If musicians (whoever they are) think that modern technology rips them off, they are always free to go back to old-fashioned ways, like, you know - going in wagons here and there and people will throw them money in their hats.
This I'd like to see.
I'm tired of the whole copyright/theft argument. Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that the RIAA is right and every single case of copyright infringement is solely to avoid paying for it. It's not, but let's assume it is. So what? The sole purpose, the end goal, of copyright is to encourage people to share their creative works. It isn't to make sure people get paid. That's the incentive, not the goal. It's the reason that copyrights were supposed to be limited and only covered certain uses. Well, guess what, people are still publishing their works and still making money doing it. Enough, evidenced by the fact that they are still doing it, to make it worthwhile. So where's the harm? What, exactly, are we worried about? Musicians are still recording, Hollywood is still making movies, authors are still writing. Who, exactly, is refusing to publish because piracy is so rampant?
The only valid argument for preventing piracy is that people won't publish if they can't get paid. Well, they're getting paid and they're publishing. I fail to see how this "rampant piracy" has diminished the quantity or quality of published works in the slightest. Copyright, despite the piracy, is doing what it was created to do.
No, it doesn't. As bizarre as it may seem, there are people out there who would choose A over B, B over C, and C over A. For such people, simple linear ranking won't work.
Then how do these people select their first choice out of a few in a plurality system? Any voting system is going to be dependent on the voter being able to make up his mind.
The examples I've seen of circular ranking have dealt with groups of people, not one single voter.
Not really. They can sit and run plates all day if they want and often do.
I did say he had to actually want to do it. But the fact is that even if his retrieving the information was questionable, he still had to stop the car and ask where your brother was going. With a black box system like the one in the article, he would not only have known that but also every time he had been there before. And you wouldn't even know it had happened.
Anyway, the point being, that while I think that the tinfoil hat wearing folks are a little crazy the truth is you need to set the systems up assuming that the worst person imaginable could have access to the information, because sometimes they do.
It's very easy to write concerns like this off as "tinfoil hat" type worries, but the fact is if systems like this can be abused, they will be. Your bored cop is a perfect example. That the information he can get is limited is a good thing.
I think that one of the best checks is to track viewing of data. This putz of a cop running plates for no good reason for example. If my brother were to file a complaint, and whoever looked at his records there's be evidence of him doing this & some sort of discipline would take place.
This assumes that his superiors care and that the general public knows about it. Your brother didn't complain, so likely nothing happened to this cop. How likely is he going to be caught and punished if your brother doesn't even know it happened?
To all the nuts who cut me off, slam their brakes in front of me, drive at 150 MPH in a school zone or 30 MPH on the highway....I would gladly replace the lot of you with SkyNet and yes I don't mind if the government knows where I am going.
There are ways to prevent all of this that don't mean violating people's privacy. And that you are willing to doesn't make it right.
As for the privacy nuts, recall that you have this little thing called a license plate that police can already use to pull down your life history from their cruiser,
What the police can get from your license plate is considerably less than what they can get from black boxes and the cop has to actually want to do it. That is, unless you're doing something to attract his attention, he likely won't care enough to bother.
and this plate is being photographed already to stop red light runners etc.
There are valid arguments against these kinds of things, but even without those arguments, it still requires someone to have done something wrong before they are activated. But that they are doing it does not mean they should be allowed to.
Remember, your right to total privacy ends the moment you step out of the house.
Which is a far cry from your right to privacy totally ending the moment you step out of your house. That you have a reduced expectation of privacy does not mean you have none.
Privacy is the result of what we let the government do, not the cause of what we don't let them do. We don't let them do certain things because they can be abused.
Your car already bears a linkable-to-its-owner token in teh form of a license plate.
Which, at the moment at least, requires a human to read it and look it up, providing they are allowed to. It stores no information about where the car has been, how fast it was going or whether or not it needs service. Only to whom it belongs. The sheer number of license plates on the road means that people (police included) are only likely to remember a plate if the car it is attached to is doing something unusual and they think to look at it.
Many of us has willingly added another intentifying device in the form of an electronic toll payer such as EZ-Pass.
And many of us haven't for this very reason. That some people are willing to give up this privacy does not mean everyone should have to.
Repeat after me: "You have no right to privacy in public." (especially when you are outdoors)
*sigh* That you have a reduced expectation of privacy does not mean you have no right to privacy and doesn't mean the government has the right to record every move you make simply because you left your house.
Yes, it violates their anonymity to the extent that someone they trust has to help them.
Which is exactly my point. They have to trust someone, others who aren't similarly disabled don't.
Not quite the same as excluding them from voting.
