States Using Cloud Based Voting System For Overseas Citizens 125
gManZboy writes "If a ballot was lost in the cloud, would anyone know? Several states are using an online balloting website based on Microsoft's Azure cloud-computing platform to allow U.S. voters living overseas to cast their votes via the Web in 2012 primary elections. In addition to a now complete Florida primary, Virginia and California will use the system for their primaries, and Washington state will use it for its caucus. To ensure the ballots are from legitimate voters, people use unique identifying information to access their ballots online, according to Microsoft. Once received, the signature on the ballot is matched with registration records to further verify identity."
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
2). Because of 1) they go shopping for a commodity "IT Solution". Unfortunately, humans (on average) are barely better than insentient objects at choosing a "Solution" that isn't a raging clusterfuck(even in those situations where there is such a solution).
3). Because of 2), somebody is left with an onrushing deadline and a pile of shit, and has to make everything appear to go more or less smoothly on time, working with whatever they have.
There certainly is reason to be substantially more suspicious of electoral matters, given what's at stake; but organizations of all types routinely build horribly maladjusted systems for all sorts of purposes, so it isn't a huge surprise...
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Reason 0 to add to your list is embodied in the first sentence of the posted summary:
Several states are using an online balloting website based on Microsoft's Azure cloud-computing platform to allow U.S. voters living overseas to cast their votes via the Web in 2012 primary elections.
Other than the deployed military or remotely stationed government employees, anyone choosing to live overseas has pretty much given up their right to vote and entrusted the running of the country to their fellow countrymen if you ask me. (Yes, I realize you didn't ask me).
The idea that every person, where ever they are, regardless of how inconvenient or expensive they have made it for themselves to vote must be given the op
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Well, your government believes it has the right to exercise its authority anywhere on the planet, and has been caught writing laws for other countries (when it doesn't outright invade them) so in all fairness, the entire planet should get to vote in US elections.
Slight tongue in cheek aside - these people [US citizens living overseas] are still under the jurisdiction of your government, and still pay taxes (my understanding is for US citizens, federal taxes are based on worldwide income?) so why shouldn't t
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> Well, your government believes it has the right to exercise its
> authority anywhere on the planet, and has been caught writing laws
> for other countries (when it doesn't outright invade them) so in all
> fairness, the entire planet should get to vote in US elections.
Kinda like: "No occupation without representation"? :-)
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I am one of these US citizens living abroad, and I very much appreciate that the STATE governments of the US enable me to continue to vote. As a citizen, I certainly have that right. And as a US citizen, I have a continuing obligation to pay taxes on my worldwide income to the US government AND to the government where I live, and I do so gladly.
This new technology use will likely make the process go more smoothly, and lessen the likelihood tha
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The USA is the only country, IIRC, that taxes its citizens in such a way.
Wrong.
Canada, UK, Germany and most of the EU tax foreign income. There are exemptions for tax paid in foreign countries.
In the US there is an $87,000 exemption off the top, and an exemption for taxes paid to foreign government.
http://www.groco.com/readingroom/intl_foreign_income.aspx [groco.com]
While the military has the ability to schlep ballots, it is the USPS job to do so, not the military.
Wrong again.
The US postal system does not deliver to Military ships at sea or combat zones or US Bases overseas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_mail [wikipedia.org]
Wrong, and wrong again (Score:2)
The $87000 exemption you mention is there, but applies onl
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
In many countries the voters are unhappy when the vote counting is done behind closed doors- they know something fishy is going on (whether they can do anything about it is another matter).
One important requirement for a voting system is convincing enough of the losers that they've lost.
So even if you have an electronic voting system that actually works properly[1], you need to convince the voters that it works properly.
Of course if most of the voters don't care that much then it doesn't matter.
[1] There are some electronic systems which seem like they might work properly and be verifiable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDnShu5V99s [youtube.com]
But can you convince enough voters of that?
That said usually the people running/rigging the elections would prefer to use other methods instead ;).
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Great! In Amerika we've gone the other way so that issue is moot.
You see, we've developed a system where we take two identical candidates and blow them up until every possible microscopic difference is visible and then we convince voters that those differences matter. Then, after the election, we shrink them back down and show everyone how similar they really are. Everyone from the losing 'side' gets to blame the winning 'side' for everything bad until the next 'election'. It's great fun but not much of a way to run a country.
