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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.
BlackBoxVoting has been doing some really thorough coverage on these occurrences and I would like to point out that in North Carolina & Tennessee, people are complaining about votes flipping from McCain to Obama. Some are saying this is a serious issue and not just isolated incidents of entropy.
I'm confused as to why the people voting weren't given access to an on site authority or technician that could verify this was occurring. I guess it's also possible this is something that will only happen once rarely but enough to do damage. It could also be attention seeking or insurance to claim fraud if the other side wins.
My work here is dung.
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?
What's wrong with a machine that tries to assist the politically challenged by selecting the right candidate?
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.
This story is a bit old and has been rung through the media wringer already. The issue is that the machines they were using require a 20(!!) point calibration process, and apparently the poll workers weren't being careful enough when setting it up. It's a combination of a badly designed machine and lazy/incompetent poll workers. The good news is that since the states are pushing so heavily on early voting this year, there is a chance they'll figure out workarounds for issues like this before the general election.
I read the internet for the articles.
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
Thomas W. Swidarski
... our technicians are even confused how the screen (with milliseconds of response time) managed to show it.
President and CEO of Diebold
1600 Styx River Rd
Hades, New Jersey 66666
October 27, 2008
Dear Voters,
I regret to inform you that the evil bit of the IPv4 packet header field was accidentally propagated to the display screen and--subsequently--would ensure that in the last femtosecond your vote was for evil as you were accepting your selection.
Who would have thought that Americans could see this near-planckian event on the screen
Regardless, we are sorry and promise that I will personally collect and publish information on these three voters although I heavily doubt that 3 votes will change the outcome of John McCain 100% Barak Obama 0% which is what the current count is at.
This may be merely be something we have to live with for now and is trivial. We will fix this when IPv6 is enforced and it is an entire "evil byte" in the packet header that will be much easier to spot and stop. This should not undermine your satisfaction with the democratic process in America--do not let the terrorists win! You must remain ever vigilant and patriotic!
Sincerely,
Thomas W. Swidarski
My work here is dung.
Vote by mail, and make a photocopy of your ballot. It is a lot harder to change a vote when there's a massively distributed paper trail.
stuff |
These machines aren't very smart. They need to change their votes to Cthulhu if they want to live.
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.
In Pennsylvania we have the option of either using the electronic machines, or using a paper ballot. I use the paper ballot every time.
-posted with LYNX, the Commodore 64 browser
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I think Obama understands that a level playing field is about the common good and John McCain really needs a leg up. And Sen McCain should not feel ashamed because this is not charity.
This is an early example of new hope.
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.
Unfortunately, there's no way to prove that someone intending to vote for Republicans has had their vote switched, because no-one's voted for Republicans.
(Lighten up, it's a joke)
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
Video tape your election vote.
If it does a dodgy switcheroo, you have the evidence that you hit the right button, etc...
But honestly, if you were going to fiddle a machine to flip a few votes to the GOP, why have the output show the flip at all?
Just edit the totals and display whatever the hell you want on the UI.
printf "You have voted for Obama"; McCain++;
Know what I mean?
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.
John McCain's own polling gives him hope, an aide says
When John McCain insisted, during his appearance Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," that he was doing "just fine" in a presidential race in which the polls have shown Barack Obama with a steady lead over the last few weeks, many may have dismissed the comment as just something that a candidate has to say.
Not so, said a campaign official who spoke on background with The Times' Bob Drogin. The aide said the campaign's internal polling showed McCain down only 4 percentage points nationally -- a sharp improvement from a week ago -- and closing fast.
State-by-state, the private polling also showed McCain up 1 point in Ohio, North Carolina, Florida and Missouri, and behind by only 3 points in Virginia (a new Washington Post survey found him down 8 there).
McCain almost assuredly needs to capture all five states to win the presidency. And even that may not be enough if he fails to win Pennsylvania, one of his campaign stops today. Without Pennsylvania, McCain needs to pull more electoral votes out of some combination of Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico or Iowa -- all states where, as of now, the internal numbers look bleak.