I never claimed it excluded them from voting.
Do you think that voting machines are somehow more accessible to people with disabilities, and if so, how?
There are a number of technologies on the market from speech synthesizers and screen readers that can enable the blind to use a computer to vote without violating their anonymity. While they may not have all the bugs worked out, it's certainly an avenue worth exploring.
(Oh, and at the risk of being repetitive, we don't tend to sweat the whole anonymity thing quite as much.)
Well, a number of people here do. Saying "your concerns aren't important" doesn't satisfy those concerns. We might be a little more paranoid, but that's not going to change because someone said it doesn't matter. The whole security issue could be fixed entirely by simply printing the voter's name and how they voted in the paper the next day. Then it wouldn't matter what mechanism you used to vote because the input and the output could both be verified. But I am in the minority by a bunch on this one.
That being said, I have no problem with electronic voting, provided that it improves accessibility, is more secure and accountable than the existing system, and is cost-effective.
That is exactly what I am asking for.
Until it is, though, I like paper ballots just fine.
My issue is with the people who smugly suggest "this thing called paper" as though it was the perfect solution and any problems paper has are so negligible as to be non-existant. The fact is that there are problems with paper that can be addressed by electronic systems. I'm also not looking for them tomorrow. But I'm tired of the argument that there is no need for them at all.
Actually, I have read the whole thread and I don't see you offering any proof of Canadians - blind, quadraplegic, developmentally disabled, black, white, puce, mauve, or fucking Martian - disenfranchised by our system.
I never claimed to prove anything, only that the issue of the procedures used for people unable to read or mark a paper ballot in most cases violate their anonymity has been discussed.
Um... how is putting a pencil mark inside a circle any more arbitrary than operating a voting machine?
Nothing. But I'm not the one claiming that the ability to put a pencil mark inside a circle is necessary and sufficient to determine a voter's ability to choose elected officials.
You have to follow instructions either way. Or are you thinking that the machine should just divine the voter's intentions?
No, but the machine can ask and notify the voter if he's made a mistake (such as selecting too many candidates). Paper can't.
Yeah, 'cause, you know, we have such trouble validating our election results. And blind people, they can't vote. And neither can people who can't read or don't speak English.
Oh, wait a minute, what was I thinking? Yes they can vote, and they do, and sometimes I help them, and it works fine. Sorry, I'm being a bit of a smartass here, but really - you're reaching.
This has been discussed already. If you're going to jump into the middle of an argument you might at least have the courtesy of reading it first.
It's not something you can prove easily, it's an opinion based on an attitude towards personal responsibility, which rights are dependent upon. It's a basic notion of democratic sovereignty: you want to participate in running your country? Follow some very simple rules, at minimum.
Fine. Let's make it a real test then. You get as many sample ballots as you like but you can only turn one in. If that one isn't valid (determined by whatever means you like so long as it's consistent with determining the validity of a real ballot) then you are denied your right to vote. I don't know about Canada, but I know if anyone tried this in the US it would be a bloody revolution. The only difference between this and the discarding of invalid ballots is that the public knows the first is happening. Let me ask you this: Have you never had a ballot discarded because it invalid? How would you know? You wouldn't and that's the point. For all you know not one of your ballots has ever been counted.
The instructions, to the literate, are not arbitrary, they're coherent with the convention of selecting an item from a list.
They are arbitrary in that they were not selected to determine the voter's ability to vote yet are being used as the sole basis to judge that ability.
What's worse, someone stepping on your foot in the elevator by accident, or someone walking up and kicking you?
Providing both injuries were comparable it doesn't matter one whit to me whether or not it was intentional. One was careless, one was malicious, both hurt my foot. Neither should have done it. Whether my vote is uncounted (or counted wrongly) because a counter couldn't interpret it or because someone else changed it the end result is the same, my vote has not been counted correctly. That one was malicious doesn't change the outcome. Both should be prevented.
>The entire purpose of voting itself is to centralize power.
Oh.... Wow.
Is that a refutation? Casting a vote to put a person into office is the granting of power to the few over the many.
Well, that's true. Weigh the inevitability of some making mistakes against the ability of some to make fraud, and you'll understand the argument--a paper system like the Canadian one is the best compromise at the moment, serving the greatest good. So few make the mistake you're talking about, using our system.
My point exactly. It's a compromise that need not exist. It is possible to have both. But those satisfied with the compromise are unwilling to even entertain the notion that there might be a better way.
One that has no moving parts and a social arrangement that makes it tamper proof. This isn't just about user interface.
