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Counting Glitches In Washington Governor Race
Fjornir writes "With 19 votes currently seperating the challenger from the incumbent in Washington state's race for governor, local news sites sites are reporting more glitches in the process for counting votes. This one, which has been described alternately as 'computer problems' and 'human error' as I've watched the story unfold, caused 6,200 ballots to be counted twice. This raises the question -- how many 'isolated incidents' are there going to be before we admit we have a 'real problem' on our hands?" Votes must be certified today, and a difference of less than 2,000 means an automatic statewide recount. If the difference is less than 150, that recount will be by hand (which is hard for the voting machines that have no paper trail). Update: 11/18 05:46 GMT by P : One candidate finished with a lead of 261, so the statewide recount will not be by hand, and should be completed before Thanksgiving.
"how many 'isolated incidents' are there going to be before we admit we have a 'real problem' on our hands?"
Well I'd say 'we' already have admitted we have a problem on our hands...
The 93% voting turnout should have been the first red flag of the human error.
A 93% voter turn-out should be standard operating procedure. But, unfortunately in this country, it is a red flag.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
The race wouldn't be so close if they simply allowed IRV or Rank Choice Voting. I voted for Ruth Bennett, and would have chose Chris second.
I'm sorry but I simply don't see why IRV is all the jazz here on Slashdot. Is there something inherently wrong with forcing people to make a hard decision on the voting booth? If you really like the Greens/Libertarians so much then vote for them. If the prospect of another two/four/six years of [evil party] scares you so much then vote for the front-runner who most agrees with your views.
I hear IRV being touted as the solution to all of our problems when it has several problems of it's own and would likely fail at accomplishing what most proponents of it want to see accomplished -- mainly viable third-parties. Money, access to mainstream media, previous track records (hard to run for President if you have zero political experience) and viewpoints out of the mainstream (or even center-left or center-right) are far more of a hindrance to third-parties then our current voting system.
I would still advocate a return to some sort of Electoral Fusion system like that used in my home state. It has several advantages over IRV and actually existed in most of our Republic at one time.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Don't forget, that the votes being thrown out can still be claimed.
But since people don't know their vote was thrown out there is no normal way of contacting them.
So, Republicans called only Republicans and Democrats went to each of the Democrats and got signatures. And of course, which nobody knows if its legal. But thats why you vote by mail, because you can't make it in person. Vacation, Business travel, or any other reason.
Also, I'm tired of all the problems with counting votes, bad enough we have machines that have *Glitches* and looses votes, or gives votes to the wrong person. It's not a fucking *Glitch* its a fucking failure! It's job is to count votes with 100% success. Thats like calling a lung machine that stops a *Glitch*...
No paper trail, too short of time to count votes, machines that don't work, processes that don't work, human error and fraud.
This is why everyone is pissed off, we know votes are being tampered with. Every time you do a recount, the vote count CHANGES!
I live in Washington and voted by touch screen. I have no proof where my vote was cast, and I must trust the machine?! No wonder people also turn in paper ballots.
In an age where powerful people are commiting fraud, why is it hard to believe that our votes are being corrupted?
Oh look, Ohio had some fraud, couldnt happen in our state. Pffft.
This could be a good thing. If enough "small" problems like this crop up, maybe that will help give some momentum to the idea that we need to audit the living hell out of the entire 2004 election. Not with an eye toward overturning Dubya's win or anything drastic like that, but with an eye toward finding and fixing any and all problems before the next run. I just don't see how that's anything other than common sense; we've done a fairly drastic overhaul of our electoral system over the past few years, so who could possibly say with a straight face that checking its accuracy after the fact is not absolutely essential?
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Don't be so sure that the ones going to the booths are "more intelligent". Lots of them are the kind of voters that are easily brainwashed by propaganda/talk show hosts/party line blabber. You know, the ones that would have voted Democrat/Republican even if "Yog-Sothoth for prez, Cthulhu for VP" had been the democrat/republican ticket.
Funny, I live in Snohomish County too, and several months ago I actually had a conversation with Bob Terwilliger, the auditor of our fair county
Wait a minute! Your county's auditor is Sideshow Bob and you didn't suspect any foul play?
Could you see your vote and verify it was the vote you cast on that little ticker tape?
If you cannot see your vote being recorded on the tape, then the tape is no good really because it does not actually record what you did.
The tape contains a record of what the machine decided to record. It may or may not be based on what you, the voter, actually did.
The only acceptable systems are those that leave a voter verified paper trail. Without that, no trustworthy recount is possible...
Blogging because I can...
That isn't very forward thinking. What you say makes sense in the short run, but keeping Boeing in Washington state is in the long run interests of this state. Not to mention the fact that those 10,000 people Boeing will hire will be paying sales tax in Washington. Also, 10,000 jobs at Boeing may well bring many other jobs to the area to support those workers, and the 7E7 project. Maybe if Washington wasn't so anti-business they wouldn't have been wanting to leave in the first place.