Presume? I'm watching things happen.

Post #22,649 by Ric Locke 12/28/01 8:11:00 PM Reply	Presume? I'm watching things happen. >>Continuing to point out the illegitimacy of the current regime has a point - in the last election, neither side cared about a clean election, as long as their boy won. Some of us are attempting to build a constituency for the resumption of the Republic. Attempting to convince certain people that winning a clean election is worth more than wining a dirty election. Bluntly: It ain't gonna happen. The stakes are too big, and the division is too even in numeric terms. "Win" and "lose" are as far as the mindset goes; qualifiers disappear in the noise. And yes, that's true of both sides, although the R's tend to be somewhat less shrill about it. The only way to work on the problem is to go after structure: ballot design (and voting methods; same subject), counting methodology, and dispute resolution. If you want to point out that the sitting President got where he is by disreputable means, I'll cheer you on, so long as you indicate that you're doing something that will tend to address the situation without ripping it wide open in midstream. That includes seeing to it that your local governmental organizations, who have to supervise elections, have the funds to implement the suggestions. I'm fortunate where I am; we're using the OCR mark ballots, which seem to have a much lower error rate, and have some fairly reasonable (though not infallible) dispute resolution methods. If you're in a punchcard district, or (shudder) a voting-machine district, get to work -- and if you're not in either of those, support efforts to fund better methodology for the people who are. And wherever you are, point out to your local officials what dorks the Floridians looked like, and how embarrassing it will be if that mess falls on them next time. That tactic will be light-years more effective than yet another declaration of some obscure recount method that means Gore beat Bush. Regards, Ric
Post #22,667 by Simon_Jester 12/28/01 10:41:13 PM Reply	You might want to work on the OCR system.... verify that your officials did not turn off the over-vote check (that the machine can be set up to check for.) Several Florida districts turned off the over-vote check - no idea why. The flaw with the OCR system is the same problem that the butterfly ballot has - no way for the voter to verify that who they think they are voting for is the same thing the machine think they are voting for. An ideal system would use touch screen technology. A caster would be allowed to select who they vote for, with a system showing who they think the voter voted for. If accepted to the voter, the voter would confirm the ballot and then the machine would generate a paper ballot (for recount/confirmation) that would indicate who the voter voted for.
Post #22,674 by Ric Locke 12/29/01 12:05:32 AM Reply	Nothing is infallible My own suggested refinement to the OCR system would be to have a reader on site. We're not talking huge expenditures here -- one of the cheap gritroller-feed scanners, typically $200 or less at Fry's, would work fine. The idea is that the voter would complete the ballot, then stick it in the reader. The results of the vote would be shown on a screen, which the voter would then approve -- or not, as the case might be. If the ballot is approved, two things happen: a code of some kind is printed on the ballot to indicate it's already been checked, and the votes are recorded on site. (Yes, the reader would need to be in a sight-limited booth of some kind, to preserve the secrecy of the ballot. When I voted in the Presidential election, such booths were available, but nobody bothered; we all sat around a table marking our ballots. Nobody seemed to have any trouble figuring them out.) If the votes were not approved by the voter after inspection, the machine would invalidate the ballot somehow -- perhaps by printing on it -- and the voter would take the invalidated ballot back to the poll watchers and get a new one. The invalidated ballot would go into a shredder immediately. Later on, at the official count, if the official tally doesn't match the preliminary one from the voting-place machine, a recount would be necessary. Short would mean ballots had been lost; overs would mean fraud of some sort. What I'm trying to do here is preserve the primacy of the physical ballot, which (perhaps wrongly) I regard as somewhat more permanent than an electronic record. Regards, Ric
Post #22,692 by mhuber 12/29/01 9:16:34 PM Reply	One obscure recount method: Counting overvotes where the write-in name matches the punch-out name. Nothing subjective (for any save definition of that term) in determining intent (which is what Florida law calls for) there. But what it comes down to isn't the exact counting method. That's a red herring that the Bush people put out when it became clear that only a sloppy first count would win Florida. It never came down to the details of a recount - NO RECOUNT WAS EVER COMPLETED, which is a clear violation of FLorida law. All the noise about hanging chads and subjective counting methods and corrupted counters was just noise, because no recount, using any standard at all, good or bad, was ever completed. If God himself declared the intent of each voter, it wouldn't have mattered. What mattered was geting enough injunctions to delay the recounts. The technology wasn't the problem, the politics and lawyering (not even laws) of the counting were. It doesn't matter how good the tech is, there will be counts that are within the margin of error, and require recounting. But in Florida, it apparently is possible (despite laws to the contrary) for the winner of the initial count, if the right authorities are in his pocket, to prevent that recount. ---- "You don't have to be right - just use bolded upper case" - annon.
Post #22,700 by boxley 12/29/01 11:48:12 PM Reply	beg to slightly differ overvotes by florida law must be thrown out regardless. Also the intent of the voter is pre-eminent. These laws are contradictory but both equally in force. ecounts were acheived by only one of the three counties requested by Gore, Broward County(ft Lauderdale) Palm Beach was finished after the deadline but without enough votes to push gore over the top. Dade (Miami) was halted when the next batch to be recounted was the cuban vote, solidly anti democratic ever since bay of pigs and bush would have efinately picked up numbers. The authorities in all three counties including the people who ultimately decided the vote were all DEMOCRATS so pockets were beholden to Gore, not Bush, thanx, bill My Dreams aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be
Post #22,897 by mmoffitt 1/2/02 6:56:11 PM Reply	Amen.

Welcome to IWETHEY!