Slashdot Mirror
WV Voters Say Machines Are Switching Votes
An anonymous reader writes "Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week.
This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for 'Barack Obama' kept flipping to 'John McCain.'"
These machines are not "switching votes". They're just not.
If the machines were "switching votes", they'd do it internally and secretly, and not make it look like they're putting checkmarks next to the wrong boxes. Especially since the voter isn't able to view a paper receipt.
If I had to guess, the way the ballot is organized in terms of candidate ordering probably makes it easy or possible to look like you're pressing the right area, but the boxes and/or your perception of the boxes' location isn't perfectly aligned with the touch sensing elements. Because people are so sensitive to this issue, any errant touch among thousands of voters accidentally getting the wrong box VISIBLY checked, AND able to be corrected, is going to be interpreted as malice instead of (user) error. "When asked if she is sure she touched the box for Rockefeller, she said, 'I'm absolutely positive.'" Yeah, just like a lot of users are "absolutely positive" that they did the right thing. No, they THINK they did the right thing. That's the only thing they are "absolutely positive" of.
Since so many people want to believe that the electronic voting machines are rigged to make Republicans win elections[1], so I'm sure people will choose to believe that this is due to a GOP conspiracy instead of simple errors. (And yes, it could still be an error, due to the way the screens are physically set up, even if the reported errors are "always" Republican. Does that mean it's not an issue that should be addressed, even if it is only a genuine design/setup error? No. But if you can touch the screen a little more carefully and get the checkmark beside the right name, that is what matters. Who hasn't ever had a touchscreen ATM or a touchscreen POS station not register a touch as something unintended? You don't think the ATM is trying to rip you off when it picks "Savings" when you meant "Checking". You just hit cancel and do it again.)
Remember, too, that in many jurisdictions in which we have electronic voting machines, they're there as a direct result of Democratic-sponsored legislation, like HAVA, in response to the voting difficulties with antiquated machines in Florida in 2000. The problem? Everyone assumed that modern technology was just great and overlooked a mandatory requirement for a paper trail. Of course, now ALL e-voting vendors have voter-verifiable paper trail capability as options, but many municipalities didn't want to spend the extra money to deploy since it wasn't required by law.
Also, "In Putnam County, early voters have the option of asking for either touch-screen machines or optical scan ballots -- paper ballots on which people mark in their election choices." And when people are using the machine, "The main thing people need to remember is that when you are done voting, make sure everybody you wanted to vote for has a check mark beside them." Just because you touch once and it registers wrong doesn't imply that it can't be corrected. Has no one ever used a backspace key on a computer before? Or an eraser on a pencil, for that matter?
Bottom line? Since this clearly is causing so much fear and doubt[2], we should go back to a simple, auditable paper solution, if only so conspiracy theorists can STFU and stop thinking every election where their preferred candidate doesn't win is "stolen".
[1] Have to put in the disclaimer. Very aware of the famous quote about "delivering the election to George Bush" by Diebold's CEO. It was in his capacity as a Republic business leader, but still a very, very, very poor showing on his part, and ridiculous appearance of a conflict of interest, even if none actually exists in reality.
[2] And it's actually not causing a level of problems that are probably any worse than error in paper or any other voting. But the perception is that it is a huge problem, and subverting democracy, and that is reason enough to change.
You can't secure them. Anybody with an ounce of sense about computer security knows this. Plus, there is no way to verify whether they are programmed to do what they should.
And we argue over whether to have paper trails?
And yes, it could still be an error, due to the way the screens are physically set up, even if the reported errors are "always" Republican.
What I mean by this is in this particular instance, not in general. There are reports of votes "flipping" both ways. But if there is something happening in one jurisdiction in one state, and it's always the same problem, and the same order is on every ballot, then it's no surprise that the manifestation of the problem is the same.