The anonymous McCain official argued a comeback remains doable. "Check with me Wednesday," the aide said. "If we're still within the margin of error (in polling), we're going to win."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/10/john-mccains-ow.html
Just like the last two times.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
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?
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?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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
yes a little caricature called Voty pops up and says,"I see you are attempting to vote for Barak Obama, would you like me to help you? Press yes for me to help you change your mind, or press no to vote for John McCain." Bounce Bounce ... Bounce Bounce
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
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.
I live in WV. The local news showed the ballots and exactly how this could happen and it was entirely feasible that it was user error due to bad software design.
The UI is poorly designed. McCain's name appears above Obama's. The bottom border of McCain's box touches the upper border of Obama's box. When looking down at the device it looks like you are selecting Obama when your finger is actually on McCain.
This effect can be compounded by initially touching the box with the tip of your finger and then rolling down so your fingerprint area is fully on Obama's name, but you initially touched the bottom of McCain's box. In this case your finger will fully be within Obama's box but McCain will remain selected.
However the people doing the voting should be double checking their vote on the screen and the paper receipt that scrolls up next to the screen as you vote.
Bottom line is, bad design, untrained user.
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
sometimes paper and pencil should not be automated
As a long time RPGer, I couldn't agree with you more.
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?
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.
There are more than 2 people running for the office of President.
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.
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.
Doesn't anybody remember the Robin Williams movie? The voting machines are rigged to change random votes to the candidate with alphabeticaly-first double letters. John McCain?!
It's exactly like in the movie!
/sarcasm
McCain doesn't e-mail because he can't type. He can't type because his arms were broken while he was a POW and weren't treated properly until he was back in the States. He also can't comb his own hair or tie his own shoes. In the 2000 election, he was called the most technologically savvy candidate in the race for using things like online fund raising. (Look it up, McCain was the first to do this.) Fun Fact: One of the other candidates in the race (who McCain was more technologically savvy than) was Al Gore, who was an Atari Democrat (a young Democrat who understood and ran partially on technological issues) who invented the Internet.
A person on the Internet may or may not know about McCain's history shouldn't be ridiculed. A person running for the highest office in the land, who is expected to do a little research into why something is true before releasing an ad, should be.
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.
I guess that's why you want military advisers for. The president needs only his intelligence and common sense to take the right decision of the choices that have been put before him. One person cannot know ALL of military, economics, education, healthcare and so on.
Your head a splode
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.
Or disqualify McCain for the inability to use a computer.
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/is_mccain_unable_to_use_a_computer.html
Forbes, May 2000: His nightly ritual is to read his email together with his wife, Cindy. The injuries he incurred as a Vietnam POW make it painful for McCain to type. Instead, he dictates responses that his wife types on a laptop. "She's a whiz on the keyboard, and I'm so laborious," McCain admits.
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?
I see. Therefore, we should disqualify Obama as Commander in Chief as well because he never served in the military.
Until you realize the founding fathers specifically and purposely made the chief of the military a CIVILIAN POSITION. They did not want military service to be a prerequisite for the presidency.
(Yes, I'm sure you're going to point out that Washington had been a general. But move on to Adams, Jefferson and Madison and you'll find no military service in their resumes.)
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
I just don't understand why a good paper ballot is so hard to accept...
It's because elections are so much harder to steal if you have a "good paper ballot".
Republican Senator Chuck Hagel actually owned the company that controlled the elctronic voting in the election that he won, in a stunning upset, in every demographic, including many black communities that had never voted Republican before. Nebraska hadn't voted for a Republican for Senate in 24 years.
