I stood in front of the voting machine in Texas and cried

There was no paper trail. I asked everyone there how they would audit the vote if there was a recount no one knew. I just left, it seemed so futile.

I lost it, had visions of the republican election fraud. I cried all the way home.

paper ballots! BTW, I know how you feel, I feel th same pain.

and outrage.

last november.

Any credible government, when faced with such accusations, would investigate, right?

And especially on demand from their constituents.

:grr:

How long till the revolution?

Seriously?

I just can't feel like Rethugs are worth civilized bahavior from me anymore.

Jeez, you gotta vote.

that I had any control over. I know, it was a dumb, emotional, thing to do. Then again maybe it was because in the back of my mind, I knew that my vote for giving gay people the right to marry wouldn't make a difference. The amendment banning gay marriage lost 75-25 (last time I checked).

It is just amazing to me, how the republicans have stealthly pulled this off - no paper trail. And no one is calling their hand on it.
If someone in the press would just ask every single Republican why they voted not to have a paper trail, I would love to hear their answers. Surely they can not say, I wanted to save trees.

took account of your protest against no paper trail machines which you manifested by not voting. You acted on principle and that is far more laudable than anything thing the darn bushes have ever done or stood for!

the book of names where we sign in. They said, "Well, we keep this." I said, "Well, that won't do any good because it doesn't have who we voted for." Of course then they talked to me in a patronizing way, "Oh, honey, you wouldn't want anyone knowing who you voted for."

Thanks for the kind words. But I wasn't trying to make a statement. It was just an overwelming feeling of futility.

:wtf:

I can't believe people here sometimes. It's like politics is a TV show they get wrapped up in rather than something serious that affects peoples lives and a responsibility as a citizen. I can barely take people here seriously!

"I'm afraid my vote won't be counted, so I'll make sure it doesn't."

Once again, :wtf:

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If you wanna act like some macho man, DO something, make this country a better place. Go on, show me you doing it. Nothing? Thought so. The fact is unless there's a paper trail voting does nothing but give us false hope it's doing something.

If you're really so confident it'll work, then have 5 friends together, you and someone else are to get your 20 dollar bill you dropped on the ground cause they didn't see who dropped it. Now take a 6th guy who will decide all of the taken verbal votes, and this guy's better friends with the other guy than you. Then tell your 5 friends to hold a vote who should keep your 20 dollar bill. See if your friend doesn't just give it to someone else.

Stop patronizing our fellow party members, it's jerks like you who are making us sink emotionally and not WANTING to vote. You're doing more harm than good, like a lot of democrats nowadays.

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Helping someone not do something stupid again.

I mean, I'm not serious, but I think it would help people see mathematically that not voting is the same as having your vote stolen, if they're really having this much trouble seeing stuff like that.

This seems like a variation on "the Democrats agree with the Republicans too much, so I'm voting third-party" too. Same flaw in strategy.

Rationally, one person's vote doesn't matter.

What you need to do now is to make sure your actions reach more people. Write a letter to your local paper about your lack of confidence in the system, suggest specific changes, and encourage people to get involved in election reform.

Thank goodness.

I was one of 552 in my county to vote NO.

92.07% Yes :(

It discourages people from voting.

You can audit the electronic machines in several different ways. You can also cheat with a paper trail. Vote. Push for more transparent machines, but vote.

It can be done! If hackers can break into banks, credit card companies, credit reporting and government agencies, etc., why can't the Dem's hire some of these geniuses and fight fire with fire?

Yea, I know, it's just not the right thing to do. :sarcasm:

Don't, because if a Dem is caught hacking, even if it's to hack the system back to fairness, it'll be spun into dems stealing votes.

I guess what you are implying is that it's alright if rethuglicans lie, cheat and steal votes and get caught, that's OK. The dems will be too weak to rebut. Hmmmm, you might have a point.

I still say, hack the crap out of Diebold machines.

sides will we see any change.

Here's a thought: If the Republicans are hacking (or frankly, if anyone is hacking) let's catch them and throw them in JAIL. Because, you know, tampering with an election is a CRIME.

If you've got the skills and feel a need to do something, here's another thought: Develop the means to record a hackers actions, and preferably track that hacker down. That's a fair bit tougher than cracking the well published wide open Diebold machines, will certainly give your rep' some shine, and clean up our elections, all at once.

Or, you can just do a crime, risk getting caught and thrown in jail, as well as tainting the legitimacy of your favorite candidates, also all at once.

:shrug:

Neither a Dem or a Repub...oh, and pay him in washed, unmarked bills, and make sure you tell him your name is ROVE!!!!

I'm sick of trying to be reasonable with these freaks. They're sub-animals to me now. Like rocks.
Except not all rocks are bad, I knew that.

I was skeptical at first but I checked the website and am getting more comfortable. It appears that this machine can print an audit, has a fixed internal storage area for the votes which can't be altered (hopefully) but can be dumped to a removable device if needed. Sixteen hour battery backup and a voter card which seems useful in comparing number of voters to number of votes cast.

This company was UK based (De La Rue). They are a world leader in tamper proof technology.

A quote from a user:
"Printing the ballots from the AVC Advantage electronic voting machines was a simple and straightforward process and both recounts proved our results were 100 percent accurate. I am very confident that the elections we conduct in Clark County are secure, confidential and accurate, and the machines have been very popular with voters from the start."

Maybe these can be promoted in place of repub supporting Diebold.

Something worrisome is that they recently changed hands from De La Rue to Smartmatic (maybe based in Barbados?)

http://www.smartmatic.com/

And voter verified? If the answer to both those questions is yes, I'm ok with it.

So, that's a problem but it seems that they can print out the stored votes, for auditing. It seems that it should be possible to give each voter a piece of paper with a record of their vote, either the direct information or a code number with internet verification of the details of that code number. If people would go to the internet site and their vote doesn't show up, this is reported for recount etc.

In order for the system not to be vulnerable, a paper record should be printed, the voter should be able to see that it is correct, and THEN that paper can be stored for any recount.

Florida in 2000 had paper ballots.

Didn't seem to stop the fraud.

Art Brender, the Democratic Party chair for Tarrant County, is on the bipartisan committee to select the new HAVA voting system, and he's said that he will insist on a paper trail. So, I think there's a good chance that it'll happen here.

Besides that, I think that Tarrant is blessed with a dedicated, honest and diligent bunch in Elections Administration. Robert Parten recently retired as Elections Administrator after working for the county for 40 years. He's still there as a consultant, and his philosophy seems to live on with there. He's as honest as they come, and he's passionate about getting every voter voted and every vote counted. As a result, the Elections people in Tarrant County are the sort to get it right and keep it accurate even when nobody's looking.

As one of Texas' high population counties, Tarrant will be able to lead by example so that Dallas, Harris (Houston), Bexar* (San Antonio), Travis (Austin) may suffer embarrassing comparisons if they don't follow suit.

Remember y'all, that Massachusetts Yankee, John Kerry, got 49% of the vote in Dallas County. If we can get accurate vote counts and viable Democratic candidates, the biggest Red state on the map MIGHT just be in play again.


* Bexar is pronounced "bear" with the "x" pronounced like "h" like in"Meh-hee-co" for "Mexico." It's always fun when a "foreign" broadcaster mentions "Bex-ar County."