From your reply:
From the article:
It would really suck if votes came out wrong because of a poorly-designed user interface.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Good points all. Still, the fact remains that voters don't have confidence in the machines. If it does appear to the voter to be switching votes in formant of them, they aren't going to trust that it won't do the same thing after they walk away. For what its worth, I've hears similar stories from friends that have tried early voting in cook county, Il. If that county goes for McCain, we know we have something seriously screwed up.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
UI design is an important consideration. Suppose you wanted to make a machine biased toward one candidate, without having anything obviously incriminating in the code. You could do something as simple as arrange the options so that parallax effects like you suggest make it easy to press the wrong portion of the screen. If the effects make people press high on average, and you put the candidate you wanted to favor at the top of the list, then pressing high on your candidate registers no check box, and people just press again. But, sometimes they'll press on the other candidate, get the one you wanted, and give up before figuring it out.
Ballot design needs to be fair, for all the same reasons the code needs to be correct. Badly designed ballots are probably just that -- bad design by someone who didn't know better. But, with something as important as an election, it's not ok to have badly designed ballots, and it's not ok to let people who don't know better design them. Design sufficiently bad that it shows meaningful bias should be treated as criminal election fraud, whether it was intentional or not -- there's simply no reason not to have that level of accountability.
I have to wonder what the source of a problem like this is..
Is it poor coding practices, that are making the interface do the wrong thing? I've seen this in web interfaces, if you swap your variables accidentally. How well have these devices been QA tested? Probably not well enough.
Are the touch sensitive screens too sensitive? I was trying to buy at a store, and the touch screen pen would click buttons while it was still about 2 inches from the screen. It made it very difficult to use.
Is it just user failure, where they're dragging the stylus (or touching with their finger) across both boxes, making it see a corrected input to the wrong selection?
Is it an evil conspiracy? Ah, why not, I love conspiracies. :)
Since I don't have access to the offending devices, nor the users, I'll just have to take my guess. I guess #4, evil conspiracy. Occam's razor would tell us differently. Probably option #3 is the correct answer.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Because the on site election officials are 90 year old retired people that have no real training or skills with the gear. Cities and states intentionally do not fund the election departments to be able to hire people that are fully trained and capable of troubleshooting this stuff. but we bought a nice new stainless steel piece of 30 foot tall art for the front of city hall for $290,000!
It's scary at best, insane at worst.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Is it illegal for someone to take a cellphone into the booth and record this happening? A couple of youtube videos would probably raise public awareness of the problem and encourage a fix, whatever the problem is (having worked with a LOT of touchscreens in the past, I'm going to guess it's a calibration and/or screen angling issue).
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Let it begin. I predict once again, a Republican will win, despite pre-vote polling and exit polling both showing a Democratic win.
Some people are saying this is a serious issue. Everyone else could not be reached for comment.
Seriously, uh, only some people think it's serious? No one else cares?
And, yes, this is a calibration issue instead of a fraud issue. Fraud, of course, we'd never actually hear about.
The fact we can't even managed to have machines that act like they're properly working should be a rather serious indication that even if they do act like they're properly working, we don't know if they are.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Maybe the machines should do the "touch the center of the X" thing with every single voter to make sure they're properly calibrated for the viewing angle of each voter. Most public computer kiosks I've seen have very thick covers / empty space / whatever between the touch surface and the actual display, being too tall / short could easily result in a half inch or more offset from where you thought you touched.
sometimes paper and pencil should not be automated
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Have to put in the disclaimer. Very aware of the famous quote about "delivering the election to George Bush" by Diebold's CEO. It was in his capacity as a Republic business leader, but still a very, very, very poor showing on his part, and ridiculous appearance of a conflict of interest, even if none actually exists in reality.
I just want to point out that the conflict of interest does exist in this case. It doesn't matter how honorable the guy is. Conflict of interest is a matter of position, not character. He could be the most honorable guy in the world and never let his CEO position conflict with his Republican position, but the conflict of interest is still there.
As a practical matter, nobody is 100% honorable, and somebody who's in charge of building voting machines should not be politically active.
More importantly, we should switch to a form of voting in which a single company is not in a position to completely screw up the entire election.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
Err... and then what?
It's not like you could use that photocopy to later on to check whether or not someone flipped your vote...
Who's to say that these people aren't just liars? If I wanted my candidate to win bad enough that I would compromise my integrity, I might just lie about what was happening to my voting machine. It's just you in the voting booth. No one can prove you aren't telling the truth any more than they can prove you are. If it raises doubt, it could be enough to help your cause.
