It's the Chinese parts that do it, every time!

speaking of chinese parts...

All the new electric meters in the area are fancy new ones that let the meter reader just drive by to get the reading, don't need to actually read the numbers. Great idea! However... there was a "bad part" in there. On the first power outage & turn on, nearly all the x-mitter circuit's fried. Low & behold they're now sending guys on 10 hour days to replace several hundred thousand meters. All because they went with the cheaper one made in china. :)

Just went and voted and I found the machine to be most intuitive and I was in and out in less than 5 minutes.

j razz

"I was in and out in less than 5 minutes"

Yep, that's one of my problems too!

I was in and out in less than 5 minutes

Hopefully your vote was stored longer than that...

It is astonishing to me the sloppiness that has been accepted with these machines. At least Nevada subjected the voting machines to the same well thought out regulations as slot machines, to minimize cheating.

Why is it not mandatory to have each vote recorded on a paper backup that can be verified by the voter before leaving the booth, then checked later if there is any question about the result (such as one candidate getting something like 101.2% of the votes as has happened several times in the past years)?

Princeton University has already showed how one manufacturer's voting machines could be invisibly reprogrammed in one minute to have one candidate win. All it took was having one minute anytime before the election, for example the night before, or in the morning as the voting station is being opened. They also showed how the program patch erased itself after its work was done. Protection? A piece of tape that was easy to remove and put back without anyone noticing. The program storage? An ordinary flash card from Staples/Office Depot.

A roll of paper that showed in a window to each voter what he or she just voted for would go a long way to reduce this problem. If there was any suspicion of fraud after the election, the paper roll would be the final arbiter.

And it's not just the Diebold voting machine company that promised to deliver the election to President Bush, it's also another company (Sequoia) that had a connection to Hugo Chavez, so the fraudsters were concerned that they had competition.

Leading democracy? Political analysts here in the U.S. and overseas are saying that Mexico is way ahead of us in having a working voting system.

Someday we'll catch up.

If ever I saw a candidate for using open source software, this would certainly be it.

"It's the Chinese parts that do it, every time!"

HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Watch it! I'm full of Chinese parts!!!! :p Or at least, i'm full of 25% Chinese parts. ;)

Yes, but we know all your parts 'works' Chien

Simple solution - a paper backup. Republicans have been against that. I'll leave it up to you to decide why.

New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt (D), introduced House bill HR 2239 (the Voter Confidence Act) --October 2003, insisting on a paper trail and Open Source Code for DRE’s. Ohio Congressman Bob Ney (R), became the chief opponent to rally against Holt’s bill and attempt to block its passage. He informed Holt that he wouldn’t even allow a hearing on the bill, and because he was chairman of that committee... his word held. Not until significant pressure was put upon him, did Ney allow hearings to be held. But the bill did not pass because of Republicans. Ney is one of the Republicans who pleaded guilty in the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal. The news media spent the last few weeks discussing the problems with e-voting machines yet seemed to conveniently omit the Republican efforts to stifle any solutions.

John

#2 pencils and paper ballot,, no the republicans would cheat

Punch ballots, hanging chads, the republicans would cheat

any form of electronic, computer ,machines, no the republicans would cheat

one day I hope to be as honest as those angelic democrats :)

#2 pencils and paper ballot,, no the republicans would cheat
========
They seem to do just fine in Europe with those. Why are Republicans against a paper trail? I am open to logical explanations.

John

I just got back from voting and my state, New Mexico, has gone from electronic voting machines to paper ballots. It took a few more moments to vote, but I really like the fact that there is a paper trail.

John

The factors in favour of machine voting seem to be speed of collating results (evening news) and fewer electorial staff needed. The factors against are malfunction and corruption. I would have thought factors against would weight heavily in this equation. Australia has a paper only system that delivers results by 10pm, except for seats that go down to the wire and when somebody calls for a recount on their seat. Our voting is less tedious in that we don't vote for minor officials (sherrifs, for heaven's sake!) and states hold their own elections, but we do have preferential voting (putting candidates in order of preference, so if my #1 can't win, my votes go to my #2, etc) so preferences must also be computed and greatly influence close contests. A fully checkable and accountable system, which is run entirely by an independent body (no influence possible by parties or states), with scrutineers appointed by each candidate to watch the manual counting in their electorate. Mistakes can be made (obviously) but these are small and scrutineers can at any time demand recounting of a bunch of votes if they think an error occured, and a candidate will get a recounting of all votes if requested. Voting is the heart of democracy and I'm surprised that voters in USA are content with a labour saving system that may or may not deliver a true count.

"Why are Republicans against a paper trail? I am open to logical explanations"

I think the "official" word is that the dirty democrats would pay the less fortunate for their vote. "Just bring me your paper trail ballot, I'll pay you $5 for each Democrat vote"

Bad logic, since the Republicans are the ones with all the money.

Nah, I think it's something else...

