Touch Screen Voting Trouble in Florida 574
usn2fsu03 writes "Here we go again with
another election controversy in South Florida. Touch screen voting was used in a State House election that was won by twelve votes. Unfortunately, there were 134 people who went through the process of checking in to vote, but either did not vote or cast a vote that was not counted. Without a paper trail it is anyone's guess as to what those voters' intentions were. Obviously, there is work to be done in the Election Supervisor's office before November comes around."
It was the psychics (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So what? (Score:2, Funny)
-122
Push the VOTE button! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Or use the VOTE wizard! (Score:5, Funny)
What would you like to do?
Re: Or use the VOTE wizard! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not keeping more of your own income; it's continuing to accept the services you formerly paid for with taxes (in fact taking more services), but now paying for them with a cash advance from a multitrillion dollar credit card. You're still going to pay it all back one day with money from your income, but with interest.
Re: Or use the VOTE wizard! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Push the VOTE button! (Score:5, Insightful)
Technology can solve this. (Score:5, Funny)
I recommend replacing them. Shiny new electronic voters would reduce the problem of incorrect vote selection, as well as ambiguous ballots, or the inability to understand clear, spoken or written English. Computers are far better at binary selection than senior citizens, so they should have no problem.
Re:Push the VOTE button! (Score:3, Insightful)
True, but out of all the voting systems, computer systems could be more idiot-proof than any of them. I quickly thought of several simple ways for the system to prevent a luser (I mean voter) from leaving the booth before they actually voted. This same non-voting problem may have happened with the chad-machines. And even pen and paper isn't immune from UI problems.
That's it.... (Score:5, Funny)
-moitz-
Why is this so hard to get right? (Score:5, Insightful)
-Voter touches appropriate button on screen
-Voting machine records the vote electronically and also prints the vote on paper (maybe in like a scantron type format so it can be easily recounted)
Done?
Re:Why is this so hard to get right? (Score:5, Funny)
-Voter touches the button, gets the one they where aiming for on the second try.
-Voter forgets to click the "VOTE" button that commits their choice.
-Voter tackles the curtain problem again, getting out of the booth on only the second try.
-Voting machine does nothing becuase its only as smart as its users.
Re:Why is this so hard to get right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not done. You still have no idea whether the version recorded on some internal paper spool is actually what you voted for on the screen. If there's a bug, or a malicious hack that can screw up the all-electronic process, then it's equally likely that there's a bug that'll also mess with what goes on the paper.
Ultimately, you need a machine that prints out a paper ballot that can then be verified by the voter and deposited in a ballot box. This box needs to be at least partially recounted (2%, perhaps) before any result can be certified. If the outcome of the electronic vote is very close, the entire set of paper ballots needs to be recounted.
Re:Why is this so hard to get right? (Score:2)
Any malicious hack would also ensure that the "vote" wouldn't be close enough.
The "layered" approach sounds like a good idea. Have it print out ten different receipts and have the person give them to ten different sets of counters. They keep counting until they're all within 5% of each other. Another bonus: instant Condorcet [yahoo.com].
Re:Why is this so hard to get right? (Score:3, Insightful)
At some point you must trust the election mechanism to work. If you're concerned about the version recorded on some internal spool to differ from what you voted for on the screen then you might as well be concerned with the votes actually being counted properly at the end of the day when all the voters have left the building.
Yes, election fraud can exist. But I don't
Re:Why is this so hard to get right? (Score:3, Insightful)
The new elecronic voting machines work just like the old mechanical ones. The ballot is a giant 3x3' printout spread over a pushbutton and LED panel. You press next to a candidate (or ballot question) where you used to flip a switch, and an LED glows telling you it understood your selection.
There are 2 big buttons at the bottom of the device. A red "CANCEL" button, and a green "VOTE" button, right where you used to pull the handle.
Votes are tallied using the same proce
Controversial but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Controversial but... (Score:2)
If the machine gave a paper ticket that said "VOTED" perhaps this will remind people.