Mail can get lost, stolen, or modified. It doesn't really help to have a photocopy of your ballot. Sure, you can point to the copy if your ballot was counted incorrectly, but how would you know your ballot was counted incorrectly in the first place?
What do Acorn have to do with this? The BBC-B was a lovely computer, the electron wasn't too poor either :)
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
the problem with electornic voting is perception. if people perceive their vote is being tampered with, this matters more than the truth of the matter
passions are high in an election. people get upset if they lose. they seize on anything that feeds into their perceptions, and electronic voting is too black box: votes go in, sausage come out, and who knows what happens in the middle
when an election is over, people have to know the vote was fair. knowing the vote was fair is not a matter of trusting a talking head on a tv screen or a poorly paid government worker. its about how they feel about their voting experience. paper you can trust. you can't intrisincally trust a black box process
electornic voting should be abandoned. its a bad idea
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What's with this hypothetical language ("would" and "if")? It's already happened -- hanging chads are caused by bad UI too!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
So, really, it isn't a UI design issue; it's a voting machine response time/feedback issue, IMO.
How is response time/feedback not a UI issue?
Ah yes, that photocopy will certainly come in handy when...
...Actually when did you plan on using the photocopy? If the election results get called into question there will be little to no way for you to know how your vote was counted, or even if it was counted at all. I appreciate your desire for hyper-vigilance...but pragmatism takes precedence. In fact, I would be willing to wager that your mail in ballot receives no more than a passing glance, barring another Miami/Dade fiasco.
-=Bang Bang=-
I don't get why they need to use touch screens in the first place. Having to calibrate them in the middle of a voting session seems unproductive,and are they even allowed to do that which would leave everyone in the same boat. I've used touch screens(I setup smartboards in some of my clients) and I could see someone accidently clicking the wrong person if the screen wasn't calibrated.
I've heard of these new fangled things called buttons... they seem to work wonders, no calibration, AND THERE STILL TOUCH SENSITIVE.
Hell you could have it as simple as a figging atm machine where you have the buttons on the right hand side. Most people are used to ATM machines and having to hit a button.
Touch screens are nice but I think they leave a little room for error and are probably more expensive then an lcd screen with 6 buttons. I in the states you sometimes will be voting for more than one position, well you could have different pages for each position your voting for and have 6-10 buttons one for each canditate with a line marking what button you have to press.
Seems like common sense to me, but people are impressed by flashy touchy thingies.
Frankly paper never had this problem
Anyone remember those older ATMs that had the eight buttons, four on each side of the screen? Let's use those instead. Take the touchscreen out of the equation entirely.
I'll grant eight might not be enough, and we can have much bigger displays though, we could probably fit at least 12. Any ballot entry that has more than 10 options would need a 'Back/Next' button on a touchscreen too.
It has the added bonus of people knowing how to use those damn things.
So, really, it isn't a UI design issue; it's a voting machine response time/feedback issue, IMO.
How is a computer system as simple as a voting kiosk not providing instant feedback anything but a UI design issue? If ever a person is left wondering "did I press it or not?" then that is a UI design issue. If they're left wondering long enough that they start re-clicking, it is a serious UI design flaw. Machine response time and feedback are most definitely UI issues.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
As someone who lives in Canada (and having just gone through a federal election), I just cannot understand why it's impossible to have a paper ballot, with a big circle, that one makes a mark (check, X, whatever) in the circle for your candidate of choice with a pencil and then have people count the ballots at the end. Canada manages to do it every time we have an election and it seems to work out just fine. And, with a paper trail, we can easily recount, if needed. Yes, America has ten times the population but it probably has ten times the election volunteers as well so there's really no difference. I just don't understand why a good paper ballot is so hard to accept...
UI design, while it CAN and SHOULD take into account the amount of system resources it is using, cannot accurately predict the power of the machines that will be running it.
Given that this UI is running on custom hardware designed specifically for this use, isn't your argument moot? They not only could accurately predict the hardware, they also designed the hardware and tested both together.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
It is also easier for me to verify if you voted for the party I paid you to vote for.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I'd like to see Barack Obama ridiculing these 50 million voters' computer (il)literacy, the way he ridiculed John McCain. Wouldn't that be sure vote-winner, uhm?
