Need to pass a Law for Paper Backup for Electronic Voting Machines
I would like to propose one very important item that needs to be taken
very seriously in the Democratic congress.
The congress needs to pass a voter/voting law that requires the whole country, all states to have voting machines that have Paper Trail/Paper Backup of all machines and votes. WE should never have elections in doubt ever again.
That is the most important item for the Democratic party and if we
have to be re-elected we need absolute truth and facts in elections.
Democrats lost in 2000 and 2004 purely by voting machine issues.
Both in Florida(2000) and Ohio(2004).
We need to correct that NOW. The Law needs to be effective immediatly so that we have all voting machines ready for 2008 elections.
I'll keep poking this in whenever machine voting is discussed...
Oregon is a vote by mail state. We have no precincts. We have no voting machines. We use paper ballots marked with pencil. We have the convenience of sitting down with our voter's guides and our ballots and study our way through at our convenience. Then, when the ballots are completed, we either mail it in...or drop it off at a regular official drop box(like a large outside mailbox).
There are no exit polls. There has been no voting problems in the several years we have done this. It is much cheaper to hold elections this way.
The only unhappy people are the repugs--they seem to hate it.
Our turnout in this election was 74.8%. 576,000 dems//532,000 Repugs.
Our state population is approx. 4 million people.
Strongly suggest that everyone having problems ask their secty of state to look into vote by mail. It really does work.
A mind once expanded can never return to its original dimensions.
Anne Hathaway: 1556-1623
The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so.
Louis Pasteur
Grinch, we should all follow Oregon's example.
CA tried paper ballots last Tuesday.
They were not promoted, nor was using them encouraged.
I asked for one and found the large boxes(for a ballot) taking
a long time to completely blacken in.
We need voting by mail. No exit polls, they are unreliable
and skew the voting.
Voting techniques
I agree. There needs to be something done about voting machines.
I dont remember which state it was but they ran out of paper ballots before the end of the elections this year. The district's solution? Make copies of paper ballots and send them out to voters. Voters filled out the copied ballots and sent them back. Those ballots were then opened up and read by poll workers for the sole purpose of transfering by hand the voter's choices to real paper ballots after the elections. If anyone is interested I can look into which state/district this happened in, but I cant remember off the top of my head at the moment.
Definately something has to be done regarding this broken system of a democracy. I dont know why it is so difficult to record votes. Most 3rd world countries dont even have these problems. Its like it's a big joke.
[1]Voting Certainty:
Everyone use electronic voting machines. And whenever someone votes on the voting machines, there is also a PERSONAL link to each nominee's own personal vote-collecting website.
So unless your personal vote-collecting website gets hacked, you will have an accurate count on who voted for you. You can then compare it to the number of votes recorded on the national voting machines.
Course you MIGHT be able to have it that each time a vote goes to your personal vote-collecting website, each vote/name gets stamped onto a paper machine.
And then again, you may have a lot of fans that have their own computers (or use someone else's), who can give you a sure amount of support on your personal website, and you'll at least have SOME solid number of who voted for you.
Why bother to pass any laws that pertain to the machines...
unless its a law to ban the damn things. We don't need the machines. Think simple and cheap:
VOTE BY MAIL
PENCIL AND PAPER BALLOTS
GUARANTEED PAPER TRAIL
FORCE THE MACHINE MAKERS TO BUY BACK THE MACHINES--OR COLLECT THEM ALL AND DUMP THEM OFF THE COASTS TO MAKE FISHING REEFS
The machines will never work properly. They cannot be fixed[except in the political sense].
NO EXIT POLLS
A mind once expanded can never return to its original dimensions.
Anne Hathaway: 1556-1623
The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so.
Louis Pasteur
paper trail
Submarine USS Wahoo ss238
I suggest we get rid of every single electronic voting machine
as a paper trail with them doesnt mean a thing.
They can still be hacked into after you would get your
paper receipt, so it would be the same thing as not having
a paper trail.
[2]Voting Certainty:
Then again: There could be a link for voters to go to AFTER all the voting is done, and on that link, they search for their own name to be sure they counted as a vote.
But this is a little more complicated as not everyone has their own computer, but they could revisit a voting booth that has a search-link or whatever.
I guess my point is to have a way for voters to make sure their vote got counted.
