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Federal Judge Says No Right To Secret Ballot, OKs Barcoded Ballots
doug141 writes "A Colorado county put bar codes on printed ballots in a last minute effort to comply with a rule about eliminating identifying markings. Citizens sued, because the bar codes can still be traced back to individual voters. In a surprise ruling, Denver U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello said the U.S. Constitution did not contain a 'fundamental right' to secret ballots, and that the citizens could not show their voting rights had been violated, nor that they might suffer any specific injury from the bar codes."
LOL!
It seems that everywhere in the world, governments and corporations have decided that because we have the technology, it's okay to use it to abuse people's rights and freedoms in ways that would be illegal if they were done in person, or on paper.
Obviously, just barcode the people. It will make things much easier for admin.
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
The fundamental problem is that lack of anonymity creates pressure to change one's vote not due to one's personal beliefs, but rather due to pressure from an outcome of what another might think. In the extreme case, we are talking potential retaliation by a regime or political part. This has happened repeatedly through history, and happens today. While the extreme case doesn't appear to apply in the US today, in pre-WW II German, it did. If civilized countries can change quickly to oppress, then how, if our inherent right to vote does not come with an obvious need for protections such as anonymity, can our constitution protect us indefinitely?
Instead, voters who got it wrong will receive additional education. For free.
But this is a very bad solution to that problem.
A correct solution would be:
1) Prevent illegal aliens from entering the country in the first place.
2) Immediately deport any illegal aliens who somehow got in, but are caught.
3) Leave off barcodes and anything else that ties a ballot to an individual voter.
sing a different tune. (kidding).
Don't eliminate identifying marks if you can download an app to decode the mark into a number, then run an algorythm against it to transform the number into names, and figure out how that individual voted.
Which they did.
On a local radio station.
With a county comissioners barcode, they told him how he voted.
This should be interesting seeing how Colorado is voting this year to legalize marijuana...
From the article and it's referenced information, namely Secretary of State Scott Gessler's guidelines on the matter, ballots were to include limited identifying marks to ensure that the same ballot would not be counted twice when votes were tabulated, but that individuals would not have their ball it's unique identifier linked to their voter registration.
What is changing here is that rather than a human-readable number, a barcode-only solution will be used for verification purposes to increase the difficulty of an individual vote being traced to a person.
The fact that Gessler's also identified multiple illegal immigrants who had voted in the former Colorado election through voter registration searches is irrelevant to the situation at hand.
Thirty four characters live here.
The whole purpose of a paper ballot is to keep your vote secret. If that was not the case you could far more easily went in and say your choice aloud.
You're right but the bigger threat isn't from a political player. The biggest threat is retaliation from your employer, your customers, your neighbors and maybe even your family. Imagine if your father-in-law found out you voted one way instead of another and didn't want you in the family because of it.
So the big concern I have is how these barcodes work. Are they public? Are they encrypted? And what I mean by encrypted is if the value is scrambled to link back to the original voter.
The reason I feel like this is unfortunately necessary is that it would be easy to sneak in votes that had just some barcode if it didn't have to be decrypted and validated. And without this 1-to-1 validation, how do we determine that the recorded votes for each person were truly and validly made? Unfortunately, if you want election boards to be perfect in their methodology, you should give them one of these to check against citizen lists or an external third party.
My suggestion would be to give users a randomly generated number that is then one way hashed with their SSN. Then that information can be published online and anyone can take their autogenerated number and plug it into the hash with their SSN. If they fear retaliation or if they fear their boss might demand the number from them to check on them, they can merely opt for the official to destroy their number. You can also implement laws protecting those numbers although we all know a solution without regulation is the best.
But I don't think you can get around an election official knowing who voted for what if you want accurate and secure election counts. It's a trade off but hopefully the may other laws we have protection people from politically motivated attacks remain.
If the barcodes are done right, it might be a valid way to assure there is no voter fraud. I guess the big question is: do we have evidence for a lot of voter fraud such that we need this?
My work here is dung.
If you take the time to learn what information is actually on the ballot you'll see that the lawsuit has no merit. The barcode relates the ballot to what was scanned when the vote was automatically tallied in case there are errors or a recount. Any possibility that the ballot could be linked back to an individual voter was speculation, the plaintiffs couldn't produce any evidence that it could actually happen.
next thing they'll try is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_steganography or some other watermarking
The judge ruled correctly. Judges are supposed to base their rulings on what the law says, not what they think it should say.
If the citizens want this changed, they should talk to their legislators, not the courts. While amending the US Constitution would be the best fix, an amendment to the Colorado constitution, or just a statutory state or local law would be sufficient.
RFID tags - like they do with pets! It's a lot quicker and easier to scan and can be done without the person knowing it.
In the future, everyone will be chipped.
It'll be for our own safety after all and if you nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about.
I've said it before, we need to start impeaching more judges.
They have no understanding of constitutional law. The constitution does now lay out our rights... we have our rights with or without the constitution. The constitution was meant to restrain the government. Since a few people thought that enumerating some of our rights explicitly in the Bill of Rights was a good idea, some how the foolish judges have the idea that if they weren't explicitly enumerated that they do not exist.
Facial recognition cameras at all polling stations... you know, because Voter Fraud(!!)
a treaty of which the US is a signatory and which is part of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, guarantees universal, equal, free suffrage and secret ballot (Article 25, section b).
Per the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2 of the US Constitution):
So the International Covenant is binding law in the US and supersedes some Colorado local election board. Apparently the 1992 Senate ratification said people aren't allowed to privately sue to get the Covenant enforced though. Sheesh.
