Slashdot Mirror
NY Rejects E-Voting, DOJ Trying to Force the Issue
CompaniaHill writes "Hastily passed in the wake of the 2000 election mess, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) supposedly offered funding to help states update their voting systems. In reality, the short deadlines have been used to push the sale of untested and uncertified new e-voting systems. Many states continue to demonstrate that the new e-voting machines are not reliable. The New York State Board of Elections (NYSBOE) took the time to pass their own voting legislation with additional testing and certification standards which far exceed the HAVA standards. As a result, they missed the HAVA deadlines. In March 2006, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued New York to comply with HAVA. Now, the DOJ is serving a motion to try to take away New York's right to select and acquire their own voting machine systems — in effect, to force e-voting machines on New York anyway. At the moment it's too soon to say how the NYSBOE will respond."
Neither are paper ballots, depending on who's counting them.
This first post was written on a hacked e-voting machine. That is all.
You know Turkish? Do you eat falafel? You just voted Democrat? You are a terrorist!
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Now "Federal Government requiring NY State to use non-state certified electronic voting machines" would be a lot more accurate.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
With the upcoming primaries and presidential election, this will go rapidly to SCOTUS. And they will stick it up DOJ's ass and break it off - one thing this court is known for is pushing federalism, and telling the states the exact means by which they will hold their elections is a HUGE violation of that.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
"Commissioners of the Elections Board, which has been sued by the federal agency for not complying with election-modernization law, voted 3-1 to take up the matter in closed session." Italics mine.
That's a clear sign it's out of the voters hands. I would guess that when they roll over, they've got plenty of public service jobs waiting for them.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
into Alicia Key's website. We might not have gotten them into our electoral botnet in time otherwise.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
You just voted Democrat?
:)
Located in Germany, I can vote 'The Left'
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Section 4. The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.
It seems to me that unless Congress mandates e-voting the DOJ has no power to force it upon a state. The HAVA appears to provide funds for but does not mandate electronic voting. Even if it did, a state could mandate voting for Senators at a place with no electrical outlets and Congress could not change that; alternatively, is a voting both a "place?"
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The voting machine chooses you.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
"Here" is Springfield, Illinois (Gail Simpson is an alderman here).
They have a paper trail, are easy to use, and they're NOT Diebold. The only thing I don't like about them is they use (IINM) Windows; I would FAR prefer them to use an open source OS. Not that my vote really matters much (I split my vote between the Greenies and the Libbies).
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Like others, though, I think that SCOTUS will prevail, because ultimately if the federal government becomes overpoweringly strong, there may be a second secessionary movement where many of the states tell the currently empowered federal government to go to hell and start over.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
The feds have a clear constitutional right to ensure fair voting.
They do not have any right to impose a system which is less able to do so than the existing paper-ballot system.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Surely you must be joking.
That's the excuse they pull out when they want to deny people's rights.
But otherwise, the SCOTUS majority is perfectly happy to use the club of Federal pre-emption when states want to give additional protection to their citizens and residents. Scalia is an unrepentant nutbag on this. He'll fulminate about Federalism in one decision and then ignore it one week later.
Bluntly, if its good for Republicans, SCOTUS likes it, and if it's bad for Republicans and less powerful people, SCOTUS hates it.
After all, they shoved Federalism up lady liberty's *** and abrogated Florida's right to count its votes.
Essentially all scholars agree that it had no legitimate standing or justification, it was just plain party power.
And today, there are two more members now who owe their lifetime sinecures due to that dred-ful decision.
I guess we'll see how independent the new AG is, huh?
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
Not to nitpick (don't you love how people say not to _____ when they're just about to _____) but the feds don't have ANY rights.
They have powers, which are based on the rights of the people. So, the better way to say this is "the feds are empowered to protect the rights of citizens by ensuring fair voting".
Please be careful, because the distinction is not trivial, especially in the current political climate.
