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House To Vote On Paper Trail and OSS Voting Bill
Spamicles writes "A vote is imminent for the bill that is a direct response to problems in the 2006 elections. This legislation would create a paper trail for elections, require a manual audit of every federal election, and open the source code of voting software in certain circumstances. The bill currently has 216 co-sponsors and is expected to be brought to the floor of the House and passed any day."
I'm Canadian, and currently we use pen and paper ballots counted by hand. I'm not going to say our voting process is problem free, but it seems to have a lot less problems then what exists in the US system. Seems to me like fighting for OSS and paper trails in the voting process is the wrong battle, and that you should be fighting to go back to paper, hand counted votes. It's a lot more transparent to the voters that things are being messed with. With software and computers thrown into the mix, most voters have no idea how to verify that the voting is done in a reliable manner.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Some Congresscritters and/or their staff must be reading Slashdot. These are all things that more than one of us has suggested.
Now just one more thing, guys: make the entire system run on Linux or other F/OSS operating system. That will eliminate the use of viruses targeted at the easily-cracked Windows operating system from the McDonald's of operating system vendors (Microsoft).
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Better to just make sure people aren't registered in more than one town.
Oh and there should be a requirement for a certain number of polling stations per number of registered voters, otherwise big cities with not enough polling stations are effectively disenfranchising their citizens. Nobody should be made to wait over an hour to vote, while we in the rich suburbs never have to wait more than a minute or two.
Everyone, to vote, needs a voter registration card (or your vote is provisional), that being the case making this voter id card have a picture and still be free is *not* any more of a hurdle for the poor than current voter id cards. But what is does do is prevent people from voting using other peoples cards. BTW Most 'poor' people in the US have a drivers license and a car "Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars." -- US Census
Make picture IDs free for everyone, not cost $50 or whatever they cost these days and not make people wait more than 10 minutes in line, and I might agree with you.
Im with you on the free but it takes more than 10 minutes now and why should 10 minuted or half an hour make a difference? should voting not have more of a commitment then say the dmv?
Better to just make sure people aren't registered in more than one town.
many towns hove multiple districts and most have multiple precincts.
Oh and there should be a requirement for a certain number of polling stations per number of registered voters, otherwise big cities with not enough polling stations are effectively disenfranchising their citizens. Nobody should be made to wait over an hour to vote, while we in the rich suburbs never have to wait more than a minute or two.
LOL I live in a 'rich suburb' (its ok I live in an apartment so I myself am not rolling in it) and I had to wait far longer than a minute or two to vote the last time. The number and locates of polling places is set up locally not by the fed so if the inner city which is usually vvery heavily democrat has too few polling places you know where to look.
I've done my best (writing my congressman and senators) to derail this horrid bill. Unfortunately, like the amnesty bill, it appears to be a foregone conclusion.
Though it makes sense on the surface, the extra costs are - in my opinion - not worth the effort. I still don't see what the problem with old style ballots are. Also, we already do a 1% manual tally here in Los Angeles county. (With 5,000 precincts, that's not an easy task.) Add this new effort into the task of rolling out an election with Precinct Ballot Readers, TEV early voting systems, ballots in eight different languages, and an apathetic population who is sick of the PAC's driving everything and you have a total waste of money.
</soapbox>
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Im with you on the free but it takes more than 10 minutes now and why should 10 minuted or half an hour make a difference? should voting not have more of a commitment then say the dmv?
Problem is that since Election Day is not a holiday in the USA, taking an hour out of the day to vote can be nearly impossible if your boss is a prick. And job security is something that matters a great deal to the working poor (as it means nearly as much to the working non-poor). Further, bosses in jobs worked by the working poor tend to be more aware of the greater leverage they have over their workers, and are in this specific way more likely to be pricks. Not to mention the fact that in such jobs, bosses and workers have different political interests (due to different economic class) and consequently wildly divergent political affiliations, and so there is no earthy reason why such a boss would want to make it easier for their employees to vote.
As a result, in those communities that are enlightened enough to have polling hours extend significantly past the workday hours, those who must vote after work must vote along with everyone else in the same situation; polling lines swell precisely at the times that people leave work, and remain long from that time until polls close. People not so restricted in their schedule can easily vote during the day, enjoying a miniscule cost in time compared to their working compatriots.
It is not a question of commitment; it is a question of actual discrepancy in the degree of hardship, risk, and cost necessary to cast what is an equally-weighted vote. A vote that is equal in value should also be equal in cost. More numerous and strategicaly located polling places would make it easier to achieve equal cost by reducing line length and thus making it easier to justify work-leave to go vote (as time spent would be a great deal less), or barring that, relieve the after-work vote rush so that the person unlucky enough to have to work all day can vote with approximately as much ease as a person not so burdened.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
While interesting sites, I fail to see how a photo ID would help things out - forged documents are forged documents. Merely adding a picture to it doesn't make it secure.
Short of a police presence, photo IDs are useless, unless your goal is to distinguish those who have an automobile from those who don't. Most people (in the US) who DON'T have a car have an income that puts them below the poverty line. And if your goal is to weed out the poor (who tend to vote either independant or democratic in the US), then a photo ID requirement does an excellent job.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
What happens on the day that you become homeless and no longer have an address to register with to vote? What happens on that day if the reason you're homeless is because the government abused their position and usurped your land for whatever eminent domain project they had in mind, and failed or significantly delayed your relocation? Would you not want the ability to have a say on whether or not the government officials should remain in office?
I know that's a very poor example, but in your black-or-white spin on who should be able to vote and who shouldn't, frankly, I'm of the mind that we're a nation of people. Property, places, and all that can be adjusted and changed. Without the people, you have no one to govern and no one to support your government. Besides, we can have a nation of 'fair legal rules' that is assisted by 'the benevolence of other people'. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive, despite your commentary.
A pro business stance is the core of the republican ideaology. If you don't take the pro business stance you probably aren't a republican at all since all their beliefs stem from that.
Unless... you weren't one of those who bought into the abortion/religious nonsense/values crap they spout to gain votes from those with imaginary friends were you?
The problem I see is this, both parties have a set of beliefs but there is party that's ideology includes protecting ALL my freedoms. I want a holy grail, I want a candidate that acknowledges the second amendment is about balance of power and abolishes all the unconstitutional restrictions that have been placed on guns and arms of all sorts. I want a candidate who cares about my privacy and free speech. I want a candidate who believes in a free and unregulated market but also recognizes that when the question is raised businesses are NOT people and the interests of flesh and blood people trust the interests of commerce.
Where is that candidate? Why do we have to pick between the second amendment or the first? The parties just erode the rights they don't like and slowly but surely ALL of our rights are eroded.