In Georgia, Democratic Senator Max Cleland (who lost 3 limbs in Vietnam, after he jumped on a grenade to save his fellow troops), was defeated by a Republican that alleged that Cleland was not patriotic enough. Even after the polls indicated that the voters did not actually believe this, the Diebold machines announced the Republican the winner. Surprise! And in another surprise, while the polls indicated that Democractic Governor Roy Barnes was winning, the Diebold machies announced that he lost as well to his Republican challenger. A whistleblower revealed that secret patches were applied to the machines late in the race, violating state law.
Here are other instances of Republicans winning through voting machine irregularities.
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.
If double-tapping on a name cancels the vote, that's a bug.
If double-tapping on a name resets it to a default, that's a BIG bug.
If the guys who configured the machines for that county knew about that bug, and arranged the names so that when people double-tap they get the candidate they want, that's fraud.
Whether or not some people are "click happy".
I saw a documentary a while back about that; the card makers used crappy paper stock to make the ballots. They disregarded their own QA people's warning, and shipped cards that wouldn't tear off neatly as they used to.
Nice blaming the victim once again.
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.
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.
Excuse me, but Stephen fucking Hawking can use a computer and not move any part of his fucking body, and McCain, who is wealthy enough not only to buy a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking ($145 retail), but probably buy the whole company company has to have his wife sit and read email to him?
Is Cindy going to sit next to him in the oval office and move the mouse around for him? Gee, I hope she stays off the Vicodin the day John McCain has to google "cyberterrorism".
This pitiful use of McCain's POW status to excuse every one of his shortcomings is really sickening. Strange, most people who have experienced horrific things in war don't like to talk about it, but McCain can't say three sentences without reminding us that he was a POW. He usually leaves out the part about making propaganda films for his captors, though.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
The battle for e-voting has been lost. Just as many posts in this topic prove, the public is hyper sensitive and hyper suspicious of electronic voting. They aren't going to trust it no matter what. It matters not whether or not their fears are justified.
We should return to paper ballots. They are the only voting method that might be accepted.
I happen to believe that paper balloting is much more subject to actual fraud and abuse than any other method. There are centuries of history in finding creative ways to cheat on paper ballots. Still, actual fraud is irrelevant, only public confidence matters.
My preferred solution would require a constitutional amendment. Prior to an election, the authorities would declare a target margin of error. Say 5%. The margin would account for fraud, abuse, errors, miscounts, whatever. The winner would have to win a plurality with a margin greater than 5% over the second place candidate. If the results are closer than 5%, the election is declared a tie and a whole new election would be required. Sure, that might result in revote after revote after revote, but not an infinite series.
Let's also remember that Obama's 'generation' also skips email. The 'myspace generation' has no idea what a MUA is. They think that sending messages on Myspace *IS* email.
Kids say email is dead.
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
NC votes flip to Obama
Votes switched from Bush to Kerry
Sorry to disappoint you.
These are just errors. It goes both ways.
I didn't say I was comfortable with Diebold's CEO saying what he did...but he didn't say he would "do anything to help the Republicans" (your obvious implication being he'd do anything, including rig his company's voting machines...even though it would take likely literally hundreds of people in the process to actually pull off what many people think happened in a coordinated fashion). What he said in a fundraising letter in his capacity as a Republican business leader in Ohio was, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."
And even though Diebold had paper trail systems as options for many of their products, they often weren't purchased by municipalities because they weren't required by law.
And I didn't say e-voting was superior. I said that it was thought to be superior by those in Congress (many Democrats, including those who sponsored the legislation which resulted in the increases in electronic voting machines, ostensibly to make the process modern and fair). The major oversight was And if you read my post, I agreed that paper voting is the way to go, if only for a reason of maintaining confidence in the process. That alone would be worthwhile.
You can't even pretend to be informed about e-voting, at all, if you had never even seen a case of votes being "switched" to anything but Republican, when there are plenty of examples of both ways. It's just that the bloggers and activists who think it's all a vast right-wing conspiracy to steal elections are a lot louder.
I'm definitely looking forward to your reply.
(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.
Yeah, but can Dragon Dictate® show you naked breasts ? No ?
Thus the wife® solution is clearly superior.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]