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

Partisanship

[pudge]

Of course, Democrats are more well-known for exploiting paper ballots.

Re:Partisanship

[Frymaster]

Say what? If Democrats were well known for exploiting paper ballots, why would they be protesting moving back to paper ballots?

i think the original poster was referring to the democratic party's 'machine' style politics of the 20's-40's. intimidation, registering dead people, graft, ballot stuffing... all that stuff. wikipedia has an acceptable article on the chicago democratic machine here.

of course, that was 60 or 70 years ago and the shenanigans of the democratic party did not rely on the ballots being paper. but i think that was the original point.

Re:Partisanship

[spun]

Good lord, either I haven't had enough coffee, or you're not making any sense. Look up the word malign. It means to maliciously and falsly accuse. I'm not saying the GOP is exploiting anything. I'm just wondering why you would make a statement like you did. It doesn't make any sense. If the GOP exploits electronics, then they should want to stay with that. If the Dems are good at exploiting paper, they should want to move to that. If you were trying for irony, it was lost on me.

Just answer my first question before you pose one to me. I'm a confused old man, and I want to know why you would say the democrats are well known for exploiting paper ballots, when the democrats are the ones protesting moving back to paper ballots.

Re:Partisanship

[joshetc]

Say what? If Democrats were well known for exploiting paper ballots, why would they be protesting moving back to paper ballots?

Thats an easy one. The republicans want to move back to paper ballots. Of course the democrats will take the opposite stance.

Little do they know its a trap. See, after the democrats fight tooth and nail to oppose paper ballots the republicans will simply agree with them. WHAM. Democrats have no more right to bitch about electronic voting. Sneaky republicans..

Re:Partisanship

[pudge]

It was in 2000 and 2004 that Democrats in the state of Washington won statewide elections by tiny margins with very questionable paper ballots.

You just hear less about it nationally than the Diebold stuff because it's Democrats.

Re:Partisanship

[pudge]

No, in WA it is far worse: the Dems went to all-mail balloting in most of the state (and in two years, will probably be the whole state), in large part because you don't need ANY I.D. when voting by mail. Fraud is ten times easier by mail, and paper ballots (especially when sent by mail) are much easier to "fix."

Re:Partisanship

[pudge]

Imagine if this happened to a Democrat:

I, a Republican, was in the local county paper on Tuesday morning criticizing the County Auditor over all-mail voting. I was also a candidate in the primary, on the ballot (unopposed), that same day. But my name was actually hidden on the electronic voting machine ballot. You could not see my name to vote for me. And my name was the only one this happened to: me, the guy in the paper that day criticizing the Auditor.

If I were a Democrat and he a Republican, chances are, this would be front-page news everywhere. "Republicans manipulate voting machines to keep Democrat off ballot." But since I am a Republican and I realize it was probably merely an unfortunate coincidence, I just post about it, but don't make it into a big deal.

So excuse me for thinking that criticisms pointed at Republicans being the ones who manipulating elections, are a bunch of garbage; I see firsthand -- with all the problems in WA in 2000 and 2004, including the unreported ones -- that it's just not true.

There is simply no truth to the implications that Republicans manipulate elections more than Democrats (and I tend to believe it is the other way around, though since I have always lived in Democrat states -- CA, MA, WA -- that certainly colors my perspective). It's just that for whatever reasons, the stuff about Republicans gets more press, and less benefit-of-the-doubt.

Re:Partisanship

[odourpreventer]

Being a non-U.S. citizen, I've heard this joke a couple of times now. What I wonder is: Is your voting system really that flawed, that dead people can be registered as voters? Or is it just an old joke?

I'm curious, really. Is this a problem in other countries as well?

Re:Partisanship

[Xichekolas]

Historically, democrats have been backed by big unions... which for a long time (maybe still) were pretty much run by and for the mafia. So the Mafia found ways to get people to register their dead relatives as voters, and vote for them by mail... or at least sign their 'signature' on petitions. In exchange for helping the Democratic Machine, I'm sure the Mafia got some leeway...

I'm sure the Republicans have done some things equally as dirty to throw elections in their favor... Recently saw this theory for instance: Was the 2004 Election stolen?

Re:Partisanship

[jmorris42]

> I think the original poster was referring to the democratic party's 'machine' style politics of the 20's-40's.
> intimidation, registering dead people, graft, ballot stuffing... all that stuff. wikipedia has an acceptable
> article on the chicago democratic machine here.

