Subject:
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"In order to do a proper count one has to know how many people voted in the first place."
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 6 Aug 2004 10:10:50 GMT
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Viewed:
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1894 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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Well, when I first mentioned the hypothetical, it was *my* hypothetical, and
now that the powers-that-be are addressing it, I’m becoming more concerned.
My reasons for this are several:
1. Special elections tend to favor the Right wing, due to the
fact that Conservatives are (generally) more easily mobilized
for voter turnout at off-schedule electiosn
2. The Supreme Court, which would likely be dragged into the
adjudication of the election’s results, has been demonstrated
already to be very friendly to Bush re: election results.
3. The fact that Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft hit the stage with a new
“be afraid of everything/no specific information” every time an
inconvenient piece of news arises against Bush makes me fear that
some kind of scaremongering is almost certain
4. Diebold, which heavily favors Right-leaning interests, holds an
unprecedented and mysteriously un-scrutinized level of power in
the upcoming election, and the need for “fast and reliable”
electronic voting methods may be presented as all the more vital
in a tense and dangerous election-day environment
5. Additionally, if there’s a largescale power-outage or disruption
of internet security, Diebold is vulnerable in a way that
conventional hanging-chad ballots never have been. And if 10 or
100 or 1,000,000 pro-Kerry votes are lost due to the resulting
“technical difficulties,” what will be the recourse?
While I’m at it, why does anyone believe that a so-called “paper trail” will
improve the veracity of digital voting machines? It seems obvious to me that
anyone who knows how to program one of these machine can certainly rig it to
give a false paper receipt. And even if such a fraud or glitch should occur,
what happens? Are all e-vote ballots declared void?
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Interestingly, it appears that the GOP has decided that e-voting is so
unreliable that it’s encouraging Florida Republicans to use their absentee
ballots instead.
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/07/con04321.html
So this is all becoming less and less hypothetical as we go along. Hmm...
Dave!
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Postal votes have been used in the UK for yonks. However, they have been used
recently as a tool to improve voter turnout. This has led to three problems:
- Party workers have been “assisting” voters with the paperwork.
- Within some ethnic minorities and workplaces there has been a great deal of coercion.
- Outright fraud: “A councillor was allegedly seen sorting through ballot papers in a car park and a postman was offered £500 for his sack of postal votes”
Scott A
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Question for the Conservatives out there
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| (...) Interestingly, it appears that the GOP has decided that e-voting is so unreliable that it's encouraging Florida Republicans to use their absentee ballots instead. (URL) this is all becoming less and less hypothetical as we go along. Hmm... (...) (20 years ago, 5-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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