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Voting Machines Switching Votes in West Virginia!
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October 21, 2008 CNN
October 21, 2008 CNN
Oct 22, 2008 6:11 PM
Re: Voting Machines Switching Votes in West Virginia!
Here in Canada we just made an X on a piece of paper for our federal election. Seems to work flawlessly.
I don't understand why they have to use the electronic methods. (They used it in our provincial election)
Progressive Conservative won. If anyone else cares.
(Probably not, along with almost half our population who didn't vote.)
Most of us are still following your election though.
I don't understand why they have to use the electronic methods. (They used it in our provincial election)
Progressive Conservative won. If anyone else cares.
(Probably not, along with almost half our population who didn't vote.)
Most of us are still following your election though.
Re: Voting Machines Switching Votes in West Virginia!
Yeah, and the counting could take place right at the polling place. As soon as voting closes, a team of interested volunteers could open the ballot box in full public view and manually tally out each ballot for anyone who cares to watch and record the process. The ballots shouldn't be moved anywhere until after they've been tallied.
Dark X marks on slips of paper and public, manual counting in the same room where they were cast is the way to go. No pregnant chads. No floating ballot boxes. No shifty software. No homeland security lockdowns of central counting facilities. No bullshit.
Sometimes the old ways really are the best.
Dark X marks on slips of paper and public, manual counting in the same room where they were cast is the way to go. No pregnant chads. No floating ballot boxes. No shifty software. No homeland security lockdowns of central counting facilities. No bullshit.
Sometimes the old ways really are the best.
Re: Voting Machines Switching Votes in West Virginia!
This is way much of the world does it - just make an X in the candidate of your choice.
I also totally do not understand why we need electronic machines for voting. They seem much more vulnerable to fraud and mistakes than other methods. As someone who works with computers for a living, I can state categorically that some things are just better done with paper.
I also think the US should seriously consider having Federal voting standards. (Too lazy to look this up right now, but I believe that voting methods are left up to the states by the Constitution. There was a good article I read about the surprising history of voting in the US in... damn, I think it was last week's New Yorker, but it might have been this month's Harpers...)
I also totally do not understand why we need electronic machines for voting. They seem much more vulnerable to fraud and mistakes than other methods. As someone who works with computers for a living, I can state categorically that some things are just better done with paper.
I also think the US should seriously consider having Federal voting standards. (Too lazy to look this up right now, but I believe that voting methods are left up to the states by the Constitution. There was a good article I read about the surprising history of voting in the US in... damn, I think it was last week's New Yorker, but it might have been this month's Harpers...)
By: StrangeAttractor
Re: Voting Machines Switching Votes in West Virginia!
the man who claims he doesn't have the knowledge to change the machines vote is the same man who declares they work flawlessly. Doublespeak anyone?
By: pieboldstallion
Re: Voting Machines Switching Votes in West Virginia!
There are rigged machines, but these are not them. This is just bad touch-screen design. You want REALLY BIG boxes for the choices if you're going to have the general public working these things. An un-educated West Virginia dolt trying to place a vote on one of these new-fangled computer machines is like trying to use a Nintendo DS without a stylus.
By: deiviant
Re: Voting Machines Switching Votes in West Virginia!
Yeah, and a decent margin between the hot zones would be in order. But really, having one candidate always listed above the other makes the errors all tend to favor the same guy each time.
Re: Voting Machines Switching Votes in West Virginia!
Yeah... and at least having your current selection displayed in big black bold letters right in the middle. With at least one confirmation question.
Even with that, it still won't display what the hardware/software is actually doing inside. If there are hundreds of thousands machines like that installed, they can easily hide malfunctiuning or altered ones in the lot. And then they show one that works fine to the public, release a perfectly legit source code on some website, and pretend there's no fraud and everything is fine. ...My ass.
I liked the idea of having electronic vote but still having a paper recipe with your name (or your unique citizenship ID number) and your vote on it, that you keep for yourself just in case a city, a state or even the whole country demands a recount if a fraud is suspected.
Even with that, it still won't display what the hardware/software is actually doing inside. If there are hundreds of thousands machines like that installed, they can easily hide malfunctiuning or altered ones in the lot. And then they show one that works fine to the public, release a perfectly legit source code on some website, and pretend there's no fraud and everything is fine. ...My ass.