Now, I am
Re:Controversial but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Another thing that it reminds me of is an news investigation into supermarkets scanning incorrect prices at the checkout. It turns out that almost all mis-scans are in the store's favor (i.e., scans a higher price than the actual item).
I think my point is that with the machines, how do you know you completed the transaction? There's no receipt or verification. Maybe I pressed vote, but it didn't register. Maybe there's a bug in the code that says:
if vote != Republican rollback else commit
And how do you know the system isn't rigged or at least tilted a little? Your post, while correct, assumes that nothing ever goes wrong. See Common Sense vs. H. Chad, 2000. Things always go wrong. These systems have no way to deal with that.
Re:Controversial but... (Score:3)
Consider that the choices in that race were "Vote for a Republican or don't vote at all!"
If I was a straight-ticket-Democrat, I think I'd be hopping mad at a voting system that forced me to vote for anyone in the opposition party, and did not allow me to abstain. (I think, in fact, I'd make a Federal case out of it.)
Vote for Ron! (Score:3, Informative)
(People sometimes even campaign on Ron's behalf, when they realise the only candidate is someone who would do the job badly, and they want nominations reopened so they can stand for it themselves...)
Voting should be simple (Score:4, Insightful)
Voting should be so easy and so simple to do that it is hard to screw up.
A key part of a fair election is that if someone makes the effort to cast a vote, the system should record that vote.
Making it unnecessarily difficult risks making it an unfair election.
Do it again ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe those 134 just didn't chose any candidate. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Maybe those 134 just didn't chose any candidate (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not whether those individuals voted or not.. it's that there's no way to go back and check whether they did or not. There's no way for people doing a recount to go and look for the equivalent of "hanging chads" and such.
The article even addresses that, it's fine if someone doesn't want to vote. It is NOT fine that there is no way to go back and identify the voter's intent.
Re:Maybe those 134 just didn't chose any candidate (Score:2)
Re:Maybe those 134 just didn't chose any candidate (Score:2)
For that matter, let's just add a "none of the above" option to elections anyways. I'm not talking about "no vote placed in favor of any candidate"... I'm talking about an active rejection of all listed candidates. Then, if the "none of the above" options gets more votes than any candidate, the election must be rerun with no
Re:Maybe those 134 just didn't chose any candidate (Score:4, Informative)
They even tally the votes the same way, through counters that are read off periodically throughout the day.
One of the selections in every category is "I am not casting a vote." I recall that at the top there is an option to cast a completely blank ballot. (The party lever has been removed, thankfully.)
Sure it's low-tech. But I like it.
Re:Maybe those 134 just didn't chose any candidate (Score:2)
I think we can solve a number of problems like this...
Say everyone MUST vote
Now you have the problem of everyone MUST vote, what do you do about people who decide not to vote? Simple... you add "none of the above" to the ballot and assume that any elligable voters who don't vote (even the ones who just don't bother to go to a polling place or even to register) as votes for "none of the above"....
Then, if nobody gets a clear majority, you have a new election with all new candidates.
-Steve
Re:Maybe those 134 just didn't chose any candidate (Score:2)
Erosion of voting rights? (Score:2, Interesting)
In a way you could call this the eroding of freedom to having your right to vote. I know its a bit of a lame idea though. I have never read the American constitution (as im not American) but im guessing there is no mention of the right to vote in a certain media.
But, if because you wished to vote using older methods you were denied because using the new method is compulsory is that being denied your right to vote?
Re:Erosion of voting rights? (Score:2)
Re:Erosion of voting rights? (Score:3, Informative)
Christ...why not (Score:2, Interesting)
it is a high tech interface with mechanical precision for the punch.
Has to be said. (Score:3, Insightful)
$17.2 million system? (Score:2)
On another note, when elections are so close, why don't the politicians recognize that they don't have a clear mandate from the people and respect the opinions of the opposition more? It's power gone mad.
