Slashdot Mirror
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!"
It's pretty obvious that Erlich is taking advantage of the situation to turn it into a partisan issue by making the Democrats in charge of elections look bad, and to make himself look like a saint. The irony is that he previously poo-poo'd problems with Diebold machines in the Ohio 2004 presidential elections, while it was politically favorable for him to do so.
The intro slashdot blurb is also entirely misleading, because there's not a contingent of the Democratic Party against using paper ballots, in fact the article only mentions the two prominent Democratic members of the elections committee that are resisting, primarily because it's their own jobs that are being criticized by Erlich.
So make no mistake, this is ENTIRELY POLITICAL, Erlich is taking advantage of a political opportunity presented by the fuckups of two prominent Democrats, and trying to paint himself as pro-fair-elections and them as obstructionist in one sweep. Politically a smart thing to do, also somewhat misleading. Amazing to see how many slashdotters take politicians words at their face values.
make world, not war
Electronic voting can go smoothly, though. Look at India's last major election. 600+ million voters. All electronic. The election took three weeks. They had federally governed voting machines. The US, by contrast, allows each state to dictate which machine or method they utilize under few federal standards. The machines in India were verified prior to the election and subject to a rigerous, open process of testing. They went through dozens of public tests to ensure that the machines could be used by the largely illiterate rural communities and that even skilled or determined people were unable to bias a machine. The machines were cheap and nearly dispoable, each only holding a few thousand votes at the most. By contrast, many US electronic systems collect votes together. A compromised or disabled setup in a precinct could put tens of thousands of votes at risk.
No large cries of fraud (IIRC there were a few localized incidents that were more human error than machine/trust errors). It went smoothly.
Unfortunately, the election business in the US is far too much money to go that well. When states start offering contracts in the tens of millions of dollars for "voting equipment" and "election consulting", you're just asking for problems.
Ballots from 1988 and earlier (I believe; my memory is fuzze) were conducted with a purely mechanical system: you'd pull a big lever to draw the curtain, decide, pull down levers (which would bring down red plastic arrows indicating who you were voting for), and the act of pulling the lever to open the curtain would count the levers you'd pulled down. Being mechanical, they could be a little persnickety.
The 1996 and 2000 balloting where I was in Maryland was conducted using a standardized ballot, a black marker, and an optical scanner which fed the scanned ballot into a lockbox. It had the efficiency of an electronic system, but the ballot itself was clearly a paper record secured as it was counted. It seemed like a very good system. (Anyone else experience it?)
The 2004 ballot was conducted with Diebold machines. If they provided the Republicans any significant advantage, it wasn't in the presidency; the state went about 70-some% blue. I bring this up because, as I recall in 2004, balloting really wasn't so complicated or fraught with technical glitches.
Everyone else is gaping in astonishment at a Republican governor (amazingly a relief since Willy Don Schaefer, Governor of the State of Baltimore, was abrasive like tweed boxers) sounding off against Diebold-style electronic voting. I'm scratching my head and wondering what made voting so complicated this time.
Was the process quietly sabotaged by someone who wanted to see the state switch from electronic voting? If so, then I am now horribly conflicted.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
That's what wedge issues are for: They are issues people have deep emotional feelings about, no one is ever going to change their minds about them, and nothing substantial will ever get done about them. Every election cycle, the politicos in Washington start banging the drum about a selection of wedge issues, get everyone into a frenzy about them, and drop shortly after the election.
You rarely see any politicians talking abortion, gun control, or flag burning in odd-numbered years.
How can you claim to be serious about vote fraud without be in favor of requiring ID to vote?
And it's not disenfranchisement either. You need ID as a prerequisite to get a job, cash checks (and even if you are poor, welfare checks, other government assistance), open a bank account, etc. I don't know how anybody could not have an ID unless it was a matter of purposefully not wanting one. I mean, when you are born, you get a birth certificate (which I believe is enough to prove ID under the proposed law)
Actually, the current Mayor of Chicago is named Daley. You found his father who gave JFK Chicago in 1960 which some say is why JFK flew to Nixon rather than vice versa.
There was a question as to whether votes for Kerry were on machines before the polls opened in 2004. If you've been in this city you know that Unions only protect one ticket and either scare or beat up the other.
Philadelphia has a lot of things - a two party system isn't one of them.
What's most amusing about Democrat charges is that they try to blame Governor's or the Federal system whereas vote control occurs at the local level.
(And I won't even get into the NJSC replacing Torch with Lautenberg.)
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Yeah exactly. The brief blurb, obviously written by an outsider of MD politics, overlooks the fact that Erhlich was championing the machines 2 years ago, and was pushing everyone to spend a great deal of money updating the machines.
Now that the money is spent, he says we should use a paper system, throwing away what we have. The democrats are saying "hey, idiot, we already spent the money, let's make it work since you were so gung-ho for it."
So if we're talking about flipped political personalities, the Republican is a flip flopper, and the democrats are fiscally responsible!
Good Lord. How ignorant.
You need ID as a prerequisite to get a job
Completely wrong. I've actually gotten a job without possessing photo ID when my license was suspended.
cash checks (and even if you are poor, welfare checks, other government assistance)
Wrong, unless you're stupid and cash your checks at non-banks. The first time you'll need someone to confirm your identity.
open a bank account
Usually wrong. A few banks want it, but they will accept employment IDs or an employee reference.
I don't know how anybody could not have an ID unless it was a matter of purposefully not wanting one. I mean, when you are born, you get a birth certificate (which I believe is enough to prove ID under the proposed law)
Jesus Christ. You know nothing about this issue, do you?
The photo ID laws people are objecting to require government issued photo IDs. Those things you have to go to the DMV and stand in line for two hours to get? The things they charge 15 bucks for?
And, incidentally, not everyone has or can easily get a copy of their birth certificate, like for example black people born before the 1960s in some parts of the South, and copies always cost money.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Actually, no, it doesn't. There's nothing "false" necessarily or even usually implicated by the use of the word "malign." Not sure where you get that from, but it wasn't a dictionary.
Actually, yes, it does. It necessarily implies false. That's from dictionary.com, which is based on the Random House dictionary. Merriam Webster says this: "MALIGN suggests specific and often subtle misrepresentation but may not always imply deliberate lying." Cambridge says "to say false and unpleasant things about someone or to unfairly criticize them" Not sure where you got the idea that it doesn't imply false, but in any case, you need to take a refresher course in vocabulary before you go spreading more misinformation about what words mean or don't mean.
Based on that, the rest of your points are moot. Now I understand why you said what you said. You simply didn't know the definition of malign. As you have shown yourself to be less than informed about the meanings of basic words and unable to present a rational defense of your own stated position, I see no reason to continue this conversation.
Good day, sir.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I urge everyone to request absentee ballots early. I don't want my vote disappearing in a Diebold machine.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Clinton was for a lack of state intervention in the market (NAFTA) and he was a Democrat. So no, you can't count on that.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.