This is clearly a violation of the Constitution. The Constitution specifies how the electoral votes are divided up amongst the states, but leave it up to the individual states to decide how to assign those votes.
-- Will program for bandwidth
we should have nothing but paper ballots. not even mechanical voting machines, and definitely not electronic voting machines
the reason is trust. trust in your voting process is extremely important to the confidence and integriy of society. now of course you can fake paper ballots, lose them, etc. it is just that, for every method you find to "hack" paper ballots, there are 10 more ways to hack mechanical voting, and 100 times more ways to attack electronic voting. increased complexity leads to more attack vectors. simple as that
you can scan the paper ballots with optical machines, certainly, but anything more technophilic than that is not necessary, and perhaps dangerous. voting is not a process that needs to be improved. the poorest country in the world and the richest should all vote the simple way
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I live in New York City and this issue affects me. Why are my taxes being spent to help steal votes in my state? Now we have a new Attorney General whose job it is to help Republicans steal another presidential election?!?
Luckily once they are all in place the general populace can hold a special referendum to get rid of them.
Oh wait...
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
In Faciest America, the voting machine choose FOR you.
I don't have a face, you insensitive clod!
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
I think the people behind these systems want people to think that those against it are just being curmudgeonly. (Aw, heck, the machine keeps breaking - I hate things that break sometimes!)
I'm a bit offtopic here but your use of the word "curmudgeonly" made me think of something I wrote a few years ago, Useful Dead Technologies.
Although come to think of it, as paper ballots ARE a useful dead technology maybe it isn't so offtopic after all? How about Good Riddance to Bad Tech?
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
All other issues take a back seat until we can be sure that the legislators we vote for are being elected.
Right now 80% of all votes are being counted by machines that have been shown to be insecure. We must hold our government's feet to the fire.
Is this a news report or a trailer for a motion picture?
Last week I voted and noticed something really odd. It never listed parties. WTF, granted you should really know who you are going to vote for, but how many people really know about council people and just vote a straight ticket for their party. It shocked me.
Has anybody ever noticed that the federal government is limited to a VERY small number of tasks, and that everything else is to be done at the state level? I'm sure that one of the tasks that states are responsible for is counting their own voter's votes. So where does the federal government get off trying to do something un-Constitutional? Don't these bozos swear an oath to defend the Constitution? We oughtta be able to put them in jail for perjuring themselves, at very least.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I don't know how the NY Constitution is set up, so he may not have powers in this area, but Gov. Spitzer is not one to be pushed around. I hope he tells the DOJ where they can shove it.
If you're a liberal you tag the 10th with the following clause: "except in the cases of education, welfare, environment policy, ...... insert social for the children cause here"
If youre a neo-conservative you tag the 10th with: "except anything that benefits business"
From a vote-counting perspective, the "gold standard" is a paper ballot that is dropped in a box. The box is observed by interested and neutral parties from the time the empty box is put into service at the start of the election day until the vote count is complete. The individual ballots are observed by interested parties from the time the box is opened after the vote until the last ballot is counted.
From a vote-casting perspective the ballot would be legibly markable by any eligible voter without assistance and the voter would know by looking at his marked ballot exactly how the vote-counters would count it. No hung chads, no unclear marks, no double-marks, no ambiguity.
Anything other than this must be proven just as reliable and just as foolproof.
--
To meet ADA requirements for blind and mobility impaired users, you need a vote-printing machine and a generic multi-lingual text-to-speech/translation device. The vote-printing device would mark a paper ballot in accordance with the voter's wishes. As a matter of practice device will likely support multiple ballots and multiple languages. The ballot it prints out will be in both English and in the voter's language.
The text-to-speech/translation device will read the ballot back to the voter and translate it to the voter's native language so the voter knows his ballot is correct. While each precinct would have one of these, voters could bring in their own version as well, or rely on a human to read the ballot back. Not relying on the county's machine for this will deter fraud at the read-back stage. For people who did not need text-to-speech or translation features, this machine would double as a ballot-validator, pointing out ambiguous votes due to stray marks as well as and abstentions.
At this point, the person's ballot is just like a correctly-filled-in-by-a-human paper ballot.
The voter drops it in the ballot box and he's done.
The ballot box MAY have a built-in vote-counter but its results will be subject to a later recount of the paper ballots inside.
--
Even the ADA does not require that every voter be able to vote without assistance. It is simply not cost-effective to provide unassisted voting for people with multiple severe handicaps who are eligible to vote. Most of these people will be voting absentee anyways, likely with the aid of a nurse or family member.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Well, if the Dems would put out a really decent candidate that a majority of states could rally behind, you'd not have to worry about this much, but, it appears so far, that they are gonna put Hillary as their candidate, and there are people, a large number of people in the US that would vote for a melting Popsicles rather than for her.
Why can't they put out someone that is a bit more believable, reliable and electable? I like what Biden usually has to say...he's pretty knowledgeable on the issues...I often like what he says about the war in Iraq, etc.
Yet...the lady who's main experience with Presidental matters is sleeping with one, who will pander to anyone, say anything just to get elected.....is still the frontrunner and gathering more and more support (aka money).
Hell...I think Kucinich is a whack job, but, I at least respect him more...he makes a stand on issues, and isn't ashamed to speak them in public, and stand by them. Hillary says a lot of nothing and tries to make a stand on nothing. Put out a viable candidate, and you won't have to worry about another Bush type getting in office.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Return to punch ballots and require chads to be removed to be a valid vote. If an American adult is not able to do that, they shouldn't be voting.
At least, that was how they are supposed to work.
As I understand it, they are subject to compromise - failing to set the internals correctly could result in zero votes for one of the switches, for example. Also a sensor which prevented you from pulling the big handle without voting was disabled for mysterious reasons in the mid-60s.
Of course, there is no receipt, no paper trail, and no way to assure that your vote has been recorded correctly, or at all.
Give me mark-sense card systems any day. Even IBM cards, hanging chads and all, are better then these 45 year old antiques. You can see one at http://www.newscopy.org/voting_machines/index.html .
So he's a foreigner too - lock him up in gitmo!
--
If the above post made you angry, many apologies. Send $1 and a SASE for a written apology.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
According to the court documents the suit was filed Feb. 2006.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
I think it's time for someone with some experience managing open source projects, and a significant bank roll, to start a fully open source voting machine initiative.
I mean open hardware, open software, open everything.
I am pretty certain that the open community could devise something that would be nearly tamper proof... probably using two devices. One, managed by the voting officials in the district that actually records the votes, the second is managed by a 3rd party and is used to verify the results.
For example I vote on one machine, which prints a verification slip that is scanned into the second which display and records my votes. At the end of the day, both machines should have the same count... otherwise one of the two was tampered with. At which point they turn to the verification slips for a manual count.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
You know, the kind that is spoiled by the infamous Stray Mark.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Accountable 100% auditable transactions are easy.
100% anonymous transactions are easy.
100% anonymous 100% auditable transactions are doable but not so easy.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If congress had to abide by something like The Enumerated Powers Act maybe it would slow 'em down a bit.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The GOP is doing an even worse job at coming up with candidates this time around - Hillary isn't so bad in comparison. A Republican candidate chosen to appeal to the social conservatives in the party instead of the fiscal conservatives in the party will fare worse than Mondale in the current environment.
Giuliani is Hillary's only threat (and a pro-choice, proven small-spender Republican would be a *very* strong candidate in the general election), but seems to have no chance in the primary right now.
The Dems might as well choose Hillary unless Giuliani pulls ahead, since it won't much matter.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It's a little easier to seize control of New York than Baghdad, isn't it? The feds want it all. Sure hope the local insurgents don't start fighting back.
What?
..that we can somehow have a worldwide network of ATM machines that, to the penny, account and dispense MONEY almost perfectly, handling deposits, transfers, currency exchanges etc etc, yet we cannot somehow make machines that can count votes
accurately.
How about demVote++, repVote++?
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
You mean they are going to sit in there and talk to their attorneys and actually do the right thing and flip the Feds the bird? I vaguely remember having a similar sense of fair play and optimism. Too bad reality is so much different.
No. They are going to roll over in exchange for something. That something includes their careers.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
Hava nagila venis'mecha!
Bow-ties are cool.
It seems to me that ideally, the DOJ shouldn't care how the states implement their voting systems, as long as they work. For the DOJ to go so far as to sue New York to implement a particular method that they favor implies ulterior motives.
The pressure to convert states to e-voting exhibits the beginning of a bad tendency. The next step would be to electronically coordinate the systems, and the next would be run them from a central place.
What I suspect is that the DOJ wants a central point of coordination for the counting of votes. The value of a single point of coordination is you only have to control that one place to be in control of the system.
It is like the secret wiretapping room in AT&T's switching center. If you have one (or a few) central points of control, they can be compromised, possibly by accident, or possibly on purpose.
People in the systems design business know that single points of failure can bring a whole system down when even a small component is compromised. Distributed designs are more tolerant of problems. I fear that if the voting system were made electronic, it would make possible the corruption of the system on a scale not possible before. And if it is possible, it will eventually happen. The only way to avoid such corruption is to avoid the possibility of central points of failure or of control in the design of the system.
If the DOJ had the country's best interests in mind it would not be discouraging, but mandating, that multiple systems be used to tally votes, that they use different technologies both electronic and manual, that they are monitored by different people, that they are manufactured by different companies, that they have thorough and open review before approval, etc. Centralizing on one system, or even on one type of system, will not make the system less corruptible, it will make it more corruptible. The fact that they are pushing what is in many ways counter to the construction of a robust system implies they have different goals.
The DOJ is under the control of the executive branch of government. The historical pattern of this administration has been to try to exert control over as many systems as possible to further their own agenda. This seems to be in that spirit, and where it leads is very dangerous.
The problem is that people don't want a small, limited government. People want their views forced on everyone else by a large government; they just don't like it when someone else's views are forced on them.
Just look at the Democrats and people who vote for them. You'd think they would take a quick look at the disaster that is the Bush Administration for the past 7 years, which is a model for a huge, overgrown, intrusive Federal government, and say to themselves, "big government isn't working too well with the neocons at the helm, so why would it work with anyone else at the helm?". No, they want to replace the neocons with liberals, but keep the same huge government, and just raise taxes. They still want the power to push their pet projects on everyone, and they have just as little respect for states' rights.
That's why I'm voting for Ron Paul next year, because he's the only candidate that really believes in limited government, and the Tenth Amendment (and the rest of the Constitution for that matter). Unfortunately, I don't think he'll actually win, because even though he has a sizable base of supporters in spite of the mainstream Republican Party being against him, and the media being against him, I think most Americans just don't like what he stands for: limited government, with more decisions made and more power returned to the State governments, instead of the Federal government. Instead, they'll look at other, less important issues like abortion or drugs, and complain about his opinion on that, when his real opinion is that the States should decide these things for themselves, instead of the Federal government deciding it for everyone. The conservatives won't like his pro-legalization (of drugs) ideas, even though states would still be able to ban drugs if they want, and the liberals won't like his pro-life and anti-Roe-v-Wade stance, even though states would still be able to allow abortions if they want. Under Paul, California would be able to keep abortion and legalize pot, while Missouri or Alabama would be able to ban both. But most people don't want that; they don't want Californians to be able to smoke pot, even though they live 3000 miles away in South Carolina. Or they want everyone in South Carolina to have convenient access to abortion clinics, even though they live 3000 miles away in California. People don't want to mind their own business, and let people in other places make decisions for themselves; it's the same mentality that leads us, as a nation, to poke our nose into other countries' internal affairs and tell other people how to live their lives and organize their governments.
Giuliani sucks; he's just a Democrat calling himself Republican for the most part. Many conservatives won't want to vote for him because he's pro-choice and anti-gun.
The best candidate on the Republican side is Ron Paul, who's really a Libertarian calling himself Republican for the most part.
But the problem with the whole system, and the reason Hillary will get elected, is because of the way the primaries and caucuses work; in these elections, only registered Party members are allowed to vote for the candidate to represent that party. So what ends up happening is the worst candidate gets picked, because people in the other party, and people in the middle ("swing voters"), don't get any say in the matter. This has a polarizing effect: the most partisan candidate on each side is nominated, and then they run against each other. Instead of moderates in the final election, we get extremists like Bush and Hillary.
The only way to really do anything about this, especially if you don't really like either party too much, is to pick the candidate you like the most in either party, then register yourself right now as a member in that Party. Then you can vote in that party's primary election in a couple of months, and help get a better candidate in. You can always switch to the other party at the next election, and you can also vote for a different candidate in the final general election.
Personally, I don't consider myself Republican because I hate the whole neocon ideology. But I also don't like the Democrats either, because they're anti-gun and pro-big-government, and I really don't like Hillary. I want small, limited government, an end to the Iraq War, and no attack on Iran like we're headed for. My favorite candidate of the bunch is Ron Paul, who won't have much of a chance if the primaries are left to die-hard Republicans. So my wife and I have registered as Republicans this year so we can vote for him and perhaps get him a win in the primary (basically overthrowing the current Republican party). It probably won't work, but it's worth a shot. It's certainly better than sitting back and letting some loser like Giuliani, Romney, or McCain get the nomination without a fight.
For those who lean a little more left but don't like Hillary, I highly encourage you to register Democratic and help Kucinich get the nomination over there. A race between Kucinich and Paul would really shake things up in this country.
I am so glad someone stepped in to say what you said. These lever machines have been here forever, and every time this comes up, I write my reps and let them know that I don't want any newfangled, failure-prone computers to vote with. The inspectors where I am are professional, quick, and helpful. The tallies come out quick. We don't have to worry about a power outage. Oh, I suppose there are ways to sabotage the machines, but I imagine doing so without being obvious would be tough.
Anyway, I am so scared that they will take them away from us. Another working tradition ruined to fatten someone's wallet at the expense of simplicity and reliability.
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
I don't think anyone here gives a damn whether NY gives the money back to the Feds. If the DoJ is demanding that they give the money back or implement a specific solution that does not satisfy their needs, then they should give it back... not comply with the law. If the DoJ is not giving them that option then what is the DoJ's agenda here?
In addition:
New York delayed writing a HAVA compliant state law longer than any other state.
Is this a problem with New York or a problem with HAVA's deadlines? Did they delay because they were trying to avoid compliance, or because they were trying to find a solution that was both compliant and secure?
Hey NY, if you don't want to play by the Feds rules, don't take their (our) money.
You haven't established that they don't want to, merely that they haven't been able to. Given what other states have done to comply, I'd say that failure is a better outcome than success.
NYS is not going to roll over for the Feds.
The only reason they are in closed session is so no
one will see when they bring in the Gambini family to
take out a hit on those stinkin' feds.
Seriously though. NYS is no going to be bullied.
It's not the NY way. Expect NY to blow the Feds a big
Bronx Cheer sometime soon.
In Oregon, we have an all absentee ballot system. Everyone is mailed a paper ballot that is very easy to understand. We then bubble in our selections using #2 pencil, place our ballot in a secret envelope. Then place that in a mailer envelope and sign it with ink. This system was questioned at first, but in hindsight it is soooooooooo much better than all the other shit out there. The rest of the country bothers me. The fact that it is now 2007 and the rest of the country still deals with this crap shows an extreme laziness bordering on disdain for the democratic process. PLUS we don't need precincts, massive amounts of equipments, hordes of geriatric volunteers, and the rest. I understand this is a rant, but I would suggest you check out our system and recommend it to the public overlord of your area.
Hanging Chads... You way back in the year 2000... The cause of the E-Voting Craze...
Hanging chads were not the problem. The problem was the "instant results" mania. There's absolutely no reason it should matter if an election held in November for a President to take office the following year isn't certified by the end of November or even December... let alone the same night.
Preventing people from forging ballots is hardly rocket science... scanners to verify a bar or dot code are cheap enough that people have even given them away free (that's how I got my scanner): just print each ballot with a verifiable quasi-random hash and even small scale forgery will come out... without compromising privacy since there should be no connection between the preprinted ballot and the voter who picks it up.
The DOJ is not about Justice as most people understand it; (at least in this and many other cases they aren't).
It is used as a tool to enforce the wishes of those in power; nothing more, nothing less. When the federal government is corrupt (as they have been for many terms to varying degrees, but never to the degree we see currently) then the DOJ is part of that.
It's not a democrat or republican or conservative or liberal thing; those who think it is are falling prey to a scheme to control how they think about government, which, if you simplfy one aspect of it, is "divide and conquer."
I think that this push by the DOJ illustrates a lot. We have not had valid, untampered with presidential elections for at least the past two; and now the process required to even run is so onerous financially, physically, and practically that only a connected wealthy or famous person can even get their name on the ballot.
They want "black box" voting because those truly in power want black box voting. They want to be able to do what was done in 2000 and 2004 on a larger scale without the numerous telltale signs that something was not right. As long as there aren't redundant checks and balances of the votes, the voting, the voting system, and the "system" system - they will likely get it one way or the other.
and HAVA? Well, one of this government's greatest tricks is to "fix" things, or to "make them better for people" just like HIPAA, it's purpose and result is actually the opposite of it's stated purpose. The HIPPA (people think it;s about privacy, but it's really about giving up some privacy - The purpose of HIPAA was to facilitate the creation of a national health information network by removing privacy barriers
. The PATRIOT act - One of the most unpatriotic, unconstitutional bullshit scams ever.
When this government tells you they are fixing things, run like hell. Chances are they broke them just to fix them, and the fix is worse (or more evil) than the original issue.
I think his perspectives on states rights and deregulation are very good reasons not to vote for him. All he is doing by limiting the federal government is outsourcing government to the state and corporate level some decisions that ought to be made at the national level. We will still be regulated by some form of government. Likewise, scaling government back is OK, but privatizing government almost completely just shifts us away from congressman controlling our lives to businessmen. To me there's little difference, except we now (somewhat) have more access to the federal government than we ever would under an unregulated corporation. Therefore, I will not vote for Ron Paul because of his perspectives on states rights and deregulation. I appreciate much more someone who recognizes a need for federal government, but also recognizes its place. And in my humble opinion, the federal governments place does involve decisions on abortion, stem cell research, slavery, etc. (A house divided cannot stand....)
NY Rejects E-Voting, DOJ Trying to Force The Issue
Seriously, this comes under the heading of "WTF?" It really seems like the Feds want to run absolutely everything their way, nowadays. No room for such quaint oddities as "state's rights" or "civil liberties" or even "American tradition." Really, these people have no business holding public office, elected or appointed.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
We have a similar problem up here in Canada. Why is it that unless the picture on your license looks like a pair of spread ass cheeks, it's almost impossible to get elected on this continent? Whatever party you tend to vote for is guaranteed to pick the candidate most likely to trigger your gag reflex and tell you, "Them or nobody".
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Ron Paul isn't a realistic candidate in the first place - he's too obviously a libertarian for mainstream America. Giuliani would be a powerful candidate in the general election, precisely because he's "just a Democrat calling himself a Republican", in other words a genuine middle-of-the-road candidate. But he's probably not a realistic candidate for the primary.
Each state has the power to decide how its primaries work. It's the one place we see voting systems other than first-past-the-post. The primaries are IMO the best voting system we have, and they're the place where third parties have real power (the 2 parties shift their positions on issues in order to lure 3rd party voters before the general election campaign begins).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Another fool who forgot about the first constitution this country had.
Carefull or you'll get modded -1 Troll.
They aren't sophisticated con artists, they're Republicans. [sarcasm] They are about God's business don't you know, so just you leave them be! [/sarcasm]
thx e
In Canada, most of the people manning the polls are young. We pay a lot of money for poll staff; the spots go quickly once an election has been called.
What is is all that is. Isn't that obvious?
That's often true of city elections. Many city charters call for "non-partisan" elections for mayor and city council. Because most candidates with any hope of winning belong to a major party, the only consequence of any significance is that party affiliations don't apear on the ballot. If you're registered with any acive party, they'll be sure you know which candidates they "endorse", even if they can't call them official party candidates. It sounds silly, I know, but that's the way things are done in many municipal elections. With electronic voting machines, it doesn't even have the environmental benefit of saving a few quarts of printer's ink!
Maybe I'm crazy, but I think it's time New York split off from the USA and either became a sovereign nation, or came up to party with us up in Canada.
I hate America, but I love New York! =)
And what the hell kind of government sues its own constituents over petty laws ? The crooked kind, obviously.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
is that the Feds want to trade off older mechanical voting equipment which could, at best, only be corrupted at the local level with more modern remotely-corruptible voting technology. I mean, the people behind our elections are probably tired of depending upon local election bosses to swing things in the prescribed direction, and have decided on a more direct approach.
I hope New York decides to fight this one. This smells really bad.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
You mean it makes top billing on the ballot a GOLD MINE of random votes.
The candidate order should be randomized. It amazes me that a lot of states don't do that.
I heard some states will take the alphabet and then randomize the letters for that election year...and then that is the ballot order observed statewide.
Here in Ohio, our Constitution requires ward by ward randomization--the strictest in the nation. In 2004, I was a candidate for a non-partisan office, with 3 other candidates. Because of this, I knew that my name was the top name for 1/4 voters.
The effect is just as important as you think. I was much more likely to win a ward in which my name was 1st or 2nd place than when it was 3rd or 4th place (as I recall.)
Is that with all this money and effort wasted on overreacting to the 2000 elections, then building, opposing, defending and purchasing electronic voting equipment, we could have come up with a great non-electronic voting system.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
My state rocks. E-voting is bad. Write your senators and congressmen and demand the same.
This just reinforces what I have said in the past. We need a "-1 Not Funny" rating. Far too often things that were meant to be humor bot not found funny by the mods get moderated -1 Troll or -1 Flamebait. If we had a -1 Not Funny that did not affect Karma, things might be different.
On a side note, I thought it was funny.
Grammar Nazi
One interesting thing is however: Is it possible to become an election inspector without party preference? What are the requirements actually? Is it necessary to be a citizen or is it enough to be a permanent resident?
Below is something for those interested in political systems.... Stop here if you don't want anymore!
In Sweden where I live the procedure is a little different - you vote for the government, region and municipality at the same time using yellow (government), blue (regional) and white (municipality) ballots. Each party provides a pre-printed ballot and the voter sticks each into an envelope that is sealed by the voter. The ballots must be unfolded and unmarked except for a possible checkbox that can be checked for a name on the list on the ballot. Each envelope contains a small dent at the edge where the election inspector can see that no more than one ballot is inserted in the envelope. The inspectors takes the three envelopes and drops them into three different sealed boxes. When the voting is closed the boxes are opened and the envelopes in them are opened too and the counting begins. (A lot of hand-work here.) As far as I know all ballots are hand-counted, but it may be possible that they can be machine-counted.
At first votes are counted for each party depending on the printed party on the ballots. Later also checked names are counted since the checkings may override the order of the list printed on the ballot.
In the case where no ballots for a party is available it is possible to take a blank and write down the name of the party you vote on.
Some areas doesn't have the regional voting since the municipality is the same as the region.
When the election is over it is usually the party or combination of parties that has won the election that decides on the prime minister. Normally this person is selected from the largest party in the combination, but it's not necessary.
There are some limitations in the election system. One is that a single party must acquire at least 4% of the votes to get in. (or at least 11% in a single election-area of where there are 29 in Sweden for the governmental election. The 11% may be incorrect, I haven't checked it.)
I have left out some parts or missed somewhere, but at least it may give you an idea of the procedure. There are no such thing as electors or so in the Swedish system, which gives the result that the relation of places held in the "riksdagen", is close to the actual relations in the counted votes. There are of course many more parties than in the US which means that there is also a little more inter-party fiddling around and built-in conflicts. Currently there are seven parties in the "riksdagen".
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Vote how the Government tells you - or else!
Another reason why I live in Australia.
You seem to have managed to completely ignore Hillary's 2 main competitors: John Edwards and Barack Obama.
Both of them have reasonably strong support, and are much more electable than Hillary.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Forcing states to use electronic voting machines is just one more step in taking this nation away from its citizens.
One side benefit is rigged voting machines will preclude allowing Mexicans to vote in the United States. Illegal aliens with New York drivers licenses won't be needed.
Fata viam invenient.
and germane to the subject matter. it's called context. :P
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
New York State passed very stringent laws to protect their constituents right to vote. At the heart of the matter and the DOJ's filing is New York State's requirement for Escrow of Source Code. Every vendor uses a Microsoft OS and Microsoft refuses to put their various source codes into escrow. Escrow means taking something important be it a document or money and putting it under lock and key where it is safe and secure. Eventually this important document or money can be released from escrow, this safe and secure place and is safely and securely transferred to a pre-determined destination.
In the context of New York State, Escrow does not mean that all of sudden the world will have Microsoft's Source Code, only the Government and only in the case of an Election gone wrong.
New York State needs your help. New York State needs technology talent like Slash Dot readers to do more than just read and write about our Democracy going down the drains. New York needs you to take active steps towards building an alternative to proprietary hardware based on proprietary software and replace it with open hardware based on open source or free software. Feel free to comment or shoot a message to kallos@votersearch.org.
I understand your point with Giuliani, but I don't understand how you think the primaries give third parties any power. To vote in the primary, you have to register yourself as either Democrat or Republican; thus, third-party or swing voters just don't register and vote in this election. So the die-hard party members vote for their favorite candidate, who's a hard-line party member usually. Unless I'm missing something, I really don't see how this gets the 2 parties to shift their positions; if anything, it should encourage them to solidify their positions. The only thing that would get the parties to shift their positions is the gradual change in political attitudes among the party's members' core over time.
Third parties don't influence merican politics by winning eleciton or gaining votes. Their influence comes from pressuring the two parties to change their platforms (usually during primary season) to be more appealing to folks who might otherwise vote for a third party.
The Dems and GOP are not monolithic: they represent coalitions of interest groups willing to tolerate one another. The overall positions of the big parties change significantly over long periods, and often swap positions on issues, as these interest groups gain or lose power within the parties, or sometimes jump to the other party.
A third party as something to vote for is not powerful directly, but as a lever to increase the influence of the third party's interest group within one or both of the big parties the third party can be quite effective. Unless of course the third party is *so* far from the mainstream that it's not represental at all in the big parties (e.g., the Green Nazi party), but then truly unpopular causes just don't get influence in a democracy (that's kind of the point).
Perot is a great example of third party influence. The guy had no chance of winning, but dramatically influenced the positions of the parties. Both party's positions changed noticibly because of Perot in 92. Maybe Clinton would have won anyway, but his platform changed to include fiscal responsibility as a plank, which he wasn't talking about at all before Perot. If the GOP had done a better job of shifting positions to accomodate Perot's issues, Bush certianly could have won (at least, by the numbers), and Mr Newt strongly embraced many of Perot's talking points afterwards with great success.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
trolls vote with brainless cynicism
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it