Some skimming around the internet on this subject is fairly interesting. Australia was the first country to implement the secret ballot in 1850, largely to curtail intimidation and other election day shennanigans that were used to influence elections. All elections in the US were secret ballot by the 1892 presidential election. However, this article in the Atlantic argues that the surest way to increase turnout is by making voting a matter of public record. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/abolish-the-secret-ballot/309038/
Perhaps the Consitution should contain such a right (I think it should) but it doesn't. Get the states to amend the Constitution. Don't berate the judge. He's doing his job.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Wasn't there a story a few months ago about sheriff employees getting fired after an election becuase they 'liked' the other person?
I think that would qualify as 'harm'
This is so weird man!
When a court quashed the right to secret ballots in union voting the noise on this site was joyous.
Hypocrisy much?
.. and fill in a few gaps in the barcode. It will not be read. Then they can have another case about whether one can still cast a vote sans bar code.
My mail-in ballot has a barcode on the return envelope. For that matter, it has my name and address too. If somebody in power wanted to know how I voted, they'd have no problem finding out from that. Califorina SAYS they separate the ballot and envelope after they verify my registration and before they count my vote, but these Colorado officials SAY they're not going to associate names with barcodes and apparently they're not to be trusted, so should I distrust the California officials?
For governmental elections, we can't have ANYTHING that could be used to prevent vote fraud. We can't check IDs, nothing. That's RAAAACIST!!!!
Ohh, but for UNION matters, we'll do away with secret ballots entirely.
Anonymous ballots do NOT let you wote 100 times. When I vote, they cross my name off from the list of voters. So I can't vote again. The ballot is anonymous though - or it would be if I took care not to leave fingerprints.
For over 40 years I've been hearing people say "If voting was it would be made illegal" and just laughed it off. Just reading the news for 2012, I'm beginning to suspect voting to be more effective than I've been giving it credit for.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
sing a different tune. (kidding).
No, you're not.
Look at how "progressives"* want to eliminate secret ballots in union elections.....
* - "progressive"?!?! BWWAAA HAA HAA. What a fucking JOKE of a word. It's "progress" to hand over control of your life to a bunch of holier-than-thou statists who are CERTAIN that they - AND ONLY THEY - know what's best for you. Fucking morons.
Colorado lawmakers or citizens should make a law saying ballots must be secret. The Constitution is (rightly) only a few pages long and "secret ballot" is never mentioned in those few pages. Colorado citizens have the power of initiative and referendum - citizens can make laws directly. The activists should have talked to their elected representatives or started an initiative, not filed in federal court. It's not an issue for a federal judge to decide, but one for the citizens of Colorado to decide for themselves.
Where I vote, you get a ballot stub when you vote. Later, you can go down to the place of records (county seat, etc.) and then use the stub to make sure your vote was recorded. They can do this because there's a number on the stub that matches the one on the ballot. The number isn't recorded or anything when you vote, but the ballots are stored by number (and district) so they can be retrieved and verified later.
It turns out Humboldt, California scans and posts all their ballots online, again, you can match them up by the number.
http://humboldtherald.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/get-out-your-ballot-stub/
(linked to blogspam because the sit that has the ballots is surely easily brought down by traffic)
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
She said that even if a ballot could be traced back to a specific voter, it doesn't show that a person's voting rights were violated, saying there was no "fundamental right" to a secret vote in the U.S. Constitution.
If you think the Constitution (or tradition, or case law, or something) guarantees a secret ballot, how do you explain primaries in caucus states, where you have to physically show up and declare your vote for so-and-so? You don't get less secret than that.
It's not just a best practice, it is a fundamental right and needs to be upheld. If the mafia can break your knuckles because you did not vote the candidates they've corrupted into office then we do not have a democracy any longer. This happens all over the world, and it has even happened in the USA in the not too distant past. There was even a point in our history where thugs from the Italian mafias here actually stood inside the polling offices as you came to vote for local politicians so they could scare you into voting the way they saw fit. They didn't even have to look at who you were voting for to scare you into changing your mind just by standing there. Now imagine if they had a traceable way of verifying if you voted the way they "trained" you prior to entering the polling box. Conceive a situation where they stand outside the polling offices, inform you who you are going to vote for and also let you know they will be checking the barcodes on the back of the cards afterwards. And, anyone who hasn't complied with their demands better check their break lines on their car every week. I think you can see where this is going, hopefully.
(without being able to sell them or be pressured)
The solution to this is very simple really. When inside the booth, have it offer an option to enter a password and get a printed URL receipt, that you can take to a web browser later to enter your password and verify your vote was recorded the way you cast it. AND, offer the option to make a shadow vote that will show up online instead of your actual vote when checked online. If someone is pressuring you to vote a certain way, you can create the shadow vote however they are pressuring you to vote, and you can then show them how you "voted" online. You will lose the ability to verify your vote, but in your case being able to "show" how you voted to someone else is what you need.
This allows you to vote in a way you can confirm if you want to, or deny if you need to. (but not both) The receipt ID is randomly generated and is not tied to you personally, but the voting system keeps track of the actual vote and shadow vote tied to the receipt. If you did not create a shadow vote, and you check it online and it has changed, you can submit a complaint. Until you do that they don't know who the vote belonged to, but they will have record of the actual vote and whether a shadow vote was created. This allows your vote to stay anonymous unless you think it was tampered with. So they could investigate if there was suspicion that the vote was changed if you filed a complaint. This appears to meet all the requirements people are looking for, unless I'm missing something here. I invite people to criticize this idea, I'm looking to test/improve it.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Send a randomized bar code sticker sent to each registered voter. Don't record who got which.Make sure they can fill out an easy form and get a new bar code. When they vote they put the bar code down.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
There is no Constitutional right to a secret ballot.
