If nothing else has come...
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 1
...out of the circus that's going on right now, it's the fact that *something* has got to change.
What we are seeing in the presidential election is the fact that the sloppiness and trickery that usually goes on (and that gets ignored when it doesn't seem to have any real effect on the outcome..) needs to be stopped and stopped quickly.
This will be a difficult problem to solve in the United States.
One principle problem will be that voting and elections are the responsibility of very localized governmental units -- counties, or their local equivalent -- and this means that any general solution will be stymied by the "states rights" and "local control" freaks.
It's very hard to imagine, if not impossible to imagine, a *nationwide* voting system that is uniform everywhere across the land, so you're going to end up with some variation on the same hodge-podge you've got now, for a long time.
As for digital voting: expect massive resistance from all those who don't use/understand computers anyway.
I suspect what we'll see more of is vote-by-mail -- what is now called an "absentee ballot" is really vote-by-mail right now: most people who use them are *not* on vacation, they just don't want to drive to a polling place, struggle to find a parking place, and wait in line with a bunch of strangers just to vote.
OK: the guy doesn't even *have* kids in the public schools now: he's already swept them off into a safe little nook where they are controlled in every thought and act.
And *don't* start with "...but he's paying taxes that support the public schools.." -- his share of the total school district budget is miniscule at best. His share is probably neither substantially larger nor smaller than anyone else's..
All of us are members of the entire society we live in, and a lot of people need to grow up and accept the fact that society at large may by necessity support transactions that we personally don't think much of...
...in the Exeter area two years ago before transferring to private schools, has been a vocal critic of the local school boards' decision not to require filtering or blocking software on school computers. Concerned that students were visiting pornographic or other inappropriate Web sites,
Aha! This is what this is *really* all about: the guy has his own narrow little prejudices, and he's goddamed if he's going to let anybody else look at what he doesn't like.
What's inappropriate? Sites about meat-based diets? Sites about Amnesty International? Sites about AIDS information? Sites about anime? This is *one guy* -- he's got his kids sealed off from what *he* doesn't like, but now he's going to censor what anybody else can look at? And don't doubt for one moment that this is exactly where this is going...
...he sought access to Internet History log files from 1998 -- the date when a majority of local students gained online access in schools -- to the present."
The core problem here is that far too many people have the world-view of a three year-old: "I am the center of the entire universe, and *all* shall bow before my wishes".
The atomization of American culture by the widely-held belief that any single individual can mold collective behavior into his or her own narrow tastes is the serious threat here, not the fact that school district web logs are suddenly public information.
The bureaucrats who designed the ballot, and accepted the design, are just that: government bureaucrats.
They have an intimate familiarity with the ballot; of course they don't see anything wrong with it; they created it, there's no problem.
A voter for 23 years in Palm Beach county has stated on CNN, and it has been otherwise confirmed, that this was the *first time* this ballot layout had been used there. All previous elections used ballots which met Florida State election law by having the names always to the left of the mark. Finally, this voter stated that in 23 years of voting the order of the parties has *never* changed: first Republicans, then Democrats, then every body else. This is why so many people automatically punched the second hole: for 23 years the Democrats have always been the second choice on the ballot.
This ballot layout is in *direct* violation of Florida elections law. The bureaucrat who approved it should be fired.
The fact remains that 19,000 people were dis-enfranchised by this poorly-designed and illegal ballot in that they tried to correct their misunderstanding by punching their true choice, thus creating a double-punched ballot which was declared invalid.
So they're stupid: they can't be disenfranchised for stupidity (as much as some people here would like that...)
Many other people have reported that they attempted to have poll workers replace their incorrectly-punched ballot, and the poll workers refused to replace the incorrect ballot, which is flat-out illegal.
The final thought that anyone with an ounce of personal integrity will admit is that, if the shoe were on the other foot and all this were happening to the Republicans, the Republicans would be doing exactly the same goddam thing!
This will go down as a classic example of the problem when technical specialists design something that the untrained user is expected to use successfully.
