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!"

Comments

Why the reversal?

[republican gourd]

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.

Re:Why the reversal?

[Atzanteol]

corrolary:

The losing party thinks election results are being modified by the winning party.
The winning party thinks the election results are just fine.

I never understood why people were so silly around here to think that the Republicans are the only dirty party? As far as I'm concerned, Al Gore is just mad that George Bush was able to 'modify' more votes than he could.

Surprised?

[eldavojohn]

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!

You act surprised. You shouldn't be, sometimes the priority of one party is just to be against whatever the otherside wants. Regardless of whether or not they have a common goal. It's called "partisan politics" and it's been ruining the country for over 200 years. Both parties want this country to remain polarized for the next election because they feel they both have votes to gain from it. Therefore, they'll try to block anything the otherside tries to do in a knee-jerk reaction.

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.

Re:Surprised?

[krgallagher]

"Both parties want this country to remain polarized for the next election because they feel they both have votes to gain from it."

I believe that the real debate in Washington is how best to distract citizens from the real issues facing our country and the world. The polarization of the parties is simply a ploy to get americans to react on an emotional level instead of examining issues from a logical perspective.

I don't care

[gEvil (beta)]

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.

Bias

[kevin_conaway]

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!"

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

Re:Retards... they're all retards

[wass]

You're being easily misled by the deliberately provocative slashdot blurb (or you're a republican plant).

There are two prominent Democrats on the elections committee, and obviously the committee fucked up due to the elections issues. The two 'Democrats' mentioned in the article are those two on this committee whose asses are now on the line for the fuckups so of course these two are trying to fight saying they've been doing a good job so far.

There hasn't been any general opposition by the Maryland Democratic Party, or even amongst a larger Democratic contingent. Erlich turned this into a partisan issue by pounding on the election irregularities by pointing to the incompetence of the election board, which has Democrats in the top spots. The race between Erlich and O'Malley for governor is quite ugly, these two have been bitter political rivals for the past few years already and there has been much ugliness previously (I've lived in Baltimore the past few years. O'Malley is the Democratic Baltimore mayor challenging Erlich, while Erlich is the Republican governor).

Erlich has been a political douchebag tool since he took office, he ignored election problems in Baltimore in 2004, for instance, and fully supported using the Diebold machines. And he mildly brushed aside criticism of the Ohio 2004 election irregularities. He's not some election hero, he's just your typical political opportunist, suddenly supporting an issue he previously ignored just becuase it's politically favorable for him to do so.

Remember, this guy is a candidate for governor, damn near everything he does in the spotlight has a political bent to it. He saw an opportunity and pounced on it.

Don't elect, draft...

[CptNerd]

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.