Timex
3061
That was only part of the issue… you had the idiocy of that particular ballot, but all paper ballots have issues that stem not just from them being difficult to understand, like that one, but from the fact that they lead to the possibility of ambiguous intent.
For instance, with a scantron type ballot, you can have cases where the voter doesn’t fill in a circle enough for the machine to read it… or accidentally marks multiple circles.
With punch-hole type ballots, you can have ballots that are incorrectly punched… remember the whole “hanging chad” nonsense?
We trust machines with essentially every important part of our lives. We trust machines to handle the vast majority of all economic transactions that take place in the west.
Trusting them to help us tally our votes accurately is not bad. If folks want to keep a paper copy of the voting record, then the machines can do that. Then you get the best of both worlds.
People have a tendency to rise to levels of unexpected stupidity when given a chance. Give them pencils and ovals to darken and they’ll either not darken an oval enough, or scribble in two or three choices, or both.
Give them holes to punch out and they’ll only partially punch them or dent three without punching through any, or punch through two or more choices on the same ballot measure.
The hanging, dimpled, pregnant chads were, IIRC, partially the result of the counting machines. The way the automatic counters work, when they feed them in, a chad that wasn’t completely cleared (which can result from no user error at all) can be forced back into position. So, even a subsequent hand-count can’t necessarily determine the result correctly.
This is true, but this year in Florida (at least where I am) the ballot readers will reject a bad ballot when the voter feeds it in, and give him/her the opportunity to get another ballot, which they print on site at the polling place after verifying one’s identity. I was told I could have up to three retries at doing it correctly, and the poll workers were quite helpful at explaining this to people.
That’s the good news, the bad news is that the readers only tell you if there was an extra mark somewhere. They won’t catch an underfilled oval in some cases, and if the reader accepts the ballot the voter has no way of knowing if the machine registered a vote or not (no verification).
Timex
3065
Just another reason why voting machines are better. You can have it print out your vote on a little piece of paper behind glass, and see exactly what it recorded for your vote.
Houngan
3066
The real answer is that we need to go back to those awesome manual voting machines with the switches and crank handle. Those things were awesome, and I never got to use one. :(
Timex
3067
The first time I voted here in the middle of PA I got to use one of those. It was pretty hard core, I must say. They’ve since switched to touchscreens.
The machine was crazy though. You’d step into it, and pull this big ass lever. Pulling the lever would close a curtain behind you, and enable voting.
Then you go through and flip a bunch of little switch thingies for whatever you wanted to vote for. When you were done, you’d pull the lever back to the original side, the curtain would slide open, and you would have presumably voted.
The reality is, there was no way to know what the hell actually happened with your vote. The whole thing could have not even recorded a ballot for all I know.
Houngan
3068
I used to watch my parents use them, they were phased out by the time I was 18. Or maybe they still use them down home, I never voted there. I just love complicated machines with a bunch of switches, which explains my love of the Saitek X-45 HOTAS.
Oddly though, I hate accordions.
That’s the exact same stick I’m still using. LOOOOVE IT. :) I also fixed that for you. ;) /non-sequitur
Houngan
3070
I always say it in pseudo German, hands on throttle und schtick!
In New Hampshire we have paper ballots with optical scanners. Instead of filling in a bubble, there is a big black arrow pointing to the candidates name with the middle section of the arrow missing. You just fill in the missing piece of the arrow for the candidates you’re voting for. (It’s easier than it sounds.) The paper ballots are retained in the event of a manual recount. The voter’s intent is easy to discern.
Meanwhile, I have a friend in coastal New Jersey who just got an automated called from the Romney campaign asking him to donate to support the Romney “surge.” Really? Pretty tone-deaf.
OMG what now? That is just so…what?
Bombs planted at polling place in Florida.
In reading the 5:55 update to the article I came to second paragraph and had a complete WTF?!?! moment. But once I read it again, it I realized it said “explosives-detection canine” and was quite relieved.
To be clear, the only bombs knowingly planted were by the police to detonate the package. It had “small electronics” inside, and the actual details of the contents were unknown. The other “package” was a bag filled with miscellaneous trash.
Yeah, but it’s more fun my way.
lol - true enough, I concede :)
Clay
3079
I’m I late to this speculation? If it’s true, that is some seriously bad diplomacy…
Evidence continues to emerge that Romney is one of the most dishonest, duplicitous candidates to ever seek the presidency.
He criticized Obama for telling then-President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia that he would have “more flexibility” to deal with sensitive issues between the two countries after he won re-election. Romney said this was particularly troubling given that Russia “is without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe.”
However, according to a report on Friday in The New York Times, Romney’s son Matt recently traveled to Russia and delivered a message to President Vladimir Putin:
“Mr. Romney told a Russian known to be able to deliver messages to Mr. Putin that despite the campaign rhetoric, his father wants good relations if he becomes president, according to a person informed about the conversation.”
It sounds as though he was signaling that Mitt would do exactly what he had castigated Obama for: operate with “more flexibility” after the election.
Source: NY Times report as sourced in Blow’s column.
peterb
3080
James Fallows sees the way the wind is blowing vis-a-vis Republicans preparing to cry “Fraud”:
The ‘Pre-Delegitimization’ Watch: It Begins
