Voting Machines Selecting Default Candidates

overThruster writes "Some voters in Las Vegas have noticed that Democrat Harry Reid's name is checked by default on their electronic voting machines. By way of explanation, the Clark County Registrar says that when voters choose English instead of Spanish, Reid's Republican opponent, Sharron Angle, has her name checked by default."

Comments

I abstain

[Robadob]

Surely there should be a box to abstain from voting (spoil your ballot), and this neutral should be checked by default.

Re:I abstain

[Hatta]

Really, all voters should be presumed to cast a "none of the above" ballot unless they specifically vote otherwise. Yes, even those who abstain by not showing up. Failure to even show up is a vote of no confidence in the system itself, which is a very important statement and deserves to be counted.

If the majority of the population doesn't even show up to vote, that is a de facto vote against the system. Nobody can claim a mandate to govern under such circumstances. Any government elected under such circumstances cannot be considered legitimate.

Re:I abstain

[iluvcapra]

The problem with a no-confidence plebiscite is the resolution. Historically, when an election provides the option of returning no winner, like many parliaments have or once implemented, you'd end up with a situation where the body went months or years without a leader, and in the vacuum other institutions (like revolutionary parties) would take over -- eventually if you belong to the group with the most money or guns, it becomes in your interest to spoil the votes because you benefit from the chaos and can claim the body is "do-nothing."

The best way to protect the democratic institution of voting is ensure that it always returns an unambiguous result. If it isn't able to do this all the time, the institution itself will lose legitimacy.

Re:I abstain

[Anrego]

I'm Canadian, so maybe the political situation is completely different "down there", but I think you are reading a little too much into people not showing up to vote.

Sure some people are making a statement by not voting, but I think most who do not vote are either lazy (probably the majority) or don't feel they have enough understanding to make a serious choice.

And personally, I would actually rather have a relatively small turn out of voters making a choice based on their beliefs, than a huge crowd of people just randomly picking a candidate because everyone is telling them they must vote. Voting isn't the important part.. keeping yourself aware of the politics of your country is!

I do like the idea of specifically counting people who say "I don't think any of these are good" and maybe even a "I don't feel confident to make a choice". Would be an interesting number to see.

Re:I abstain

[cayenne8]

Err...exactly why is there a choice to vote in Spanish or English?

I mean...is it not a requirement for those coming to this country, to attain citizenship to show on the exams, a proficiency in English??

And you do have to be a citizen of the US in order to vote, don't you?

Re:I abstain

[bonkeydcow]

I am an election judge, I would be happy to provide the number of spoiled ballots. In my last election, there were 3. They were the results of either stray marks where the voter rested their pen in a box before checking a different box, and the machine wasn't sure which they meant, so they got a new ballot. The other case was where there were multiple candidates for 1 race (more than 2 candidates) and the voter chose more than one. If you would like I will post again next week with the spoiled ballot count for this election. We have to keep track of every single ballot, so knowing the number of spoiled ballots is trivial.

Re:I abstain

[molo]

A person can be born in the US and raised and educated speaking a non-english language.

BTW, in some jurisdictions, you can register to vote in local elections just by being a resident. I'm not sure if Nevada has any jurisdictions like that however.

-molo

Re:I abstain

[HungryHobo]

However you do not have to know english in order to be an american citizen.

Of course people who don't speak english don't deserve to get their vote counted if you listen to certain radio hosts.

Re:I abstain

[snkline]

The US does not have an official language at the Federal level. If a state only wants to issue ballots in English, I believe they can, but they are also allowed to issue them in other languages if they want to. If Nevada wanted to they could provide you with options for every single written language in the world.

Re:I abstain

[malraid]

I'm sorry, but your comment is just ridiculous bigotry. I was born outside the US, and since my mother was a US citizen, I have US citizenship by birth. I did not become proficient in English until I moved to the US around the age of 13. So yeah, the test is required for naturalization, but that's not the only way to citizenship. And yes, those born here in the US have no requirement to learn English. Then there's those who can only speak one language (English), but can't really read or write. But that's beyond help.

Re:I abstain

[Americano]

If the people cannot agree on a leader to support, then it's time to dissolve the institution and start over.

I'm unable to fully articulate how uncomfortable this statement makes me.

It takes a peculiar sense of entitlement to say "If you all won't agree and give me a pre-made set of choices which match my desires perfectly, I'll take my ball and go home." If you want a candidate who agrees 100% with you - run for office. If you don't like the democratic or republican candidate - support a third party candidate that does agree with your views. Elections don't happen randomly, with no advanced notice. You have plenty of time to educate yourself, decide which candidates to support (or whether or not to run yourself). Refusing to participate, and then demanding that everybody else allow their government be dissolved to honor the fact that your wishes weren't met (even though you did nothing to go out and try and make them come true yourself) is a childish notion.

