Many countries (eg Australia) actually fine people for not voting. The point of the campaign is to get people involved with the political system, which is the whole foundation of democracy to begin with.
By going out and voting, whether you do for a major candidate or even if you write-in 'mickey mouse', you get involved with the system.
Just wondering - Do they count and report protest votes such as the ones for Mickey Mouse?
Ok, so the paper receipt stays there. I wonder what happens if the printer jams or runs out of paper. It would be sort of like when the cash register jams at the supermarket. You'd stand there patiently waiting while a supervisor comes over and unjams it. Your vote doesn't register electronically until the paper prints out to your satisfaction. Fortunately, there is only one queue for a whole room full of machines, so you won't have the next customer standing next to you swearing as though you let it happen on purpose.
Wouldn't that mess up a recount? Not if the spoiled paper was disposed of properly in a secure trash can. The voter wouldn't enter his ballot as complete until he has approved his paper copy. Spoiled paper goes into secure trash bin and only his final ballot spits out. That is actually a very good question because you don't ever want the voter to have his hands on more than one ballot.
What happens if you only alter the electronic tally of the visually impaired (triggered when someone resizes the base font to 72pts). Enough to buy some voters and not tip off anyone. If they can't read a standard ballot I suspect they'd have a problem checking the receipt with 12pt type. Ah yes, the dishonest programming trick. This could also be triggered if someone turns on the speech option. One way around that is to use a completely separate software module to adjust the accessibility features than the module used to tabulate the vote. Another would be to not use software, but to have a knob that can be turned to zoom in and leave the headphone jack active at all times so that the machine would not know that a headphone was being used. The law allows blind people to be accompanied by a helper. This law hasn't been changed. Although one of the main selling features of these machines is that more people can use them without a helper, it may be prudent to bring one in an especially critical election. This is something for the organizations for the blind to investigate and advise the affected population.
Of course someone could just steal or trash the paper receipts making an audit almost impossible. All trash should be guarded as securely as the ballots and the machines. Unfortunately, this could lead to further lawsuits as losers insist on the right to have the rubbish scrutinized as closely as the ballots. The "vote buying or bullying" issue you brought up is a good one. I guess a valid reason not to leave with a receipt. I recently heard of vote buying and using a cell phone camera for the proof. People are creative. We should always guard against the old tricks while being alert to these updated versions. Possibly camera phones could be confiscated or the polling place could be rendered a dead zone by those devices used to shut up cell phones in French restarants. Ultimately "if there's a will there's a way" to hack an election. IMO evoting just adds another layer to the process that can alter an election's outcome. That's why it is especially important not to complicate the system unnecessarily. The Diebold machines that are in use all over my state are less capable than the butterfly machines that they replace. They don't even do a good job of flagging possible user errors, the sort that results in no vote cast. We had almost as many invalid votes in the last election as back when the butterfly ballots were used.
Thanks again for reply. Deserves a +5, Informative.
While I disagree with the idea that kids are always more informed than their parents, I do think it is valuable to get anyone the least bit interested to register, research, and vote. They should get into the habit of voting while they are young and more likely to get into meaningful debates with their friends. If they can't find the time to vote when they are in school, they will never find the time when they are employed.
They all have internet access, so they have the means to be very informed voters if they only have something to motivate them. Being registered is a motivator. If you are registered you are more likely to research. If you research, you are more likely to vote. If you aren't registered, research is a waste of time. When young people couldn't vote, they had to resort to mass demonstrations that were a much more dangerous way to express their opinions.
The message that the students should get is that if people as moronic as diCaprio and incoherent as Blige can participate, then surely the cream of the United States educational system should not allow themselves to be intimidated by scary politicians and ballots. Heck, knowing which way DiCaprio is planning to vote might send the more thoughtful students running to the other parties.
If after seeing this dog and pony show they still feel unqualified and unmotivated to vote, maybe they are right. Much as I want people to come out and vote, I don't ever want anyone to vote against their will.
A massive nationwide database is a scary thing. It can start off for one little purpose, but it is very convenient to hang new uses onto it. Look what happened to Social Security.
If I could be assured that names and other personal information would never be added to it, this seems like an ideal system to eliminate voting by dead people and OperationSnowbird participants.
It gets the kids interested. Once registered, they usually talk about politics with their friends and sometimes even do research. Most people, even kids, feel kind of stupid showing up to vote when they haven't done their homework.