Re:$17.2 million system? (Score:2)
To put it bluntly, yes.
Voters' "Intent"?? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but since when was any vote-counting system designed to interpret what a voter's intent was, beyond correctly-cast votes?
If people don't/can't vote correctly using even the simplest methods, then perhaps even they did not know what their intent was.
idiot voters (Score:2)
Not only that, but assuming an even distribution of morons voting for both candidates, this won't skew any but the closest elections (though admittedly that would be this one). In most elections, if the "moron vote" not getting counted throws the election....good! If I knew that most idiots voted for one candidate, I'd probably vote for the other on principle.
Re:Voters' "Intent"?? (Score:5, Insightful)
yrs,
Ephemeriis
Re:Voters' "Intent"?? (Score:5, Informative)
Vote-counting systems (in the big sense of end-to-end counting and certification, not just talking about balloting hardware) in Florida must honor the intent of the voter as a matter of law.
The law is designed to address the array of things that can go wrong with the voting process and equipment, and ensure that the intent of the voter is paramount to any vagueries introduced by the equipment or counting procedures. How anyone could think this is a bad thing (unless they were in the process of exploiting such vagueries) is beyond me...
Not a problem at all (Score:2)
Obviously, there is work to be done in the Election Supervisor's office before November comes around
On the contrary. I think everything's going pretty much as planned.
It doesn't matter (Score:2)
What? No receipt? (Score:2)
Of course, the machine could also print a receipt for the election board as well and put it in a big bin, so that there's a paper ballot that can be recounted or verified by them if the election comes under question.
Electronic transactions are great,
Re:What? No receipt? (Score:2, Insightful)
Paper receipts that stay at the polling place = good. Allows parellel count of small sample to check machine accuracy; allows recount in the event of a problem.
Paper receipts that go home with you = bad. Potential for intimidation and vote buying.
Digital voting is a debacle... (Score:2)
Cringley [pbs.org] makes a good case about why we believe this might work, but probably won't.
At least the problem is obvious this time (Score:3, Insightful)
But the worse scenario is one where there's no way to tell anything's wrong. No reason to request a manual count, no reason for trusting fools to question the results.
Most people, it seems, have an "I haven't verified this system, therefore it must be secure" mindset. But don't worry; this particular problem will be fixed and people can go back to assuming everything works until the next time something is obvious wrong.
Remember - it can't be a problem if nobody knows about it.
I guess this is (Score:2, Insightful)
Still, USA is not a democracy. Its a republic. People seem to forget that...
Very good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
All the groups calling for voting reform can point there and say "Electronic voting without proper auditing tools is worse than hanging chads."
The Canadians will just keep laughing, as more people ask why their pencil and paper system works more smoothly, and in many cases faster, than ours.
I don't care if we have a fancy electronic system with proper audit trails, or if we go to a pencil & paper system with proper audit trails. I just care that we get there quickly.
frob
Re:Very good thing (Score:2)
Re:Very good thing (Score:2, Interesting)
This seems like a lot of cost for very little (if any) benefit. The list of things that can go wrong with a paper/pencil system is much shorter than that for an electronic system.
What's that saying... If it ain't br
Hmm? (Score:3, Insightful)
I kind of get this kooky conspiracy theory feeling where say every 3 votes for the "wrong" candidate is excluded and it's a part of the closed program code. You kind of get that feeling when you see stuff like this: Bogdanoff had a ready explanation for the mystery. She theorized that some of the people who cast nonvotes were among the county's true-blue Democrats who were appalled to find a ballot with only Republicans. Did this really happen?
I'm otherwise (still) surprised that paper receipts were never given in the beginning, but it's a very good idea for the future. If anything, it should be a requirement.
Quote: (Score:5, Interesting)
She theorized that some of the people who cast nonvotes were among the county's true-blue Democrats who were appalled to find a ballot with only Republicans.