Of course *all* the fucking bureaucrats who looked at the design thought it was OK: christ! they're the fucking bureaucrats and they know exactly what the ballot was all about and who all the candidtates were and blahblahblah...
This does not mean that *every* member of the public is going to understand *exactly* what the hell they're looking at, as clearly as the bureaucrat who designed it or approved the design, feeling no stress upon them because of how long they've waited, how many people in line behind them are waiting for *them*, the importance of the election, etc etc etc
The fucking bureaucrats have been looking at the ballot design all day every day for months.
Of course they don't see any problems with it: they created it, they know it intimately.
The voter gets to look at the damn thing for a minute every few years.
Gore conceded to the illusion of his loss, created by over-hasty news media who basically couldn't/wouldn't shut up when they didn't know what the hell they were talking about.
No one knew who had won or lost at the point in time when Gore first conceded.
And: do you seriously thing Bush aka the Republicans would have done any differently if they had conceded based on incomplete information?
No, they wouldn't have...
And no, people in Palm Beach county are sueing, as is their right.
Gore aka the Democrats haven't sued anyone, yet.
And, once again in case you didn't get it, above: do you seriously thing Bush aka the Republicans would do any different?
Hell no.
Anyone who pretends that the Republicans would be acting any differently if the shoe was on the other foot is full of sh*t.
...and I failed to point out, below, what you fail to understand: if the vote is done over in Palm Beach county, it will not be a general open election to all comers.
If there is a replacement vote, it will only be open to those votes who, by their signatures on tallys at the polling places, can prove that they did vote on Tuesday.
It's not going to be opened to anyone, it's going to be an opportunity for those people who did vote to be certain that the ballots recorded truly show their real intentions.
The Presidency was already decided by "..a handful of Floridians.."
Despite the fact that a lot of really smart, really impatient people don't like the idea that the ballots and the voting in Palm Beach county were compromised by some very real, very serious problems, the fact remains that a lot of ballots were cast with votes that were not what the voters intended, and that a lot of ballots were disallowed because people not as smart as you or me tried to correct their mistake by marking their ballot again.
It is necessary to make an accurate count of what these voters actually intended.
Even if, and particularily *because* these voters may not be as smart as some people here would like.
1) This is a classic example of a beauraucratic "expert" *not* being able to see what problems a layperson will have with a vitally important document that the layperson sees for only scant minutes every four years.
2)There are consistent reports that people realized that they had made a mistake but were refused replacement ballots
So you have the problem of an official form that the officials understand, but the public finds baffling; and the problem of actual illegal activity by poll workers in Palm Beach county.
The nation at large deserves better than this apparent combination of official malfeasance, and official misfeasance.
This is county-by-county ballot counts for the State of Florida.
Pat Buchanan received a total of 16,989 votes in the entire state.
Buchanan's highest vote total was Palm Beach with 3,407 votes.
Buchanan's *next* highest was 1,012 in Pinellas.
Buchanan's **next** highest vote total was 845 in Hillsborough county.
In other words (or numbers..) Buchanan received 3.36 times more votes in Palm Beach than in his next highest county.
Another way to look at it is to see that in Palm Beach, Buchanan received 61% of the vote cast for Nader.
In Pinellas, Buchanan got 10% of Nader's vote; in Hillsborough Buchanan got 11.3%. That was the general relationship between ballots cast for Nader vs ballots cast for Buchanan.
Another approach is to see that Buchanan received 20.05% of all votes cast for him in one county: Palm Beach.
Now, having said all that, I've looked at the
ballot examples and in MNSHO you'd have to be pretty fsck'ing stupid to screw that one up...
...but, as everyone but the Libertarians know, there's a helluva lot of stupid people out there.
The two Colliers wrote a book about vote manipulation by proprietary computerized voting machines in Florida, and particularily in south Florida, and particularily Miami/Dade county, in the '70s and later.
Right as I'm typing this, NPR is interviewing someone in south Florida who's saying that "...the votes that are missing [his exact words] are in south Florida, and in Miami/Dade, which would be expected to be heavily Democratic..."
This is too f*cking weird.