In the State of Oregon, all voting is done by absentee ballot. There's no privacy screen around you as you cast your vote. Your employer can stop by and say, "I'll pay you $1000 for your unused ballot, so I can fill it out how I want and submit it." If you're in an abusive family, your domineering alcoholic bipolar parent might force you to fill out the absentee ballot in front of them so they can control how you vote. There is no way the absentee ballot is considered a secret ballot, and yet we have no trouble when an entire state converts to voting by absentee ballot.
The State of West Virginia guarantees, in its state constitution, every resident's right to cast a public ballot. There's no mention of the secret ballot.
The secret ballot wasn't in use anywhere in the United States until it was first adopted by the city of Louisville, Kentucky, in 1888. The State of Massachusetts followed soon after. The first President to be elected by secret ballot was Grover Cleveland, in 1892.
We didn't use secret ballots to elect Washington, Jefferson, Jackson or Lincoln.
So, yeah. Anyone who claims we have a constitutional right to a secret ballot has an uphill road to hoe. History clearly shows that at no point in our nation's history has any court held the secret ballot to be a right.
" It's "progress" to hand over control of your life to a bunch of holier-than-thou statists who are CERTAIN that they - AND ONLY THEY - know what's best for you. Fucking morons."
True. It's better to let a corporation do that.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
There was no secret ballot in the US until late in the 19th century. And why should it be secret anyway? Your campaign donations are not secret, and there are laws against discriminating against someone for how they vote.
And if it's not secret, think how much easier it would be to vote. You wouldn't have to register or show ID. Just post it online and get a receipt. If there are any irregularities you already have a crowd source solution in place.
Why bother? Well, in Colorado for example, we have 17 counties with more people registered to vote than who live there. It's a swing state. Do you care if the vote is accurate?
Technically they don't, only citizens of the appropriate country are allowed to vote in that countries various elections (if they have elections). That's not US, that's everyone in the world. Just try going to Spain, Germany, Russia, Japan, Australia, South Korea or any place you are not a citizen of and try to vote. If you're lucky, you'll just get turned away because some countries have distinct penalties for that kind of stuff.
Is it racist to limit voting to your own citizens? No. It is part of the basis of a country to be ruled by your own people and has been institutionalized since national voting began back in ancient history. Think about it, did the Huns ever try to vote in the Roman Empire? (Yes, the Romans had voting, just not the same way we do.)
It does not seem that they are acting in the the best interests of the citizens of the United States.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Actually, given the US's history, the proper recourse should be: Attempt to prevent illegal aliens from entering the country in the first place (Canadian border style), then Deport any illegal alien caught living the US, but before deporting them, Offer them citizenship first. You want to be an American? Fine, that'll be $200, here's your SS card, and be sure to vote in November. Paying taxes, of course, are optional as an American, as it is considered patriotic not to pay them, or 'in your best interests' to pay them; the choice is yours.
I am John Hurt.
" It's "progress" to hand over control of your life to a bunch of holier-than-thou statists who are CERTAIN that they - AND ONLY THEY - know what's best for you. Fucking morons."
True. It's better to let a corporation do that.
Just like a fucking moron to post a stupid straw man.
If you remove the requirement for ballots to be secret, it's very easy to create a secure electronic (cryptographic) voting system. There would be no need to muck around with barcodes and paper at all..
Give out a tax rebate to everyone who votes. $100 should suffice.
The supreme court can only decide whether a law is constitutional. The constitution says nothing about anonymity, so any action on this issue must come from congressional legislation or a constitutional amendment. Good luck with that.
Illegal immigrants already have no right to vote in our country.
Mail-in ballots inherently break the integrity of the voting process anyway*, so additional restrictions on them to reduce fraud is a reasonable step. And actually UPC or similar codes to guarantee uniqueness are not a problem - provided that there is no way to trace the UPC code back to the voter.
* Picture Guido standing behind you generously offering to not beak your legs if you vote the "right" way. Or an overbearing relative, union leader, or your boss at work. Point is without a secret ballot all manner of vote "buying" becomes viable and the entire process is undermined.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The U.S.A. is a free country, we do not require Identity Papers. I did not have a drivers license until age 33 and lived my whole life just fine. For you to say that I would be required to carry identity papers, would be to say that I live as a slave in a totalitarian government. I only carry my drivers license when driving, and only show it to a police officer in regards to a driving offense. That is all it is to be used for.
There's no right to vote in the constitution either. If the state deigns to allow some people to vote, it can't exclude on the basis of age, sex, race or failure to pay a tax, but other than that, it's fair game.
From the article and it's referenced information, namely Secretary of State Scott Gessler's guidelines on the matter, ballots were to include limited identifying marks to ensure that the same ballot would not be counted twice when votes were tabulated, but that individuals would not have their ball it's unique identifier linked to their voter registration.
IMO a better solution to this problem is to give the person counting the ballot a stamp. When the counter counts a ballot, they stamp it in one specific corner. If a ballot already has a stamp, you don't count it again. Need to recount? Choose another corner to stamp.
Only they do it in aggregate rather than on an individual basis.
If me and 50% of the voters in my Congressional district obey our masters and vote for 1) the incumbent or in non-close election years 2) the party that everyone knows will carry the House and Senate, we are "rewarded" with a louder/higher-seniority voice in Washington or at least a voice that won't get shouted down by the majority party.
The same holds true in state and in many cases local government.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I was under the impression that the United States practiced secret voting as specified under the Bill of Rights or the Constitution but apparently its just a method, it was known as "Australian Voting" in the 1800's, and its not specified under any of our foundation documents, as far as I can tell. Should be I think. I can't envision a strong democracy without it. Its been practiced here in all the jurisdictions I've ever voted in.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
This is not entirely true. You can vote in Australian elections if you are not a citizen of Australia, British subjects on electoral rolls before 1984 must vote there.
