Subject:
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Re: Two questions for the Conservatives and/or Republicans out there
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 9 Oct 2006 16:40:44 GMT
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Viewed:
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2003 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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Do you trust Diebold’s touchscreen-based voting machines to record an
accurate tally of votes?
Why?
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Why not, Dave!? There can’t be cheating if the machines could be rigged so
that it doesn’t know which candidates are under which button (if that is your
concern).
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That only assumes that the machine can’t rig it during the individual vote.
Once the votes are cast and the moderator goes to the machine, how do we verify
that Candidate A really got 7,500 votes and Candidate B really got 2,500?
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It would be like a double-blind study. Surely you aren’t implying
that the technology doesn’t exist to competently carry out the task
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Oh, I don’t doubt that it exists, but I’m close to 100% certain that technology
likewise exists to mess with the totals invisibly during the whole process
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Or, how about this: I enter my SS#, I enter my vote. That way there is a
permanent record of how I voted. But then, that could be seen as an
invasion of privacy, so the permanent record thing might not be such a hot
idea (except for threatening elementary children of course;-)
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That’s not a permanent record, though, unless the machine produces a verifiable,
certified paper receipt. Lacking that, and lacking a way to re-verify one’s
vote after the fact, the machines shouldn’t be trusted.
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I guess the bottom line is whether one trusts our government.
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I don’t think that’s the bottom line at all! The issue is whether or not one
trusts a secretive, Conservative-friendly corporation that refuses to submit its
machines or software for objective testing, and whose machines and software have
been repeatedly demonstrated to be highly vulnerable to undetectable and
invisible hacking and alteration.
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I know it is crazy to do so, but at the same time, it is crazy not to have
a certain level of it. For instance, giving our military all of the stuff
that can blow up the earth and trusting that they don’t actually do it.
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Time will tell. I mean, a good many parents trusted our esteemed legislators to
serve as responsible mentors in the Congressional “Page Program,” and look where
that got us.
Trust the government only as far as you can verify it. Anything that goes on
behind closed doors (such as pretty much the entirety of the Bush
administration) must be suspect. More than any other process of government, the
electoral process must be transparent and subject to objective review at every
step.
If, when the votes are counted in November, it turns out that Democrats took
every contested seat in the House and Senate, would you say “Diebold counted
everything accurately” or would you call for an investigation? Well, too bad in
that case, because Diebold has fought to ensure that no such investigation is
possible.
Dave!
Crazy to think that the Liberal is arguing for greater transparency and the
Conservative is arguing for secrecy. These are strange days, indeed!
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