DebateGate

General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: sirs on November 09, 2006, 01:51:14 PM

Title: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: sirs on November 09, 2006, 01:51:14 PM
In 2000, '02 & '04, we had widespread cries of voter disenfranchisement, voter suppression, voter intimidation (minus any serious evidence of such of course), and the mainscream media played it up weak after week, month after month.  In '06, we had a plethora of razor edge races, arguably significantly more than the last 3 elections combined, pretty much all of them going in the favor of Dems, and .................. silence regarding any of the above claims. 

What happened?  Oh yea that's right, if Republicans win, it had to have been stolen, but if Dems win, then all is fine in the land of milk & honey
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: Brassmask on November 09, 2006, 01:55:45 PM
Tuesday morning I was inspired to write a diary at DailyKos detailing my morning and the good experience I had voting because there were so many diaries detailing nightmare voting situations.

The story of suppressed voters continues just not in the limelight.

Personally, I think we'll hear more and more about it after the 1st of the year because I think touchscreens are done.  Too many don't trust them.  Like me.
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: Amianthus on November 09, 2006, 02:02:42 PM
Personally, I think we'll hear more and more about it after the 1st of the year because I think touchscreens are done.  Too many don't trust them.  Like me.

They would be fine if they just took my advice.

Use the touchscreens to get the vote. Then have the system print a card with your voting choices on it. You can then verify that your vote is correct, and drop the card into a locked box on your way out of the polling place. If a recount is needed the cards are the official votes, not what's recorded in the machines.

This way, a voter can be assured that his vote is really what he / she intended. If they can't read, that's another issue.
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: _JS on November 09, 2006, 02:08:13 PM
Oh dear, are we already being victimised by the media and the Democrats?

You must have an endless supply of victim cards, Sirs.
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: sirs on November 09, 2006, 02:09:44 PM
You must have an endless supply of victim cards, Sirs.

I have an endless democrat supply to use, Js
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: _JS on November 09, 2006, 02:15:44 PM
Keep throwing them down Sirs. I'm sure someone will take pity on you for all the abuse you've received from the evil media lords and the horrid "liberal elite" that control the nation.

Keep reading Ann Coulter, Town Hall, and listen to Hannity and O'Reilly. Stay tuned to DDR1...erm, I mean Fox News. Watch as the country is destroyed by the evil godless liberal multicultural Harvard-educated elitists.

But pity...that will come in handy...
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: sirs on November 09, 2006, 02:24:32 PM
Keep throwing them down Sirs. I'm sure someone will take pity on you for all the abuse you've received from the evil media lords and the horrid "liberal elite" that control the nation....But pity...that will come in handy...

Who's looking for pity?  I simply take pleasure in demonstrating over and over again the overt double standard that exists in the mainscream media.  You may take it or leave it, as far as I'm concerned.  You obviously wish to stick your head in the sand and leave it, so long as the left reaps the benefits.  If you notice, I'm not making any claims of voter disenfranchisement, voter suppression, voter intimidation.  Simply making note of how silent any claims are being pushed in the media, despite a whole horde of election contests that were decided by 1% or less, that pretty much Dems all won.  In some cases, by only a few thousand votes.  In the last 3 election cycles there were wall to wall front page stories of such, that the Republicans so happened to win.  Remember that "duck"?
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: _JS on November 09, 2006, 02:41:17 PM
Quote
Remember that "duck"?

Sirs, I stopped paying attention to that "duck" after you posted a racist article and then circumvented the globe and tied yourself in a semantic pretzel to try and claim that the author was saying the exact opposite of what his words said in black & white in the very article you posted. You lost so much "duck is a duck" credibility with that backwards swan dive of bizarre reasoning that you might have to start obsessing about single cell organisms and start calling a "microbe a microbe."

Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: Brassmask on November 09, 2006, 02:53:11 PM

Use the touchscreens to get the vote. Then have the system print a card with your voting choices on it. You can then verify that your vote is correct, and drop the card into a locked box on your way out of the polling place. If a recount is needed the cards are the official votes, not what's recorded in the machines.

This way, a voter can be assured that his vote is really what he / she intended. If they can't read, that's another issue.

This is a brilliant idea.  I would totally trust the counts if this was the process.

Would you mind if I sent this idea around?

Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: Amianthus on November 09, 2006, 03:04:04 PM
This is a brilliant idea.  I would totally trust the counts if this was the process.

Would you mind if I sent this idea around?

Feel free. I don't consider it brilliant, seems just like common sense to me.
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: Amianthus on November 09, 2006, 03:08:06 PM
I would totally trust the counts if this was the process.

Oh yeah, in terms of trust, this system is easily verified. If you put some identifier on the card that shows which voting machine the vote came from and the time it was recorded, you could run batches of cards through a seperate system, and verify the totals from the cards against the totals from the touch screen machine they came from. Any discrepancies can then be isolated to specific machines and times to make voter fraud easier to find / track / prove.
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: Brassmask on November 09, 2006, 03:09:24 PM
The simplicity of it is brilliant.

Wonder why that hasn't been done?  Too many people like to steal elections?
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: sirs on November 09, 2006, 03:11:32 PM
Sirs, I stopped paying attention to that "duck" ...

Well, that explains it
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: Amianthus on November 09, 2006, 03:14:02 PM
The simplicity of it is brilliant.

I always like to use the KISS principle. Which is why I distrust / discount most conspiracy theories - too complex.

Wonder why that hasn't been done?  Too many people like to steal elections?

People like "flash" - it's not flashy enough to sell to people who buy voting machines.
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: Lanya on November 09, 2006, 04:08:40 PM
I don't  like flash.  I like knowing I can unscrew something with a  nailfile or pry something up with bandage scissors and my shoe.    (Comes from being a woman, deprived of tools, lol.)
Great idea, Ami.
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: BT on November 09, 2006, 04:17:18 PM
Quote
Wonder why that hasn't been done?  Too many people like to steal elections?
 

More like cost in retrofitting. It will happen much like that though. The new sec state in georgia who just happens to be GOP is lookingt into that or a similar scenario.

Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: Plane on November 10, 2006, 02:02:49 AM
Now before we forget it , we should press for harsh penaltys on everyone that can be convicted of voteing fraud.




Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: sirs on November 12, 2006, 05:20:19 PM
(http://www.cagle.com/working/061108/lester.jpg)
Title: Re: Where's all the "disenfranchised voters"?
Post by: Plane on November 13, 2006, 02:44:32 PM
http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/42555-1.html



Electronic voting systems, which have attracted widespread criticism and suspicion, appeared to generally perform well in yesterday’s elections, according to firsthand accounts by specialists who checked polls in several states.

Hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of voters did contact voter assistance hotlines to report problems, but the problems they encountered appeared to stem overwhelmingly from difficulties with training and procedures rather than systems security or other technology flaws, observers said.

Activist organizations gathered under the umbrella of the Election Protection Commission, a coalition that includes the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and united to collect and publicize voting technlogy complaints. EFF said it had received more than 17,000 calls to its election protection hotline (66-OUR-VOTE) stemming not only from voter confusion but also from poor election worker training and faulty equipment.

"If election officials insist on depending on this unreliable technology, they should be prepared to react appropriately when things go wrong," EFF legal director Cindy Cohn said in a statement. "Voters should not have to bear the brunt of this poor planning.”

Despite the various reports of voting problems and delays in several states, no reports surfaced of any elections being substantially affected by the difficulties.

Wendy Weiser, deputy director of the Democracy Program at New York University Law School’s Brennan Center, yesterday worked in a call center fielding complaints from voters in about a dozen states. “A lot of the problems we saw were administrative problems, resulting from insufficient planning, preparation and training,” Weiser said.