The citizens of the following Commonwealth countries had the status of a British subject in Australia as at 25 January 1984
Bahamas (Commonwealth of the)
Bangladesh (People's Republic of)
Barbados
Botswana (Republic of)
Canada
Cyprus (Republic of)
Fiji
Hong Kong
Gambia (The)
Ghana (Republic of)
Guyana
India (Republic of)
Jamaica
Kenya (Republic of)
Lesotho (Kingdom of)
Malawi (Republic of)
Malaysia
Malta
Mauritius
Nauru (Republic of)
New Zealand
Nigeria (Federal Republic of)
Sierra Leone
Singapore (Republic of)
Sri Lanka (Republic of)
Swaziland (Kingdom of)
Tanzania (United Republic of)
Tonga (Kingdom of)
Trinidad and Tobago
Uganda
United Kingdom and Colonies *
Western Samoa (Independent State of)
Zambia (Republic of)
In the 1990s at least one US state used numbered ballots with a tear-off receipt.
This alone would be fine and even useful to verify that your ballot at least got counted (no guarantee it was counted correctly though).
But you weren't allowed to choose your ballot from among many, you had to use the one the election worker gave you. My memory is hazy but I think the number of your ballot was linked to your name. I never heard of this being abused, but the barn door is wide open for abuse.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If these were health, safety, or environmental regulations republicans would be screaming that the cost of implementing the regulations is a waste of tax dollars, that citizens have to be reimbursed for the "takings" (lost income, expenses) these regulations forced them to incur, and overall would blather about the rules being another example of intrusive big government. They would go on to say that any effect of improper voting is speculative and demand to see evidence of actual harm (thrown elections) before allowing any such regulations.
Amazing how republicans' math skills invert if you switch from talking about arsenic in drinking water to improper voting.
The judge probably is right in her statement that it isn't written into the Constitution, but wrong in her decision. It has become a fundamental right by convention of it have always been the case. For a couple hundred years it was not only assumed your ballot was secret but the whole voting process was designed for it to be so from the voting stations to concealing your ballot afterwards. If being able to remove yourself from being associated with that ballot isn't important then you might as well stream line the whole voting process, remove the enclosed stations and set up an assembly line voting process without the false pretense of having your decision of who to vote for being personal.
The constitution says nothing about anonymity
According to the Supreme Court http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McIntyre_v._Ohio_Elections_Commission, the constitution does say something about anonymity in the first amendment.
Courtesy of the 'corporations are people' law, Citizens United, the Koch brothers now hold indoctrination meetings for employees that are compulsory to attend. Basically now that corporations can campaign and hold political views, it's now legal to force those views onto your employees.
What stops the Koch scum from forcing their employees to vote Republican, is the secret ballot. They can only force feed them propaganda, they can't force them to vote on the basis of that propaganda and have no way of checking.
http://www.alternet.org/story/150681/how_the_koch_brothers_indoctrinate_their_employees_with_right-wing_anti-worker_propaganda
This ballot paper, the employee won't know if the Koch's have bought access to that data, or if they hold political links to the people who have access to that data. So now your job with Koch industries can depend on you voting the way Koch scum want you to.
Not only that, the vote is controlled by partisan people, whoever has that data can see who voted which way, and target those people (in Koch's case it will be threatening them with the sack, but gerrymandering, measures to block their votes etc.). The side that doesn't have that data is at a disadvantage.
BTW, the Koch brothers also received large federal handouts, so there's a direct financial interest in controlling politics.
I meant you are going to give it to me, for free.
One is to prevent "winners" from punishing opposition voters; that applies to what you're describing, and I'm perplexed the judge didn't think that through. (*shrug* Maybe the judge is optimistic, not pessimistic.)
The other is to prevent vote selling. For a modest amount of money one could boost voter turnout by saying "Vote for McSleeze, bring your ballot (proving you voted for us) to the 'victory party' and get Free Beer". There are lots of possible incentives. Today it might be "Vote for CorporateShill and redeem your barcode with a free itunes download", or a "magic cow" for your Farmville plot...
Suppose you were going to spend $20 million on television adds; you could save half of that for incentives: $10M would buy a lot of beer, or virtual cows, etc.
How many Guidos are there in the world?
People vote at home, not in union halls. America can't keep a secret, so if there was any vote buying going on it would be all over the press.
Vote by mail works well in Washington State, as well as elsewhere.
And it's still a secret ballot because of double envelope mail back.
Vote counting is observed by party representatives, with no reports of irregularities except in King County (Seattle), which was the last county holding out against vote by mail.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
What is changing here is that rather than a human-readable number, a barcode-only solution will be used for verification purposes to increase the difficulty of an individual vote being traced to a person.
If you believe that, you are utterly clueless about barcodes and their use. If anything, barcodes facilitate such tracing.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Limiting voting to citizens is assumed to be a universal thing, but it's not. As another poster mentioned, the Commonwealth countries still have a system of voting rights in place between each other. It is a bit peculiar. For instance, a citizen of Jamaica doesn't necessarily have the right to live and work in Britain. However, if they should get the right to live in Britain, they automatically get the right to vote for Parliament. (I believe a Jamaican could not stand for office, but an Irishman can.)
If you did go to Spain or Germany, and you are an EU citizen, you can vote in local elections. Any EU citizen can vote in EU local elections regardless if they are a citizen of that country or not.
In the US, you do not need to be a citizen in order to vote in Takoma Park, Maryland. You need only be a resident of that city. If you remember the move Gangs of New York, a lot of work went into getting freshly immigrated Irish to vote in local elections.
Moral rights exist independently of government documents. Absent appeals to a higher power (e.g. "Creator", Declaration of Independence) granting these rights, these rights exist only as long as society agrees that they exist.
In some societies in history, parents had the moral right to abandon their kids, abuse their wives or children, hold slaves, etc. In many but not all societies in todays world, people have the moral right to disown/disinherit their children. In other societies, children have the moral right to expect an inheritance.