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If the voters wish to send a different message, they should vote differently. Even if the other candidates do not win, if a 3rd candidate gets 30% of the votes, the "popular 2" candidates may consider chang
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"Once received, the signature on the ballot is matched with registration records to further verify identity."
This would only work in fax or mail-in ballots, unless you can use your mouse to "write" your signature which may or may not look like your actually handwritten signature.
But that aside, I am still not convinced the paper ballots work: Florida re-count anyone?!?!
So you may need to prove it works, but even then there can be some errors... and the system as a whole still "works"
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At least with the Florida one people suspect something is fishy. With the usual "black box" voting, good luck detecting anything unless the perps are idiots (and do a 99% or even 101% win) or a verifiable system is used like the one I linked to.
In the country I'm in I strongly suspect the elections
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Why do electoral commissions, or the local alternative, keep attempting to bring in voting systems that have been proven to be vulnerable? (Conspiracy theories aside).
Because they decided it was a good idea to replace one expensive vulnerable system with one slightly less expensive vulnerable system? I imagine it's time for a scorecard for e-voting (like the one for "fixing" spam) that starts with "It looks like you are proposing a replacement to the paper ballot. Your idea is bad for the following reasons..."
I imagine a similar fear must have sank in to the board members of the first pair of banks that decided to start electronically trading transactions with each oth
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Why do electoral commissions, or the local alternative, keep attempting to bring in voting systems that have been proven to be vulnerable? (Conspiracy theories aside).
Is there a voting system that isn't vulnerable? Having people show up in person to vote has shown ineffective at keeping the dead from casting a ballot.
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Well, you could probably require some sort of picture ID before allowing someone to vote.
But that idea has been deemed to be reactionary and evil, so I guess the dead will continue to vote at the usual rate (which really isn't all that high).
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In most places in Canada at least, we need Photo ID to match the voters' list, and the postcard that the election team sends out that has our name, address, and voting location. Of course every ballot I've cast has been with a paper and pencil and the results are tabulated fairly quickly.
The biggest issues I've seen with the US federal ballots are that local races are including on the same one that you're using to vote for your Rep, Senator and President. Separating these out would make things so much easi
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Alas, in the USA, requiring that sort of thing is considered "racist", and therefore reactionary and evil.
Every State that has proposed such laws has been sued to prevent implementation of same.
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The reason why it's considered racist is that the only reason there's any interest in using such a card is to prevent the poor and those of color from participating.
But, more importantly, it's not a problem. The GOP continually makes a big deal out of voter fraud, but the reality is that the voter fraud that exists is rare. Only a handful of people are prosecuted in any given year.
The reality here is that you have to balance the security of votes cast with the right of people to vote. Now in the future if v
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
but the reality is that the voter fraud that exists is rare. Only a handful of people are prosecuted in any given year.
Your second statement is not proof that voter fraud is rare. It merely supports that only a handful of people are prosecuted.
Speeding tickets are rare in comparison to the number of drivers speeding. Does that mean they were not actually speeding? Or does it show that there are not enough resources to catch each violation.
Your statement could be true because fraud is rare. It could also be that prosecutors do not want to prosecute or are dissuaded from prosecuting more instances. It could be that the system is so weak producing evidence of the fraud is difficult.
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The burden of proof is on the people who are claiming that there's massive voter fraud. It isn't up to me to prove that it isn't common. And ultimately the bar is set fairly high because people do have a legal right to vote after they turn 18 unless they have had their rights taken away.
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I have to disagree. The burden of proof should be on those who claim the system is legitimate and free from corruption. They are the ones asking the populous to trust that the system is fair.
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You don't have to disagree, it appears though that you wanted to. I think though that you are asking for something to be proven which wholly impractical to prove without massive changes to the system. To illustrate, can you give a somewhat complete description of what proof would be required for you ( a presumed nonbeliever in the legitimacy and incorruptibility of the system) to be convinced?
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No, the burden of proof is on the people claiming the positive result. You can never prove that there is no corruption, at best you can fail to find any. OTOH, if there really is a serious issue with voter fraud then it should be trivial to find.