Check out the link to the book -- you can read the first four chapters online...
If, as it kinda seems at the moment, the Republicans win the Presidency, have a bare majority in the Senate, and a bare majority in the House of Representative, you'd better move your dope-smokin' butt to Mexico because you're gonna have a full-tilt right-wing dictatorship teaching you how you're 'sposed to live if you live in the Land of the Free®.
Land of the Free?
Ha!
You want Big Brother?
You got him!
And you can thank Ralph for four years of right-wing fascism...
...on NPR is just pointing out that this might be the first time in a long, long time that one party (read: the Republicans) may control the Presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives all at once..
I'm listening to Hillary on NPR and she's on CNN on cable and there's a good full second delay in her voice between the radio/audio and the cable/audio...
...that one of the major motivations in writing and editing the "stories" that get put up on/. for a long, long while now is to generate a high number of posts.
What do you folks think the market-droids show potential advertisers?
Statistics showing that the number of posts is up, up, up.
More posts means more eyeballs means support for the advertising rates.
Has any one but me noticed that the banner ads are often coming from such paragons of internet whoredom as doubleclick, et al?
Moderators: moderate as +1 Insightful, or get a backbone...
...and after you get a backbone, get two legs of your *own* to stand on.
"We have DSL and Cable modems, and we're not afraid to use them, especially at..."
"Considering how many of us in the West have Cable modems and DSL and T1 (I've got all three), you might be in for a bumpy ride, since we're going to watch your returns to.."
"We have way more high-speed than the rest of the nation put together - some of us have multiple high-speed net connections like me - Cable modem and DSL is rampant in Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, and San Francisco, hotbeds..."
Christ!
Go in the head and jack off or something.
So you've got high-speed connectivity, this makes you the center of the universe?
"...The[y] triage each attack and deal with those that actually form a real threat to the organisation..."
Even the most self-serving accounts of the previous crack says that the crackers were in for twelve days. M$ spun the story to say that they were watching the whole time; I don't believe that. Now *you* want us to believe that M$'s response team really focuses on attacks "...that actually form a real threat to the organization..."
Nuts. They flat didn't even know the first one was happening for 'way too long.
"...They also conduct internal tiger team attacks to ensure they know about the holes before attackers do..."
That's all real fine-and-dandy for the hard-core threats -- but every account I've read says that M$ was compromised by an email attachment that:
1) got into M$'s system in the first place
2) was executable because M$'s own software design defaults to firing-off an email attachment by merely double-clicking on it..
3) and finally, the M$ employee who did that hadn't even received the *most rudementary* training in protecting him/herself from such a brain-dead simple compromise
"Tiger teams"?
"Tiger teams" aren't going to do M$ any good; it's their own software and their own arrogance that did them in.
To let you continue:
"...Hopefully, you'll understand why most companies, including banks, are extremely reluctant to share information with the law enforcement agencies..."
No, I don't, particularily given your outlandish rationalization:
"...One simple little attack might take a company's value through the floor because investors don't understand the hoopla surrounding a security incident..."
"One simple little attack..."?
Hoopla?
That's what any shareholder concern boils down to? God forbid that a company's shares fall in price because they can't manage to implement a comprehensive security system.
And let's not worry the silly little investors about such trivia.
"Hey! They invested in our company. How smart can they be?"
This is one more "article" -- breathless and agitated in it's tone -- that gets put up on/. mainly because of "editors" who, through their Youth and Inexperience®" don't know whether something is a big deal, or not...
The accessibility of voter records is *ancient* news.
Years ago I ran for School Board.
I purchased voter records including name, mailing address, and voting history for about 6,000 registered voters in the precincts that made up the local school district.
When I bought these, I had perhaps six different companies in metro Seattle to choose from.
I paid about $25.00 for five floppies-full, ASCII, comma-delimited.
If I'd wanted to pay more, I could have had the data set up for various software.
This is no big deal, except this is stupider because you have to know the name and birthdate to get one record.