Internet Voting = Chaos
Internet + Voting is a very bad combo. Trust me. The internet is a chaotic place.
I agree with banning the electronic machines.
This system will never work especially when it's contracted by PRIVATE companies to make PUBLIC voting machines. If machines or computers are ever built for voting it should be done by the government where the people have control over them. These machines would be consistent throughout every voting precinct.
The reality about voting by mail is that unless EVERYONE is doing it that way the system still fails. Either you give people the option to go to the polls or not at all and make voting by mail mandatory. Unless we do that then we are back to square one where people will still be voting at the polls with flawed machines.
I never knew that oregon had no voting precincts. If it really works that way and there are no voting problems then maybe we should start pushing our states for the same voting laws!
Perhaps this should be the discussion here...how do we go about doing that? How did Oregon do it? What other states are that way and what are the downfalls?
Oregon's Vote By Mail...
Keywords=oregon+votebymail
http://www.sos.state.or.us/executive/votebymail.htm
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40032-2004Dec31.html
Plenty of info available on google using the keywords above. All straightforward.
Vote By Mail was begun by a Citizen's Initiative being placed on a ballot. It passed in 1998. We have no problems with it and turnout is way up over states with conventional precincts.
This recent election, the turnout was 74.8%.
A mind once expanded can never return to its original dimensions.
Anne Hathaway: 1556-1623
The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so.
Louis Pasteur
This is one time I say why mess with the paper ballots
the whole reason for counting with a vote machine was supposed to be for quicker counting.
I'd rather them count them slower, with a paper ballot, if it keeps the accurate count on the votes, and doesn't disenfranchise the voters trying to change business as usual.
America must have lost their minds to think a Republiklan voting machine company wouldn't throw the elections for who was paying them.
Boy were they stupid to think that. Con men are just that, CONMEN.
Ergo NEO CON, duh people, it's just like the perverts that keep returning to our communities, they are perverts cuause they don't see the wrong of screwing our male or female children.
Con men are of that ilk. They know it's against the laws to prey on our elderly who can't read fine print well and slip loop holes to screw the pigeons they prey upon. It is not ever right to decieve the people, who vote in the country. Our govenment expects the truth from us on the stand and should be held to the same standards. A lie is a lie is a lie.
Perjury is perjury is perjury, whether from the courts or the Highers Office of government. Nixon had to learn the same way. The people will not be governmentally swindled during times of war.
My God that's the time when you are supposed to be especially honest to the people who allow their children to fight in wars to defend this country.
They may be our soldiers, but they are our CHILDREN FIRST.
mommapanther
Rush Holt's bill would be a start
Agreed.
Electoral reform in general and accountable voting machines (or better yet returning to paper votes) specifically is a top priority.
Rush Holt's bill would be a good start.
I believe the Dems probably would have won more seats and would have won by larger margins because wherever votes are "flipped," they go from Dem to RepubliCON. So by sheer numbers, people wanting a change overcame the voting machine problem THIS time.
I haven't heard that point discussed much on liberal talk radio. In fact, one "liberal" host said, "Yeah, I guess it wasn't the machines." The host is a local-yocal who lashes out in contempt for anybody more liberal than she, and I avoid listening to her 95 percent of the time. Nevertheless, this perception isn't good for future elections.
What happened to all those reports of problems at the polls? By the way, I'm talking about voter suppression as well. I don't believe voter fraud (about which the Cons complain) is as big of a problem as unaccountable voting machines/voter suppression. The media give both sides equal weight. But then the media are generally out of touch with reality and afraid of being called "liberal" even when their slant is moderate to conservative more often than not.
Whaddayathink?
Benita
Help Is On The Way
H.R. 811 Which is being sponsored by New Jersey Democratic Congressman Rush Holt will make it mandatory for electronic voting machines to have a paer trail. If anyone wishes to support it, they should e-mail thier U.S. Representative:
www.house.gov/writerep/
Forget the machines...stick with paper and pencil...
More states should also take a look at Oregon's Vote By Mail. Works well, is honest, and eliminates all the hanky-panky we have endured across the country.
Best part is that turnout is much higher on all elections.
How we vote in each state is determined by each state.
A mind once expanded can never return to its original dimensions.
Anne Hathaway: 1556-1623
The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so.