You have to balance the rights of the people to vote with the need to enforce the rules. In the absence of any evidence that voter fraud is a problem there needs to be justification for changes to be made.
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The burden of proof should be on those who claim the system is legitimate and free from corruption. They are the ones asking the populous to trust that the system is fair.
THIS!.
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From actively discouraging registered voters by only allowing college students to vote in their home town, threatening to check voters for anything from immigration status (how could they vote w/o being citizens?) to outstanding warrants
to invalidating registrations or votes for various reasons:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drak3NcRpJc
-I'm just sayin'
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Reasoning: Because, at the maximum ever recorded in a modern election, about 100 people or about .005% of voters in an election [electionin...ywatch.com] are convicted of casting fraudulent ballots, we should keep about 11% [brennancenter.org] of people who are entitled to cast a vote from making one.
And we aren't even getting into why we always hold our elections on work days...
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And we aren't even getting into why we always hold our elections on work days...
It's to make sure the retirees can outvote the working poor, right?
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My, how times have changed. I remember when suggesting a compulsory national ID card would have sent conservatives running for their firearms.
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Alas, I'm not a conservative.
Nor are we talking about a national ID card. Driver's Licenses, which qualify in every State considering the notion, aren't national. And even if you don't need a driver's license, the DMV will issue you a picture ID in every State I've ever lived in.
Plus there's the University ID, which counts. Military ID. Lots of ways to come up w
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Those states that have been sued for requiring a photo ID typically charge for that ID or documents that are required to get said ID (birth certificates.) If you are being charged for something so you can vote then it is a poll tax. Poll taxes are not racist per say, but they are meant to keep the impoverished, poor, those on a fixed income and those who have difficulty in getting out from voting.
Sorry, but you are simply wrong about that.
Photo ID has been consistently fought to the death by the Democrat party EVEN when there was no fees, EVEN when outreach programs and exceptions were made for elderly or infirm.
The democrats will simply not allow photo ID because their organized vans that shuffle voters from polling place to polling place would be ineffective. In those jurisdictions that vote by mail this practice has effectively been shut down. Its about the only good thing that vote by mail has
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What's strange is that Indiana requires a photo ID and it's fine and dandy.
South Carolina requires it and the US Justice Department strikes it down.
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Indiana doesn't have a history of slavery and voter suppression that I'm aware of. There's a reason why South Carolina and those other Southern states are under closer scrutiny.
Around here we were segregated until the mid '70s as far as the schools go, but opted to voluntarily desegregate and as such we have more freedom than places like MO that had to be forced to desegregate.
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Because these are primaries and waiting a week to a month for absentee voters to weigh in simply is too long since the race could be over by then.
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Again, according to my reading of the TFA there wil
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The second article (from InformationWeek) says: "The system allows voters registered to vote in primaries who live overseas to have access to ballots 45 days before the election. From that time until the election, they can cast their ballot electroni
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That's precisely my problem for the next year. I don't believe that the Chinese authorities or the US customs officers are going to be opening my ballots, but they could and even if they don't the ballots could be lost in the mail. I'd rate the risk of the ballot being lost as much more significant than government tampering.
There's also the issue of post mark. It's going to be a minimum of 6 weeks between when they mail me my ballot and when they receive the completed ballot and that's going to make it quit
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Not to be too rough or anything, but if you don't like the burden of living abroad, then, don't live abroad. I am also not too kind because I don't imagine you'll be living in China to help improve the industrial base of the US. I know, not your job, but, every little bit counts. You probably don't agree, which makes it not too relevant whether you vote or not...
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The thing is that as long as I'm a US citizen I have the right to vote. And the government is obliged to provide a reasonable method of doing so. As technology improves the options improve. At this point there's no reason why it needs to be a PITA at all.
That being said, I'm not helping their industrial base. I'm teaching them English in a rural area. The connection between those students and our competition is about as indirect as you can get. Ultimately without the ability to speak English they're cut off
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I agree with you regarding access to voting and it not needing to be a PITA.
I disagree that them learning English is as far from our competition as we can get. Right now, I can't compete for telemarketing jobs in China, or copy editor, or news writer in Mandarin mainly because of the language barrier. Remove that and suddenly several billion Chinese are afraid for their editorial type jobs.