Slashdot Mirror
What we are seeing in the presidential election is the fact that the sloppiness and trickery that usually goes on (and that gets ignored when it doesn't seem to have any real effect on the outcome..) needs to be stopped and stopped quickly.
This will be a difficult problem to solve in the United States.
One principle problem will be that voting and elections are the responsibility of very localized governmental units -- counties, or their local equivalent -- and this means that any general solution will be stymied by the "states rights" and "local control" freaks.
It's very hard to imagine, if not impossible to imagine, a *nationwide* voting system that is uniform everywhere across the land, so you're going to end up with some variation on the same hodge-podge you've got now, for a long time.
As for digital voting: expect massive resistance from all those who don't use/understand computers anyway.
I suspect what we'll see more of is vote-by-mail -- what is now called an "absentee ballot" is really vote-by-mail right now: most people who use them are *not* on vacation, they just don't want to drive to a polling place, struggle to find a parking place, and wait in line with a bunch of strangers just to vote.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
"Knight, a master plumber whose four children had attended schools...
OK: the guy doesn't even *have* kids in the public schools now: he's already swept them off into a safe little nook where they are controlled in every thought and act.
And *don't* start with "...but he's paying taxes that support the public schools.." -- his share of the total school district budget is miniscule at best. His share is probably neither substantially larger nor smaller than anyone else's..
All of us are members of the entire society we live in, and a lot of people need to grow up and accept the fact that society at large may by necessity support transactions that we personally don't think much of...
Aha! This is what this is *really* all about: the guy has his own narrow little prejudices, and he's goddamed if he's going to let anybody else look at what he doesn't like.
What's inappropriate? Sites about meat-based diets? Sites about Amnesty International? Sites about AIDS information? Sites about anime? This is *one guy* -- he's got his kids sealed off from what *he* doesn't like, but now he's going to censor what anybody else can look at? And don't doubt for one moment that this is exactly where this is going...
The core problem here is that far too many people have the world-view of a three year-old: "I am the center of the entire universe, and *all* shall bow before my wishes".
The atomization of American culture by the widely-held belief that any single individual can mold collective behavior into his or her own narrow tastes is the serious threat here, not the fact that school district web logs are suddenly public information.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
They have an intimate familiarity with the ballot; of course they don't see anything wrong with it; they created it, there's no problem.
A voter for 23 years in Palm Beach county has stated on CNN, and it has been otherwise confirmed, that this was the *first time* this ballot layout had been used there. All previous elections used ballots which met Florida State election law by having the names always to the left of the mark. Finally, this voter stated that in 23 years of voting the order of the parties has *never* changed: first Republicans, then Democrats, then every body else. This is why so many people automatically punched the second hole: for 23 years the Democrats have always been the second choice on the ballot.
This ballot layout is in *direct* violation of Florida elections law. The bureaucrat who approved it should be fired.
The fact remains that 19,000 people were dis-enfranchised by this poorly-designed and illegal ballot in that they tried to correct their misunderstanding by punching their true choice, thus creating a double-punched ballot which was declared invalid.
So they're stupid: they can't be disenfranchised for stupidity (as much as some people here would like that...)
Many other people have reported that they attempted to have poll workers replace their incorrectly-punched ballot, and the poll workers refused to replace the incorrect ballot, which is flat-out illegal.
The final thought that anyone with an ounce of personal integrity will admit is that, if the shoe were on the other foot and all this were happening to the Republicans, the Republicans would be doing exactly the same goddam thing!
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Of course *all* the fucking bureaucrats who looked at the design thought it was OK: christ! they're the fucking bureaucrats and they know exactly what the ballot was all about and who all the candidtates were and blahblahblah...
This does not mean that *every* member of the public is going to understand *exactly* what the hell they're looking at, as clearly as the bureaucrat who designed it or approved the design, feeling no stress upon them because of how long they've waited, how many people in line behind them are waiting for *them*, the importance of the election, etc etc etc
The fucking bureaucrats have been looking at the ballot design all day every day for months.
Of course they don't see any problems with it: they created it, they know it intimately.
The voter gets to look at the damn thing for a minute every few years.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
No one knew who had won or lost at the point in time when Gore first conceded.