How hard is it to have "None of the above" as an option?
Re:Quote: (Score:2)
The issue of None Of The Above (Score:5, Interesting)
There are 2 ways you can implement a NOTA - non-binding and binding.
For the sake of discusson, assume an election is held with Larry, Moe, and Curly as candidates, and the results are:
Larry: 10%
Moe: 10%
Curly: 10%
None of the above: 70%
The Non-Binding form works like this:
Since NOTA won, run a new election with the same bunch. Remember the definition of insanity - doing the same thing, and expecting different results? The only way things change is if the people decide that Larry is better than elections ad infinitum.
The Binding form works like this:
Since NOTA won, Larry, Moe, and Curly are out - here's your years supply of Rice-O-Roni and your copy of the home game, bu-bye, mind the door.
OK, now we have to pick a completely new slate of candidates, and have another round of campagning, and another election.
Now, Binding NOTA scares the hell out of the big parties, as it gives the smaller parties a real chance to win - during the first campaign, don't have your guy in the election, and run attack ads against the big boys. If you get the people to vote NOTA, THEN run your guy in the new election.
Since Binding NOTA would force the big 2 parties to be more responsive to the people, you can rest assured it will happen shortly after water freezes on a hot stove.
Voter intent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Voter intent? (Score:5, Informative)
In the case of Florida, it's a matter of law that the intent of the voter is to be honored. The intent stipulation arises out of an acknoledgement that all recording systems are subject to innacuracies, and that the noblest thing to do is to honor the will of the voter, rather than the output of the machine.
This is obviously an extreme example, but it should be illustrative:
Imagine a ballot-punching machine where a peg for one of the candidates breaks an hour before the polls close. Noone notices this and the voters go on pressing the button for that candidate until closing time, assuming they voted for him or her.
In the end, the vote count is wrong, underrepresenting that candidate's support. In this case, the intent of the voters was not registered even though they acted in good faith and without making any mistakes.
It is this type of scenario that the intent law is intended to remedy. The will of the voters is paramount to the output of a machine that can be tampered with, broken, or buggy.
Re:Voter intent? (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's the point. We ought to know.
Voting is just an exercise (Score:2)
Read the "greatest 50 conspiracies of all time". It talks about public voting being controlled by one private firm up to around 1960s-70s.
If voting really matters don't you think the government will pump 20x more money into the booths and systems. Make it all starbucks happy, trace finger prints etc etc.
What they really need to do.... (Score:2, Funny)
Obligatory liberal bias (Score:3, Interesting)
All created by volunteers. Registered users get to vote on which ads they like the best, and the winners will be run on TV this election season.
Just to be fair and balanced, here's a similar conservative ad [clubforgrowth.org]. No voting though.
Voting is to convince the losers, as well... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you acheive the first goal, but fail to address the second, you create an increasingly angry and restless population, and that's unhealthy for any democracy. A lesson many politicians seem to have taken from the Florida debacle is that most people will "get over it", and go back to driving their SUVs and watching TV. So far they've been right about this. Unfortunately, that only works if we're talking about an isolated incident; if people begin to develop even the impression that they're being repeatedly screwed, our society will suffer.
This is good (Score:2, Insightful)
November? Try March 9th (Score:2)
Florida's Primaries are March 9th - IF the primaries are tight, there could be problem
Remember, the first primary of the year is NEXT WEEK (Tuesday - Waskington DC), and the Iowa Caucuses are Monday the 19th
We are already in full election swing
Disclaimer - I write software that looks at election data (but does NOT count vote - so don't shoot me) - we have been in testing, 2-3 days/week since 2 months before t
Show of hands (Score:2)
State mandated recount (Score:5, Insightful)
Hows the recount going to be fair if they can't recount the individual votes? About all they can do is tabulate the total from each voting machine again.
As many people have already stated, this is exactly an audit trail is necessary with electronic voting.