Whitewash all ya want, truth is every case of actual vote fraud that changed the outcome of an election has been Democrats doing what comes natural to em; cheating.

You would be hard pressed these days to find a historian who would argue the case that Kennedy's win over Nixon was fair. The dead in Chicago tipped IL and don't even look into what went on in TX unless you have a very strong constituition.

Sen. Mary Landrieu of LA owes her seat to the dead in New Orleans, who were assisted to the polls by the Democratic machine. That was in the 1990s by the way.

Several recent elections in WA have been widely suspected of taint. Boxes of ballots 'appear' weeks after the election yet get counted despite zero audit trail or even pamper seals, and even worse abuse. But since Democrats ended up being elected nobody in the media cared to keep beating the drum until an investigation was conducted.

Remember also that even in the Democratic paranoid's wet dream case,the 2000 presidential election, while the press was obsessing over FL, buried on the back pages were much more damming cases of vote fraud in several other states, all involving Democrats. Bussing homeless people from one state (where victory was assured) to neighboring ones where every vote was needed, buying their votes with free smokes. Only a footnote in the history books. The Miami Herald along with all of the other major media outlets in FL recount the ballots and declare Bush won but Bush's coup in Florida is accepted fact in leftwing circles to this day.

Re:Partisanship

[pudge]

Let me ask this statistically logical question: How often have their been two consecutive presidential elections were the 'popular' vote was greate for the losing party.

Not sure offhand. It happens occasionally. Not sure if it has ever happened two elections in a row. You seem to be implying that it happened recently; but Bush won the so-called "popular vote" in 2004. Had Kerry managed to win Ohio, and nothing else changed, Bush would have won the "popular vote" and lost the election, but that's not what happened. Bush actually won the "popular vote" in 2004 by a fairly wide margin (3 million votes). For contrast, Gore "beat" Bush by about 500,000.

(Oddly, the same Democrats who complained about the difference between the "popular vote" and the electoral college in 2000 raised no such issue in 2004 as they complained about Ohio.)

Here's a follow up question based on the frequency of that event occuring in the past does it not suggest a statistical likelyhood that the results in one of those two elections were baked?

No, it does not. Flip a coin; it lands on heads. Flip again; lands on heads. Is there a problem with the coin?

In a very close "popular" election, the chance of the loser "winning" the "popular vote" is practically a coinflip, because there is no strong correlation between the "popular vote" and the electoral college vote when you get the "popular vote" close enough. It depends too much on in which states those votes are concentrated and to what degree.

Last statisticaly logical question: Is it more or less likely that the victor in an election wins by a margin of thousands or hundreds when they win?

Predictively speaking, neither. Looking at the past, elections are usually won by fairly large margins, generally speaking. But that says nothing about what the next election might look like.

My main point here is it is very likely there was cheating going on and likely rampant cheating at that.

No past statistics suggest this. It is just as likely, statistically speaking, that the country is simply split down the middle on these issues, as it is that there is any cheating going on. Statistics don't suggest either way, as best I can tell. I do not hold to the school of thought that we can determine levels of cheating from how much something deviates from past experience. The Red Sox beat the Yankees in four straight games after being down three-to-zero in the 2004 playoffs. It had never happened before in the history of baseball. That doesn't suggest the Sox or Yankees cheated (although the Yankees did cheat in one game, but that was a game the Sox won, and they got caught anyway).

Now, anomalies can be a cause to dig deeper to find out if cheating happened. As I noted in my debunking of RFK Jr.'s article about cheating in Ohio in 2004, there were certainly anomalies there, but you can't just jump to "therefore there was cheating." You need to then actually find actual evidence of cheating, or else it remains a mere anomaly.

Not an problem

[grub]

Not a problem: Diebold will get into the pre-checked ballot printing business.

Re:Not an problem

[daeg]

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.

Mistake

[RAMMS EIN]

What? A politician who wants verifiably fair elections? There must be some kind of mistake...

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.

Re:Why the reversal?

[nebaz]

As a corollary to this, since my party X is "none", I should say that !X "all parties" are corrupt. This is probably true for the big main two, but like anything else, given enough people, critical mass is reached and it becomes corrupt. This is probably true of governments, companies, organized religion, etc. That's why I advocate that we all live in caves with at most 20 people. That would keep us from being corrupt.

Re:Why the reversal?

[TheGreek]

Since when did the law in your state say paper ballots were no longer allowed. You'd think that change would have made it on slashdot when it happened because it's pretty outrageous.