Many but not all moral rights are codified in national constitutions, basic laws, legally-enforceable declarations of rights, religious laws, and secular laws.
Unlike moral laws, which (again, absent appeals to a Creator or similar right-granting entity) can be changed without formal action as a society's attitudes change, laws that are written down require formal action to change.
In the case of those parts of United States Constitution that are being enforced and which have survived a challenge by a court that has jurisdiction over you (e.g. the US Supreme Court or the relevant Circuit Court of Appeal), it takes either a formal constitutional amendment or a court ruling to change the rights that you have.
Interestingly, if a given part of the Constitution is enforced but it has never been challenged in court, then there is nothing to stop a "gentleman's agreement" by society to change the meaning of that part of the Constitution.
As a hypothetical example that didn't happen: Let's say that in the 1790s everyone agreed that "freedom of religion" did not mean "no prayer in schools." Lets say that in the 1800s and early 1900s a few people disagreed but they didn't challenge it in court. Let's say that by the 1970s more people disagreed but rather than challenge it they simply asked local schools to stop praying. Let's say that by 2050 no school in America had prayers in schools, and law schools were teaching new lawyers and judges that our "new, enlightened" interpretation of the Constitution was correct. If asked, by far most kids born after 2050 would say "of course the Constitution means state-sponsored schools can't have prayer, the people who thought otherwise in the first 2 1/2 centuries of America were mis-reading the Constitution." In this case, you have a society changing a moral right and in turn, thanks to the lack of a court ruling "pinning" down what the Constitution actually means, society changing the meaning of the Constitution without any formal action to amend or nail down the meaning of the 1st amendment.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The term "Democratic" and its various forms can legitimately mean two different things:
1) An entity in which all decisions are made by popular vote.
2) An entity in which the government is highly accountable to the governed and, implicitly, in which those who govern are easily replaced by the governed in a democratic (meaning #1 above, by popular vote) manner.
An entity can be very democratic in the first sense even if one major decision - who will chair meetings - is not done democratically. If the person who chairs meetings is basically a figurehead with no real power, then not much harm is done in not having him elected.
An entity can be mostly democratic in the second sense even if no decisions other than electing who will govern are made by the governed.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In the 1950s and allegedly even now, certain individuals went to the cemetery to figure out what names to put on the voter-registration cards. :) or :(, you decide.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Enjoy your freedom. LMAO
In my experience the citizen limitation only applies to national elections, not to local ones. A resident in a city who is a citizen of another country, can vote for the city council in the city, but not in the national elections of the country in which that city is located. However (s)he can vote in the national elections of the country of which (s)he is a citizen, but not in any local elections of that country since (s)he is not a resident there. The exact rules do vary from country to country of course.
Register here:
_ Name
_ Address (to make sure you get the right ballot)
_ thumb-print, recent photograph that still looks like you, or other all-but-unique biometric OR an ID backed by such a biometric.
Vote here:
_ grab one of many identical ballots and put it in a ballot box
Post-election fraud detection here:
_ check for duplicate registrations, knowing you can't catch them all. Investigate duplicates.
_ check for duplicate names at the same address and check for confirmed-unique and possibly-duplicate registrations and attempt to soft out the possibly-duplicate registrations
_ check for invalid addresses ("in the middle of the East River") and flag such registrations as invalid.
Post-election prosecutions:
_ Prosecute those who voted twice, knowing you will miss some
Subsequent-election re-checks
_ Where fraud investigations were inconclusive or could not be carried out, double-check past records with this elections' records and use that to continue investigating the suspected fraud from the last election.
Fear keeps honest people honest and makes fraud more difficult
_ In the next election, people will know that they have to work very very hard to vote twice and not get caught
_ People will know that even if they are not caught shortly after the election, they may get caught based on the documents they use to register with on the next election day.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In George W. Bush's home state of Texas, voter-ID laws are on hold in part because dozens of counties have NO place to get a driver's license or photo ID card. Everyone in those counties has to drive to the next county to get one.
Voter registration can be done by mail, which is a much lower burden on those with no car or who work basically the same hours as the DMV office is open.
By the way, the impact on minorities is not BECAUSE they are minorities, but because being a minority is, for now at least, highly correlated to being poor, lacking good access to transportation, and other impediments to getting to the DMV office to get a photo ID or drivers license. If poverty and lack of access to good transportation were both uniformly distributed over ethnic and racial groups and other "minority" groups, then voter-ID laws would still hurt the poor and those without access to good transportation, but it would not have a disproportionate effect on any particular racial or ethnic group.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
The constitution lists, limits and protects SOME rights. It in no way is a global definition of all rights.
Sorry, why is this a financial transaction?
Let it be mandatory to vote, with no punishment for abstaining, but if the voting percentage falls below a certain number -- say a 2/3rds majority -- then the Government is disbanded and a Constitutional Convention called.
Governments derive their power from the consent of the governed. Voting is how we display that consent. Currently, our only option for withdrawing it is revolution -- which is a right we explicitly enjoy; the founding document for this country is not the current Constitution but the Declaration of Independence. The way to get more people to vote is not to bribe them, but to make their votes matter.
A hundred dollar tax rebate for a vote is vile and shameful to those who spent their lives for you to enjoy that right.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
I suspect the expiration date is a proxy for "new enough to be hard to counterfeit" or "new enough that it can be easily verified." It's also a proxy for "expired but no expiration date is on the card."
An officer military ID card issued in the 1970s is probably easy to forge. Or at least easy enough to make a fake that will fool the non-trained expert doing a quick visual inspection. If not one issued in the 1970s, then try the 1950s or 1930s.
While an officer military ID legitimately does not expire, student ID cards effectively expire when the student ceases to be enrolled.