And: do you seriously thing Bush aka the Republicans would have done any differently if they had conceded based on incomplete information?
No, they wouldn't have...
And no, people in Palm Beach county are sueing, as is their right.
Gore aka the Democrats haven't sued anyone, yet.
And, once again in case you didn't get it, above: do you seriously thing Bush aka the Republicans would do any different?
Hell no.
Anyone who pretends that the Republicans would be acting any differently if the shoe was on the other foot is full of sh*t.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
If there is a replacement vote, it will only be open to those votes who, by their signatures on tallys at the polling places, can prove that they did vote on Tuesday.
It's not going to be opened to anyone, it's going to be an opportunity for those people who did vote to be certain that the ballots recorded truly show their real intentions.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Despite the fact that a lot of really smart, really impatient people don't like the idea that the ballots and the voting in Palm Beach county were compromised by some very real, very serious problems, the fact remains that a lot of ballots were cast with votes that were not what the voters intended, and that a lot of ballots were disallowed because people not as smart as you or me tried to correct their mistake by marking their ballot again.
It is necessary to make an accurate count of what these voters actually intended.
Even if, and particularily *because* these voters may not be as smart as some people here would like.
Stupidity is not cause for disenfranchisement.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
So you have the problem of an official form that the officials understand, but the public finds baffling; and the problem of actual illegal activity by poll workers in Palm Beach county.
The nation at large deserves better than this apparent combination of official malfeasance, and official misfeasance.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
See: http://enight.dos.state .fl.us /report.asp?Date=001107 (click on President/Vice President in the left frame, then click on President/Vice President at the top center..)
This is county-by-county ballot counts for the State of Florida.
Pat Buchanan received a total of 16,989 votes in the entire state.
Buchanan's highest vote total was Palm Beach with 3,407 votes.
Buchanan's *next* highest was 1,012 in Pinellas.
Buchanan's **next** highest vote total was 845 in Hillsborough county.
In other words (or numbers..) Buchanan received 3.36 times more votes in Palm Beach than in his next highest county.
Another way to look at it is to see that in Palm Beach, Buchanan received 61% of the vote cast for Nader.
In Pinellas, Buchanan got 10% of Nader's vote; in Hillsborough Buchanan got 11.3%. That was the general relationship between ballots cast for Nader vs ballots cast for Buchanan.
Another approach is to see that Buchanan received 20.05% of all votes cast for him in one county: Palm Beach.
Now, having said all that, I've looked at the ballot examples and in MNSHO you'd have to be pretty fsck'ing stupid to screw that one up...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
See: http://enight.dos.state.fl.us/report.asp?Date=0011 07 (click on President/Vice President in the left frame..)
This is county-by-county ballot counts for the State of Florida.
Pat Buchanan received a total of 16,989 votes in the entire state.
Buchanan's highest vote total was Palm Beach with 3,407 votes.
Buchanan's *next* highest was 1,012 in Pinellas.
Buchanan's **next** highest vote total was 845 in Hillsborough county.
In other words (or numbers..) Buchanan received 3.36 times more votes in Palm Beach than in his next highest county.
Another way to look at it is to see that in Palm Beach, Buchanan received 61% of the vote cast for Nader.
In Pinellas, Buchanan got 10% of Nader's vote; in Hillsborough Buchanan got 11.3%.
Another approach is to see that Buchanan received 20.05% of all votes cast for him in one county: Palm Beach.
Now, having said all that, I've looked at the ballot examples and in MNSHO you'd have to be pretty fsck'ing stupid to screw that one up...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
God!
What a tiny little world you live in.
You need to get out more.
The entire nation isn't made up of self-absorbed high-tech dot-com millionaires...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Brother Jeb is gonna deliver Florida for Gee-Dub-Ya...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
"Oh, sure," Gee-Dub-Ya said brightly.
"That's where George Washington had to figure out how he was going to get across the Delaware."
