BEAR on 7/10/2008 at 04:24
Thats disappointing, but at this point I find myself being less and less scrupulous.
Also:
Quote:
It seems that Obama is letting people who lost their right to vote, a chance to vote without giving Republicans the chance to challenge the voter?
I can barely tell what this person is saying (surprise surprise), but I wonder if this will hurt Obama much because of the fact that people don't seem to really understand the fundamentals of a 3rd party organization?
heretic on 7/10/2008 at 04:41
I don't see how this could hurt Obama at all.
It's more fuel to the fire for those who already have their mind made up about the Democrat party in general and likely a somewhat dubious issue for nearly everyone else.
I just thought that it would fit quite well in a "US political debacle" thread due to the potential for exploitation and fraud that is rife within our system.
BEAR on 7/10/2008 at 04:55
It seems like politics is unable to regulate its own voting apparatus.
I've thought, what would happen if the government went to IBM or some information systems company and said "develop us the most foolproof voting system possible", what would happen.
Instead we get fucking diebold making cheap easily hackable voting machines and stupid regulations that wouldn't be good enough for a game forum voting system. Government needs a serious shot of scientific thinking and information technology know how.
Gambit on 7/10/2008 at 11:12
Here in Brazil we had an election this last weekend, for mayors and councilmen.
A population of 200 million people and we managed to pull it with electronic voting machines. You don´t tick a box, instead you just choose the mayor´s number and press enter.
Not that there aren´t problems with the voting system. I don´t like the way our councilmen are elected. The focus is on the party and coalitions instead of the individuals. So councilman A with fewer votes can be elected over councilman B that has more votes than him if A´s party has more votes overall (the total votes of all councilmen of that party/coalition)
Rogue Keeper on 7/10/2008 at 12:59
Quote Posted by BEAR
I've thought, what would happen if the government went to IBM or some information systems company and said "develop us the most foolproof voting system possible", what would happen.
Instead we get fucking diebold making cheap easily hackable voting machines and stupid regulations that wouldn't be good enough for a game forum voting system. Government needs a serious shot of scientific thinking and information technology know how.
Ah, opinion of the highly practical IT lobby!
No way, the more technologically complex system, the bigger chances of it's fuck-ups. And nobody can be certain who's responsible if the technology fails and it's extremely vulnerable to tweaks of malicious human intent, then only "Ghost in the machine" can be blamed. Some systems are best on primitive level, proved to work for hundreds of years. At least human factor can be traced and penalized properly if it miscounts the tickets.
BEAR on 7/10/2008 at 14:30
But we use machines now, and they suck. I'm proposing using machines that are good, do you disagree with that? You know the government has paid a massive amount for these crappy voting machines, probably 10x what they are worth, just because that seems to be the way government contracts work (not withstanding the Bush administrations ties to diebold, and I know we used them before that). If voting is deemed important (and to a lot of politicians I would debate whether they think that), we should be willing to spend the money and get systems that are as good as they can be, not something a 14 year old can hack with a CF card and a multitool.
In a country of ~200 million voters, writing a vote on a piece of paper and putting it into a fucking box and hand counting is not feasible. The only real solution would be an open transparent well designed comprehensive system rather than the cobbled together nightmare we have now.
I'm also saying I think it should, if nothing else, be looked at as an information system problem, and not a political thing. The basic idea of voting and counting votes is not that complex, but we've made it so with fucked up state-to-state regulations and other bureaucratic bullshit.
jay pettitt on 7/10/2008 at 14:53
To be fair, remaining absolutely accessible, open and free while simultaneously being closed to any significant fraud probably isn't all that easy. I'm no expert, but I can't think of an example other than the ballot box that hasn't been a disaster - though it'll no doubt happen one day. I'm sure the US can count ballot papers if you try: having a big population just means you have access to more counters.
Starrfall on 7/10/2008 at 15:14
I don't see what's wrong with paper ballots that get scanned to count them? I think it's a good idea to have some sort of physical record that the voter actually changed and not just an electronic record. Or for electronic voting, make the machines spit out two copies of a credit-card style receipt: the voter checks to make sure the receipt says they voted for who they voted for, keeps one copy, and leaves the other at the polling place so it can be physically counted in case of shenanigans.
I don't think you can build a totally hack-proof machine, but you can make sure hacking is easy to notice and to remedy. We're just too obsessed with the former so we ignore the easy solution the latter provides.
Secretly I think I like paper ballots because that's what we use here, and I'm always tickled because they give us big markers to fill them in and it feels like first grade arts and crafts.
heretic on 7/10/2008 at 15:23
Quote Posted by Starrfall
Secretly I think I like paper ballots because that's what we use here, and I'm always tickled because they give us big markers to fill them in and it feels like first grade arts and crafts.
I vote by mail here in the north state, and California kindly sends a pen along with the v-packet incase I can't tell the difference between blue and black or might use invisible ink or something.
