Fair Elections or Propaganda
Senators Barbara Boxer and Chris Dodd have introduced a bill that would mandate boards of elections provide paper ballots to people who request them in the upcoming election. Her plan would cost an estimated $10 million to the Federal government ($.75 per ballot), and would help aleviate concerns about electronic voting.The Lincoln Group has been awarded a $6.2 million dollar contract by the US government to "monitor" Iraqi, Arabic, foreign, and American news outlets and to produce more positive talking points about the war in Iraq. The Lincoln Group is the firm that was planting stories about the US Military in Iraqi news outlets.
These two programs cost a similar amount. Which is better for our country as a whole, to guarantee fair elections, or to produce pro-war propaganda?
Hint: Watch this Princeton video on how easy it is to hack a Diebold voting machine.
Looks like Newsweek got a jump on The Lincoln Group's plan to present happy stories to the American public. Photo hat tip to Huffington Post and/or The Daily Show.
By terra - 9/28/2006
9 Comments:
what a shame I am a newsweek subrscriber and have noticed this that maybe once every 3-4 weeks they have to throw a people maazine piece on the cover it pisses me off, the story is inside the magazine and well worth a rad, to bad it is obscured by some celebrity photog. Maybe this speaks more to what Americans are concerned with than anything else
Petey's method for a fair vote count:
1.) Vote by any ballot method
2.) Issue two hard copy official receipts
3.) Election Board Keeps one receipt as an official backup
4.)Voter keeps other receipt
In case of ANY election result dispute: recount/backcheck using Item 3. receipts.
If that fails (God help us!) recall all voters to polls to recount Voter receipts
Last resort: Cancel first vote and REVOTE
Beyond that: Just accept Dictatorship
Problem is that our Govt officials REALLY want the power to manipulate an election...unless they show me otherwise.
receipts
I must put this bluntly:
FUKK NEWSWEEK AND ALL THEIR HORSES
another attempt by compasionate progressives to eliminate a problem of human incompetence that creates major problems where there was little problem before.
The system worked. You voted and maybe there was some minor flaws etiher by design or human error. Now we are creating a monster that is possibly suspect to massive manipulation and causing increasing loss of believe in our democratic process. Folks ,yes there is a higher percentage of invalid votes in lower income precincts. Is it a conspiracy that you are going to solve by the perfect voting method. Hell no! Face the facts the lower the socio-economic precinct the more mistakes in voting are going to occur. Also in Florida the whole chad issue was not about faulty voting procedures it was about not correctly
completing the task. Do older people have more difficulty in certain tasks than others? yes.
It is very simple. On the wall are the instructions. You read the instructions. You go into the ballot booth and fill out your form then when you are done you make sure you did it properly. You hold up the ballot and check to make sure the oles are punched properly. If not,noify the workers. If you cant at least do that then I m sorry but maybe life is not fair. Why create the universal,expensive, hi-tech voting system that is always going to be suspect. Why not put the oneous on the voters to do their job.Ithink that is called personal responsibility or is that an antiquated notion? Keep the voting style local and accept that people screw up. There is no utopia!
Fred, I think I agree with you. well, I agree that we shouldn't have the machines. I don't agree that a person's intellectual ability to vote is a test of their right to vote, which seems to be your suggestion each time we discuss voting. This should be a right of every American, and it should be made as simple as possible. Luckily, everyone can vote absentee this year. Guess what... those are paper ballots.
The problem I have with our current system is that they are run by machines. Computers are subject to not only poll-worker mistakes and computer glitches, but the potential for greater fraud - on purpose. My computer broke this week - just started doing whatever it wanted. Why should we trust voting machines to be accurate?
I am quickly losing faith in the system. Especially when the voters rejected absentee for any reason, and then the legislature approved it!
Terra I agree voting is every citizens right. I also agree it should be made as simple as possible for one to cast his/her ballot but you will never legislate or ensure competency of all voters. My point is if you screw up the voting process then you lose. Maybe you might make more of an effort the next time. Society cannot ensure that all people are protected from their incompetence. Why are you so focused on making sure someones intent is validated. That only increases the ability of the system to be manipulated. Do it right and there is no issue
What's being done is making it more difficult for people to "do it right."
Fred:
You cannot blanketly project ALL the blame upon the Voter when, in the past two elections, persons such as Ms. Harris and Blackwell used every device available to throw the election their way.
Do you not believe any of the reports of impropriety registered in these past elections?
Further, projecting blame upon the "dumb" voter has olny served as fodder to further "reform" the election system in favor of the Right Wing powers.
The Civil Rights Commision(certainly an organization with an agenda) spent millions and untold manh hours investigating the 2000 election in florida and came away with nada. But we dont want facts to get in the way of our belief.
Did I say dumb? Anoher truth you may be too morally superior to admit but it doesnt change anything, If you were to create a task of say 5 things to be done in a certain order and in a certain method your results would vary by the income,education,and age group of the particular groups. It is not dumb vs.rightwing it is just the way it is.
I agree there should be a paper trail but that alone is not going to prevent the fraud you fear.
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