Comments on: Vote.

By: Buzz Parsec

Buzz Parsec — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 03:36:40 +0000

I think my bogus latin may have come out exactly opposite of my intention
Maybe “silvanula ite domum”? “Silva” meaning woods, forest, or tree, “ula” diminutive (as in Caligula), “ite” to go, “domum” as in house, home.

By: Irishman

Irishman — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 21:57:21 +0000

Pity said:
>We used a machine other than Diebold and it seemed OK to me. One votes on the screen, then when all done, press CAST BALLOT (not really) to print a paper copy of votes that appears under glass. If happy with choices, press CAST BALLOT again and a â€œstamp of approvealâ€ plus barcode is added to the paper printout, then it scrolls out of view, ready for the next victim – er, voter.

Seems better. First, you see your vote committed to paper and can verify it matches what you intended. Then you authenticate it with a stamp. Difficult to tamper with, written record stored in the machine to provide independent audit trail.

>Last year we had the â€œfill in circleâ€ type of paper form that would be scanned for correctness, then dropped into a 2nd slot (not unlike a shredderâ€¦) to be counted and stored. Seems to me that with the proliferation of home computers, many of us could print and fill out such a form at home. Then we could skip the voting booth and speed up the processâ€¦.

There are concerns over that. One is ballot box stuffing. If I’m able to download the correct form, print it on whatever paper I like, fill it out at home, then mail it in, there are no safeguards to prevent me from sending in multiple votes. Okay, there are identity checks required for the voter, but there are still ways to stuff the box. Even if the polling locations are monitored to make sure you don’t slip in two forms when submitting, there’s no identity on the forms themselves, so once they go in the box they’re anonymous. That is good for anonymity, but bad for auditing. Ballot swapping can occur – trade out a box full of real ballots with your own batch of alternate ballots. Thus all the other regulations on maintaining security of ballot boxes and such. One control is that the only official ballot is obtainable from the precinct. Thus ballot swapping is more difficult – the cheater has to get access to real ballot forms.

By: tjm220

tjm220 — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:42:39 +0000

Calgary has a population a smidge over 1,000,000 and voting times for me was at most 10 minutes. Maybe it’s the time of day or an organizational difference?

By: Kelfazin

Kelfazin — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 23:49:51 +0000

Well sirjonsnow, while 50,000 is enough to consider “decent sized”, consider that here in Phoenix we have a population of a little over 5,000,000. So since we’re 100 times larger than you, you can assume that our wait time is significantly longer as well

By: Christian Burnham

Christian Burnham — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 21:15:39 +0000

Ars Technica, which is a pretty good geek site has a good technical piece on
“How to steal an election by hacking the vote”

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/evoting.ars

By: tjm220

tjm220 — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 21:08:32 +0000

With the success of the Democrats is there any chance that execrable habeas corpus thing can be tossed?

By: metempsychosis

metempsychosis — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 21:01:48 +0000

You know what I’ll find funny? When we have the exact same out-of-control party situation in ’08 after a Democrat is elected President, only everyone is okay with it because Bush isn’t involved.

I’d consider fleeing the country if there were anywhere worth running to.

By: Pity

Pity — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 20:44:38 +0000

I voted early – last Thursday in a “suburb” of Denver. Arrived at 1745, doors were locked to newcomers at 1900 as advertised and I walked out of the building just before 2000. There were only 8 (EIGHT) terminals for us to use!

According to this AM’s news, many in Denver and vicinity suffered the same yesterday. Electronic checkin was mentioned quite a bit, as in laptops, etc needing to reboot or just down.

We used a machine other than Diebold and it seemed OK to me. One votes on the screen, then when all done, press CAST BALLOT (not really) to print a paper copy of votes that appears under glass. If happy with choices, press CAST BALLOT again and a “stamp of approveal” plus barcode is added to the paper printout, then it scrolls out of view, ready for the next victim – er, voter.

Last year we had the “fill in circle” type of paper form that would be scanned for correctness, then dropped into a 2nd slot (not unlike a shredder…) to be counted and stored. Seems to me that with the proliferation of home computers, many of us could print and fill out such a form at home. Then we could skip the voting booth and speed up the process….

By: sirjonsnow

sirjonsnow — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 17:34:35 +0000

I never understand the stories I hear about long waits to vote. I live in a decent sized town (around 50,000) and I don’t think it’s ever taken me more than maybe 5 minutes from entering the building to leaving.

By: Caledonian

Caledonian — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 13:58:41 +0000

Keep in mind that some people have been making repetitive phone calls on the behalf of their opponents in the hope that people would be annoyed into voting for them.

By: gopher65

gopher65 — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 12:49:44 +0000

I chose not to vote in the local municipal election because of all the robocalls I was recieving. Every halfway decent candidate spammed me to death, so in the end, I was about ready to hang them all on the general principle of “you’ve annoyed the hell out of me”.

By: icemith

icemith — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 07:18:45 +0000

Infophile (at 3.32pm), you don’t really imagine that ten months back in the country is not long enough to get an idea as to the direction and purpose of your local political parties surely. Is that why busy News teams and reporters don’t submit anything as they have only had 24 hours since the last crisis? I think not.