Strictly, paper doesn't satisfy this either. If, for the first generation, the electronic machine does nothing but print paper ballots, and print out totals at the end. The paper ballots are still hand counted, their total is the one that is official, but they are compared against the electronic terminal as a kind of audit. All we've done is change the pencil to a computer screen and everything else is the same. The voter still has a piece of paper he can look at and verify it is correct, but the terminal gives him the error checking that makes sure his ballot will be counted and doesn't violate his anonymity. How is this insecure? This, at the moment, is all I'm asking for. Most of the benefits with none of the risk.
Of course it's important. Security of the electoral system is more important. It's a compromise based on priorities.
Like I said, it's a compromise that need not be made.
Hm. funny, we don't have that problem in federal elections. See my point about keeping the ballot paper obvious, and about educating the voter. Not that we are above disenfr
The US is also unusual in that registers of voters record party membership rather than just being a list of people who can vote.
This is only used in the primaries and is supposedly to prevent people from one party voting for the weaker candidate in the other party. In actuality, there's nothing preventing people from registering as one to screw up the primary and voting for the other in the general election (except that they can't vote in their own party's primary, but in the case of an incumbent running, that's largely academic).
Untrue. Voting may be on/off, but all the social values and ideologies surrounding how voting is done are definitely analog.
I cannot see how someone can simultaneously claim that tampering with a vote is unacceptable but throwing it out is not. If the vote is important, make every effort to determine the voter's intent. If an electronic system can do that without violating anonymity, then I say it's worth looking into.
Actually, in one sense it is [a test].
Then it's a bloody poor one. I fail to see how a person's performance on one instance of following arbitrary instructions is in anyway indicative of their ability to choose their elected officials.
The bar for being able to vote successfuly in an election in Canada is set very low.
Ideally, there shouldn't be a bar at all.
No one is assuming that paper systems don't have problems, that's a straw man you're burning there. People here are mostly saying that these systems have the fewest problems compared to the other options!
They are saying these problems do not need to be addressed. Even if paper is the best available now, there is still room for improvement.
So now you're confirming the stereotype of bellicose american,
Just conforming to the stereotype that was offered. If he's going to discount my argument on the basis of being a stupid american I don't see why I shouldn't have the luxury of acting that way.
I should look for the posts that quote sources or have obvious personal experience.
I was assuming that anyone explaining the rules to me would have had personal experience with them. Two of them claimed to have worked at elections. Silly me. But beyond that it was the fact that these "simple and obvious" rules, so simple that anyone who couldn't follow them should disqualify them from voting, weren't understood by the people claiming they were so simple and obvious.
Everyone who responded to you has valid reason to believe they're right, there aren't really contradictions,
"Only an X counts, everything else is invalid" and "any mark counts" are contradictory. That they don't agree supports my argument.
There are always going to be problems with rejected ballots, but they're very low percentages, and can be mainly accounted for by people who wanted to have the ballot rejected or weren't fulfilling their duties as a voter.
No one has yet proven to me that failing to follow a set of arbitrary instructions once is sufficient grounds to disqualify the voter from having his voice heard, especially when he will never know that he was disqualified. But another point, would you be willing to accept the same low perentages of vote tampering?
Solve that problem, make voting machines impervious to blackouts, backdoors, millions of lines of inevitably buggy code, viruses and other electronic monsters, intervention by the makers of the machines, oh, and make them simple to use
All of this is entirely possible. The same things that make paper ballots secure, the processes surrounding them, can make electronic voting machines secure with the added benefits of validation and equal access to the sight impaired or those who cannot read or don't speak english. Obviously it's going to take time and I'm certainly not suggesting we use Diebold's machines tomorrow. I'm just not as willing to write the whole concept off simply because one implementation was done poorly.
and as cheap as a few tables and cardboard boxes, and you'll have me convinced that they might be good for democracy.
I don't think cost should be an issue if the benefits are there.
Centralized technology concentrates power, which is undemocratic.
The entire purpose of voting itself is to centralize power.
First of all, we resent youze amurricans confusing us with a yeast infection! We have more culture than that! Typical:-P
I'm trying to type with a broken finger. Sue me.
But seriously, some of us spoil ballots as a protest. It isn't given a proper category, so it has limited value, but there you are, people do it anyway and it's their right.
That's fine. Have a "protest" or "no vote" option, or simply confirm yes, I know my vote is invalid, submit it anyway. I'm only concerned with people who wish to submit a valid ballot having it counted correctly.
There's another benefit to hand-counting that I haven't seen noted in this story yet: civic involvement. More labour-intensive elections involve more people at the grassroots to get the work done. I don't see how automating things is more desireable than an involved electorate.
