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Voting Machines Routinely Failing Nationwide
palegray.net writes "Voting machines in several critical swing states are causing major problems for voters. A Government Accountability Office report and Common Cause election study [PDF] has concluded that major issues identified in the last presidential election have not been corrected, nor have election officials been notified of the problems. How long can we afford to trust our elections to black box voting practices? From the article: 'In Colorado, 20,000 left polling places without voting in 2006 because of crashed computer registration machines and long lines. And this election day, Colorado will have another new registration system.'"
Maybe it would just be easier to bribe Diebold more than whoever is holding their leash now? Saves all that pesky trouble of actually fixing the problem.
voters have been routinely failing nationwide for years.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
FTA:
""We're seeing a lot of problems where people are being kicked off the data base rolls if their name is on as Alex as opposed to Alexander or they've put a middle initial in there name and it's not there," said Susan"
It sounds like these problems could have been avoided if the system was designed properly in the first place. Whoever was contracted for this should be made to solve the problem for providing a product that clearly lacked testing.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Paper. Pencil. Manual count. Done.
I love tech as much as the next geek. It's my life, and my living. But sometimes, the better solutions are the simpler ones.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
This is a company that makes ATMs, right? If their money was at stake, I'd wager they'd suddenly become rather reliable.
As long as my guy wins, who cares right?
How about we fix this problem a few years instead of a few weeks before the next major election? This is further proof that voting needs to be standardized in order to uphold the virtues of our 'democracy.' Otherwise any election can be rigged, and we will end up with another hanging chad fiasco or Diebold epic failure.
it's not too late to fix many of these problems. Although many states don't have the laws on the books to require some safeguards, they can act now to make sure that there are enough back up ballots at the polls, workers are properly trained and there are enough poll workers on election day.
Why does this exact same scenario happen every 4 years? Haven't we learned ANYTHING?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Also, when are we going to be able to vote on the internets? You'd think they could work that out by now, right? Maybe the real reason we can't vote by internet is because the politicians know that it would increase the vote of the well-connected (and usually liberal) student population, and they really don't want to do that,...
How can law makers think that it is OK to buy and deploy unproven, closed-source devices to measure elections? There is no other segment of our society that would allow such a mission critical piece of technology to be deployed without independent or redundant systems. My electric tea kettle has been more rigorously tested by third parties than these voting machines.
The only reasons I can come up with are these: 1. The senators are deaf, dumb and can't hear our collective screams or 2. Appreciate the uncertainty that electronic voting machines provide. I believe both could be true varying degrees for most of our representatives. We have certainly all been screaming enough that they should have heard us by now.
What can we do? I've written to my representatives only to get a form letter back acknowledging their sincere concern for my "issue". When I lived in Colorado, I insisted on voting by mail. At least vote-by-mail provided a physically countable ballot. Unfortunately, in the 2004 election, my county clerk FORGOT to mail out a chunk of ballots and I had to vote by fax because I was out of the country. Perhaps the absolute worst way I could possibly vote other than a touch screen.
If you are afflicted by touch screen voting, I suggest registering to vote by mail. At least then there's a chance that some real person will really count your ballot and really record the proper vote. Seems like only a chance these days though.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/
Strangely enough, the last armed revolt against the government in the US was in Athens, Tn. in *1946*. The cause? Voting issues...
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1985/2/1985_2_72.shtml
Not that I am advocating it, but it will be interesting to see just how PO'd folks will get...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Why don't we just go with a web based voting system. Everyone could vote from home. Surely noone could figure out how to break that.
You're right. The inter-tubes are perfectly secure and safe. It's unpossible that anyone could break them ;)
Ooh, how about american idol style. And the candidate you vote for could send you a personalized message back asking for more donations.
Now yer on to sumthin. Vote by texting REPUB or DEMO to 6657. Normaltextmessagingfeesapply.
The idea of web voting is a really interesting one, with some really interesting consequences. If you look at broadband penetration and home computing numbers, you'll see an interesting pattern. The highest connectivity to the web is among affluent white folks. These are the same folks that shop from their bathrobes at 2:00 am.
One possible consequence of online voting is that the bathrobe-shoppers are more likely to vote than if they have to go to a poling place. Because they are more likely to vote and represent only one segment of the population, the vote can become skewed in one particular direction or another. It could effectively disenfranchise other groups that are less likely to have computers at home.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
It mattereth not much as the nominating process has been privatized as well.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
The majority of the people who vote think that they are making a real choice. They believe that Tweedledee or Tweedledum are, in fact, meaningfully different. It's true! They saw it on television.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Why has an organization not filed a lawsuit against the states that agree to use the known failed machines? The EFF just filed against G.W. Is this something that can not be addressed legally?
love the taste, hate the texture
Now your vote didn't matter.
I think you define the term liberal a bit too loosely. I don't think anyone would agree with you that Bush is a liberal. Bush is a conservative. In terms of spending and government he has gone the opposite of what he promised to do when he ran. These last 8 years what you've seen is a man with no plan making things up as he goes along based on his gut feeling and hunches rather than analyses. You've also seen a man who does not like details and relies on his staff to make too many decisions. This lack of oversight and placing loyalty over competence has led the nation down this path.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I've noticed that liberalism has been redefined to include socialism. Liberals used to be guys like Jefferson and Paine
Obama's liberalism is socialism. liberalism in the classic, jefferson / paine sense is really what you would call libertarian... particularly with jefferson.
Bush is more of a conservative socialist, like Hitler.
Except, for well, that democracy part...
If Bush were like Hitler, then, the Michael Moore and Al Gore would not be making billions bashing the guy, but would be in concentration camps. If Bush did what Hitler did, it would be like he would send Dick Cheney to go out and murder Nancy Pelosi to touch off a single night, have Republicans go and murder the leadership of the Democratic Party.
This is my sig.
If voters can not have faith in the system of elections, then the voters cannot have faith in their government.
More importantly:
If the LOSERS can not have faith in the system of elections, they may convince themselves that they have enough support to reverse the result by force.
The real purpose of elections is not some kind of fairness. It is to head off civil war by convincing the losers of the election that they'd lose the war too. Thus the perception of fair elections is stabilizing and the perception of massive cheating destabilizing.
For this purpose it's OK to come out wrong if the election is very close. But if it is perceived that the election was so badly off that it reversed a landslide, it doesn't just lose its stabilizing effect: It becomes actively destabilizing, causing the losers to believe that a war to reverse it is not just possible, but justified.
Of course the easiest way to create the perception of fair elections is for the elections to actually BE fair and to be fair in a way that is VISIBLE and can be CHECKED.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way