After watching the events of last week, I have some advice for this great nation. This is pretty much a rant, so brace yourself.
First and foremost, to the people who voted on DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FREAKING MIND!!!! Get an absentee ballot and vote by mail! Then petition your government officials to sue the people who sold them to you. It surprises me still that there are voters using machines with no paper trail. Without a paper trail, elections will be rigged. It's not a matter of if, but when. I can say that unequivocally, and for a number of reasons.
- The machines have bugs. If there is anything the last 50 years of computer science have shown us, it is that you can fix all of the bugs some of the time, and some of the bugs all of the time, but you cannot fix all of the bugs all of the time. (Sorry Abe) Additionally, the only way you can make bug free systems is to hermetically seal them (they aren't), tightly control the access (we don't), audit the source code (is hasn't been) and educate the uses (riiiight).
- Next, elections get rigged no matter what you do. All we can is make sure we have some chance of catching the people who do it. With DRE machines, there is no chance. If there is little to no chance that the riggers will be caught, they will do it more often. It is just human nature.
Now, for all of you voters who do not live in Oregon, what is the best way to (1) maximize voter turnout, (2) minimize the effect of sudden news events, and (3) maximize available information to voters? Vote by mail. Y'all tend to call it "absentee voting." Round here, we call it "an election." All vote by mail, baby. I can take 2 weeks to do my research and mark my ballot. If I forget, I can still do my research in the comfort of my own home, and in the middle of the night! The next morning, I drop it off at any library and go off to work. No lines, no time off work.
So there you have it! Throw the machines in the ocean and vote by mail. Your electorate will thank you.
1 comment:
Too bad a lot of states require you to have your absentee ballot witnessed or notarized...
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/legman/elect/absentearly.htm
Also, there are lots of rules there about how absentee ballots are counted and when, but it really seems like the answer to that is "when the race is too close to call from the regular polls"
It's unfortunate that so much voting reform is necessary to get to a system that even sounds fair.
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