Those 50 million other Americans who may or may not need to use a computer in their daily lives shouldn't be ridiculed. A person running for the highest office in the land, who is expected to adapt and change as the world does, should be.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
If the user intends to vote one way and the machine interface is so designed that it does not allow an easy, intuitive reflection of this intention in the vote that is cast, the machine is at fault. We technologists sometimes feel frustration when non-technology oriented people don't see clearly what we see as intuitieve. But this is voting, for God's sake. WE MUST MAKE IT EASY for anyone or we have failed, and shoudl go back to easy-to-use paper ballots.
For computer software, I would agree with you. You can't predict what hardware onto which the customer will try to install your software.
In this particular case, though, I disagree. For isolated software that is running on isolated hardware, where both are produced by the same company and engineered by cooperative teams (I would hope), they ought to know the hardware platform before they begin the software development. This is a single-purpose machine running a single-purpose software program. It is almost a kind of embedded system. Thus, blaming UI delays on the hardware is not acceptable, not in this day and age. This particular kiosk is not any more complicated than a ticket-sales kiosk at the train station or movie theater, or than an ATM, and we can easily design those to respond instantly.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
One of the basics of UI design is that if the intended users can't use it, you got the UI wrong. Simple as that.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Let's just go back to paper.
Seriously.
It's been-around for 5000 years. It's a proven technology. It "just works" and was used in elections dating back to the 1700s. So what if it takes 12 hours to physically handcount the ballots? (Thrice for verification.) Do we really need to know, immediately, who won? This election has drug-on since Christmas of last year... one more half-day is not going to kill us.
My district still uses paper. The only difference is that machines do the counting, however if you don't trust the machines, a handcount is still possible. I trust papers; I don't trust computers. I've been working with them for too long.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Poor interface design isn't the issue. People who are computer illiterate expect computers to respond just like mechanical systems (e.g.: push the button and it instantly responds) and when things don't instantly provide tactile/audible/visual feedback that it "clicked" they will start spamming the button repeatedly.
Look son, I'm a computer professional, and I would do just that: spam the damn fucking thing until it fucking breaks. Because, btw, that's how I treat my own software.
And think for a second. On one hand, you have ONE piece of machinery; and on the other you have MILLIONS of user.
Which is it: millions of user who happen to be stupid enough and get it wrong all at the same time; OR one piece of poorly designed crapware? There's plenty of crap software out there, why shouldn't this be one of them?
Let's transpose the situation. Imagine there was a car which was involved in twice as many accidents as other similar cars. Would you say that this particular type of car's drivers just happen to be clumsy?
Think about that for a second. And stop blaming the victim. Making good software is hard. But the makers of those P.O.S. are payed handsomely for the detritus they produce, and they're no better than good ole' pen and paper, and in fact probably worse.
Because you can have God's own UI design that even the most moronic person in the universe could figure out, slap it onto a POS machine without enough power to run it quickly and you WILL have a response time/feedback time problem.
Nipple powered voting machine?
"Basically, the only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned." - Bruce Ediger (1995)
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
There are more than 2 people running for the office of President.
I think this is a case where conflict of interest is practically unavoidable. This is only one step away from saying that no one in the Department of Agriculture should eat, or no one in the FDA should take medicine.
I don't know anything about the man in question, and, clearly, Diebold is a catastrophe for US democracy. But I don't think there's any effective way from removing partisans from the process at every level. Better to have openly political people running the system than covertly political people.
Openness is the solution, not the unverifiable appearance of neutrality.
-Peter
If it was easy to cast a vote with a pencil and a paper and now it's not that easy, then *it is* machine fault.
You really, really, really underestimate some people's stupidity. This is NOT a technology problem. It's a stupid people problem:
1. Remember hanging chads? You know, the thing where some people couldn't figure out that you had to poke the entire piece of paper out.
2. Remember where some people voted for multiple people on their paper ballot and were disqualified? Sure, maybe they were purposely trying to throw their vote away. More likely they couldn't figure out how to use a PENCIL properly.
I could go on and on. Stop trying to think that paper/pencil means perfect and hold any machine up to the standard of perfection.