As for an ID with an address:
It's reasonable to require a *collection* of documents that prove you are who you say you are, you live where you say you live, and you are eligible to vote. An old/expired but still-looks-like-you ID from a credible authority (e.g. school) with your name on it, mail with your name and address and a recent postmark, and a past, credible record with your name and city of birth or statement that you are a US citizen and an short affidavit swearing all of the documents are authentic should be enough to let you vote.
Absent such documents, it's reasonable for you to fill out "long form" affidavit where you fill in your name, address, and claim of citizenship ("born in American on or about BIRTHDAY" or "naturalized on or about BIRTHDAY" or "born abroad as a US citizen on or about BIRTHDAY based on the following facts...."), and a photograph taken by the election judge, printed out, and pasted to the affidavit with your signature over the photograph. For the sake of efficiency for everyone involved, this affidavit should double as an application for a free, photo-bearing, renewable voter-ID card that you can use in the next election.
In both cases, lying is both voter fraud and perjury. In most states, perjury is a felony.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Nor to establish them.
Only to limit, protect, or perhaps clarify them.
We have many rights, they exist OUTSIDE the definitions and enumerated rights in the Constitution.
Why do so many internet lawyers miss the simple fact of the 9th Amendment?
I don't see why this would go to the supreme court. The circuit courts would have to uphold the ruling first for that to happen. Fat chance of that.
The people saying this is justified to combat voter fraud seem especially ridiculous here on slashdot, which theoretically is a bastion of scientific skepticism and empiricism, when there is absolutely no evidence at all for it being anything more than a tiny fraction of a percent of votes. It's a scare tactic used by authoritarians to drum up support for antidemocratic measures such as this. It's extremely depressing to see a site like this use anecdotal "well I saw plenty of people spoofing votes, trust me" as somehow equal to actual evidence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/23/2164540/state-election-commission-finds.html#.UF4CX1H5DZQ
http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20120524/APC010405/305240040/Recall-Roundup-Numbers-don-t-support-fraud-fears-story-video-?nclick_check=1
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/policy_brief_on_the_truth_about_voter_fraud/
http://www.salon.com/2008/04/28/scotus_2/
The actual barcoding scheme in question here in CO uses one unique barcode per 10 ballots. I'm not sure how you could trace back the original voter from that; maybe careful Sherlock Holmes analysis of the pencil lead in the bubbles that get filled in?
Actually, given the US's history, the proper recourse should be...
Let's turn this around. How would the country of origin handle illegal immigration? Let's take a close neighbor, Mexico, it's not like they would they spend $100 million flying people back.
America lets in more people than any other country in the world combined. Borders need to be enforced and laws applied evenly, to everyone. America granted amnesty to everyone who entered the country before, see Regan's Reform and Control Act of 1986. 35+ million people have immigrated since 1965. That's more than Canada's entire population which is currently estimated at 34 million. Imagine if 10% of your population wasn't there legally, California is near the same size population wise as Canada but has a larger economy.
I don't think it's right if you get caught committing a crime that it should be rewarded. You're advocating granting citizenship (or a greencard) ahead of anyone who is 'on the waiting list' who's following the rules? The only people who like waiting seem to be the Star Wars / Trek / LotR fans....
Paying taxes, of course, are optional as an American, as it is considered patriotic not to pay them, or 'in your best interests' to pay them; the choice is yours.
Most other countries require you to be a productive member of society. If you don't have any money, any education, or anything to really offer, most countries won't let you in. Why is that?
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
"Hell its Coke VS Pepsi!"
This is so wrong it's offensive. You need to get your facts in order before you say such absurd things.
The manufacturers of Coke and Pepsi are in competition.
We're never goig to get anywhere with them through voting. I think we should apply anti-trust legislation to them. Did you know that they own the debates? Together (yes, they work together on it) they manage and own the "presidential debates" we see on TV. It used to be run by the league of women voters, but the two parties, who share power and whose only real enemy is a third party, leveraged it away from them. You cannot have another voice in the discussion. Hell, you cannot even have a discussion.
http://people.howstuffworks.com/debate3.htm
The reason you're wrong is this isn't Coke vs. Pepsi at all. It's Coke vs. Coke in a collectable can.
Which, being paid by the entire population ... sorry, TAXPAYING population, tax dodging toffs don't apply ... means that you're buying their products.
Moreover, try telling someone you've decided not to buy a game from Steam because you don't like their EULA. You're NOT ALLOWED. You get hounded and barracked and slagged off and silenced, told you're a tinfoilhatter and should shut up and buy buy buy.
TomHath,
I am the plaintiff in this case. The evidence was never allowed to be presented, but there is evidence that almost 100% of the ballots were traceable in all three defendant barcoding counties. I have traced ballots in all counties.
I have the voted ballots in 2 of the 3. In Eagle County, I can tell you how any voter voted. Such information should never exist. In Boulder, I have each voters barcode number, but not access to the voted ballot. But the government does. I’ll be happy to provide plenty of evidence verified by the Secretary of State and the press.
Marilyn Marks
Marilyn [at] TheCitizenCenter.org
Wouldn't it be better to number the ballots the first time that you count them? That way, you can tell if you counted a particular ballot previously, and you don't have a way of tracing the number back to the voter. You also don't have the problems of half stamped ballots, stamping the wrong corner, etc.
For 2011 all the candidates were Dems. or Repubs.
I decided to write myself in.
Online it lists the number of parties with votes for them as well as write-ins.
One of the seats had some number of D.s and R.s and 1 write-in.
I voted for that seat.
That means the write-in for him was me.
Just a funny anecdote.
As for the topic: the 9th Amendment does say, although implicitly, we have a right to secret ballot.
The first 8 and the main body aren't all there is.
