters
I dislike Bush more, and have more to lose, than you, I'm pretty sure. (I'm a Libertarian in the military. You figure it out.) But, the point is... that chart is crap. I don't know about any state, but I do know about North Carolina & Ohio, and neither of them used completely e-voting. In fact, Ohio only used about 16% electronic voting. I didn't look up the percentages in NC, but neither my parents nor my best friend used a touch-screen system.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?