There are just too many stupid, tired, distracted, illiterate, whatever people out there. Voting won't be 100% or even 99% perfect no matter what mechanism we use. Guess what - that means tens of thousands of lost votes.
I'm a big tall mofo.
I see. Therefore, we should disqualify Obama as Commander in Chief as well because he never served in the military.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Anyone who has installed a system with touchscreens knows that you have to calibrate the screen to line up the physical screen coordinates with the visual display. By combining ballot layout with a deliberately misaligned touchscreen, the machine's results could be scewed just as the article describes, and there would be absolutely no evidence of tampering.
No, it's a design error to assume voting machine users will understand the same conventions as normal computer users. There any many people in the US who don't regularly interact with computers. The systems must be designed with the idea that, for many users, this will be one of their first experiences with a computer.
I agree with you about halfway. It is unavoidable. But your conclusion is that we should just accept it and move on. I disagree. We should not accept it. If voting machines can't be built by people who have no conflict of interest then they should not be built at all. Plenty of other large democracies get by fine with paper voting, and so can we. If that's what it takes to get rid of the conflict of interest then that's what we should do.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
Heinlein, I see that once again you are posting from beyond the grave. Please stop, Slashdot is for the living.
No sig for the moment.
Actually, no, I'd like to know, that who I'm voting for will be who hands the power over to the next president-elect. I don't want an opportunist, who "adapts and changes" with the latest breeze.
But I digress. The point was not even, whether it is Ok for McCain to use his wife's help with e-mail, because his hands hurt (he can't use the comb himself, because his hands were broken by the Vietnamese during real torturing). The point was, whether or not such ridiculing would be a vote-getter or not...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Take a systems that works and copy it.
Oregon's vote by mail.
1. Vote in your own home.
2. Have the internet, family, the phone, and the local papers when you vote.
3. Easy to check your results.
4. Easy to audit (it has done a good job of catching errors in the past.)
5. Doesn't take time out of your busy schedule.
What really sucks is that the FUD has started before the vote is done.
In other words, they are preparing for a loss by declaring any such loss as a fraud. I figure it this way, and close district probably has lawyers lined up and enough lackeys too stupid to vote but not too stupid to be trained to recite lines as told.
The only real documented fraud going on now is ACORN. I guess there had to be a diversion generated to make it look like the other side was being just as bad.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
There's a very simple, important difference. When an ATM makes an error, it can be reliably detected and corrected in nearly all cases. This is because the ATM (and electronic money transfer systems, in general) keep a detailed record of which accounts were debited and credited for each transaction, and this record can be reconciled with others: e.g., the customers' own checkbooks, online merchants' records, records of how much cash was in the ATM at any point in time, etc. When the relevant parties conclude a certain transaction was recorded incorrectly, it can be rolled back or revised.
When a voting machine makes an error, it's at best a toss-up as to whether it can be detected. No paper trails mean that, in many cases, the error can never be detected. Paper trails help A LOT in this case, but are not a panacea: you can imagine a case where, because of fraud, the electronic tabulation gives candidate A a clear win, and nobody bothers to perform a paper recount that would prove candidate B actually won.
And if you do detect an anomaly in the vote, forget about ever correcting it.
Are you adequate?
After watching the video, I can say with near-certainty that this is a calibration issue COMBINED with poor UI. The buttons you have to hit are narrow (not much taller than the finger hitting them), and they are arranged one on top of the other. Obviously whoever designed these has NEVER worked with a touchscreen before. You simply can't do designs like that on a touchscreen. Buttons must be large on both X and Y, and they must be a fair distance from each other. Touchscreens ALWAYS lose calibration.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
There is a big difference between 'can't physically' and 'doesn't know how' which is what McCain explicitly stated. Which is back to my original point, if a person does not understand technology, they can not reasonably be expected to run a country based largely on said technology.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
I was going to say, hand injury is a pretty lame excuse for not being able to use a computer, since there are plenty of technological solutions for using a computer with minimal use of the arms and hands. I work with a few people who can't type for long periods of time (actually, one can't type at all), but they still read and write emails: they use voice recognition software.