Well, Mr. Wizzerd, maybe you'd like to make like Tom Cruise and do some research?

http://www.elections.state.md.us/citizens/voting_s ystems/

Scroll down to the bottom section titled "Voting System Selection and Procurement"

It says, in part:

After the 2000 Presidential Election, Governor Parris N. Glendening established a Special Committee on Voting Systems and Election Procedures to review Maryland's election policies and procedures. In its report, the Special Committee recommended, among other things, that the State implement a statewide, uniform voting system for polling place voting and a statewide, uniform voting system for absentee voting. In response to this recommendation, the General Assembly passed legislation requiring the State Board of Elections, in consultation with the local boards of election, to select a statewide, uniform voting system for polling place voting and for absentee voting. See House Bill 1457 of the 2001 Legislative Session.

Once the bill became effective, the State Board selected a Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting system for polling place voting and an optical scan voting system for absentee voting. A DRE voting system was selected because of the many advantages that it offers over other voting systems.

Re:Why the reversal?

[bill_kress]

For that matter, why do people insist on differentating between republicans and democrats at all? It's not like they are controlled by different people.

What's the first thing Clinton did when he got in office? While pretending to deal with gays in the military (Lots of discussion), he quietly used all his might to push NAFTA through.

NAFTA is simply a gimme to corporate interests, it is one of those issues that is completely conservative, anti-democrat.

What does Bush do? Try to make illegal imigration legal and get more mexicans into the country? Conservatives hate this, dems are supposed to be somewhat okay with it, but again, corporate interests love it. If you really wanted to stop immigration, you'd just set up some serious fines or jailtime for employing immigrants. It'll never happen.

Why do they fight so hard for elections if they are the same party? Splitting the republicrat party into two wings and having them battle for control is a great system!

After seeing what Bush can do, the far left-wing doesn't dare vote green, and if fox can keep coming up with reasons to hate clinton, it'll keep the far right-wing away from voting libretarian.

So the infighting actually secures both parties.

My personal solution is, except in presidential positions or positions where there is actually a "Good" republicrat canidate, I always vote for an alternitave independent--even Libretarian (Which I'm kind of against). If you're ultra-conservative and you can vote dem, repub or green--start voting green. Until they actually start winning elections, all you are doing is showing support for the alternative parties.

If you think your vote makes a difference in the presidental election, go ahead and vote republican or dem, but in other elections, stay away from the republicrats!

---------------
Why doesn't slashdot have a spellcheck function?

Re:Why the reversal?

[rjung2k]

"What's the first thing Clinton did when he got in office? While pretending to deal with gays in the military (Lots of discussion), he quietly used all his might to push NAFTA through."

"Bill Clinton was the best Republican President we ever had."
--Michael Moore

The idea that the Clintons were these wild-eyed radical lefties never ceases to amuse me.

Re:Why the reversal?

[inKubus]

Both sides exploit the weaknesses in the system and use their influence to rig it so they win/keep seats. The only loser in an election is the American People.. Because this provides them the means to lock out any viable 3rd party canditate. Why? Because no one expects them to get any votes. Even if a 3rd party canditate got a shitload of votes, they could just drop them out of the system and no one would ask any questions (least of all the media).

Interesting.

Re:Why the reversal?

[nuzak]

> It's not like they are controlled by different people.

Hey Ralph Nader, you got your guy into office, you can stop this line now. Yes, the Democrats attract the same venal and base scum as the Republicans, but let's talk about what's going on now, and that's that the GOP is controlled by folks like PNAC, who are some seriously scary Amerika Uber Alles folks. To say nothing of the religious right. Both of these overtly fascist movements operate with the blessing and these days, funding of the GOP.

So yeah, goddamn skippy there is a difference. Don't talk to me about theoreticals, the ones who have the power have to go, and if I have to vote a straight blue ticket to do it, so be it.

Re:Why the reversal?

[dan828]

BS. The Dems sent in their lawyers and started their shenanigans immediately-- things like having most all the military absentee invalidated due to technical "post mark irregularities." Guess what? The military vote tends to be strongly republican.
Recounts were only called for in strongly Democratic counties and in those very liberal readings of the ballots were being used to qualify as many as possible. Now working to read as many votes as possible is not a bad thing, but when you do it only in the places where one party predominates you are skewing the results in favor of one party. To pretend that the Dems were the good guys in all of this when they were clearly up to their necks in attempts to skew the results is disingenuous at best.
And, btw, before you start accusing me of only seeing one side of the issue, I've never voted for Bush and would have been happy to see him lose in 2004, but stupid conspiracy crap and cry-baby politics are beyond annoying. If you really wanted things to change you'd vote against incumbents and support a 3rd party instead of queuing up like a good little sheep and casting your vote for the Republicrat machine.