There IS a paper trail (Score:3, Interesting)
I live in one of the counties in Florida where 1) the touch screens were piloted and 2) where I have voted with them in two elections.
There is a print out that is produced as a running record as each person votes, which is the "backup" of data stored in the voting machine.
The voters that "did not vote" or "voted but it was not counted" should be able to be located and queried regarding that happened at the polling place. Unless there is no way to determine, from this paper printout, which exact registered and present to vote cvoters did not vote or had a problem voting, for some reason.
Re:There IS a paper trail (Score:4, Interesting)
If you happen to choose to vote for the Nazi party candidate (Note I am not talking about Republicans, even though that association has been bandied about recently), or the Communist party, (Again, not the Democrats), Voting law (varies by district to be sure) is generally there to prevent someone from taking a baseball bat to your car, or you knees.
In the district I vote in, there are three steps involved. Make sure you are in the registered voters book, usually a sign in. Go to next table and get a chit allowing you to collect a ballot, or in an electronic ballot case, a number you enter into your electronic ballot. This is unique, but does not identify you. The last step is to collect your ballot, and vote.
As a result, once you vote, you can't vote again, (your register name is already signed) and they can confirm that the number of chits and the number of ballots counted match. With the electronic ballot, you may be able to say that chits 74, 583, and 1097 did not actually vote, but you can't say that John, Mary, and Bill were the voters who decided to vote, but were incompetent.
They didn't vote. Period. (Score:3, Informative)
These people could operate that system, but can't touch a button on a screen? Bullshit. They didn't vote, or the software is fsck'ed. But we'll never know, because there's no hard copy.
Why are we having this system pushed on us instead of the no.2 pencil and ovals? That system is electronic, it's verfiable, it's an established technology.
Despite the tin foil beenie cap conspiracy freeks who think tri-lateralists are behind all of this, I think we are seeing an example of government contracting abuse. Florida has paid for a bunch of machines and now finds they don't work.
Nonvoting is legitimate, BUT (Score:3, Informative)
And yes, a verifiable paper trial sure would help in situations where there are questions like this -- of course the paper receipt would have to be printed for and indicate nonvotes.
The solution that works w/o a paper trail (Score:3, Insightful)
Voter enters the booth, booth closes and locks. The booth will not re-open until the person has voted properly or if they page a pollworker to let them out. If the latter occurs, the pollworker can give them additional instructions or let them out and note the incident for any subsequent legal challenges to the election.
Of course, in all fairness a "none of the above" entry should be made for any one-party election.
I vote in all local and national elections and my local incumbent "representative" is not of my political party. My party (or any other party for that matter) does not even have a candidate on the ballot! In those cases, I leave the entry blank if I cannot vote "NO" to abstain. Since in the Florida election all the candidate choices were Republicans, I would think that some voters seeing their party was not represented at all on the ballot would abstain in a similar fashion.
So there's nothing to see here.
Arrogant SOB's (Score:3, Interesting)
For instance, I know who I intended to vote for in 2000, but I have no proof that my vote was counted that way.
I assume that I voted correctly, just as all the people who accidentally voted for Buchanan instead of Gore believed they voted correctly.
The problem, and challenge is providing the voter with some verification that does not lead to corruption(vote selling)
Close margins... (Score:5, Funny)
Keep using unverifiable voting machines and you'll get your wish. G W will win by a landslide this time.
Electronic voting... (Score:3, Interesting)
Good luck.
Oh, look, they're adding a paper trail... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, how is this better than a paper ballot with a stub you detach as proof of voting?
It gives the machine makers millions that should have gone to public schools.
Hooray for demcracy.
Florida voting (Score:4, Funny)
Re:electronic voting sucks (Score:2, Funny)
Re:electronic voting sucks (Score:2, Funny)
"102,604
1
Re:electronic voting sucks (Score:5, Informative)
Re:STFU Eurofag! (Score:3, Informative)
What's not scalable about how they do the voting? If you have more ballots to count, you just get more people to count it.