The hope is that they will come in and vote even if they aren't completely knowledgeable on every little issue. It's not a test, they can skip over anything they know nothing about. The typical American ballot is quite intimidating especially since you must vote for a variety of people and referendums both statewide and local. Don't forget to scroll down to the bottom where we get to vote on the definition of marriage and who should be the official local land surveyor. This can take you long time and if you are the kind of person who usually gets in the 90% on tests, it can make you feel kinda stupid.
The receipt doesn't leave the polling place. It is a human readable printout of who all you have voted for. You look over it, then go stuff it in the ballot box just like the old butterfly ballots.
Ideally, a random sellection of these ballot boxes would be opened up and counted and compared with the results of the electronic machines. This would verify that the machines were operating correctly. They would also be opened up and counted if a recount is needed.
At no time, would a voter carry a receipt out of the polling place. This could encourage vote buying or bullying. The most a voter would leave with is one of those "I have voted" stickers.
Propaganda, as long as it is not untruthfully libelous, and doesn't yell fire in a crowded theatre, should be allowed. Don't like it? Come up with better propaganda! Granted, some of these exceptions may not apply to this instance (I haven't seen the transcripts), but people should have a right to argue.
Pure propaganda isn't a problem for those of us who don't like Bin Laden and don't trust his motives. To part of his audience, it is an aid to recruitment. But, it's the potential for encoded messages that is cause for concern. Problem is, Bin Laden expects his comments to be edited so simply airing the message at all might be a signal to someone.
Much as I value the Right of Free Speech, Bin Laden may be yelling fire in some manner every time he is allowed to speak. If he has ever been shown to have done this in the past, he has revoked his Right of Free Speech.
but if you click further to the right, it goes to microsoft, so be careful. I'd never been to the microsoft website before, so now I don't not what cooties I've picked up.
It's kinda cool how if I click on the url, it goes to Google, if I click next to it, it goes to Microsoft. Surely, there's a practicle use for this (other than phishing).
Re:Some people like the 3rd party candidates
on
Verified Voting
·
· Score: 1
A negative compaign strategy doesn't work as well if you have more than one target. Voting for a third party candidate is an effective way to encourage postive compaign strategies. When you sling mud at multiple targets, you tend to look kinda dirty yourself.
There is probably a signficant portion of the masses that stays home rather than waste their vote on a candidate that has little chance of winning. Others will go to the polls and vote for a candidate they don't particularly like. The votes of these people would be better put to use voting for third party candidates, even if they don't particulaly like them, because having more than two visible candidates will eliminate much of the mudslinging.
I hope that was clear, it requires a little stratigic thinking beyond simply voting for the guy you like. When the guy you like isn't an option, you should figure out something good to do with your vote other than voting for more of the same.
The idea is to get people to consider voting for them and read up about them before they get to the voting booth.
The idea is also to get enough people to vote for them that they will begin to matter, that no mainstream news organization would consider leaving them out of their election coverage.
Too many people don't seem to realize what their options are until they get to the voting booth, and then it is too late.
Nader has been a celebrity lawyer ever since the Corvair thing back in the 60's. His book, Unsafe at Any Speed, was a bestseller. He followed it up with so many consumer advocate style lawsuits that he was already established as newsworthy when he decided to run for office. I don't think he was ever been out of the public eye.
Having only two viable parties guarantees mudslinging. I think it's a corallary of Duverger's Law (see below). That is why a vote for a third party candidate is not a wasted vote. Although Duverger's Rule is essentially that plurality voting always degenerates into having only two viable parties, if enough of us vote for a third, it will encourage the big guys to keep it cleaner, even if we must endure a plurality system a little while longer.
What we really need to do is equate "third party" with "none of the above" in the minds of the disenfranchised voters.
That's what happens when you only have 2 viable candidates. It's easier to sling mud at the other guy than to build up yourself. Negatives make a bigger impression on the people who vote. The problem is that most people would rather stay home than vote for the lessor of two evils. The irony is that our candidates may be decent people, but when they are both demonized by the opposition, it is hard to be satisfied with whoever wins.
The computer terminal would be used as an input device that can verify that the voter's input makes sense and give him a chance to revise his choices if he'd like. If he'd like to cast a vote that doesn't make sense to the machine, he should be able to do that too. (why? I don't know, I just don't like the idea of someone not having complete freedom to vote as they'd like.)
Then, it will simultaneously increment its counters, just as the Diebold is supposed to be doing right now AND printing out a user readable, unambiguous paper ballot. It can have holes or dots, I don't care, just as long as it is unambiguous and user readable. Now the vote is recorded two ways that should match.