There is plenty for volunteers to do besides hand-counting ballots. A lot of paper ballots in the US are read by machine anyway, other areas have mechanical voting machines. An electronic system that produces a paper ballot (as should be absolutely required) will still have a need for hand-counting for audits or recounts.
is a citizen who can't negotiate a very simple ballot exercising their responsibility? if they aren't exercising their responsibility, don't they forfeit their rights along with it?
I fail to see how a voter's performance in a single instance of trying to follow a set of arbitrary instructions in any way determines his fitness to choose his elected officials. Especially when that voter will never know if he's done it wrong.
While Canadians may not consider it important, there have been numerous occasions in US history where entire groups of people have been denied their right to vote by others making arbitrary requirements to disqualify them. This is even more dangerous when the disqualification isn't obvious such as in the case of an invalidated ballot.
Isn't there some way you can work to make your electorate more responsible so that they don't have to be spoonfed at the polling station?
This isn't about spoonfeeding voters. People make mistakes. I don't think they should lose their right to choose their elected officials because they made one.
Or, perhaps, make the paper ballots undeniably dead simple?
What could be simpler than a ballot that is capable of telling you when you've made a mistake that could cost you your vote?
Can't you lower the risk associated with losing the complete anonymity of a vote for those who need assistance?
If anonymity is important, it's important for everyone.
Maybe there's some connection to the poor turnouts at polling time. Seems like a sociocultural fix is in order, not a technical fix.
People aren't voting because they think it doesn't matter, not because they don't know how to do it.
Some people deliberately choose to spoil a ballot as some sort of protest vote. I'm willing to let them have it.
Fine. Let them verify that they intend to submit a spoiled ballot. My concern is solely for the people who wish to submit valid ballots.
Perhaps, but it's a false dichotomy. The answers have been essentially the same with respect to content.
Actually they weren't. Two people suggested only an X and if you can't manage that you shouldn't be voting, and one suggested as long as the voter's intention could be determined.
If you're interested, the full Elections Act is here.
Whatever it is isn't important. I just found it interesting that the rules which were so simple and obvious couldn't be agreed on.
Americans: What do you mean by X and circle? What if I'm given a pen with disappearing ink?
So these instructions are so simple only an idiot could screw them up, but the four of you who explained them to me can't even agree on what the instructions are. I wonder which of you are the idiots.
No, we're pretty common-sense oriented, so it's simple and reliable: intent is nearly always obvious,
Well, I've had four Candadians (I'm assuming) explain to me what those simple rules are and have gotten three different answers.
in the rare case they can't agree, it's a spoiled ballot.
I believe a system which could eliminate spoiled ballots altogether has some merit. There seems to be a dichotomy of opinion when it comes to this: either humans make judgement calls or make the rules so rigid that the ballot is easily discounted. The third option people are ignoring is a system that provides validation to the voter.
but the voting process itself functions very reliably with decent accountability and few errors
An electronic system could be built with decent accountability and few errors also, with the added benefit of verifying the voter's intention very clearly.
I've seen some comments about people getting assistance and losing a degree of anonymity with their vote. You have to realize that we just aren't very hung up on that particular privacy at the interpersonal level, since we don't have the same degree of risk, being on the whole more tolerant of differing political opinions than our southern neighbours.
So you're saying that although it works great in Canada, the US has problems that make it less practical. Funny, so am I;-)
My point is not that the Canadian system of voting doesn't work. My point is that paper systems do have problems that can be solved by electronic systems that people tend to ignore when they smugly recommend paper as a solution to Diebold's incompetence, thus writing off an entire technology simply because one implementation of it was piss poor.
If you don't think discounting whole ballots because they were incorrectly filled out is a problem, fine. If you think following arbitrary directions is more important than ensuring the vote is counted, fine. If you believe a mistake in following those directions means the voter is incapable of making the decision his vote represents, fine. I disagree.
Any clear mark counts. A X, Check Mark, circle filled in completely, smiley face, etc. The point is that the voters intention is considered to be more important then the method. A ballot is spoiled if the Scruteneers cannot determine the voters intention, ie two or more names are marked somehow.
Slashdot Mirror
Does anyone know how this would actually make you feel?
Deathly ill with no hope of passing out?
If musicians (whoever they are) think that modern technology rips them off, they are always free to go back to old-fashioned ways, like, you know - going in wagons here and there and people will throw them money in their hats.
This I'd like to see.
