A Flawed US Election Reform Bill 188
H.R.811 sounds great: It's stated purpose is "to require a voter-verified permanent paper ballot." Unfortunately, it sounds like the details have some devils, as usual. From the Bev Harris article Is a flawed bill better than no bill?: "[T]he Holt Bill provides for a paper trail (toilet paper roll-style records affixed to DRE voting machines) in 2008, requires more durable ballots in 2010, and requires a complex set of audits. It also cements and further empowers a concentration of power over elections under the White House, gives explicit federal sanction to trade secrets in vote counting, mandates an expensive 'text conversion' device that does not yet exist which is not fully funded, and removes 'safe harbor' for states in a way that opens them up to unlimited, expensive, and destabilizing litigation." Update: 07/11 16:23 GMT by KD : Derek Slater writes "EFF's e-voting expert Matt Zimmerman recently published this article separating the myths about HR 811 from the facts, and countering many of the misleading and outright false claims being made about it."
Is this a surprise to anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
If as our fearless leaders say "the future of America is the knowledge worker and innovator" then we must start electing a few (or more) people with technical backgrounds.
For this to happen, some of us introverted technical folks are going to have to swallow that and run for office.
Re:My opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
= =>
next to each name. you use the advanced technology of the 'pencil' to complete the arrow of your desired candidate (for mayor and for councillor, they're separate categories), and then it goes into a scanner that detects which arrow you selected. Then it goes into a stack so there is a paper trail. This way you get the advantages of machine voting with the advantages of paper voting.
Re:My opinion (Score:1, Interesting)
VoteHere has created an amazing piece of software that uses a multi-step encryption to make the election both publicly auditable and securely secretive. They've done a shit job at marketing their system, but it's really our only chance to have any confidence in our process. We need to spread the word and convince them to spruce up their web presence. Yet they can repair our elections, and if we are allowed to vote then we can repair our nation. If not, we'll probably continue selling off everything we have that's worth anything and this country will become ever more miserable and weak. Trust no one.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)
The truth of the matter is that as long as we use an electoral system for the presidential election, the STATES should be in control of each of their voting standards and not the federal government. And as long as each state will have a certain number of elected representatives, each state should have its own control over how that process works, too. If a certain state wants to use flawed voting machines to determine the outcome of the election, so be it. If a state wants to let its governor appoint senators, representatives and choose who will receive the electoral votes, so be it. That is the way the system is supposed to work in this country, and I personally want the feds to stay out of it. At best, the federal government should be allowed to publish information about perceived problems in the voting systems of certain states so that the residents of that states have an opportunity to change. If desired change doesn't happen, the residents can move to another state, and the number of representatives and electoral votes can be adjusted accordingly during the next census. If any combination of the three branches of our federal government are going to be allowed to control election standards and methods for the individual states, we might as well take all control away from the states and make the next step towards dictatorship.
Reps do most of it, population overrides sometimes (Score:3, Interesting)
1) On some issues elected officials, just by being elected officials, have (or perceive) a conflict-of-interest with the voters and thus have a strong incentive to vote in non-representative ways. (Example: Raising taxes.)
2) There are a large number of issues. It's often impossible to find (or elect) a candidate that has the same opinions on all the important issues as the people he represents. In that case the candidate is elected on the basis of some common set of very important issues. Then the electorate can override the legislature on those issues where the body as a whole is non-representative.
3) Sometimes there are important and divisive issues where the politicians don't want to take the flack for their own position or where the politicians know the makeup of the legislature is not representative. They can send these directly to the voters and take no personal flack, retaining their seats if they otherwise act in their constituents' interest.
The representatives do the bulk of the day-to-day stuff but when something close and important comes up or the legislature gets out of hand a direct poll is less of a "game of telephone" than having the representatives try to interpret the "will of the people".
Meanwhile, all this stuff is at the STATE level. The federal government doesn't have these mechanisms. (The closest they have is when they delegate important issues - such as constitutional amendments and interim legislative replacement appointments - to the state legislatures or governors.)
No early exit polling results ether! (Score:3, Interesting)
They are used to tell the parties how many times their operatives still need to vote late on election day.
That's the reason some districts suddenly have long lines appear an hour before the polls close (St. Louis is the most blatant example in recent elections, some districts have routine 105% voter turnouts, strangely no investigations).