If you refuse to participate in the process at all other than to show up on election day and check a box on the ballot, don't expect to have a large voice in shaping the political landscape.

Thomas Jefferson said something to the effect of, "The people get the rulers they deserve." He was right. Your options are:
1) Don't participate, and just grumble about the choices other people make;
2) Participate actively in shaping your political system & your society, secure in the knowledge that even if your guy loses, your rights are protected under the constitution, and you can continue trying to bring people around to your way of thinking;
3) Let your society collapse into a patchwork of warring tribal factions (See: Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan), with power falling to the most ruthles.

Saying, "Right, Hatta wasn't happy with the results, let's do it all over again, and let's get some new candidates on stage this time," is a recipe for #3. Your wishes do not trump the wishes of millions of other people who did take the time to support candidates & go out and vote.

Re:I abstain

[eldepeche]

"Anchor baby" is a ridiculously loaded term, and one that shows ignorance of how immigration works in the US. A child born in the US to non-citizen parents must be 21 years old before he or she can act as a sponsor for the naturalization of the parents.

If people are doing what your use of the term suggests, it is an incredibly inefficient way to get legal residency.

Re:I abstain

[turbidostato]

"Who in their right mind would actually want to give power over the government to people who can't even be bothered to learn the language of their own nation?"

Where is it stated that English is the language of the USA? Last I knew about it USA hasn't an official language so English is a matter of social custom and, as such, open to change.

Re:I abstain

[DavidTC]

Actually, it is 'progressive'. A major aim of the Progressive Era was election reform. Without that, there'd be no recall or ballot initiative laws, and party bosses would still pick candidates instead of having primaries, and, of course, the seventeenth amendment directly electing Senators and the nineteenth allow women to vote.

While I can't think of any specific 'let non-citizens vote' concept (I suspect the Progressives would actually push for immigration reform instead.), it's not incredibly off-kilter from the rest of the stuff. I mean, they demanded letting all citizens vote. (People tend to get confused. Women were always citizens. It's just there's no requirement that all citizens be allowed to vote.)

Explanation?

[gstoddart]

How is:

By way of explanation???, the Clark County Registrar says that when voters choose English instead of Spanish, Reid's Republican opponent, Sharron Reid's name is checked by default.

an explanation? Who cares what language you're using the voting machine in. A voting machine should never have default candidates -- it needs to be explicitly blank until the user makes a selection.

Re:Explanation?

[digitalhermit]

"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence..."

The problem is likely some poor interface design. I've seen it used deliberately on some installers in order to sneakily add other products. It may follow a series of "Next" buttons that asks "Also install McAfee agent" or "Install Yahoo Toolbar"... In this case, the checkbox for the candidate may happen to be on the "Next" button of the previous screen.

Re:Explanation?

[xaxa]

The article talks about old people having this problem.

I expect if you're "firm" with the touchscreen you end up pressing a button on the following screen (selecting a candidate) while you still think you're pressing "English" (or "Spanish").

Easy solution 1: A "please wait" screen for a few seconds, which waits until nothing on the screen is being pressed
2: Not having any buttons "underneath" a button on the previous screen

Re:Explanation?

[Gravitron 5000]

The article implies that it's due to people keeping their finger on the touchscreen when they select a language preference. The location of Harry would be in the same screen location as English, where Sally would be in the same screen location as Spanish. Really, it's just sloppy coding, as you should wait until the user's finger is lifted before allowing another selection.

Re:Explanation?

[LWATCDR]

Well if you read the link and not Slashdot's terrible, slanted, and sensationalist summary you will see that wasn't said.
The problem is a simple UI issue.
From reading the article it seems that they implemented the select language touch as select on touch begin and not select on touch end.
So if you hold your finger down long enough the next screen pops up and your finger will be on one of the candidates.
It is a simple UI issue combined with people being on auto pilot. Honestly not a huge issue because you should really check it before you hit next anyway but it should be fixed.

Not evil or a conspiracy or anything but a UI error that really isn't that terrible if people bother to read. And yes it is so the type of UI problem that I would expect in any program like this.

Re:Explanation?

[khallow]

It is a simple UI issue combined with people being on auto pilot. Honestly not a huge issue because you should really check it before you hit next anyway but it should be fixed.

