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Maryland Governor Wants Paper Ballots

supabeast! writes, "Fed up with all the problems in the state's electronic voting system, Maryland Governor Robert Erlich wants the state to scrap the entire system and return to paper ballots. He's threatened to call a special session of the legislature to change the law to allow paper ballots. What makes this particularly interesting is that Erlich is a Republican — the party often maligned for exploiting flaws in electronic systems — and his attempts to clean up Maryland's voting problems are being opposed by Democrats, the party that is usually complaining about electronic voting!"

3 of 433 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why the reversal? by soft_guy · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    In my opinion, the democrats were stupid. Gore told everyone, stay back and give the florida people room to do the recount. The republicans sent activists to intimidate the people trying to do the recount. The democrats COULD have sent union thugs to get the result they wanted. They were stupid not to do so. FDR would have done it.

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  2. Of course, If people hadn't... by Etcetera · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    bitched, whined, and moaned about a "stolen" election down in Florida in 2000 (and the voters in Palm Beach hadn't been completely incompetant) there wouldn't have been the giant nationwide push for "electronic voting" in the first place, and I'd still be punching ballotcards nicely.

    Thank you, sore losers.

    The sanest thing would be to let technology progress and become adopted NATURALLY, instead of pushing things ahead faster than they should simply because you've suddenly lost faith in a system that's worked for decades. I don't need an ATM-like machine to handle my voting and I'm perfectly happy to wait hours for paper ballots to be manually shoved around. But then, I'm a Conservative.

    Thank you, Democrats, for causing wasted millions of dollars, the introduction of dumb-ass technology, and general country-wide strife to fix a non-existant problem because you couldn't wrap your heads around the fact that Al Gore lost.

    What's next? Do we get to spend the next 10 years futzing with the Electoral Collage only to decide that the Great Compromise was a good idea after all?

  3. Re:Pudge, please look up malign in the dictionary by pudge · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Arguing with you is pointless.

    OK there buddy.

    I said 'Look up the word malign. It means to maliciously and falsly accuse.'

    And you were obviously wrong about the "false" part.

    You said, 'there's nothing "false" necessarily or even usually implicated by the use of the word "malign."'

    And I was obviously wrong about where I said it does not say that in a dictionary; I already retracted that, saying it does not say that in a GOOD dictionary.

    You were the first to use the word necessarily.

    Yes, and? Your first usage implicated you meant it was necessary, and to make sure, I used that word. That you subsequently used it confirmed that indeed, you considered that to be the case. That's how things are done. If at that point you had said "oh, I didn't mean necessarily, just usually," then the discussion would have taken a different turn. But you confirmed you believed, in fact, that it was necessary.

    The more telling point is that you said it doesn't usually mean false

    Correct.

    and I think I have shown that it does usually mean false

    Incorrect.

    You cleverly used dictionaries that are not available on line, so no one can check the veracity of your claims

    Also incorrect. I used three dictionaries. Two of the three were from THE ONE URL THAT YOU PROVIDED. The other was the dictionary included with Mac OS X, which, while not being online, is easy for many people here to check.

    I used only online dictionaries, so my claims are easily verifiable.

    Not that it matters, since I didn't dispute any of your claims, but you didn't give URLs, and I assumed they were not online at the time.

    Sure, dictionaries may be wrong, but the first three that come up in a google search for online dictionary? That's a big coincidence, if true.

    Well, for the umpteenth time, that is not true, since THE ONE URL THAT YOU PROVIDED contained one of the definitions you say was not online, even though I have pointed this out already umpteen times. Look at it again. It gives four results. You gave the first one, ignoring the next two. The fourth was medical. Even in THE ONE URL THAT YOU PROVIDED, it is 2-to-1 against you.

    I will admit that I was wrong about malign necessarily meaning false if you will admit to being wrong about it usually not meaning false.

    That's silly. If you are willing to admit you are wrong, it can only be because you a. believe you are wrong, or b. are willing to lie and say you were wrong even though you believe you are right. How does what I say have any bearing on whether you believe you are wrong, or on whether you are willing to say so? That makes absolutely no sense to me.

    As to the rest: I cited three examples (two from THE ONE URL THAT YOU PROVIDED, one from Oxford), and none of them says it usually means false. Since I never believed it usually meant false, and the most authoritative dictionary we have here does not say it usually means false, and two of the three definitions in THE ONE URL THAT YOU PROVIDED do not say it usually means false ... no, I don't think I am going to admit something that the evidence at hand suggests is untrue.

    The best argument that you can make that malign does not usually imply false is that most dictionaries are wrong, and that is a very weak and pompous argument.

    No, it's not the argument I made. You said that, but I didn't. I do not believe most dictionaries say it is usually means false. You quoted three, I quoted three (two of them from THE ONE URL THAT YOU PROVIDED). I said dictionaries are often wrong, not that most are wrong.

    Even if I did make that argument, there's nothing pompous about it. Dictionaries are written by people, and I have many times identified where some of those people get things wrong. Hell, you are willing to concede that