I'm tired of the whole copyright/theft argument. Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that the RIAA is right and every single case of copyright infringement is solely to avoid paying for it. It's not, but let's assume it is. So what? The sole purpose, the end goal, of copyright is to encourage people to share their creative works. It isn't to make sure people get paid. That's the incentive, not the goal. It's the reason that copyrights were supposed to be limited and only covered certain uses. Well, guess what, people are still publishing their works and still making money doing it. Enough, evidenced by the fact that they are still doing it, to make it worthwhile. So where's the harm? What, exactly, are we worried about? Musicians are still recording, Hollywood is still making movies, authors are still writing. Who, exactly, is refusing to publish because piracy is so rampant?
The only valid argument for preventing piracy is that people won't publish if they can't get paid. Well, they're getting paid and they're publishing. I fail to see how this "rampant piracy" has diminished the quantity or quality of published works in the slightest. Copyright, despite the piracy, is doing what it was created to do.
"Do unto others, then run" -- Benny Hill
If you can't attack the argument, attack the man.
Science has not, nor will it ever save my life. I am going to die, and science can not stop that. We're all dying.
Yes, but science has greatly increased the lifespan and quality of life of the average person. Unless you don't consider that worthwhile...
It's like the housewife who goes to the mall to buy several pairs of shoes. "I saved fifteen dollars!" "Yes dear, but you spent $70."
If she was going to buy the shoes regardless if they were on sale, then she did save $15.
No, it doesn't.
As bizarre as it may seem, there are people out there who would choose A over B, B over C, and C over A.
For such people, simple linear ranking won't work.
Then how do these people select their first choice out of a few in a plurality system? Any voting system is going to be dependent on the voter being able to make up his mind.
The examples I've seen of circular ranking have dealt with groups of people, not one single voter.
Not really. They can sit and run plates all day if they want and often do.
I did say he had to actually want to do it. But the fact is that even if his retrieving the information was questionable, he still had to stop the car and ask where your brother was going. With a black box system like the one in the article, he would not only have known that but also every time he had been there before. And you wouldn't even know it had happened.
Anyway, the point being, that while I think that the tinfoil hat wearing folks are a little crazy the truth is you need to set the systems up assuming that the worst person imaginable could have access to the information, because sometimes they do.
It's very easy to write concerns like this off as "tinfoil hat" type worries, but the fact is if systems like this can be abused, they will be. Your bored cop is a perfect example. That the information he can get is limited is a good thing.
I think that one of the best checks is to track viewing of data. This putz of a cop running plates for no good reason for example. If my brother were to file a complaint, and whoever looked at his records there's be evidence of him doing this & some sort of discipline would take place.
This assumes that his superiors care and that the general public knows about it. Your brother didn't complain, so likely nothing happened to this cop. How likely is he going to be caught and punished if your brother doesn't even know it happened?
To all the nuts who cut me off, slam their brakes in front of me, drive at 150 MPH in a school zone or 30 MPH on the highway....I would gladly replace the lot of you with SkyNet and yes I don't mind if the government knows where I am going.
There are ways to prevent all of this that don't mean violating people's privacy. And that you are willing to doesn't make it right.
As for the privacy nuts, recall that you have this little thing called a license plate that police can already use to pull down your life history from their cruiser,
What the police can get from your license plate is considerably less than what they can get from black boxes and the cop has to actually want to do it. That is, unless you're doing something to attract his attention, he likely won't care enough to bother.
and this plate is being photographed already to stop red light runners etc.
There are valid arguments against these kinds of things, but even without those arguments, it still requires someone to have done something wrong before they are activated. But that they are doing it does not mean they should be allowed to.
Remember, your right to total privacy ends the moment you step out of the house.
Which is a far cry from your right to privacy totally ending the moment you step out of your house. That you have a reduced expectation of privacy does not mean you have none.
Privacy is the result of what we let the government do, not the cause of what we don't let them do. We don't let them do certain things because they can be abused.
Your car already bears a linkable-to-its-owner token in teh form of a license plate.
Which, at the moment at least, requires a human to read it and look it up, providing they are allowed to. It stores no information about where the car has been, how fast it was going or whether or not it needs service. Only to whom it belongs. The sheer number of license plates on the road means that people (police included) are only likely to remember a plate if the car it is attached to is doing something unusual and they think to look at it.
Many of us has willingly added another intentifying device in the form of an electronic toll payer such as EZ-Pass.
And many of us haven't for this very reason. That some people are willing to give up this privacy does not mean everyone should have to.
Repeat after me: "You have no right to privacy in public." (especially when you are outdoors)
*sigh* That you have a reduced expectation of privacy does not mean you have no right to privacy and doesn't mean the government has the right to record every move you make simply because you left your house.
Idiot.
Scathing argument asshole. From an AC no less. The rest of your comment is hereby ignored.