Now suppose you found out that the electronic ballot had been deliberately configured so that Reid's name would be under the finger when this error occurred? Would you still call it a simple UI issue?

My point here is that we should take even innocent mistakes seriously when significant things are at stake and it is easy to pass off fraud or other deception as an innocent mistake.

Abstaining creates fraud.

[AnonymousClown]

Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid's name was already checked.

Whoa!

Sometimes, when I don't like any candidate for a particular office, I abstain and thinking, maybe naively, that it will be noticed in the count - 20,000 votes cast but only 19,999 for the office of [whatever] . Selecting someone by default goes against my choice and I would consider that to be fraud. Period.

Holy crooked election Batman!

[LWATCDR]

Actually if one reads the link you will see that Slashdot is at it again.
They are touch screen systems. If you keep your finger on them to long you end up with double picking.
This is a coding error. They just need to change the select from touch begin to touch end and maybe add a next button to take you to the next screen.
In other words it is a UI error and not some great evil conspiracy.

Okay Slashdot please stop using the FOX News and the Daily Workers guide to ethical journalism when writing the summaries!

Re:Holy crooked election Batman!

[Hatta]

They are touch screen systems. If you keep your finger on them to long you end up with double picking.

That's not the only thing wrong here. A properly designed electronic voting machine will randomize the names of the candidates to avoid giving any one of them an advantage from being on the top of the list. If this voting machine had done this, the double picking errors would be random and not affect the result of the election. That the names are not randomized is a much, much bigger flaw in this voting machine than the double picking bug described here.

Not a default candidate it is a quick screen updat

[gurps_npc]

They did not build in a default candidate on purpose.

What happens is that when you touch the screen to select "English" as your language, it immediately goes to the next screen where you select your candidate. But the old button that said "English" is very close to where the new button that votes for candidates appears.

So if you are slow to remove your finger from the "English" button, your finger is already on the 'vote for candidate button', resulting in what the slow voter thinks is a default vote.

This is:

1. A bad GUI design. Grade D- in my opinion for putting the touch buttons so close and keeping the touch time too short/sensitive.

2. A bad tester, if they did any. Grade F. I mean really, was this that hard to catch?

3. Reminds me of moronic and illegal paper 'butterfly ballot' used in Florida not that long ago. Can't we get competent people to design these things?

Re:My Favorite Line in the Article:

[SatanicPuppy]

The real irony of it is that the system the Nevada Gaming Board has for checking slot machines, is the exact same system I'd like to see for electronic voting machines.

You can see which one they value.

Re:Not a default candidate it is a quick screen up

[TheGratefulNet]

Can't we get competent people to design these things?

welcome to the new economy, mate. its not about getting things right, its about getting it down the cheapest way possible. hiring people who are too inexperienced to know better (hint: younger ones are cheaper. overseas ones, cheaper yet).

we get what we pay for. when we disrespect our own working force, we all lose.

Re:Figures

[geekoid]

There is no default choice. The selection screen is right after the language screen. If you press English and linger too long, it also selects what ever is at the position when the next screen shows up.

This is a 'young tester' type of bug. Any tester whose is comfortable and used to the type of technology won't see it. As soon as an old person whose finger lingers, it shows up.

you don't always have to be a citizen to vote

[cwgmpls]

Voting requirements are typically established by local and state government, not by the Feds. I assume small-government types would like it that way. Historically, non-citizens have been able to vote in local, state and federal elections in over 40 states and territories. It is more recent, anti-immigrant sentiment that has started to restrict voting to citizens only.

Historically, voting has been considered a right of anyone who pays taxes. "No taxation without representation!" was the rally cry of the original Tea Party. The current "tea party" seems to have an altogether different agenda.

There are tens of millions of workers in the U.S. who are not citizens but pay taxes. According to the principles of the founders the U.S., their payment of taxes entitles them to vote.

Re:*Citation Needed*

[pixelpusher220]

well for starters it isn't a 'US' election, it's local. If anything this is libertarianism at its best, not liberal.

A local community deciding it's own rules. Isn't that what the Tea Party/GOP has been spouting off about for years?

Re:*Citation Needed*

[spazdor]

Because I have a special legal status which, thanks to the accident of birth, entitles ME to be recognized as a real person with interests and needs, but not THAT GUY OVER THERE. If we include him in the decision-making process then the resulting decisions might not privilege me so uniquely! Pandemonium!

Re:*Citation Needed*

[shutdown -p now]

Portland residents will vote Nov. 2 on a proposal to give legal residents who are not U.S. citizens the right to vote in local elections

I'd just like to point out that one of the core founding ideas of your nation was "no taxation without representation".