Posted by
Joshua Thorp on
Nov 08, 2006; 1:30am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/voting-machine-tampering-tp522939p522961.html
I was quite surprised that when I voted using this system, the
machine actually reported that I had voted for and against an
amendment (I had filled in the wrong bubble by mistake and figured I
could at least burn my vote on this issue by filling in the other
bubble -- perhaps a wrong headed move but really the amendment wasn't
that important to me either way). The machine however informed me of
this issue and spit out my ballot, at which point the minder asked
what was wrong I told him I had intentionally voted this way and he
said no problem and proceeded to place my ballot in a spoiled ballot
envelope after instructing me to fold it up. Then gave me a new
ballot to fill out.
I like that the machine was checking for such errors...but I wish it
was easier to change my vote after making such a mistake--
electronic voting may have let me undo a vote more quickly. But I do
think a paper ballot should be produced by the machine--I would like
a physical trace of my vote to persist to allow for recounts. The
idea of a purely electronic recount is absurd--what is it going to
recount? How could it come up with a different answer from before?
With paper at least in principle I could review the document before
casting as I did on saturday...
--joshua
On Nov 7, 2006, at 4:54 PM, J T Johnson wrote:
> I voted late in morning in Santa Fe. Our paper ballot had
> candidates on one side, bond issues on the other. We filled in a
> circle with a ballpoint pen. After filling the ballot, we took it
> to a guy who instructed us to feed the ballot into a scanner/
> reader. I did so, and the ballot disappeared. Not knowing that it
> scanned both sides on one pass, I waited a moment for it to pop
> back out so I could feed it to capture the other side.
>
> I said the to guy, "What about the other side?" He panicked. "You
> mean you didn't fill it out?" he said. When I assured him I had,
> he was quite visibly relieved. "Boy, if you hadn't, it sure would
> have messed up the system."
>
> Seems to me it should have been his job to visually check it before
> telling me to feed it in, but....
>
> My long-winded point, though: I bet that, at least in New Mexico,
> there may be a larger-than-expected discrepancy between the number
> of votes cast for candidates and the votes cast on the bond
> issues. If so, that might not mean any skulduggery was involved.
>
> PS: I just received my sixth or seventh call in 24 hrs from my
> "new" best friend, Gov. Bill Richardson reminding me, this time,
> that the polls are closing in a few hours. I do hope someone is
> doing a "how long until they hang up" analysis to try an determine
> an aggravation threshold.
>
> -tom
>
> On 11/6/06, Michael Gizzi <mgizzi at mesastate.edu> wrote:
> I was impressed that when I voted on Friday (Colorado has early
> voting), that the touch screen was attached to a printer that
> printed out each of my responses. This was not present when voting
> in 2004; sure... its still possible to mess with the system, but
> the print out provides a bit more confidence on the part of the voter.
>
> Michael Gizzi
>
>
>
> ==========================================
> J. T. Johnson
> Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
> www.analyticjournalism.com
> 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
>
http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.us
>
> "You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
> To change something, build a new model that makes the
> existing model obsolete."
> -- Buckminster
> Fuller
> ==========================================
> ============================================================
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