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Does Voting Technology Affect Election Outcomes?
l2718 writes "Two
economists have just posted a paper online, showing a small correlation between counties' use of paperless electronic voting systems and voting results in the recent presidential election (after controlling for other factors). They found no evidence for systematic fraud by testing several potential indicators. Rather, the voting method seems to affect the relative turnout of different voter demographies. Thanks to Election Law Blog for the pointer."
To me it sounds like a case of, "lets try out the cool new tech." I say give it a few years, and voter apathy will return.
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
And it isn't worth the $5 to get the material if I cannot post it here.
And they're looking at touch-screen tech and talking about paper-less machines.
It is possible to have touch-screen tech and a paper trail.
This is definitely true... also consider this: Voting by computer takes some stretch of intelligence, which advances democracy in the sense that stupid people (and there are many of those in this nation) are removed from the democratic process.
Sniper's Motto: One shot, One kill- If you run, you'll only die tired.
The larger problem is far deeper than this. In America, and in the UK the majority of voters simply don't matter in the first place.
You see, there are these things called safe seats, or safe states I suppose in the US. These safe seats and safe states can pretty much be ignored by all, allowing them to concentrate on seats/states which could potentially switch allegiance.
Deleted
Under TECK, constituents contact their local office and, with call-back or in-person authentication, vote for bills and/or proxy their votes for bills before congress or state legislatures. Their representative is elected on the Open Proxy Party's political platform which has one plank: Their representative will vote the way the constituents say via their open proxies.
TECK is the seed technology for what is to become the US third-party that succeeds in dramatically decentralizing, reducing and changing politics for the better:
The Open Proxy Party.
The Open Proxy Party's honesty is assured in the most obvious manner imaginable: everyone can see how everyone is voting at any point in time. The current votes and proxies are published on a web page generated by an open-source computer program. Currently this program consists of around 120 lines of Perl code (not counting preformatted text like this) to tally and present the proxies for the public.
Electoral corruption is an opportunity for Open Proxy candidates to win against incumbents. Electoral corruption has alienated the vast majority of the voters from the political process. With foreign labor displacing hundreds of thousands of middle aged technical workers in the United States, who have now redispersed to lower-cost-of-living districts, there is a pool of potential candidates who are more than capable of operating the TECK websites, more than motivated to clean up the electoral process and more than available to work for the modest salaries paid to representatives in State legislatures. Moreover, the majority of voters are more than ready for a reform of the political process.
Installation
Just for the heck of it you might have a campaign kick-off party and invite all the un/der-employed computer people you can find to join the fun of doing the TECK installation. An under-employed live band with pot-luck can't hurt either and will keep expenses down.
You may want to send your guests home with a campaign statement along the following lines:
Seastead this.
You are missing the point. In the US its a two horse race, you are either for or against a candidate. Bush won but 49% of the population did not vote for him and now have to shut up and like the result.
In the UK its even worse. They operate a first past the post system where for example 65% of the people may not vote for you but you can still be elected. Recently the LibDems got 6 million votes in the Euro elections and not 1 seat because of the system.
Here in Ireland, and several other European countries we operate Proportional Representation systems where by you can specify you preferred candidate and then a list of your 2nd, third choice etc. Its a system which represents the popular vote more accurately and helps avoid having candidates you are dimetrically opposed to foisted on you.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
None of the counties you listed run Diebold touchscreens.
Broward County, FL: ES&S
Franklin County, OH: Danaher Control
Craven County, NC: ES&S
Carteret County, NC: Unilect
LaPorte County, IN: ES&S
Sarpy County, NE: ES&S
Nice FUD
From what I've read, it looks as though electronic voting machines would be rather beneficial compared to punch card machines for the screwed over (read: minority) districts that had an unreasonable level of vote spoilage due to bad machines in the last two elections (That said, there should be a paper trail).
y chapter1.pdf
Minority voters were 7 times as likely to have their votes not counted than whites (on the punchcard machines). Why? In a white district, if you make a mistake, it spits the card back at you and you start over. In a minority county, the machine is likely to take the card and silently discard it. In 2000, our brave and effective media told us that this disparity was due to the minorities being 7 times stupider than the rest of us.
In fact, this setting on the machines was *intentionally changed* in black districts in Florida in 2000. Similar things happened in several states, including Ohio in 2004.
Moral of the story? Electronic voting machines should be the least of our concerns. Our voting system is fundamentally flawed. Our elections are run by partisan members of the states' governments (Republican or Democratic), which is just asking for conflicts of interest. Guess what, we've got them.
For more info on the 2000 election, read: http://www.gregpalast.com/bestdemocracymoneycanbu
Put honest data in, get honest data out. Everyone believes this. I believed it too until I met a computer with a sense of humor. - Robert Heinlein
Have we reached a point, technologically speaking that is, where the major issues could actually be voted on by the people directly? Any issue not getting X direct votes would then go to Congress... Or something like that.
Perhaps the best issues to vote directly for might be general laws that govern how Congress actually works. IE no riders or "Congress may not vote on any issue that affects them and only them i.e. pay increases. Such issues must go to a popular vote (referendum?) While you are at it, have we reached a point, technologically speaking that is, where the major issues could actually be voted on by the people directly? Any issue not getting X direct votes would then go to Congress... Or something like that.
You are illustrating one possible outcome amongst many in your example.
In practice, if a minority party holds the balance of power, then yes, deals will be made. But those deals will be based on common policies. If 40% of the parliament want X and 40% of the parliament are against it, the 20% minority party will side with the party that aligns with their policies giving them a 60%. But isn't that what democracy is about? Because presumably part of the reason they got the 20% was on the basis of their policies on X.
So proportional representation leads to a finer granularity on the issues. You're no longer forced to choose between two supersets of policies - you come closer to picking and choosing.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
The Urosevich brothers wrote the code for the ES&S and Diebold machines. Both are well known among ultra right wing and theocratic groups. Their association with the Christian Reconstructionists worry me. They are staunch supporters of bush and other ultra right wing politicians.
80% of the votes cast in the US is counted on machines they coded.
photosMy Photostream
In Australia, we have preferential voting. This means one can vote for some small party, and if they don't get in (likely), the vote still goes to the second preference so it isn't wasted.
This also benifits the small parties in two additional ways:
1. as they get to direct preferences (on their how to vote cards), bigger parties will make deals to get the preferences. This means the little parties get to have policy input on the big parties, proportial to the amount of primary votes they get (or the big parties think they will get).
2. The more votes they get, the more public election campaign funding they get for next time.
Will.
This is exactly the disparity that the MMP/Additional Member voting/seat distribution system was invented for, I believe. It works quite successfully in a number of countries.