Yes, it violates their anonymity to the extent that someone they trust has to help them.
Which is exactly my point. They have to trust someone, others who aren't similarly disabled don't.
Not quite the same as excluding them from voting.
I never claimed it excluded them from voting.
Do you think that voting machines are somehow more accessible to people with disabilities, and if so, how?
There are a number of technologies on the market from speech synthesizers and screen readers that can enable the blind to use a computer to vote without violating their anonymity. While they may not have all the bugs worked out, it's certainly an avenue worth exploring.
(Oh, and at the risk of being repetitive, we don't tend to sweat the whole anonymity thing quite as much.)
Well, a number of people here do. Saying "your concerns aren't important" doesn't satisfy those concerns. We might be a little more paranoid, but that's not going to change because someone said it doesn't matter. The whole security issue could be fixed entirely by simply printing the voter's name and how they voted in the paper the next day. Then it wouldn't matter what mechanism you used to vote because the input and the output could both be verified. But I am in the minority by a bunch on this one.
That being said, I have no problem with electronic voting, provided that it improves accessibility, is more secure and accountable than the existing system, and is cost-effective.
That is exactly what I am asking for.
Until it is, though, I like paper ballots just fine.
My issue is with the people who smugly suggest "this thing called paper" as though it was the perfect solution and any problems paper has are so negligible as to be non-existant. The fact is that there are problems with paper that can be addressed by electronic systems. I'm also not looking for them tomorrow. But I'm tired of the argument that there is no need for them at all.
Actually, I have read the whole thread and I don't see you offering any proof of Canadians - blind, quadraplegic, developmentally disabled, black, white, puce, mauve, or fucking Martian - disenfranchised by our system.
Try looking here
I never claimed to prove anything, only that the issue of the procedures used for people unable to read or mark a paper ballot in most cases violate their anonymity has been discussed.
Um... how is putting a pencil mark inside a circle any more arbitrary than operating a voting machine?
Nothing. But I'm not the one claiming that the ability to put a pencil mark inside a circle is necessary and sufficient to determine a voter's ability to choose elected officials.
You have to follow instructions either way. Or are you thinking that the machine should just divine the voter's intentions?
No, but the machine can ask and notify the voter if he's made a mistake (such as selecting too many candidates). Paper can't.
Yeah, 'cause, you know, we have such trouble validating our election results. And blind people, they can't vote. And neither can people who can't read or don't speak English.
Oh, wait a minute, what was I thinking? Yes they can vote, and they do, and sometimes I help them, and it works fine. Sorry, I'm being a bit of a smartass here, but really - you're reaching.
This has been discussed already. If you're going to jump into the middle of an argument you might at least have the courtesy of reading it first.
It's not something you can prove easily, it's an opinion based on an attitude towards personal responsibility, which rights are dependent upon. It's a basic notion of democratic sovereignty: you want to participate in running your country? Follow some very simple rules, at minimum.
Fine. Let's make it a real test then. You get as many sample ballots as you like but you can only turn one in. If that one isn't valid (determined by whatever means you like so long as it's consistent with determining the validity of a real ballot) then you are denied your right to vote. I don't know about Canada, but I know if anyone tried this in the US it would be a bloody revolution. The only difference between this and the discarding of invalid ballots is that the public knows the first is happening. Let me ask you this: Have you never had a ballot discarded because it invalid? How would you know? You wouldn't and that's the point. For all you know not one of your ballots has ever been counted.
The instructions, to the literate, are not arbitrary, they're coherent with the convention of selecting an item from a list.
They are arbitrary in that they were not selected to determine the voter's ability to vote yet are being used as the sole basis to judge that ability.
What's worse, someone stepping on your foot in the elevator by accident, or someone walking up and kicking you?
Providing both injuries were comparable it doesn't matter one whit to me whether or not it was intentional. One was careless, one was malicious, both hurt my foot. Neither should have done it. Whether my vote is uncounted (or counted wrongly) because a counter couldn't interpret it or because someone else changed it the end result is the same, my vote has not been counted correctly. That one was malicious doesn't change the outcome. Both should be prevented.
>The entire purpose of voting itself is to centralize power.
Oh.... Wow.
Is that a refutation? Casting a vote to put a person into office is the granting of power to the few over the many.
[combining threads original parent is here]
Well, that's true. Weigh the inevitability of some making mistakes against the ability of some to make fraud, and you'll understand the argument--a paper system like the Canadian one is the best compromise at the moment, serving the greatest good. So few make the mistake you're talking about, using our system.
My point exactly. It's a compromise that need not exist. It is possible to have both. But those satisfied with the compromise are unwilling to even entertain the notion that there might be a better way.
