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!"
Of course, Democrats are more well-known for exploiting paper ballots.
I live in Maryland. We are historically a blue state.
The way politics works these days is as follows:
In the red states, the Republican party is crooked as hell.
In the blue states, the Democratic party is crooked as hell.
And for those of you voting for your "team" regardless of the actual issues and goals are doing the country just as large a disservice.
My work here is dung.
Thats why I hate politics. Bipartisanship causes one side to oppose the other simply because they are on the other side. I applaud a republican taking steps to get rid of electronic voting. Democrats are once again showing their incompetance. Instead of a steady effort to hold the current administration accountable for violating the law (according to the supreme court, no less), they are playing devils advocate or passing laws against violent video games. Since when was being a douche bag a requirment for holding office?
Similes are like metaphors
Of COURSE there should be a paper trail if not paper ballots.
This
I don't care which party he's in. As long as he's trying to get rid of electronic voting until such time that it can prove itself to be trustworthy, then he's doing the right thing.
This guy's the limit!
Thanks for showing your bias submitter. The story stood up on its own without you injecting partisan hackery into the summary. Enjoy the ensuing flamewar
It's easier to make accusations of cheating when you lose instead of accepting responsibility. This is one of the reasons I hate politicians so much. "Oh, we lost... So the other guys MUST be cheating!" Go home to your mommies.
Love sees no species.
Amen, Brother. They have turned politics into a sports show, pitting your favorite team against your favorite team's enemy. If you love the Browns, you hate the Steelers. That's just the way it is. You root for the Browns, or whoever is playing the Steelers. Life is great as long as the Browns win and the Steelers lose.
As long as politics are like that, life is simple. You don't have to look at the voting record, public statements, or platform of a candidate. You just have to know their color, red or blue or some color not red or blue. You don't have to weigh the actions of a politician, you just have to say we have to support him because he's our President (or governor, or police chief, or what-have-you).
Life is simple then. People like simple. It's all red or blue, no shades of purple.
A friend of mine (hi, Thor) is a republican. Except for that, he and I are very much the same. He's a good guy. He supports democracy, and constitutional freedom, and peace. He and I have the same ideals, we just have different thoughts on how best to achieve (or maintain) those ideals.
The blood in our veins is blue. The blood in our arteries is red. It's never as simple as one vs. the other, and I wish those in charge would stop exploiting the sports-mentality to distract us from domestic and international troubles.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
This is the annoying thing about US politics, it seems many want every issue to be Red or Blue clean and simple.
It's not that simple and it's pretty unreasonable to make such baseless claims against the party as a whole.
I think the interesting thing is how many of the very powerful and respected politicians are making significant breaks with their party. In the US this infighting seems to be much more common when they're arguing with the president.
I think it is important to note that many if not most from both parties who really want to have fair elections, even if they're not quite sure how to achieve that.
The one out of power has fewer opportunities to cheat and doesn't have the power to rig the whole process.
Crooked elections perpetuate the rule of whoever's in charge.
One key virtue of democracy is that it allows throwing out incompetent, dishonest, or damaging rulers (if anyone cares) without blood in the street. Crooked elections hurt because they block the vital function of throwing the bums out and putting another set of bums in.
The only reason vote fraud looks like a Republican issue is that Republicans are in power. We'll have the same fight forever, be it Greens, the Reform Party, or the Natural Law Party in charge.
Service in legislatures should be just like jury duty. Every adult over 21 in each district should be registered in a database indexed by SocSecNo, and every two and six years some random person in each district is selected and made to go serve as Representative or Senator. Once their term is up, they are removed from the database for 12 years and aren't subject to being picked again during that time. We'll get losers that way, but we'll also get some smart people, none of whom will be able to keep their seats long enough to get burned out. No more politicking, no more election ads, no more parties. Lobbying will still go on, but make it illegal for someone who has served to lobby for the term immediately after their term is over.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes