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Ohio Sues Over Missing Electronic Votes
dstates writes "The Columbus Post Dispatch reports that the State of Ohio is suing Premier Election Systems (previously known as Diebold) over malfunctions in electronic voting machines. Election workers found that votes were 'dropped' in at least 11 counties when memory cards were uploaded to computer servers. The same voting machines are used nationwide. The company blames a conflict between their software and antivirus software for the problem and says that an advisory was issued on the subject. The Ohio lawsuit contends that the company made false representations and failed to live up to contractual obligations and seeks punitive damages."
As someone who has had a couple of contracts working with Diebold, it wasn't only Windows, but Windows, VB6, and an Access database. I wish I were joking.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
If you assign punitive damages to a vote, aren't you then assigning a value to said vote?
No. If you assign actual damages, then you are placing a value on the vote. Punitive damages are just that, punishment, regardless of the value of the loss.
Since it's illegal to sell your vote to begin with, what good is it to assign a value to something you cannot sell in the first place.
I can't sell my life (either to someone that would want to kill me for sport, or for slavery). Yet the government has put a value on human life. It's a couple million dollars. So you can value something that can't be sold. Just because it's statutorially illegal to sell something doesn't mean it doesn't have value. Prostitution is sale of something that is illegal to sell (except in Nevada), yet people manage to agree on a price for that all the time.
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