I wasn't advocating a moral filter, just pointing out that if you argue that one person helping Chinese be more compe
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Precisely my problem too. The first thing to decide is which Vulnerability bothers me the most. The first thing to realize is that this is China; as such, privacy is not a real concept and is definitely not thought of in a positive sense.
My choices are to mail my ballot, understanding that it is not possible to mail a sealed envelope. The postal people will seal the envelop after they have examined it and its contents. The other option is to fax the ballot. If it is faxed, it must be faxed from the police s
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You'll probably have to mail it either way. Around here I can fax it to the state, but I have to furnish an original copy by the date the vote is certified generally between 2 and 3 weeks later.
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it will be hacked, i don't see any other outcome.
Don't let that stop the continued steamrolling of American citizens.
pointless (Score:5, Funny)
Peasants, do not revolt. You can select from one 1%er corporate purchased candidate or the other 1%er corporate purchased candidate. They do have slightly different marketing messages/lies and you get to select which identical candidate hired the better PR agency and/or you get to select which lies you prefer to hear.
Re:pointless (Score:4, Funny)
Peasants, do not revolt. You can select from one 1%er corporate purchased candidate or the other 1%er corporate purchased candidate. They do have slightly different marketing messages/lies and you get to select which identical candidate hired the better PR agency and/or you get to select which lies you prefer to hear.
You can vote for [] Bashar al-Assad [] Tank come to your door and blow you up
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A Head in the Polls was great, but I also like that seen from The Day The Earth Stood Stupid when they all go out to join the Reform Party and in more recent airings the TEA Party.
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Microsoft (Score:1)
Where do you want your voting fraud to go today?
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This is the best argument I've heard lately that demonstrates the reason that *localized* and *representative* government is still the best idea today.
(I realize you weren't making that point).
Lately you hear a lot of people theorizing that we no longer need representative democracy, that we can all just vote on our laws via the internet.
You also hear we no longer need localized gov't: let's just federalize the majority-opinion.
But the internet is a difficult thing to make perfectly honest.
Localized and rep
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representative government is best, seriously? Representative government was created primarily as a means of buffering the rich from the majority opinion (our views tend to diverge unless we're drunk on tea). It still does that. Representatives (the rich then, as the rich now) can listen to what their constituents (the majority) wants, and "balance" it with what the rich want, by and large, the rich get what they want. The only way to get laws that are not bought and paid for by corporate elites is to re
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You missed one of the key points I made: *** LOCALIZED ***
Too much of our gov't has been pushed to the Federal level.
This distorts the process and invites corruption; corruption that is hard to see and hard to control.
Next time, read what the person wrote and take the time to actually COMPREHEND what they said rather than assume you know what they meant.
Election returns prediction (Score:5, Funny)
Barack Obama (D) 38%
Mitt Romney (R) 37%
DLL Not Found (I) 15%
Ron Paul (I) 10%
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Barack Obama (D) 38%
Mitt Romney (R) 37%
DLL Not Found (I) 100%
Ron Paul (I) 10%
FTFY.
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Ill go one better, the system gets hacked and the following returns are kicked out
Barack Obama (D) 0%
Mitt Romney (R) 0%
Ron Paul (I) 0%
Mickey Mouse (M) 100%
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Ill go one better, the system gets hacked and the following returns are kicked out
Barack Obama (D) 0%
Mitt Romney (R) 0%
Ron Paul (I) 0%
Anonymous (A) 100%
With honourable mention for LOL WUT Party candidate
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Uh, if Mickey Mouse was really on that ballot those would be the real results.
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This thread leads me to imagine Disney suing Anonymous for unlicensed use of Mickey Mouse.
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Good news everyone (Score:1)
This election has had the largest turnout ever. 280 million people cast online votes alone. The downside is that ants now have control over the free world. I for one welcome our insect overloads.
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This election has had the largest turnout ever. 280 million people cast online votes alone. The downside is that ants now have control over the free world. I for one welcome our insect overloads.
So who won? The write-in for "Protect the queen!"?
DRE 700 wins! (Score:2)
Exactly how does voting require Cloud? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand why Cloud Technology is necessary for something which requires only a secure website and identity validation. Is this a cast of technology for the sake of technology?
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Because now the IT director of the state can put a cloud project on his CV and double his income at his next job.