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
"... Mike McCune allleges that "About 90% of the national elections use use a device called the 'Shouptronic' to count the votes. The Shouptronic is a closed system that isn't open for inspection. Several groups argue that it has been used to fix the vote in elections. This is a good argument to use an open system for election counting." He points to this wacky but intriguing book by the equally wacky but intriguing Collier family. I'm convinced."
Again, did anybody read this?
The two Colliers wrote a book about vote manipulation by proprietary computerized voting machines in Florida, and particularily in south Florida, and particularily Miami/Dade county, in the '70s and later.
Right as I'm typing this, NPR is interviewing someone in south Florida who's saying that "...the votes that are missing [his exact words] are in south Florida, and in Miami/Dade, which would be expected to be heavily Democratic..."
This is too f*cking weird.
Check out the link to the book -- you can read the first four chapters online...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Land of the Free?
Ha!
You want Big Brother?
You got him!
And you can thank Ralph for four years of right-wing fascism...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
F*ck..
Can you say "right-wing dictatorship"?
Well, you may have to learn how to...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
Can you say wecho-wecho-wecho-wecho-wecho-wecho
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
The news media can't shut up.
They're sitting there in front of the cameras, with live mic's in their faces, and they gotta talk...
So they keep saying *something* even though what they're saying is based on complete conjecture.
A lot of what they're saying is based on exit polls; a significant number of people resent being exit-polled, and lie!
It's basically a pissing contest between CNN and NBC and blahblahblah...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
The Republicrat candidate answered:
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
What do you folks think the market-droids show potential advertisers?
Statistics showing that the number of posts is up, up, up.
More posts means more eyeballs means support for the advertising rates.
Has any one but me noticed that the banner ads are often coming from such paragons of internet whoredom as doubleclick, et al?
Moderators: moderate as +1 Insightful, or get a backbone...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
"Considering how many of us in the West have Cable modems and DSL and T1 (I've got all three), you might be in for a bumpy ride, since we're going to watch your returns to.."
"We have way more high-speed than the rest of the nation put together - some of us have multiple high-speed net connections like me - Cable modem and DSL is rampant in Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, and San Francisco, hotbeds..."
Christ!
Go in the head and jack off or something.
So you've got high-speed connectivity, this makes you the center of the universe?
It's twits like you that've ruined Seattle...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
"...The[y] triage each attack and deal with those that actually form a real threat to the organisation..."
Even the most self-serving accounts of the previous crack says that the crackers were in for twelve days. M$ spun the story to say that they were watching the whole time; I don't believe that. Now *you* want us to believe that M$'s response team really focuses on attacks "...that actually form a real threat to the organization..."
Nuts. They flat didn't even know the first one was happening for 'way too long.
"...They also conduct internal tiger team attacks to ensure they know about the holes before attackers do..."
That's all real fine-and-dandy for the hard-core threats -- but every account I've read says that M$ was compromised by an email attachment that:
"Tiger teams"?
"Tiger teams" aren't going to do M$ any good; it's their own software and their own arrogance that did them in.
To let you continue:
"...Hopefully, you'll understand why most companies, including banks, are extremely reluctant to share information with the law enforcement agencies..."
No, I don't, particularily given your outlandish rationalization:
"...One simple little attack might take a company's value through the floor because investors don't understand the hoopla surrounding a security incident..."
"One simple little attack..."?
Hoopla?
That's what any shareholder concern boils down to? God forbid that a company's shares fall in price because they can't manage to implement a comprehensive security system.
And let's not worry the silly little investors about such trivia.
"Hey! They invested in our company. How smart can they be?"
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
The accessibility of voter records is *ancient* news.
Years ago I ran for School Board.
I purchased voter records including name, mailing address, and voting history for about 6,000 registered voters in the precincts that made up the local school district.
When I bought these, I had perhaps six different companies in metro Seattle to choose from.
I paid about $25.00 for five floppies-full, ASCII, comma-delimited.
If I'd wanted to pay more, I could have had the data set up for various software.
This is no big deal, except this is stupider because you have to know the name and birthdate to get one record.
One at a time.
What a pain in the ass.
Twenty-five bucks got me 6,000.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®