Re:STFU Eurofag! (Score:3, Informative)
The point is, it's not just Florida. Florida just got the attention in 2000 because the entire state's electoral votes were delivered to Bush instead of Gore due to voting hijinks (or so the theory goes). The handful of com
Re:electronic voting sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:(stupid) electronic voting sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Technicalities aside, none of the election problems are about counting accuracy, neither human, nor mechanical, nor electronic. That's not the point. All measurements have an associated accuracy. It's how we deal with it that counts. If the margin of the election is of a size that given the error rate of the system there's a "reasonable" probability that the outcome is in error (1 sigma, 13% probability of error, say, given the error rate of the technology used [ncsl.org]) then a run-off election should be automatic, even if there's only two candidates in both elections. No matter what the voting technology. A 5% threashold would be statistically supportable.
All sampling systems have a margin of error. [learner.org] It's a 9th grade science mistake to get an F for submitting a graph of plant growth or whatever without any error bars. We seem to suffer from cognitive dissonance [ithaca.edu] in refusing to admit there's an inescapable margin of error, and thereby not accommodating for it.
In 2000, FL and several other states should have held run-off elections between W and G after the first election found them at a "statistical tie" [fec.gov]. It's not clear which way it would have gone after that, but whoever thereby won would actually have been a democratically elected president, rather than one technically appointed by a divisive judicial coup [google.com].
Anyway, the critical failure regarding DREs is the lack of recognition that they are fallible. How do we deal with critical systems that might fail? We create an audit trail so if something goes wrong, we have a chance of undoing the error, or at least figuring out what failed and fixing it, and at the very least knowing that something did in fact go wrong so we can try again.
The systems shipped by Diebold and ESS etc are both intrinsically fallible and intrinsically inauditable, which is intolerable. Further, if a voter has reason to doubt the impartiality of a company that has, for example, pledged to deliver it's electoral votes [ohio.com] to the republican in the next election to be run on it's own vote counting equipment, they might have some reason to doubt the veracity of the black-box [blackboxvoting.org] tallying process and that undermines the authority of democracy. It is important, therefore, even if it were proven technically unnecessary, to provide voters with the familiar indicator of fairness provided by a human-readable, authoritative, tangible ballot.
We've gone through a lot of effort convincing ourselves, and by force much of the world, that having a brainwashed electorate [truthout.org] choose one or the other corporate [informatio...house.info] flack [corpwatch.org] as titular head of the country is the best and fairest form of government on the planet (and it may well be, alas); at the very least we can apply basic 9th grade science to finding out whether tweedle dee or tweedle dum [highroad.org] won the popularity contest [cnn.com].
Re:electronic voting sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
Some people just will NOT vote correctly. They will NOT follow instructions. They just won't.
While a paper trail is absolutely necessary to see WHERE the problem lies, it certainly doesn't address that some people are either careless, lazy or just plain dumb.
Re:electronic voting sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you please explain why the Democratic election officials in Democratic wards would do something that would impact their core voters? This question should be posed to the County election boards in the recount counties which, by the way, were majority democrat.
Re:Budget (Score:3, Informative)
The machines were identical, the configuration was not. These are
Pallister has done a bunch of research as has the civil rights commission. See my sig for details. The GOP flacks on slashdot have been making the standard ad-hominem attacks to try to avoid dealing with the substance of his claims.
Note also that the guy the GOP dredged up to dispute th
Re:electronic voting sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
You are guilty of a common problem amongts Democrat types - blame the Republicans for everything no matter what.
