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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."
"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
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.
It's over. Get over it.
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 somehow doubt we will be seeing any stories about how a voting machine accidentally gave Kerry more votes. All machine malfunctions will magically go towards discrediting the "unpopular" candidate.
Just my two cents anyway... and as a side note I voted a straight Republican ticket with the exception of Kerry for President.
blah blah blah....
drightler@technicalogic.com
Bush is only winning by 130,000 votes in Ohio, but this one Republican guy drove around to all the polls and voted 131,000 TIMES!! Also in the days before the election, police went around arresting Kerry voters!!! I heard that 140,000 KERRY VOTERS couldn't vote because the police locked them down in prison!!!!! Also I thinks that Bush was using EVIL MIND CONTROL TECHNOLOGY built by aliens at HALLIBURTON and ENRON to FORCE PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR HIM!!!
I DEMANDS A RECOUNT!!!!
Good thing it didn't add another 140 thousand or whatever, or else we might have to have Gore-esque recounts for 36 days.
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.
Disclaimer: I didn't vote for either one.
but that requires intent, not just incompetence.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
American Democracy may be on its Deathbed. The exit Polls Worked in Non-Electronic Voting Sites. But in the sites where un-recountable electronic voting took place the exit polls were off and in Bush's favor. This is the smoking gun. This is the clear sign that the failure of the republicans in the house and senate to support paper ballot legislation was intended to enable the theft of the presidency and further congressional seats. This election has zero credibility and must be overturned.
http://www.opednews.com/kall_110404_outrage.htm
Do you really think there is no intent to steal votes during an election? On both sides.
A blog about stuff.
That some ballots supposedly failed in Florida in 2000 is due to the fact that some voters are just too stupid and cannot follow the simple instructions on the ballots. The loss of their votes is no problem. Who cares what morons support?
By the way, Indians tend to vote Republican because Republicans support the H-1B program. There is the strong likelihood that an Indian engineer tampered with the E-voting machine.
Really it doesn't matter. The race is over. Bush won. Get over it.
:(
I guess this damn politics section isn't going away.
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.
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
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.
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
...would account for GWB's entire lead in Ohio. Keep an eye out, folks.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." --Napoleon Don't change a thing, guys - keep up the good work. The Republican Party really appreciates it.
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.
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.
According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer...n dealer/inde x.ssf?/base/news/109956457262001.xml
http://www.cleveland.com/election/plai
Kerry won
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.
"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...
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.
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.
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)
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.
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
*sigh* I know I'm only preaching to the converted here; whatever....
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?
"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.
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.
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.
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."
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?
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?