Oregon & Washington State have introduced voting by mail in special envelopes. It generates an incredible 85% voting rate among registered voters, and no mechanical issues. You sign the envelope when you mail in the ballot. (Keep your copy for recounts=paper trail.)

My late stepfather, a wonderful colorful guy named Grafton, as a young man (his 'drinking years') was recruited by the Long campaign organization in Louisiana to sign up voters--from the local graveyards.

Moral: I think the way to keep the competitors honest is to remove the means of cheating.
.

I'm also in Australia and our pathetically simple pencil and paper system with its paper trail works perfectly - even if you hate Johnny Howard at least you know he didn't steal the election.
US elections on the other hand would be considered fraudlent even in the third world - and the fact that the Democrats accept the rigged 'mafia crap' game you consider an electoral process makes the US look like a scene from Monty Python.
It's a pity because the rest of the world relies on you to get rid of Bush and his neo-cons ( what a cute word for american fascism) so the rest of us can get to sleep at night.
IN fact the rest of the world should get to vote in your elections - if we trade in your money we should also get a vote in your country.

Hey maybe its time we made the world currency the australian dollar - that way we could build the greatest weapons system in history and still run a $500 billion deficit and strut around like Texan cowboys thinking we own the joint. Now if we all switched to the Euros maybe we could deflate the US delusions of grandeur..

Thats funny you mentioned Western Electric. My WE phones still work
fine even though the breakup was decades ago. New phones don't last
but you also have to look at the fact WE built the phones for lease.

Today's companies WANT to sell you more.equipment.
I had the choice to use a touchscreen but decided on the trusty paper
ballot.

Give me a trusty black rotary dial phone any day over my cell phone.

If I could just find a good ol' PAYPHONE!

Ah well--if it doesn't work out there's always New Zealand. Might go live with the Hobbits.

graveyard voters --- wherever parties or candidates have direct influence on the voting system these cheats occur; in Australia and everywhere. The system in Australia is based on the electorial role of everybody over 18 which is generated by the independent Electorial Office. To vote you have to identify yourself and have your name crossed off; a good paper trail that you are elligible to vote and have voted only once (but of course the votes are anonimous, so multiple votes would be difficult to extract from the pile). Everyone has to vote, but those who object (such as certain Christian groups) can pay a small fine or make an invalid vote (an advantage of paper -- you can choose to write what you think of the government in making your vote invalid).

Anyway, we're interested in what your system delivers. Yesterday here the Melbourne Cup, today the USA elections (both on Tuesday).

"My WE phones still work fine"

My Dad worked for Southwestern Bell / SBC / now ATT for 40 years. He had a 1930-40's era phone in the basement, separate ringer box. Still there. My mom still uses it. Built like a tank. And of course, it's color is...black.

One of the phone workman came over to fix something and offered to trade all of our phones out for the latest models for free. My Dad politely told him "over my dead body."

I think it was now worth about as much as the workman's truck.

I find it hard to believe that you would use an NLE. After all it is just bits and bytes in a computer. Who would trust a new fangled device like that! Give you film stock any day. A hard drive crash makes no difference with film.

And forget voip. Your calls going through a cable and not a telephone switcher? Who would dare such a thing? Stay away from those brain tumor cell phones and forget those electric cars. My god what has this world come too? Next thing you know they will replace money with a piece of plastic and call it cash!

And of course you know that we never really went to the moon.

I would have thought factors against would weight heavily in this equation...............A fully checkable and accountable system, which is run entirely by an independent body (no influence possible by parties or states), with scrutineers appointed by each candidate to watch the manual counting in their electorate. ............Voting is the heart of democracy and I'm surprised that voters in USA are content with a labour saving system that may or may not deliver a true count.
==========
When there was a chance to do something about it, news of the legislation was kept from the public by the news media until after it was defeated by the Republican party.
As I have demonstrated in many OT posts with clear examples the problem in the United States is the news media. It is the number ONE problem this nation faces and the number one reason for a lack of progress.
There has been only one party (The Republicans) controlling the government that stifles the flow of information to the public through their shills in the news media. If Democrats win anything it will be despite the lies fed to the public in the news media. There have been many articles written about the "Dumbing down of America". The news media is responsible for the inability of many Americans to think because they have manipulated the information to get that unfortunate result.
As we speak Chris Matthews of NBC is peppering the head of the Democratic party accusing him of basically planning to ruin the nation if they gain any power. The thrust of the reporting and fake political analysis across the board has been that the Republicans got themselves in trouble and the Democrats have gained support purely by default. The political analysis has centered around .."What do the Republicans have to do next (if they have any losses in this election) to regain their rightful place as rulers of the land"......and subsequently the world.

John

Serena,

"I'm surprised that voters in USA are content with a labour saving system that may or may not deliver a true count"

Many of the people I know are not content. I'm outraged. Not until 2000 did I know that +-10% was acceptable to vote counters, and a common error factor. But by 2000, it was too late. This is the start of the US gaining back their country, IMHO.

Not saying we won't nuke the bad guys, either!