Sounds cromulent. Sommun just remind him/her it's not spelled C-L-O-W-D
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Exactly how does voting require Cloud?
Well, someone has to carry the huge frickin sword.
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"Is this a cast of technology for the sake of technology?"
Letting aside the problems about electronic ballots themselves, voting is as good a case for cloud computing as it can be. "Only a secure website", you say? well, what do you want it for the four years between ballots?
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It's THE CLOUD - the magical answer to everything.
Why not let big corporations hire politicians? (Score:3)
They pay them anyway, now they run elections? Why bother with this voting thing at all?
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As horrible as the movie was, I believe Jeff Goldblum said it best in "Man of the Year": Perception of legitimacy is more important than legitimacy itself.
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Keeps politician salaries/bribes up.
Uhm.. (Score:1)
Re:Uhm.. (Score:5, Funny)
We had a vote ....
Nice (Score:3)
Votes running online on a Microsoft-based system? This would be awesome if there were any candidates worth stuffing the virtual ballot box for :-P
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This would be awesome if there were any candidates worth stuffing the virtual ballot box for :-P
As with most elections this one will turn out to be who is voted against.
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Honestly, I trust them more than I trust Diebold. http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Documents_reveal_Georgia_was_warned_of_0730.html [rawstory.com] You can look at other coverage, but this is a fairly accurate accounting of what's known.
At least with MS, you can be assured that it isn't corruption, just incompetence if the results aren't right.
Interesting trade... (Score:1)
So you get online voting in exchange for giving up the secret ballot, eh?
Sorry, but I can't say I find that a worthwhile trade. The secret ballot is one of the most important safeguards a democracy can implement.
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As somebody that's a week out from moving overseas, I can assure you that it's not quite that simple. It typically takes up to 3 weeks for mail to get between here and there and for a $30 fee I can cut that down to a week. During which time the mail may or may not get through.
Voting online is something that does have risks, but you have to keep in mind that the number of votes that are likely to be eligible are going to be fairly small and that particularly in WA state it isn't easy to tell what the vote is
In other news... (Score:1)
In a move to present itself as being even less evil that Google, Microsoft has announced its intention to decrease its lobbying budget to $0 over the next 36 months.
Great (Score:3)
So now people who don't have to live in it get more convenient ways to decide how people in a particular state should live?
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Exactly, people not living in a country shouldn't have the right to vote there.
This will guarantee elections (Score:1)
This will guarantee Microsoft wins every election.
Less of a threat (Score:3)
When demographics give you racially impure lemons, destroy free and fair elections as you see fit.
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It's not just the $10 it's having the time to do it and access to the other documentation. Plus, unless you drive a car that's $10 that you wouldn't otherwise need to spend.
It's worth noting that the only reason why the GOP cares about it at all is because minorities are more likely to not have photo identification than other groups are. Around here we allow several other forms of identification and despite GOP whining they haven't been able to produce any evidence of voter fraud significant enough to justi
Ballots not Votes (Score:1)
If you read the article, its not the actual VOTING that is being done online in most cases, it is having access to an absentee ballot. Oregon does its entire election by mail. It is actually a lot more secure than using polling places. Each ballot is returned in an envelope signed by the voter. The ballot itself is inside a second privacy envelope. Once the signature on the outside envelope is compared to the voter registration card, the privacy envelope is pulled out and put in a pile to be counted so ther
buzz word (Score:3, Interesting)
"now complete Florida primary"? (Score:2)
Is the submitter a time-traveler, or was zie just expecting the /. editors to take a week longer than they did in posting the submission?
Really??? (Score:2)
From punching chits into a piece of paper to Cloud based voting in only 10 years, amazing.
Cloud Based Voting System? (Score:2)
Cloudy weather, low visibility (Score:2)
In addition to a now complete Florida cloud, Virginia and California will use the cloud for their cloud, and Washington cloud will use it for its cloud. To ensure the clouds are from legitimate clouds, clouds use unique clouding clouds to access their clouds online, according to Microsoft. Once clouded, the cloud on the cloud is clouded with cloud cloud to cloud cloud cloud.
Obligatory XKCD (Score:2)
http://xkcd.com/908/ [xkcd.com]
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Is that Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw running the cloud?