In most any democracy there has been a history of cheating. Disenfranchising and harassing minority voters, gerrymandering voting districts, outright bribery of voters, it's a long list. But it becomes impossible to have transparency and verifiability if the voting methods are hinged on private company secrets and an obfuscated (or absent) transaction trail. Having a paper tape inside the voting machine is not transparent.
If your voting experience is like the one reported by CBS News, or if you are an official who has to verify the vote, you don't want this: "Poll workers are trained to recalibrate them [the voting machines] on the spot, essentially to realign the video screen with the electronics inside. The 15-step process is outlined in the poll-workers manual."
What a transparent system needs is for a voter to cast a ballot, then deposit in a box a human readable version of the vote. Recounts are done from the box contents even if the first count is done by machine. Once that is uniformly provided to every voter, work on the other abuse of the electorate problems.
Well, vultures or not, the New York Times (register if you must) says "NASA Puts Shuttle Mission's Risk at 1 in 100"
Those are not great odds, if you want the program to be more than a cold war pissing contest.
People could even change in large numbers to hybrid SUVs and do much more than saving 1/20 of 1 percent. Implement Kyoto and force refineries to comply to save on waste, while we're at it.
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...and everyone in Bangladesh can move to Germany.
In most any democracy there has been a history of cheating. Disenfranchising and harassing minority voters, gerrymandering voting districts, outright bribery of voters, it's a long list. But it becomes impossible to have transparency and verifiability if the voting methods are hinged on private company secrets and an obfuscated (or absent) transaction trail. Having a paper tape inside the voting machine is not transparent.
If your voting experience is like the one reported by CBS News, or if you are an official who has to verify the vote, you don't want this: "Poll workers are trained to recalibrate them [the voting machines] on the spot, essentially to realign the video screen with the electronics inside. The 15-step process is outlined in the poll-workers manual."
What a transparent system needs is for a voter to cast a ballot, then deposit in a box a human readable version of the vote. Recounts are done from the box contents even if the first count is done by machine. Once that is uniformly provided to every voter, work on the other abuse of the electorate problems.
Well, vultures or not, the New York Times (register if you must) says "NASA Puts Shuttle Mission's Risk at 1 in 100" Those are not great odds, if you want the program to be more than a cold war pissing contest.
People could even change in large numbers to hybrid SUVs and do much more than saving 1/20 of 1 percent. Implement Kyoto and force refineries to comply to save on waste, while we're at it.
I think this Naomi Klein commentary ads a dimension to Friedman's commentary: http://rabble.ca/columnists_full.shtml?x=30806