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Remember to vote today, and use a paper ballot.
Why paper?
1. The voting software is not publicly auditable (there has already been some controversy in regards to bugs).
2. It is far easier to rig an electronic vote since there is no physical audit trail (Easy to switch thousands of e-votes, hard to physically change thousands of ballots).
3. It seems to make the old ladies mad?!
Yes, it seems they really want you to use the electronic voting machines. I assume they have been told to try to get people to use them. It was almost to the point of harassment with me. And from what my wife said, it sounded like they harassed her about it.
The old lady encouraged me strongly to try out the new fangled voting machines next time. And tried to appease my worries by telling me that they had to independently verify that the screens read zero this morning (big whoop). Also, when I did get my paper ballot, they did not give me the little plastic thing to put it in, and I noticed that the ballot box was unlocked!!! Is there something going on here? Seems to be some irregularities. It was interesting to listen to the conversation too (seems there was no one else in the room, and they kinda forgot about me). "Let's add up the ballots...seems that are one short..."
Scary stuff.
November 7 2006, 16:27:08 UTC 5 years ago
November 7 2006, 16:47:14 UTC 5 years ago
Creepy.
Creepy. As long as those Diebold machines are in their current state, and more money isn't invested into creating secure voting machines, *and* the software is unable to be audited by the public, I will never use an electronic voting machine.I've noticed similar strangeness and irregularities with paper ballots at my voting location. I also seem to recall that, last time I went to the polls, that the ballot box was also unlocked.
November 7 2006, 17:40:19 UTC 5 years ago
Is part of the reason the volunteers are steering people heavily toward the machines because it means less physical counting for them later? My great-aunt always helped with the elections back home and the counting of the votes was very tedious.
I wonder how many paper ballots they had on hand at each station. If they were worried about running out of ballots, that could be another reason they were so forceful about using the machines.
The part that bothers me the most (and which is probably least dangerous, overall) is that they didn't give you the jacket to put your ballot in. That's really strange. Whether it was prompted by intimidation or lack of preparedness, it's wrong.
November 9 2006, 12:28:21 UTC 5 years ago
VVPAT
When I voted at the Riley County Clerk's Office on Saturday, I was the first (that day?) to use one of the sit-down electronic machines and watched one of the (not so old) ladies unlock it for me. As there was no Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) functionality, I made a point of asking one of the others whether people had a choice, and she cheerily answered "yes". I guess it was a different old lady than the ones you dealt with, or else they had met with more caution than they saw before Tuesday.You've seen the HBO special "Hacking Democracy", right? Scott G. sent it to me on Google Video.
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Banazir