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"Secure Elections Act" Coming Up For Vote
Posted by
kdawson
on Tuesday April 15, @06:03PM
from the paying-for-paper dept.
from the paying-for-paper dept.
Irvu writes "The US House of Representatives is considering HR. 5036, the 'Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008,' as introduced by Representative Rush Holt. The bill is scheduled for a floor vote later today. It would provide for emergency paper ballots, money for the addition of voter verifiable paper ballots to existing systems, and post-election audits. Crucially, the change to paper is opt-in, making it possible for local jurisdictions to govern their own choices. Here are two summaries of the bill. It was reported out of committee with strong bipartisan support. As of this morning the White house has opposed the bill but not threatened a veto, and some previously supportive Republicans have now changed their tune. Calls may be made to your house rep (click on 'Find your representative'). Here's a sample support letter."
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What a waste of money (Score:4, Funny)
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Already done (Score:5, Funny)
Oops [theonion.com]
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Crucially Broken (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, that is crucial. Because in the jurisdictions that are running rigged elections, that don't want to leave evidence of their rigging, or are just getting bribed by crappy non-verifiable voting machine vendors to buy the crap, despite how it fails any reasonable quality test, those jurisdictions don't have to change anything.
A good bill would require opt-out, and only subject to some accountability, like a judge's decision that there are extenuating circumstances, or a (paper trail) vote by the people in the jurisdiction.
I mean, who else but a crooked politicial or a salesperson for a crooked or broken machine could possibly have a reason to opt out, when it's all paid for by the Feds (you and me)? What kind of priorities put anything above the integrity and respectability of our most essential link to democracy, the counting of our votes?
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Re:Crucially Broken (Score:4, Interesting)
If they can't offer a suitable explanation due to a lack of a paper trail because they decided not to accept free money from the feds... well, I am not going to say they *would* be in trouble because the American Electorate is notorious for not caring, but there would at least be some eyebrows raised.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Tin foil hats won't cover this one.
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The bill failed to pass (Score:5, Informative)
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So why did Dr. No say NO? (Score:3, Informative)
Notice that "Dr. No" also voted against it. Ron Paul is NOT going to base his vote on trying to improve or preserve election cheating.
That says to me that there's an issue with the Fede
Paper's no pancea, hope it gets done right (Score:3, Informative)
It's a little scary seeing the pretty wide authority given to a single federal agency with not a lot of regulation. Eligibility isn't particularly clearly defined. I think in general retrofitting DRE's with VVPAT, particularly in time for November, has a huge potential for causing more harm than good. It's nice to see we've stopped the fairly phony "verified vs. verifiable" debate. My reading says anyone who by state law has to count emergency paper ballots as provisional is ineligible for that portion. For all the requirements there are for the audit section, I'd like to see some in there for handling paper ballots. How about teaching people about ballot design, chain of custody...?
I think it's great that we're expressing the need for research. I'm interested on NIST's input on how feasible this is and more interested on what the actual dollar figures end up at.
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/, as a lobbying vehicle? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:/, as a lobbying vehicle? (Score:4, Informative)
I've been here for quite a few years. I think maybe 9.
Since when has /. not lobbied for certain things?
Democrats, liberals, net neutrality, voter verified paper trails, and tons more. This has only increased (unsurprisingly) since the Politics section was created (which helped reduce the S/N on the other bits). Slashdot has been quite vocal in various things (like almost anything anti-Bush) for years and years.
All that said, this is a private website. They can lobby for whatever they want. That story went through the firehose (or at least other copied did) and was quite popular. Readers seem to want to discuss it as well.
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Re:Nonsence... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Nonsence... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Nonsence... (Score:4, Insightful)
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How depressing (Score:4, Informative)
Check out this article and you'll get really get upset about some electronic voting machines in use.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4066 [bradblog.com]
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sure that they said the same thing (with a smaller number, of course) in 1861. After all, how many republics or democracies had even existed before then? (I know it's at least one of each, but the
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Because the Democrats have largely been succe
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Re:Let's get one thing straight (Score:4, Informative)
One reason I'm a fan of paper ballots is that you don't need a degree in Computer Science to understand how they work. Just about any second grader could devise a paper ballot system, which means almost everyone not denied the right to vote can easily reason about whether the system works the way it's supposed to. They don't have to trust experts to be able to trust the voting system.
Just because we're the Slashdot community doesn't mean we should be in favor at gratuitously throwing more technology at everything. Some things are better done the old-fashioned way.
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That's right. Voting and sex. For everything else, a computer a guaranteed to provide an improvement in speed, quality, or reproducibility.
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