ACLU of Ohio Sues To Block Paper Ballots

Apu writes in to inform us that the ACLU is trying to block an Ohio county from moving from touchscreen voting machines back to paper ballots. While it may seem like Cuyahoga County — which includes Cleveland — is moving in a good direction from the perspective of ballot security, the system chosen tabulates all votes at a central location. This means that voters don't get notified if their ballot contains errors, and thus they have no chance to correct it. The ACLU of Ohio is asking a federal judge for an injunction against any election in Cuyahoga County it they move to the new system.

Re:At least paper can't lie.

[Sciros]

Heh, well, paper maybe doesn't lie, but paper also doesn't choose the president. The Electoral College does. If you're worried about corruption/compromising in the system, there's probably enough nodes between the paper and the EC to worry about that you shouldn't feel safe just because you're marking paper rather than pressing a touch screen.

Re:Voting is a serious activity

[QuantumRiff]

Having your vote tallied by someone in running a machine in front of you defeats the whole purpose of confidentiality. They know exactly what I voted for, since they are right there at the machine. I would be against having my neighbor run my vote through a machine. (And if you can't expect the people to vote correctly, you certainly can't expect them to run it through a machine correctly, you would need someone "trained" to do it)

In oregon, all votes are mailed back to each respective county clerk. The mailing envelope is opened, (it has your name and signature on it) and saved separately. Then the "secrecy envelope" is opened, with your ballot in it. Then you can know that your vote was counted, but they don't know what you voted for. Then, a team of people go over the ballots to count them (along with machines as well). Every vote that is handled has to have 3 people present while it is handled, to ensure fairness. (I believe that they can't all be of the same party). Paper ballots are never destroyed, so recounts are easy, and votes are verifiable. The whole process is really stinking easy, no driving to locations to vote on a day you have a bunch of meetings, school, etc. HUGE voter turnout. Basically, the whole state does voting the way that most states do "absentee" voting.

Re:Voting is a serious activity

[illegalcortex]

While I agree with most of your posts, I have to question the education aspect. First off, I think if you look at the educational system in place pre-revolution, you have to admit it's a bit lacking. Especially for the "workers" you talked about. I think it's much more likely today that some son of a working class family will get an education that allows them to think on the level of the revolutionary thinkers. I think in revolutionary times, the lack of education more likely allowed the "thinkers" to be able to control and direct the population towards rebellion. Second, it was the wealthy that actually got any kind of good education in revolutionary times. The wealthy can still get such an education. Things haven't really changed that much in those terms.

Re:In Arizona

[frank_adrian314159]

After all, the ACLU claims to be in favor of "civil liberties" (it's in their name, after all), but then they're in favor of gun control, which goes against a very important civil liberty to many Americans.

The ACLU focuses mainly on First, Fourth, Eighth, and Fifteenth Amendment issues, something you'd know if you actually checked their web site. They also don't do much with Amendments Three, Seven, Nine, and Ten because, for the most part, those are mainly settled law these days. Sadly, with the current administration's actions, they've had to expand into the Fifth and Sixth Amendment actions, too.

They have explicitly not done anything with the Second, because (if you haven't noticed) there is already a rather large national organization taking that particular fight to the courts. In fact, the ACLU is neutral with respect to firearm control unless, for some reason, governments are being discriminatory in their enforcements of these laws and, in most of those cases, it usually results in reducing barriers for particular people obtaining firearms.

You'd have known this if you actually investigated the ACLU rather than echoing right-wing talking points, so you're either ignorant or being purposely dishonest. I don't bitch at the NRA for not defending my right to have my own SAM (for my protection, of course), so I don't see why you're bitching about the ACLU when they choose to let another organization take up the cause of a particular amendment. For the most part they've done a hell of a lot of good. And, if you check, you'll see that they've taken up a lot of cases against both Democratic and Republican run governments on the sides of both the right and the left. For someone who values "liberty" as much as you claim to, I'm surprised that you are bitching about an organization that is promoting rights in any form. In fact, from the vapid partisanship of your post, you seem to be more of a Republican Lib-wanabee rather than a real Libertarian.