Election returns can be compiled whichever way is most convenient, I assume the computer tallies will be totaled.
Then the paper ballot can be used to audit a random sampling of the terminals.
The paper ballots can also be used for recounts when necessary.
One more advantage is that in the event of machine failure or very large turnout, the paper ballot can be completed by hand without use of the computer terminal (just don't forget to have someone count them) similar to how we were able to punch our butterfly ballots in the past without using the butterfly thingy. Of course the machine will make neater chads/ovals and I suspect that once we have a trustworthy system, most people will be happy to use the machines.
The nice thing about using the terminal to punch/mark/create a paper ballot is that if makes it less likely for someone to monkey with the software without being caught.
Most of the states are disenfranshised because most of us dont "swing". You'd think that is such an obvious flaw, but no, it's seen as an advantage since compaign finance laws limit the amount of money to spend. If commercial products faced the same limitations as political products, we'd have 56 minutes of TV programming every hour.
But there's a way to get back, just vote for your favorite third party candidate. If your state is projected to have a wide margin between Bush and Kerry, you only waste your vote if you vote for one of them.
President Jimmy was interviewed on PBS last week. He had lots of negative stuff to express including the fact that the United States doesn't meet the Carter Center's standards due to quite a few things about our lovely system.
Ugh, Since you mention it, that makes it sound liked I've talked to a handful of Moslems all in the last few hours, that's not what I meant. I have been in communication with quite a few Moslem friends for about 25 years. But, it didn't occur to me to share this info until you mentioned it.
I didn't mean that to look like a serious theological question. It was meant to be rhetorical, but since you mention it, I have had several Moslems, completely separate from each other give me essentially the same explanation, that is, the Jews screwed up, so God sent Jesus, the Christians screwed up so God sent Mohemmed.
Slashdot Mirror
Many countries (eg Australia) actually fine people for not voting. The point of the campaign is to get people involved with the political system, which is the whole foundation of democracy to begin with.
By going out and voting, whether you do for a major candidate or even if you write-in 'mickey mouse', you get involved with the system.
Just wondering - Do they count and report protest votes such as the ones for Mickey Mouse?
It would be sort of like when the cash register jams at the supermarket. You'd stand there patiently waiting while a supervisor comes over and unjams it. Your vote doesn't register electronically until the paper prints out to your satisfaction. Fortunately, there is only one queue for a whole room full of machines, so you won't have the next customer standing next to you swearing as though you let it happen on purpose.
Wouldn't that mess up a recount?
Not if the spoiled paper was disposed of properly in a secure trash can. The voter wouldn't enter his ballot as complete until he has approved his paper copy. Spoiled paper goes into secure trash bin and only his final ballot spits out. That is actually a very good question because you don't ever want the voter to have his hands on more than one ballot.
What happens if you only alter the electronic tally of the visually impaired (triggered when someone resizes the base font to 72pts). Enough to buy some voters and not tip off anyone. If they can't read a standard ballot I suspect they'd have a problem checking the receipt with 12pt type.
Ah yes, the dishonest programming trick. This could also be triggered if someone turns on the speech option. One way around that is to use a completely separate software module to adjust the accessibility features than the module used to tabulate the vote. Another would be to not use software, but to have a knob that can be turned to zoom in and leave the headphone jack active at all times so that the machine would not know that a headphone was being used. The law allows blind people to be accompanied by a helper. This law hasn't been changed. Although one of the main selling features of these machines is that more people can use them without a helper, it may be prudent to bring one in an especially critical election. This is something for the organizations for the blind to investigate and advise the affected population.
Of course someone could just steal or trash the paper receipts making an audit almost impossible.
;-)
All trash should be guarded as securely as the ballots and the machines. Unfortunately, this could lead to further lawsuits as losers insist on the right to have the rubbish scrutinized as closely as the ballots.
The "vote buying or bullying" issue you brought up is a good one. I guess a valid reason not to leave with a receipt. I recently heard of vote buying and using a cell phone camera for the proof.
People are creative. We should always guard against the old tricks while being alert to these updated versions. Possibly camera phones could be confiscated or the polling place could be rendered a dead zone by those devices used to shut up cell phones in French restarants.
Ultimately "if there's a will there's a way" to hack an election. IMO evoting just adds another layer to the process that can alter an election's outcome.