If the ballot machines in Black, Democratic voting areas were programmed to silently ead up the ballot and ignore the vote, the blame rests soley on the elected officials in the Black, Democratic voting areas (which usually happen to be Black, and are most likely Democrats). Blaming the republ
Re:electronic voting sucks (Score:3, Interesting)
LOCAL officials control these things, not some centralized state official who might have the power to do as you claim. To the extent that the machines in predominantly black areas were techn
Re:electronic voting sucks (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is what the inquiry acually found [usccr.gov]:
The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred. Instead, the report concludes that officials ignored the mounting evidence of rising v
Re:electronic voting sucks (Score:3, Informative)
Consider the differences found in two counties-Leon and Gadsden-separated by the Ochlockonee River and the two broadest extremes of how votes are counted. In both counties voters use a pencil to fill in ovals on the ballot.
But if a voter in Leon County, which includes the state capital, Tallahassee, made a mistake on a ballot, the counting machine in the polling place automatically spit out t
Re:electronic voting sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, who determines the definition of "basic intelligence"? It sounds to me like you want to go back to the days where people had to take a test in order to be able to vote.
I have a pol. sci. professor who's smart, and sat on some committees to decide voting machine laws here in Indiana. She admitted that she didn't understand some of the machines that were put be
Re:electronic voting sucks (Score:3, Informative)
That's why we should amend the Constitution to allow only people of, at least, basic intelligence to vote.
This has already been tried [crmvet.org]
Since you apparently didn't know about this, then, by your own definition, maybe you wouldn't be qualified to cast your vote.
Those who do not remember the past shall be condemned to repeat it.
Re:electronic voting sucks (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not quite the same sport, let alone in the same ballpark.
You'll probably not be surprised that I disagree.
- Group A (racist whites) decides that there is a group B (blacks) whom they would rather not be allowed to participate in the voting process, even though they are citizens and will have to be governed by the winner of the election. Group A creates a litmus (literacy test) to filter group B from the polls.
- Group A (elitist ranting Slashdotters) decides that there is a group B (people who they arrogantly assume to be of lower intelligence) whom they would rather not be allowed to participate in the voting process, even though they are citizens and will have to be governed by the winner of the election. Group A creates a litmus (intelligence test) to filter group B from the polls.
What makes you guys think that you're qualified to tell people that they won't be allowed to select their representatives in a democratic government? I can see your intelligence test now:1) How did Bill Gates acquire DOS?
God, you're stupid! Give me that damn registration card!
I would imaging that if Eskimos created an intelligence test that you would fail it quite dramatically. It's not your, nor anyone else's right to be able to tell another citizen of the USA whether they are qualified to vote or not. Do you not realize how that makes you sound like a fascist?
Re:Voting Helpers (Score:3, Insightful)
"No.. no.. you don't want to pick *him* he's the wrong candidate." ;-)
Re:Don't let them steal your vote, vote absentee! (Score:2)
Re:Don't let them steal your vote, vote absentee! (Score:3, Informative)
the new Limbaugh math, perhaps? (Score:5, Informative)
Regardless, what's so hard for people to figure out? Having two paper copies (one so the person knows what they voted, another as a backup to the electronic vote, treated as the paper votes are now, both containing numeric impersonal codes for each vote) and a computer copy is neither difficult to implement nor expensive. It provides the ability to verify election results (although considering FL, I can see why you wouldn't want THAT). It would allow for the rapid count advantages of computer polls and have a secure backup in case of (or when) problems happen. Instead, the emphasis is on all-electronic voting with security holes one could drive a truck through. Irrelevant of the (supposed) stupidity of some FL voters, this doesn't seem like a hard concept to grasp.
Bush won (Score:3, Funny)
And the electoral vote does matter to equally represent people otherwise canidates would only campaign in large cities and those bumpkins in the midwest and the south would never been considered or cared about.
Re:Republicans (Score:3, Informative)
"Is it any coincidence that a Republican won the election?"
It's not a coincidence: There were only Republicans on the ballot. The surprising thing is that election officials seem to think that it's more appropriate for a Democrat to vote for a Republican than to not vote at all. (The really surprising thing is that the nonvotes were only one percent or so, meaning a whole lot of straight-ticket Democrats DID vote for a Republican when that was the only choice.)