US Election Year, Still No Voting Reform 302
An anonymous reader writes "A year ago, we discussed this on Slashdot: E-Voting Reform In an Out Year?. The point was that due to the hoard of problems with electronic (and mechanical) voting, it is best to approach reform in an out year, when it is not on everyone's mind yet too late to do anything about it. Well, we failed, didn't we? Another election year is upon us, and our vote is less secure, less reliable, and less meaningful than ever. To reference the last article, we still have no open source voting, no end-to-end auditable voting systems and no open source governance. So don't complain if this election is stolen. You forgot to fix the system."
"no end-to-end auditable voting systems" (Score:5, Insightful)
We have one. It's called the "paper ballot".
TFS also left out: (Score:2, Insightful)
No one worthwhile to vote for, and congress will screw up everything anyway, so even if you DID fix the voting, nothing would change.
If voting actually worked, they'd probably outlaw it.
Of Really? (Score:2, Insightful)
So don't complain if this election is stolen. You forgot to fix the system.
The system doesn't want to be fixed. It is, of course, setup that way on purpose. Sometimes it is better to just start over than it is to try to fix something broken beyond repair. If voting actually had the power to change anything, it would most certainly be illegal.
That's so cute. (Score:3, Insightful)
You think voting is anything other than a public circlejerk to keep people busy.
Ahh to be young and stupid again.
Different types of voting systems (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in Redneckville (Score:2, Insightful)
I live in what the Europeans like to call the backwater redneck racist Christian "fly-over" part of America. I guess we are so stupid here that our voting system isn't worthy of being audited. We are so stupid that the state actually has a balanced budget.. what a bunch of inbred hicks we are.
All we have here are simple to fill out scantron ballots that are anonymous, simple to scan in, and trivially easy to recount in an offline manner if needed. We get our election results within hours of the polls closing on election day. Oh and as for software, the software in the system is so simple that Windows vs. Linux doesn't even enter into the equation because you don't need either.
Frankly, even if the voting software is "open source" on some website, you have zero guarantees that the voting machine you are using actually runs the wonderful open source software you spent months auditing in the first place.
We are so backwards here. I feel so inadequate compared to those places that blew tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money on systems that don't work. You can tell they are *so* much superior to us.
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Re:"no end-to-end auditable voting systems" (Score:3, Insightful)
If they're too lazy to walk a few blocks then they're way too lazy to actually be informed about the issues and where the candidates stand on them. If you make it easy enough that even those folks will vote, then you've turned the elections into popularity contests. We could only guess at what criteria they'd be basing those votes on.
In my state, we have paper sheets where you fill in the bubble. When you're done filling them in, you feed the ballot to the scanner and the paper copy is retained. We have quick results thanks to the scanners, but the actual ballots still exist and can be counted. We don't need anything more than that.
Re:"no end-to-end auditable voting systems" (Score:2, Insightful)
Again, those "kids" don't exist. You've never met one. You're grossly distorting the facts to make things look simpler than they are because you yourself are too lazy to examine a complex issue. You're about to prove me right.
Make the punishment REALLY severe (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, tampering or wholesale stealing of the vote is about the worst thing that can happen in a democracy. No really.
So punish the people caught with VERY severe punishments, like multi-decade stints in prison (sorry I'm against the death penalty). That way, even if you catch a little fish, chances are good he'll squeal like a pig and rat out the higher ups.
My only fear is that some of the people who are crazy motivated might actually think that their cause is worth sacrificing the rest of their lives for. Fortunately the U.S. hasn't quite gotten to the point where those people are more than a tiny fraction of the population; otherwise you'd see suicide bombers at political events.
(Also, "dirty tactics" like fraudulent robo-calls which claim to be someone who they aren't or send people to the wrong polling place, should have their punishments significantly increased. Again, you're subverting the basic premise of a democracy).
All the more reason for federalism (Score:3, Insightful)
No one's vote counts at the federal level. With 300,000,000 people in the country, there is no possible way to have representative government. Federal elections are as meaningful as beauty contests, only more corrupt.
This is the single biggest argument for federalism, i.e., limiting federal power and keeping government as local as possible.
In a local election, you can actually have an influence. Not only your vote, but your ability to contact and coordinate with some meaningful fraction of the electorate.
This argument can be applied recursively. What can be done at the township level, should be.
Re:TFS also left out: (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention that the article blatantly exaggerates how much power we the people actually have in the first place.
The ohio election hack pretty much proves that we have no voice unless it is approved by the elite. It proves that the powers that be aren't afraid to lie, cheat, steal their way into office.
In order for the american public to change anything they have to unite against it. That implies that
a) they care (apathy)
b) they haven't already given up hope (learned helplessness)
c) they aren't already busy scrambling to survive.
a is entirely our own fault. b, not so much because who wants to get beat up for zero payoff?. c is blatant manipulation of circumstances to make it too expensive to resist. Keep everyone too poor to both protest and feed their families at the same time./
Re:TFS also left out: (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other words, (Score:2, Insightful)
I just googled "walker recall polling" and you are wrong. Here are the first 5 results (after the first one which is about fundraising):
Dem poll: Walker recall battle is a dead heat
Wisconsin Recall Polls: Scott Walker Leads, But The Margin Varies
Scott Walker Recall: Dem's Internal Poll Shows Dead Heat, Growing ...
Walker's lead in Wisconsin recall election tightens in new poll - ABC ...
Late Polls Find Walker Is Still Favored - NYTimes.com
Re:Here in Redneckville (Score:2, Insightful)
Just like 'politically correct' the roaches scatter and claim the other side invented the term.
Also note that the money in/out reflects military base location. 20 years ago it was reversed (and had been for decades), but base closures hit the expensive states harder.