That's why it is especially important not to complicate the system unnecessarily. The Diebold machines that are in use all over my state are less capable than the butterfly machines that they replace. They don't even do a good job of flagging possible user errors, the sort that results in no vote cast. We had almost as many invalid votes in the last election as back when the butterfly ballots were used.
Thanks again for reply. Deserves a +5, Informative.
Gee, thanks
While I disagree with the idea that kids are always more informed than their parents, I do think it is valuable to get anyone the least bit interested to register, research, and vote. They should get into the habit of voting while they are young and more likely to get into meaningful debates with their friends. If they can't find the time to vote when they are in school, they will never find the time when they are employed.
They all have internet access, so they have the means to be very informed voters if they only have something to motivate them. Being registered is a motivator. If you are registered you are more likely to research. If you research, you are more likely to vote. If you aren't registered, research is a waste of time. When young people couldn't vote, they had to resort to mass demonstrations that were a much more dangerous way to express their opinions.
The message that the students should get is that if people as moronic as diCaprio and incoherent as Blige can participate, then surely the cream of the United States educational system should not allow themselves to be intimidated by scary politicians and ballots. Heck, knowing which way DiCaprio is planning to vote might send the more thoughtful students running to the other parties.
If after seeing this dog and pony show they still feel unqualified and unmotivated to vote, maybe they are right. Much as I want people to come out and vote, I don't ever want anyone to vote against their will.
A massive nationwide database is a scary thing. It can start off for one little purpose, but it is very convenient to hang new uses onto it. Look what happened to Social Security.
If I could be assured that names and other personal information would never be added to it, this seems like an ideal system to eliminate voting by dead people and Operation Snowbird participants.
It gets the kids interested. Once registered, they usually talk about politics with their friends and sometimes even do research. Most people, even kids, feel kind of stupid showing up to vote when they haven't done their homework.
The hope is that they will come in and vote even if they aren't completely knowledgeable on every little issue. It's not a test, they can skip over anything they know nothing about. The typical American ballot is quite intimidating especially since you must vote for a variety of people and referendums both statewide and local. Don't forget to scroll down to the bottom where we get to vote on the definition of marriage and who should be the official local land surveyor. This can take you long time and if you are the kind of person who usually gets in the 90% on tests, it can make you feel kinda stupid.
The receipt doesn't leave the polling place. It is a human readable printout of who all you have voted for. You look over it, then go stuff it in the ballot box just like the old butterfly ballots.
Ideally, a random sellection of these ballot boxes would be opened up and counted and compared with the results of the electronic machines. This would verify that the machines were operating correctly. They would also be opened up and counted if a recount is needed.
At no time, would a voter carry a receipt out of the polling place. This could encourage vote buying or bullying. The most a voter would leave with is one of those "I have voted" stickers.
Propaganda, as long as it is not untruthfully libelous, and doesn't yell fire in a crowded theatre, should be allowed. Don't like it? Come up with better propaganda! Granted, some of these exceptions may not apply to this instance (I haven't seen the transcripts), but people should have a right to argue.
Pure propaganda isn't a problem for those of us who don't like Bin Laden and don't trust his motives. To part of his audience, it is an aid to recruitment. But, it's the potential for encoded messages that is cause for concern. Problem is, Bin Laden expects his comments to be edited so simply airing the message at all might be a signal to someone.
Much as I value the Right of Free Speech, Bin Laden may be yelling fire in some manner every time he is allowed to speak. If he has ever been shown to have done this in the past, he has revoked his Right of Free Speech.
but if you click further to the right, it goes to microsoft, so be careful. I'd never been to the microsoft website before, so now I don't not what cooties I've picked up.
I have Safari 1.2.3 (v125.9). It is affected.
It's kinda cool how if I click on the url, it goes to Google, if I click next to it, it goes to Microsoft. Surely, there's a practicle use for this (other than phishing).
http://www.microsoft .com
Has an unmatched *a* tag, that's interesting. But see how slashdot lets you know what's going on (if you have Display Link Domains turned on).
<a o ft .com</td></tr></table></a>
href="http://www.google.com/">http://www.micros
displaying http://www.microsoft.com in the browser, but sending the user to Google.
Is it the <table> that does it or the nested <a> tags?
A negative compaign strategy doesn't work as well if you have more than one target. Voting for a third party candidate is an effective way to encourage postive compaign strategies. When you sling mud at multiple targets, you tend to look kinda dirty yourself.