People often forget the 9th and 10th Amends.
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
I agree with this. But you can't *assume* laws exist to prevent it. The laws actually have to be legislated.
There ARE laws against voter coercion and vote buying and some other practices that are thought to be election tampering. But those are laws against specific behaviors and the numbering and recording of ballot numbers aren't among them.
11) Elections aren't just about national politics. If you have a local election that's polarized along a have/have-not divide and you can effectively disenfranchise even 1-2% of the "have-nots" by making it hard to register or hard to vote, then the "haves" can appear to have a 51% majority.
If you do this in 2 or 3 closely-divided state legislative districts in a state or in 2 or 3 closely-divided Congressional districts nationwide AND the Democrat/Republican divide basically corresponds to the "have/have not divide" AND the statehouse or the US House of Representatives is narrowly divided that year, you can tip the balance of power on the state or national level. Yes, it's hard to top the balance of power in Washington in this way, but it's doable at the state level.
2) If only 95% of eligible voters in a given county or other district have ID cards, that means 5% don't. That's a huge problem if having an ID is a requirement to vote, especially if that 5% isn't evenly divided over the demographic and political spectrums and the county or district it belongs to is politically divided nearly down the middle.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I mean, barcodes were invented to be unique identifiers, so it was perfectly logical for the county to assume that they could be used in order to eliminate the presence of identifying markings. Yeah, that should make sense to anyone who doesn't think.
My thoughts on the judge's decision? I don't know what to think anymore. It's a justifiable decision. Nevertheless, the use of these identifiers to determine who individuals voted for (which would inevitably be discovered if anyone looked at the ballots) would be illegal. Unless we don't have the right to withhold such information anymore.
It's also interesting that both the judge and the county should come to the decisions that they have. Seeing as how the government is trying to encourage people to vote, I imagine that potential voters in the county are getting mixed signals from this.
Bring democracy to your own country, nuke yourself.
srsly, the way its going you are going to become more of a dictatorship (DMCA, MPAA, RIAA, ...) than most dictatorships are!
And Sarah Silverman responds -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypRW5qoraTw
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
LOL but so someone that didnt like the way i voted once threw a rock.....
While I do know people who match your description, I don't believe it describes even near to a majority. But it does appear to match the majority of management, and the majority of politicians. And I suspect that it's a systematic thing. I used to think that only those motivated to become cutthroat would possess the psychotic drive to devote the time and energy necessary to get elected, but as I observed longer it seems more and more that there's some factor built into the system that will take well-meaning people and corrupt them. And it seems to exist at all levels, from the bottom to the top.
Perhaps it's television. Do role-playing games produce the same kind of character change? If so, what factors cause them to do so. If not, what differences avoid that change. Clearly more research is necessary, as it's a statistical issue, so one or two cases won't answer the question.
Another question is "Did people always prefer to vote for psychopathic leaders?" There's some evidence that they did. One certainly can't deny Teddy Rooseveldt's popularity, even if his party did eventually disown him. Very few presidents have ever shown much concern for the lower classes. Whether this is convenient blindness or a paralized empathy is not always clear. And most presidents become consumed by a monstrous egotism, though admittedly it doesn't always manifest in a destructive manner. (i've always thought that a president should have as many sexual affairs as he could find time for, with the requirement that in all cases mutual consent is required. Keeps him out of worse mischief.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Secret ballots were used in ancient Greece, and before that in ancient India. The French constitution of 1795 requires them for all elections. Australia since 1856. The British had it from 1872 to 1983. Canada since 1874.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot
Because practically every lawyer and lawmaker, internet or not, manages to miss it as well. What with it being inconvenient to the powerful and all.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
Sarah Silverman recently posted this funny and to the point video pointing out the fucked up laws surrounding the new voter ID laws http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypRW5qoraTw
The citizens of Colorado decided this for themselves as you suggest in 1946 through amending the Colorado Constitution. They said that no ballot shall be marked in a way that the identity of the voter can be determined. The state legislature passed laws decades ago prohibiting distinguishing marks on ballots. The clerks are violating both. That is why we went to court---not because there was no law. But because the law was not being followed.
The judge declared that the prohibitions against identifiable ballots in the CO Constiution did not apply to government officials and election workers.
From the very beginning I felt like I was reading the comments of a complete moron every time I read a post that began with "this." Just how stupid does one have to be to be ignorant of just how retarded it makes them sound? Imagine you're among a group of friends, and one says something particularly intelligent, and another replies "this." ...or "that" as would be more appropriate in real life, since I assume when people say "this" they're imagining that they're pointing at the parent post.
Or, fuck it, my head hurts to much to think any more about these idiots.
I believe you're confusing "state sovereignty" with "republican form of government". Stealing the basic definition in Wikipedia:
A republic is a form of government in which the country is considered a "public matter" (Latin: res publica), not the private concern or property of the rulers, and where offices of states are subsequently directly or indirectly elected or appointed rather than inherited.
For all the bleating about state sovereignty, historically it has been used primarily to protect ownership in human chattel (worth several trillion $US in current dollars) and later to defend wholesale disenfranchising non-caucasians and denying them basic civil rights. The virtually unlimited sovereignty of US states was thus shown to be non-optimal for promotion of the democracy. Federalism has and does allow a laboratory in democracy, and when one of the experiments fails, there's no sin in shutting it down and trying something else.
Luke, help me take this mask off
...describes the areas and extent to which the federation's authorities supersede the state's.
As this is a state's ballot, it is in the state's legislature that anonymity has to be arranged.
Even more where the federal government hasn't gotten the authority over state ballots.
So, I think the judge was right, although I'm also very surprised by the fact that anonymity in ballots is not guaranteed.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Hmm. hey boss this one didn't leave fingerprints.