One that has no moving parts and a social arrangement that makes it tamper proof. This isn't just about user interface.
Strictly, paper doesn't satisfy this either. If, for the first generation, the electronic machine does nothing but print paper ballots, and print out totals at the end. The paper ballots are still hand counted, their total is the one that is official, but they are compared against the electronic terminal as a kind of audit. All we've done is change the pencil to a computer screen and everything else is the same. The voter still has a piece of paper he can look at and verify it is correct, but the terminal gives him the error checking that makes sure his ballot will be counted and doesn't violate his anonymity. How is this insecure? This, at the moment, is all I'm asking for. Most of the benefits with none of the risk.
Of course it's important. Security of the electoral system is more important. It's a compromise based on priorities.
Like I said, it's a compromise that need not be made.
Hm. funny, we don't have that problem in federal elections. See my point about keeping the ballot paper obvious, and about educating the voter. Not that we are above disenfr
The US is also unusual in that registers of voters record party membership rather than just being a list of people who can vote.
This is only used in the primaries and is supposedly to prevent people from one party voting for the weaker candidate in the other party. In actuality, there's nothing preventing people from registering as one to screw up the primary and voting for the other in the general election (except that they can't vote in their own party's primary, but in the case of an incumbent running, that's largely academic).
Untrue. Voting may be on/off, but all the social values and ideologies surrounding how voting is done are definitely analog.
I cannot see how someone can simultaneously claim that tampering with a vote is unacceptable but throwing it out is not. If the vote is important, make every effort to determine the voter's intent. If an electronic system can do that without violating anonymity, then I say it's worth looking into.
Actually, in one sense it is [a test].
Then it's a bloody poor one. I fail to see how a person's performance on one instance of following arbitrary instructions is in anyway indicative of their ability to choose their elected officials.
The bar for being able to vote successfuly in an election in Canada is set very low.
Ideally, there shouldn't be a bar at all.
No one is assuming that paper systems don't have problems, that's a straw man you're burning there. People here are mostly saying that these systems have the fewest problems compared to the other options!
They are saying these problems do not need to be addressed. Even if paper is the best available now, there is still room for improvement.
So now you're confirming the stereotype of bellicose american,
Just conforming to the stereotype that was offered. If he's going to discount my argument on the basis of being a stupid american I don't see why I shouldn't have the luxury of acting that way.
I should look for the posts that quote sources or have obvious personal experience.
I was assuming that anyone explaining the rules to me would have had personal experience with them. Two of them claimed to have worked at elections. Silly me. But beyond that it was the fact that these "simple and obvious" rules, so simple that anyone who couldn't follow them should disqualify them from voting, weren't understood by the people claiming they were so simple and obvious.
Everyone who responded to you has valid reason to believe they're right, there aren't really contradictions,
"Only an X counts, everything else is invalid" and "any mark counts" are contradictory. That they don't agree supports my argument.
and you're baiting.
Just responding in kind.
There are always going to be problems with rejected ballots, but they're very low percentages, and can be mainly accounted for by people who wanted to have the ballot rejected or weren't fulfilling their duties as a voter.
No one has yet proven to me that failing to follow a set of arbitrary instructions once is sufficient grounds to disqualify the voter from having his voice heard, especially when he will never know that he was disqualified. But another point, would you be willing to accept the same low perentages of vote tampering?
Solve that problem, make voting machines impervious to blackouts, backdoors, millions of lines of inevitably buggy code, viruses and other electronic monsters, intervention by the makers of the machines, oh, and make them simple to use
All of this is entirely possible. The same things that make paper ballots secure, the processes surrounding them, can make electronic voting machines secure with the added benefits of validation and equal access to the sight impaired or those who cannot read or don't speak english. Obviously it's going to take time and I'm certainly not suggesting we use Diebold's machines tomorrow. I'm just not as willing to write the whole concept off simply because one implementation was done poorly.
and as cheap as a few tables and cardboard boxes, and you'll have me convinced that they might be good for democracy.
I don't think cost should be an issue if the benefits are there.
Centralized technology concentrates power, which is undemocratic.
The entire purpose of voting itself is to centralize power.
First of all, we resent youze amurricans confusing us with a yeast infection! We have more culture than that! Typical :-P
I'm trying to type with a broken finger. Sue me.
But seriously, some of us spoil ballots as a protest. It isn't given a proper category, so it has limited value, but there you are, people do it anyway and it's their right.
That's fine. Have a "protest" or "no vote" option, or simply confirm yes, I know my vote is invalid, submit it anyway. I'm only concerned with people who wish to submit a valid ballot having it counted correctly.