I liked the idea of having electronic vote but still having a paper recipe with your name (or your unique citizenship ID number) and your vote on it, that you keep for yourself just in case a city, a state or even the whole country demands a recount if a fraud is suspected.
By: NEU-NEU
Re: Voting Machines Switching Votes in West Virginia!
It's often claimed that having no way to match a voter with a ballot is a design feature. The idea is that voter intimidation or bribery is reduced when there's no evidence as to which way someone else voted. Many people assume this is a universal requirement for any legitimate voting system. But when we have a problem of counting fraud that's orders of magnitude bigger than any one-by-one voter intimidation, it's time to reconsider this design "feature".
I'd love to have a paper receipt with a unique ID number, where I can go look on a government website to make sure it was recorded as cast. And if that receipt also contains my ballot answers in a way that's reasonably difficult for me to forge, it would have tremendous benefits for exposing fraud. At the very least, the receipt could have an encryption checksum encoding the ballot answers with the ballot serial number in such a way that an altered ballot is apparent to the counting authority, and a ballot replacement is apparent to me when I check the listings.
I'd love to have a paper receipt with a unique ID number, where I can go look on a government website to make sure it was recorded as cast. And if that receipt also contains my ballot answers in a way that's reasonably difficult for me to forge, it would have tremendous benefits for exposing fraud. At the very least, the receipt could have an encryption checksum encoding the ballot answers with the ballot serial number in such a way that an altered ballot is apparent to the counting authority, and a ballot replacement is apparent to me when I check the listings.
Re: Voting Machines Switching Votes in West Virginia!
This same thing is going on here at M&Cs. Whenever I encounter one of Spam's links, I say to myself "What have we here?" and vote * but then suddenly the system says that I voted *****
Unacceptable. But I'll admit the guy has a sense of humor. Why else would somebody as corrupt as spam_vigilante call himself the way he does?
Unacceptable. But I'll admit the guy has a sense of humor. Why else would somebody as corrupt as spam_vigilante call himself the way he does?
Re: Voting Machines Switching Votes in West Virginia!
Bullshit. If you ever voted one of my submissions a 1*, I'd have kicked your arse!
Heh-heh.
Shall I tell you that I am madly in love with Bugs Bunny or a woman as strange as you could possibly conceive?
Heh-heh.
Shall I tell you that I am madly in love with Bugs Bunny or a woman as strange as you could possibly conceive?
By: spam_vigilante
Re: Voting Machines Switching Votes in West Virginia!
Bullshit! You ain't got no legs that long.
So you love Bugs the Cross-Dressing Rabbit? Or is Bugs a hare? You see, he seems to be able to change species once in a while, as well.
So you love Bugs the Cross-Dressing Rabbit? Or is Bugs a hare? You see, he seems to be able to change species once in a while, as well.
Re: Voting Machines Switching Votes in West Virginia!
There was a video posted Oct. 1 of Homer trying to vote for Obama and this exact thing happened. Homer's prophecy....
And I agree, as a Canadian I would have to say paper ballots, well supervised with a traceable chain of custody are still the best way to do this. You can't eliminate voter fraud completely, but the more people involved makes fraud much more difficult because it requires more people.
We had a municipal election in my are to vote for Mayor 2 years ago where we could vote online. My friend, who is the local computer store/ISP owner, was asked to take care of the setup. He said once voting closed, the program spit out an Excel spreadsheet with the votes on it, and there would have been nothing stopping him from changing the numbers any way he wanted. There was no other record.
And I agree, as a Canadian I would have to say paper ballots, well supervised with a traceable chain of custody are still the best way to do this. You can't eliminate voter fraud completely, but the more people involved makes fraud much more difficult because it requires more people.
We had a municipal election in my are to vote for Mayor 2 years ago where we could vote online. My friend, who is the local computer store/ISP owner, was asked to take care of the setup. He said once voting closed, the program spit out an Excel spreadsheet with the votes on it, and there would have been nothing stopping him from changing the numbers any way he wanted. There was no other record.
By: Razorback
