WI Assembly OKs Voting Paper Trail

AdamBLang writes "Madison Wisconsin's Capitol Times reports 'With only four dissenting votes, the state Assembly easily passed a bill that would require that electronic voting machines create a paper record. The goal of the legislation is to make sure that Wisconsin's soon-to-be-purchased touch screen machines create a paper ballot that can be audited to verify election results.' Slashdot has previously reported on this bill." More from the article: "Wisconsin cannot go down the path of states like Florida and Ohio in having elections that the public simply doesn't trust ... By requiring a paper record on every electronic voting machine, we will ensure that not only does your vote matter in Wisconsin, but it also counts."

Comments

California already did this

[shanen]

There were a bunch of articles that mentioned it just in the last few days. Here's the first one I picked up with Google News:

http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issu e=11-11-05&storyID=22730

That only mentions it in passing, though in the headline part of the passing. The earlier story I saw on it was more amusing. They wanted to pretend it was "balanced" coverage, so they had to find a quote from someone who was in favor of paperless voting and sorry to see it going away. Guess who? They closed with a quote from some honcho from a paperless voting machine company. Balanced coverage in a pig's eye.

Just a coincidence, but something I wrote for a different forum today. Not perfectly on topic, but close enough (and I'm too busy to do more rewriting just now):

A lot of pundits are saying that this week's election shows something new or a surprising change in voter trends. The only surprising thing is that anyone still listens to such stupid pundits. All this election shows is that money buys votes and that modern American politics is just a war of big money. This is true in all of the elections, but the mayor's race in New York City is the best example. The only interesting question there is why he wanted to spend so much money to buy the relatively minor office of mayor.

I'd give the voters more credit if they had sold their votes for cash on the barrelhead. That's illegal in these "enlightened" days, but it doesn't change the big money reality. The political-power-buyers just have to disguise it a bit now. As a candidate, it doesn't matter what your policies are or what kind of person you are or anything else. The only thing that matters is coming up with the scratch--millions of dollars. (It does matter a little bit what kind of person you can pretend to be, but the Reagan/Dubya problem is relatively minor compared to the overwhelming influence of big money.)

Root cause? Easily manipulated voters. Show the voters enough of the appropriate ads, usually slash-and-burn attack ads, and many of them will even vote for a total incompetent and loser like George Dubya Bush.

Deeper root cause? "Free" advertiser-sponsored radio. An innovative (~70 years ago) economic model that ultimately led to rightwing talk radio. Finest propaganda ever! It was also propagated into TV where it led to increasingly mindless programs, and now it threatens the intellectual foundations of the Internet, too. The funny part is that the policy-makers of those days understood the risks and required that the public's interests should be protected. Thus started an erosive process that culminated when Reagan's handlers stripped off the last major protections. The negative dynamic is pretty obvious, however. Advertisers do not want well-educated and thoughtful citizens. They want easily manipulated suckers. That's how you get the most bang for your advertising buck--and the bucks have finally won out. Intelligent voting has to be reality-based, but advertising is NOT about the truth.

In conclusion, nothing matters except for the money. Good for a 20% margin in NYC! The only problem in New Jersey was that the Republican couldn't afford to run the ex-wife-attacks-ex-hubby ad enough times. If you actually believe (as I do) that freedom and democracy are good things and that they confer competitive advantages on the societies that have the most of them, then the sad conclusion is that America is doomed.