There is probably a signficant portion of the masses that stays home rather than waste their vote on a candidate that has little chance of winning. Others will go to the polls and vote for a candidate they don't particularly like. The votes of these people would be better put to use voting for third party candidates, even if they don't particulaly like them, because having more than two visible candidates will eliminate much of the mudslinging.
I hope that was clear, it requires a little stratigic thinking beyond simply voting for the guy you like. When the guy you like isn't an option, you should figure out something good to do with your vote other than voting for more of the same.
The idea is to get people to consider voting for them and read up about them before they get to the voting booth.
The idea is also to get enough people to vote for them that they will begin to matter, that no mainstream news organization would consider leaving them out of their election coverage.
Too many people don't seem to realize what their options are until they get to the voting booth, and then it is too late.
Nader has been a celebrity lawyer ever since the Corvair thing back in the 60's. His book, Unsafe at Any Speed, was a bestseller. He followed it up with so many consumer advocate style lawsuits that he was already established as newsworthy when he decided to run for office. I don't think he was ever been out of the public eye.
Your solution isn't very helpful for an election that is already in progress. I was suggesting how to vote, not how to change the system.
I do have ideas on how to change the system. The trick isn't coming up with a better system, it is selling it to the masses.
If your sig is to be believed, you are not qualified to advise on the usefulness of this guide.
Having only two viable parties guarantees mudslinging. I think it's a corallary of Duverger's Law (see below). That is why a vote for a third party candidate is not a wasted vote. Although Duverger's Rule is essentially that plurality voting always degenerates into having only two viable parties, if enough of us vote for a third, it will encourage the big guys to keep it cleaner, even if we must endure a plurality system a little while longer.
What we really need to do is equate "third party" with "none of the above" in the minds of the disenfranchised voters.
Surely he didn't really say that! You can't trust a judge who speaks in absolutes, not unless it's a true binary situation.
I'm a professional and no one asked me.
That's what happens when you only have 2 viable candidates. It's easier to sling mud at the other guy than to build up yourself. Negatives make a bigger impression on the people who vote. The problem is that most people would rather stay home than vote for the lessor of two evils. The irony is that our candidates may be decent people, but when they are both demonized by the opposition, it is hard to be satisfied with whoever wins.
The computer terminal would be used as an input device that can verify that the voter's input makes sense and give him a chance to revise his choices if he'd like. If he'd like to cast a vote that doesn't make sense to the machine, he should be able to do that too. (why? I don't know, I just don't like the idea of someone not having complete freedom to vote as they'd like.)
Then, it will simultaneously increment its counters, just as the Diebold is supposed to be doing right now AND printing out a user readable, unambiguous paper ballot. It can have holes or dots, I don't care, just as long as it is unambiguous and user readable. Now the vote is recorded two ways that should match.
Election returns can be compiled whichever way is most convenient, I assume the computer tallies will be totaled.
Then the paper ballot can be used to audit a random sampling of the terminals.
The paper ballots can also be used for recounts when necessary.
One more advantage is that in the event of machine failure or very large turnout, the paper ballot can be completed by hand without use of the computer terminal (just don't forget to have someone count them) similar to how we were able to punch our butterfly ballots in the past without using the butterfly thingy. Of course the machine will make neater chads/ovals and I suspect that once we have a trustworthy system, most people will be happy to use the machines.
The nice thing about using the terminal to punch/mark/create a paper ballot is that if makes it less likely for someone to monkey with the software without being caught.
Most of the states are disenfranshised because most of us dont "swing". You'd think that is such an obvious flaw, but no, it's seen as an advantage since compaign finance laws limit the amount of money to spend. If commercial products faced the same limitations as political products, we'd have 56 minutes of TV programming every hour.
But there's a way to get back, just vote for your favorite third party candidate. If your state is projected to have a wide margin between Bush and Kerry, you only waste your vote if you vote for one of them.
President Jimmy was interviewed on PBS last week. He had lots of negative stuff to express including the fact that the United States doesn't meet the Carter Center's standards due to quite a few things about our lovely system.
Ugh, Since you mention it, that makes it sound liked I've talked to a handful of Moslems all in the last few hours, that's not what I meant. I have been in communication with quite a few Moslem friends for about 25 years. But, it didn't occur to me to share this info until you mentioned it.
I didn't mean that to look like a serious theological question. It was meant to be rhetorical, but since you mention it, I have had several Moslems, completely separate from each other give me essentially the same explanation, that is, the Jews screwed up, so God sent Jesus, the Christians screwed up so God sent Mohemmed.