From the article, it sounds like McCain has found a similar solution, he's just using voice recognition wetware. :)
Saying "he can't use a computer because of war injuries" is a lame response. The correct response "he does use a computer and has for at least the past eight years" is a much better response.
Bah, I hate political ads anyway. Praise TiVo for saving me from having to watch those stupid ads! I swear, each time I see an attack ad, it makes me want to vote against whoever's running it. That goes for McCain, Obama, and Apple.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I see. Therefore, we should disqualify Obama as Commander in Chief as well because he never served in the military.
You failed to show a logical connection. Obama didn't say McCain was UNQUALIFIED to be POTUS due to his computer illiteracy, he said McCain was out of touch, and had a serious lack of understanding of the issues in the modern world, in addition that ad linked the lack of understanding of technology to lack of comprehension of economic issues, and McCain admitted lack of understanding of both to prove that McCain has no personal understanding of the issues important to America.
Using a similar comparison, Obama's lack of military service would make him out of touch with the rest of America since Military service = Computer literacy, or, percentage of Amercans serving in the military is similar percentage of Americans who are computer literate.
Whew, I'm glad you cleared that up for us....
Seriously, though, Computer literacy touches everyone in the US, the Military is important, but it doesn't touch ALL aspects of what the President has to deal with. So Military service != Computer literacy, particularly in terms of whether the candidate is capable of understanding what is going on with the average American.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
There is a big difference between 'can't physically' and 'doesn't know how' which is what McCain explicitly stated.
You're proposing the "can't physically" is not an excuse for not knowing how to do something? Assuming that "can't physically" is preventing you from doing whatever the task is, what is the point in learning that task if you can't do it anyway?
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Serving in the military is not a requirement to be able to serve competently as Command in Chief. Understanding the military should be and you can understand the military without having served.
The problem with McCain and computers is that you have a senator who has, and will do so again, voted for or against laws concerning computers without even bothering to begin to understand them. He doesn't need to be an expert with them but he should at least understand them. Given his professed lack of even understanding computers I'd really like for him to explain why he voted the way he did on a lot of computer legislation, both for and against. If you don't know about something and you vote on it you're either voting to just vote, pandering to some special interest (corporate or electorate), or being a proxy for someone else's opinion.
All of these reports of so-called "vote flipping" seem to be easily and instantly correctable by the voter themselves. A true "vote flip" would show one candidate as highlighted and then count the vote for the other candidate (or show the other candidate at the summary screen stage. If there isn't a mandatory summary screen then that's a bad UI choice in itself). If it's just an issue of a mis-calibration, that's an annoyance and you could argue the UI issues, but there is nothing nefarious about it. It seems like a whine and an excuse more than anything.
For instance, you could use a pencil and paper ballot and accidentally put a stray mark that looks like a vote for another candidate. No one would ever consider that a sign that the entire pencil and paper technology (and it is a technology) is flawed.
I think there are some real issues that need to addressed and there are definite changes to the UI of these systems that could help, but I can't understand why a voter can't be bothered to move their finger a couple of millimeters and fix it themselves until someone can use this information to improve the system.
It is, actually, when one is talking about a neophyte, who started running for President after only 140-something days as a Senator, and whose only prior executive experience consists of chairing a failed local non-profit organization. During his 8 years as an Illinois law-maker, he voted "Present" 129 times (15 times per year — just how many decisions did they make there?) — whatever the excuses for such indecisiveness, the sheer number of the "maybes" is rather large.
We don't know much about Obama, and what we do know, is unflattering...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Why? That didn't disqualify George W. Bush, did it?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Why are our votes not published on a verifiable internet accessible database for ALL to see?
Because if I where your boss and found out you voted for Obama I would fire you.
That is the reason your vote is kept hidden...
Got Code?
I've sent e-mails without ever touching a keyboard...
So does McCain. He dictates emails and his wife types them. Much more accurate than any software-based voice recognition I know of.
It does not. What made you think, anybody thinks, that it does?
The only reason the said inability was ever brought up was to explain, why McCain is averse to using a computer personally. It was never used to claim, he'll make a better president because of the injury.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You really think law makers are knowledgeable and informed about the fields they regulate? LOL!