Re:Why the reversal?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

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.

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.

Re:Surprised?

[eln]

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.

I agree with you in principle, but at the highest levels of government (I'm looking at you, U.S. Congress), voting for your "team" is often the only way to get anything even close to what you want. On the vast majority of issues, the vast majority of the people in Congress will vote the same way everyone else in their party votes. Even if the person you elect spells out a detailed platform, some of which goes against his or her own party, chances are he or she will vote the party line most of the time, even when the party line goes against his or her stated platform.

This is the problem with partisan politics. If you vote for "your" team, you end up getting people who don't necessarily share all of your views, and may vote for something you disagree with. If you don't vote for your team, you end up with someone who says they agree with you, but will most likely vote party line anyway, and will probably vote for things you disagree with. Either way, you're not getting what you really wanted.

Re:Surprised?

[eln]

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.

Retards... they're all retards

[not already in use]

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?

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.

Re:Retards... they're all retards

[Frequency Domain]

Thats why I hate politics. Bipartisanship causes one side to oppose the other simply because they are on the other side.

No, that's the definition of partisanship. Bipartisanship is exactly the opposite.

Democrats are once again showing their incompetance....

Great example of partisanship! And to think, all this time you thought you were being bipartisan.

Re:Retards... they're all retards

[EggyToast]

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!

Weird...

[ResidntGeek]

What does it matter which party the politicians are in? They're the same party. You think Democrats wouldn't steal an election given the chance? You think a Republican won't pull a stunt like this to appear honest to get those last few votes to get him in office?

I can't see how anyone could argue this point

[ellem]

Of COURSE there should be a paper trail if not paper ballots.

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:Bias

[SengirV]

Don't blame the submitter for doing this. He is simply writing for the audience. And /. leans WAY more left than right.

More provisional ballots on site

[Rev Snow]

At the very least each polling site should
have enough paper provisional ballots at the ready to complete the election in case of complete machine failure. One of many problems in the recent primaries was an inadequate supply of provisional ballots to cover all the cases that led to their use.

Next step beyond that would be to permit any voter who wants it, to use one of the paper provisional ballots instead of using the voting machine.

as an MD'er, I don't think you understand

[mekkab]

and his attempts to clean up Maryland's voting problems are being opposed by Democrats, the party that is usually complaining about electronic voting!"

As a Maryland Democrat, I don't think you understand. We aren't the party that is usually complaining about electronic voting; we are the party that is usually complaining. PERIOD.

/I just calls 'em likes I sees 'em
//I complain about the ICC, too!

Re:Paper ballots makes dead people voting difficul

[spun]

I find this fascinating, do you have any sources so I can research this further?

Re:There are plenty of good republicans...

[wass]

The issue IS partisan, and if you have been following Maryland politics for awhile (I live in Baltimore) you'd know the vile relationship between Erlich and O'Malley (Erlich is the Republican governor up for re-election, O'Malley is the Democratic Baltimore mayor, challenging Erlich for governor). The problem is that the board in charge of the elections (and hence voting machines) has Democrats in the top positions.

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.

Re:Paper ballots makes dead people voting difficul

[spun]

Nice way to win converts, AC. Call someone with a legitimate and politely phrased question an idiot. Good work. Now because you hurt my feelings, I'm going to vote Democrat. Twice.

Warning: Maryland Resident Punditry

[Crash Culligan]

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.

Re:The biased party line from Supabeast

[Dr Reducto]

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)

It's a bait and switch

[saddino]

IMHO, Ehrlich (how it's actually spelled) is only trying to setup a platform for challenging the results if the election ends up being close. It is pretty much impossible to replace the entire voting system with paper ballots in time before the election, and since Ehrlich knows this, the only reason he'd state such a position is to seed FUD prior to the election date. If a recount or court challenge is needed by the GOP in Maryland, the public might be more receptive to his position (which will likely be "voter fraud") if they've been "educated" that the electronic system in Maryland is broken.

Outsourcing...

[TheLink]

The USA should outsource their elections to India :).

Politics of sports

[Tony]

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.

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.

Re:Paper ballots makes dead people voting difficul

[Profane MuthaFucka]

The busses are there to get people to a single polling place, since they might not have cars, and might not need cars. Some are handicapped and have never owned a car.