Excuses, excuses.

While there are many reasons for one to be un-decided who to vote for, or if you like, against, though a more sensible person would see that any vote for a candidate is effectively a vote against another. Unless you have to number all candidates, in order of preference, and the most disliked is then placed last, voting against a candidate is no sure way to prevent another unknown from being elevated in the outcome.

The idea of “none of the above” is superficially appealing, but I would guess you would have to like recurrant elections to want to go dpwn that road, not to mention the cost. Responsible Government ensures stability, even if some have to accept the verdict. And that also means fair elections and no dodgy systems a la Florida’s debacle.

It seems the emphasis is on “I” and “Me” and “Us”, rather than the common good. I see that as UStocracy rather than Democracy.

I hope you voted early but not often.

Ivan.

By: Christian Burnham

Christian Burnham — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 06:15:11 +0000

I’ve got some santorum still stuck on the bottom of my shoe.

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 05:15:07 +0000

Yeah, I won’t shed a tear for Santorum. Besides being a tremendous bigot, he tried to force through ID words into No Child Left Behind. That travesty was still used by ID proponents in various states to get their garbage into school board decisions.

By: david

david — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 04:28:19 +0000

Another good thing is we do not have a fixed date for elections and the peroid for campaigning is usually like a month or so, so we do not have two or four years of campaigning from one election to another.

By: anomalous4

anomalous4 — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 03:50:51 +0000

“One of the cute things about Canadian elections is that the party or candidate that runs a negative ad is usually doomed

You Canadians are such a class act!

I have a good friend who voted against a candidate today simply because he’s been getting 3 robocalls a day from that candidate’s campaign. The candidate happened to be the Republican. What a shame.

SANTORUM IS GOING DOWN IN FLAMES!!!!!!!!!!! Cue the Hallelujah Chorus, and crank up those blaster boxes!

By: james

james — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 03:11:17 +0000

Uh, cos that would mean spending money?

to quote: The english gentleman will ignore any inequity or outrage so long as the solution threatens to put an extra penny on the pound in income tax.

as true over the pond as it is here.

as to the libertarians axing NASA, I think the general idea is with government regulation out of the way, there would be a booming private space industry before to long. To be fair, NASA has torpedoed a lot of private enterprise over the years. On the other hand, private industry just doesn’t do good science (reality tends to be unpalatable to the consumers)

By: Christian Burnham

Christian Burnham — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 23:43:36 +0000

Adam. OK, maybe not a conspiracy- but I think it’s fair to question the ineptitude of the voting machine system being used.

I can’t work out why the US hasn’t fixed the many problems left in their system after the debacle of the last two general elections.

By: david

david — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 23:39:41 +0000

well I live in canada so i already voted but I live on the us border so some of the decesions that are made in the US can have an effect here so I try to stay informed on what is going on south of the border.

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 23:19:35 +0000

Can I only hope that if the Republicans win that this site doensâ€™t become a conspiracy site. Argue the point that what the people voted is wrong but donâ€™t lower yourself to the level of some other the sites.

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 22:47:08 +0000

Gopher65: I, too, am getting error messages for every reply.

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 22:45:50 +0000

Buzz Parsec said:
“Every time I see one of these discussions of proper Latin grammer, I think of John Cleese (centurion) forcing Brian to write â€œRomans go homeâ€ correctly 500 time in red paint on the walls of Jerusalem. A movie for our times (complete with UFO, to make it vaguely on-topic for BA.) Silvianula Domanus! (or is that corrupted Greek?)”

Me too! Romanes Eunt Domus!

Or should that be Romani ite domum! ?

Also, BTW, they won’t let me vote either, because of not being a US citizen or some similar such technicality…

By: Infophile

Infophile — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 22:32:55 +0000

Personally, I’m opposed to mandatory voting. Should those who honestly haven’t studied the issues and don’t have an opinion be forced to vote? That’s what happened to me last year in the Canadian elections. I’d only been back in Canada for around 10 months total, and I barely had any idea of the politics there (American media never pays attention to it). I could have gone out and voted nevertheless, but I just didn’t feel right doing it.

By: Wayne

Wayne — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 22:25:50 +0000

I voted for every independent/Libertarian that was remotely credible as a candidate. Unfortunately, it wasn’t even a third of the races. I’m a little worried about Libertarians at the National level because of their anti-NASA (and anti just about every federal agency) stance. I agree that big federal buracracies are not efficient, but do they really think the states would have their own space programs? I have no problem with them at the state and local level, though. I hope some of them get in.

By: John B. Sandlin

John B. Sandlin — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 21:34:01 +0000

I voted early – electronically (I sure hope I voted!). My wife just left to cast her votes. Like some others have said, I’m not enamoured of either major party (that being the Republicans and Democrats). Locally the “third” party candidates generally do have a chance to win so I feel good about voting independent. But nationally the two parties have a near lock on the process. I like the suggestion for “None Of The Above” – that’s the way I feel a lot lately.

jbs