There's another benefit to hand-counting that I haven't seen noted in this story yet: civic involvement. More labour-intensive elections involve more people at the grassroots to get the work done. I don't see how automating things is more desireable than an involved electorate.
There is plenty for volunteers to do besides hand-counting ballots. A lot of paper ballots in the US are read by machine anyway, other areas have mechanical voting machines. An electronic system that produces a paper ballot (as should be absolutely required) will still have a need for hand-counting for audits or recounts.
is a citizen who can't negotiate a very simple ballot exercising their responsibility? if they aren't exercising their responsibility, don't they forfeit their rights along with it?
I fail to see how a voter's performance in a single instance of trying to follow a set of arbitrary instructions in any way determines his fitness to choose his elected officials. Especially when that voter will never know if he's done it wrong.
While Canadians may not consider it important, there have been numerous occasions in US history where entire groups of people have been denied their right to vote by others making arbitrary requirements to disqualify them. This is even more dangerous when the disqualification isn't obvious such as in the case of an invalidated ballot.
Isn't there some way you can work to make your electorate more responsible so that they don't have to be spoonfed at the polling station?
This isn't about spoonfeeding voters. People make mistakes. I don't think they should lose their right to choose their elected officials because they made one.
Or, perhaps, make the paper ballots undeniably dead simple?
What could be simpler than a ballot that is capable of telling you when you've made a mistake that could cost you your vote?
Can't you lower the risk associated with losing the complete anonymity of a vote for those who need assistance?
If anonymity is important, it's important for everyone.
Maybe there's some connection to the poor turnouts at polling time. Seems like a sociocultural fix is in order, not a technical fix.
People aren't voting because they think it doesn't matter, not because they don't know how to do it.
Some people deliberately choose to spoil a ballot as some sort of protest vote. I'm willing to let them have it.
Fine. Let them verify that they intend to submit a spoiled ballot. My concern is solely for the people who wish to submit valid ballots.
Perhaps, but it's a false dichotomy. The answers have been essentially the same with respect to content.
Actually they weren't. Two people suggested only an X and if you can't manage that you shouldn't be voting, and one suggested as long as the voter's intention could be determined.
If you're interested, the full Elections Act is here.
Whatever it is isn't important. I just found it interesting that the rules which were so simple and obvious couldn't be agreed on.
Americans: What do you mean by X and circle? What if I'm given a pen with disappearing ink?
So these instructions are so simple only an idiot could screw them up, but the four of you who explained them to me can't even agree on what the instructions are. I wonder which of you are the idiots.
No, we're pretty common-sense oriented, so it's simple and reliable: intent is nearly always obvious,
;-)
Well, I've had four Candadians (I'm assuming) explain to me what those simple rules are and have gotten three different answers.
in the rare case they can't agree, it's a spoiled ballot.
I believe a system which could eliminate spoiled ballots altogether has some merit. There seems to be a dichotomy of opinion when it comes to this: either humans make judgement calls or make the rules so rigid that the ballot is easily discounted. The third option people are ignoring is a system that provides validation to the voter.
but the voting process itself functions very reliably with decent accountability and few errors
An electronic system could be built with decent accountability and few errors also, with the added benefit of verifying the voter's intention very clearly.
I've seen some comments about people getting assistance and losing a degree of anonymity with their vote. You have to realize that we just aren't very hung up on that particular privacy at the interpersonal level, since we don't have the same degree of risk, being on the whole more tolerant of differing political opinions than our southern neighbours.
So you're saying that although it works great in Canada, the US has problems that make it less practical. Funny, so am I
My point is not that the Canadian system of voting doesn't work. My point is that paper systems do have problems that can be solved by electronic systems that people tend to ignore when they smugly recommend paper as a solution to Diebold's incompetence, thus writing off an entire technology simply because one implementation of it was piss poor.
If you don't think discounting whole ballots because they were incorrectly filled out is a problem, fine. If you think following arbitrary directions is more important than ensuring the vote is counted, fine. If you believe a mistake in following those directions means the voter is incapable of making the decision his vote represents, fine. I disagree.
Any clear mark counts. A X, Check Mark, circle filled in completely, smiley face, etc. The point is that the voters intention is considered to be more important then the method. A ballot is spoiled if the Scruteneers cannot determine the voters intention, ie two or more names are marked somehow.
Beardo the Bearded and an AC say it's an X and only an X.
Idarubicin claims it's an X and possibly a check mark.
And you believe it's just about anything.
It's funny how the four people who've remarked on this can't even agree what the right answer is but it's not a problem.