That's also why we don't want to have ID requirements. A great many people don't have state issued id's, since they don't drive.

Let's turn this around: Republicans, being a minority, want to see as many restrictions and hoops as possible on voting, because it helps them. That explains their support for measures that are biased against people who vote for Democrats typically. Even if some Republicans are excluded from voting because they don't have an ID, even more Democrats will be excluded for the same reason.

If you hold the moral value that the community is important, you should not rest until every American can vote as easily as you can vote. If any American is being dumped on, then we are ALL being dumped on. We must hang together, or we will all surely hang separately.

US 2 party politics

[nuggz]

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.

Re:Paper ballots makes dead people voting difficul

[Sqwubbsy]

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.)

Re:Of course, If people hadn't...

[EggyToast]

But then, I'm a Conservative.

And it shows. Ehrlich was the major force behind converting MD voting to Diebold.

Right wing political mail

[CustomDesigned]

For those surprised that Republicans hate unauditable voting also, here is an excerpt from a right wing political email.

This "Christian Response" e-Alert is a special message from RightMarch.com:

ALERT: You know how you hate it when liberals claim the election was stolen? The fact is, if we had paper trails, we wouldn't have to deal with that incessant whining any more.

But for the most part, we don't. Last November, as many as 50 million voters cast their ballots on electronic voting machines that lacked a voter-verified paper audit trail. As a result, there is NO way to resolve questions about reported tallies.

As former Congressman Bob Barr recently wrote, "The pell-mell rush to electronic voting machines was launched after the 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida. It was fueled by Congress' knee-jerk reaction to that fiasco in passing the 'Help America Vote Act' in 2002, along with a boatload of taxpayer dollars -- nearly $4 billion."

Unfortunately, this well-funded fascination with electronic voting machines has proceeded with virtually NO comprehensive study or development of national standards to ensure the integrity of the machines and how they're utilized. Each state sets its own standards -- or doesn't -- and follows its own rules in letting contracts for the machines.

...

As you can see, the only difference is who is to blame for electronic voting - those whiny Dems, or those slimy Reps. What is interesting to me, is that despite the grassroots of *both* sides being outraged by the shoddy e-voting - they continue to buy more of the machines. Clearly, both parties are just puppets.

Re:The biased party line from Supabeast

[DavidTC]

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.

Pudge, please look up malign in the dictionary

[spun]

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.

Re:Pudge, please look up malign in the dictionary

[squiggleslash]

Actually you're both correct.

Most dictionaries haven't been updated since the International Astronomer's Union updated the definition in August. To malign did mean "to speak harmful untruths about; speak evil of; slander; defame" but now means, thanks to a last minute vote by a small group of angry astronomers, "To speak badly of, while clearing a path with one's own gravitas."

I hope this factoid, erm, sorry the term is now "Dwarf Fact", helps.

I don't blame him

[Wansu]

I urge everyone to request absentee ballots early. I don't want my vote disappearing in a Diebold machine.

Your Party Sucks!

[Art_XIV]

Your party is corrupt. Your party is money-grubbing and is only concerned about their own power.

Only idiots vote for a party that is as non-logical as yours. Your party has been taken over by extremists who only want to destroy the United States as we know it!!

Your party is nothing but a bunch of Useful Idiots who support the New World Order!!

Your party doesn't even care about the people any more. Your party is only worried about getting more money from Special Interests.

Look at all of the voting fraud your party is involved in. Do you know why your party doesn't complain more loudly about vote fraud? It's because your party doesn't want the extend of their own involvement known to the general public! It would destroy your party!

Your party only fields idiots and crooks for office. They have to be idiots to support the things that your party believes in. You, know things like gay marriage, abortion, and the war? Idiots! I, however, will not associate with idiots, so I belong to my party.

Sure, my party has a few crooks in it, but I would never support it if it had as many crooks as your party does.

Because the dangerous party is the one in power

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

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.

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.

Re:Paper ballots makes dead people voting difficul

[Xichekolas]

A well... guess I picked a bad example... but I honestly can't believe that one party does crooked things and the other doesn't. Frankly, I distrust both sides... and that was my point. Nice debunking... I admit I got bored reading that insanely long article and was struggling to finish it, let alone fact check it.

*sigh* ... it would be nice if you could just depend on stuff printed at a fairly popular outlet to actually be fact checked. But I guess that would be too much to ask...