OK. Check the list. Whose vote is missing?
Abbot, Abrahamovich, Accam, Adman, ... Ah, this is the guy! Regularly posts on Slashdot as AC and visits furry porn sites.
.
At last we know who was voting for Ron Paul! HA HA HA HA HA
Apparently the judge forgot to read the Tenth Amendment.
That's not US, that's everyone in the world. Just try going to Spain, Germany, Russia, Japan, Australia, South Korea or any place you are not a citizen of and try to vote.
Just to add another counter-example, in UK Parliamentary elections, you can vote if you are a British Citizen or an Irish (Republic) or Commonwealth citizen living (legally) in the UK (and not disqualified from voting for legal reasons, e.g. due to being in prison, or a peer).
Local and EU elections are open to British, Irish or Commonwealth citizens living in the UK, and any other EU citizens who are living in the UK and have jumped through appropriate extra hoops.
So yes, some countries do things differently. And, for the record, no one in an EU country is "ruled by [their] own people", as we are all jointly ruled by local, national and international governments.
As for Huns and the Roman Empire, key word there is "Empire". As in, it had an Emperor; a hereditary, supreme leader, answerable constitutionally to no one. Although that's not to say that the empire didn't have democratic elements (mostly leftover from the Roman Republic), but it was fundamentally autocratic.
In this case, you need to avoid a whole class of goods. Not buying from GM does not change anything. Not buying from GM would not get you public transportation. Not buying from GM would not give you higher wages. And not buying from GM would not give CEOs smaller bonuses except perhaps for the GM CEO. If anything, not buying from GM would increase unemployment, reduce tax revenues (and the government's -- aka our -- ability to invest in public anything) and make more people -- at least temporarily -- dependent on the government.
A different way to state the grandparent's point is that you want STRUCTURAL changes. Replacing one incumbent with another gets you nothing, and reducing the number of big businesses competing with you only makes the remaining business bigger. If you want to fight the power of the automotive sector and its impact on gas prices and pollution, high speed rail is the answer. So take the train where you can - that's how you make a difference.
... once you give them the ability to vote, you give them power. Once you give them power, they vote out representatives who have not fixed the other things. That's how a democracy works.
But under how many names did you register? If you have to present ID to register you can use that to vote. If you don't have to prove your identity to vote you shouldn't have to prove you identity every time you register.
Voter ID laws have no purpose other than preventing poor people from voting. There is no anti-fraud component, because no one intent on changing the outcome of an election would use in-person voting to do it.
For example, why would anyone go through all the trouble of making a fake military ID card from the70's and sending a real person to a precinct to change the voting totals by 1 when they could just send in 1,000 extra absentee ballots?
The biggest source of election fraud is absentee ballots, but Republicans made no effort to reduce that fraud. Why? Because absentee ballot votes favor republicans.
The real fraud is the voter ID laws themselves, because unlike extremely rare in-person voting fraud that might change a voting total by one or two votes at considerable effort, voting ID laws will change voting totals by tens of thousands per state.
paintball
If The US constitution does not contain the fundamental right to a secret ballot, then the states, cities, counties, can pass laws for secret ballots. amendment 9 or 10 allows this capability.
If a person with no "address of record" has temporary addresses in the last 30 days should be treated the same as someone who moved recently. In some if not all states, the rules are something like this:
* If all of the temporary addresses he has used in the last 30 days are all close enough that each shares a common ballot, he should be able to vote.
* In some states, if you move within a county, you can vote a full ballot at your old location.
* If those addresses don't share a common ballot, he should be able to vote the "common parts" of the ballot.
Yes, this will effectively disenfranchise people with no fixed address who live in two different states in the month before the election, but that's the same rule that applies to people who move across state lines right before an election.
However, this is made irrelevant in states that make it easy for the homeless and transients to have an "address of record" even if they don't sleep there every night, or any night at all. Students and the military also generally have the option of voting at their parent's address or, if they have been living someplace temporarily for 30 days or more, at their temporary address.
Now, I do get your point about the difficulty of proving your residency if you have been living in a car or on the street. Society does need to cut the homeless a break. This break may mean simply requiring such people to swear that the places they have lived in the last 30 days have been in a certain precinct, city, county, or other geographical boundary and give them a full or limited ballot appropriate for that geographical area.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In some states, when you sign in to vote, you are signing an affidavit saying you are eligible to vote in this election.
Lying is not only voter fraud, but it is perjury. True, it won't be detected ahead of time but if it comes out later that you lied and the statute of limitations on perjury charges hasn't lapsed, it will be an easy charge to prove and you'll wind up in an orange jumpsuit with a felony record.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I can't speak for every state, but in many US states, voter ID cards are re-issued shortly after each Congressional or presidential election and are good for 2 or 4 years.
You register once, and you keep getting a new card every 2 years for life until you don't vote for a certain number of years, typically 4.
Your voter registration will also be canceled if the state finds out that you moved (e.g. re-registered elsewhere), died, or became ineligible to vote.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
So you've cited cases where people doing that might change the voting totals by a few. Where might is "almost certainly not", as there's no evidence it's a problem that exists. But even if it did, the solution to a handful of people voting an extra time is not to stop thousands of people from voting at all. That's just math.
Voter ID laws are voter fraud perpetrated by Republican legislators.
paintball
"you can't fly somewhere without one"
You can fly within the United States and to and fro its territories without ID. Yes, even post-9/11.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
Seriously, it depends on the attitude of local voting officials. Sometimes it goes to to court.
For those who don't stay in one place more than 30 days, it's probably "your permanent home if you have one, otherwise, it's the same as other transients."
BUT if you have a permanent home but travel and stay more than 30 days and push to vote in your current, temporary locale, then in most cases you can UNLESS the officials in your temporary home "push back." Then a judge decides.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.