They don't even bother reading the laws they vote on, they're certainly not going to bother reading up on the fields the laws regulate.
It's pretty silly to use it against one candidate because whoever you're voting for is undoubtedly just as guilty.
Maybe not
If the machine is so designed that any measurable fraction of the qualified voters can't use it, then it's broken.
I realize that this puts stringent requirements on the machine, but they are necessary requirements. The end user must be able to use the system, or the system is broken.
That said, I agree that any intelligent system for defrauding the vote wouldn't reveal itself so openly. As a result no secret voting machine should ever be trusted. This, however, doesn't imply that there aren't stupid ways of defrauding the machinery, and some of the reported hacks would allow extremely stupid people to hack the machines so as to defraud the vote. So that's not proof that the vote isn't fraudulent. Only measuring against a known good paper backtrail could show that.
Personally, I have no difficulty believing that some stupid hack has been applied to the voting machine, though I agree that it isn't proven. All that's proven is that people aren't being allowed to vote the way that they intend. That's enough, in my opinion, to invalidate the results.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Godwin's Law has been suspended ever since the term "Bushitler" was coined circa 2001. Didn't you get the memo?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I would just like to point out that the stink of impropriety is just as bad as actual impropriety. The appearance of a conflict of interest is in fact a conflict of interest.
There is no excuse for these machines behaving like this period. It matters not who the mistake/error/perception of error favors. If it continues they should be taken off line and in fact should have been taken off line immediately when the first complaint happened. Sorry for the inconvenience but that is what should have happened.
Why are people so in love with convenience that they allow even the appearance of a conflict to persist.
Why bother
I'm saying, the conflict between Executive's ability to speak frankly with advisers and the Lawmakers' desire to know all about such talks has existed since, uhm, very long ago, that's all.
Whoever's side you are on in this conflict, my argument was not whether Palin was right or wrong to get around the law by using Yahoo! Mail, but that she was computer-literate enough to do so.
That Bill Clinton has sent only two e-mails in his 8 years of Presidency — while presiding over an 8-trillion dot-com bust — does not bother Obama's fans, they would've lined up behind either of the Clintons for President in a heartbeat. But that McCain, who is physically unable to type due to injuries, uses his wife's help with computers, is fair target of ridicule for them. Sure...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Um, Obama was born in 1961. Obama's "generation" is one in which email originated. And let's face it - although social networking sites may be replacing email as the choice for communication for many purposes, it's not killing email. Email is still and will continue to be used for business and personal uses for quite some time yet. The article you posted even said "To hear the teen panelists tell it, that means e-mail will be strictly the domain of business dealings." (And I think that suggesting it will be used strictly for business is a bit of a stretch.) And just because kids say it's dead, it doesn't mean it's dead. For example, I didn't use the postal system much at all until I was on my own... They'll adapt as their needs change, both in using previously sparsely used mechanisms and in new ones not yet invented.
I'm afraid it does. I'm talking about the requirement to mark your ballot in privacy away from anyone who may be trying to influence your vote.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Look, guys. You tried.
We know you did your best and you get a gold star for effort.
It is now time to face up to the fact that your system of government has failed. (in oh-so-many ways)
It is time for the USA to join Canada.
We are willing to bring you in as a province.
If you don't feel up to the challenge of running a provincial government we may consider taking you on as a protectorate instead.
Gee, I hope she stays off the Vicodin
This pitiful use of McCain's POW status to excuse every one of his shortcomings is really sickening
He usually leaves out the part about making propaganda films for his captors, though.
Score: 5, Interesting, *not* Flamebait?
Wow.
I'm not really sure that a Senator or President should spend a lot of their time emailing or posting hate-rants on their favorite blogowebs. That seems like a job for their staff as, hopefully, they have more important things to do.
Is Cindy going to sit next to him in the oval office and move the mouse around for him?
Could just be the photo ops, but I don't recall seeing any computers in the Oval Office in any photos I've seen.
Someone as important as the US President should have someone to read his e-mails for him; he's got gazillions of age. The important ones can be printed out or summarized for him.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Touch screen gambling machines such as video poker don't have this rate of error, but gambling machines are put through a more thorough(sp) error checking process than voting machines. It's just sad.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM