Voting

[klwilliams]

I voted this morning, using one of the new electronic voting machines. It was very easy to use, and voting went very quickly. There's just one thing that bothered me. When I left, they handed me an "I Voted" sticker. That's it. No paper receipt, with an ID number on it. There's no physical proof I even voted (besides my signature in the names book), much less who I voted for. I know how to program computers. I know how many bugs are in software these days. You don't even need hackers to mess with things (which gets easier and easier for them to do), you just need a stupid programming mistake (again, easier and easier to have happen). And I won't even go into the paranoia of "what if the company who wrote the software got paid off to fix the vote?"

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

I love visiting my polling place, but I'm seriously thinking of going with an absentee ballot this November, just to make sure that paper trail is there.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Yup, I'm thinking absentee ballot this fall, too.

Absentee ballot

[metageek.livejournal.com]

Go for it. If enough people use absentee ballots in protest, then that may get the state's attention. Absentee ballots cost money, after all; if you can give them an economic reason to switch voting systems, maybe they'll go for it. Here in MA, we use optical sense systems, like SAT tests: you mark in your ovals, you see exactly who you've voted for, and you hand in your ballot to be scanned. In case of a recount, the ballots have been saved, and can be counted by hand. In CA, and in many other places, the only way to get a recount is to ask the software to print out its report again.

[aastg.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'm glad that we still vote the old-fashioned way, with squeaky felt pens and bubble cards. I sometimes miss the old punch-dot markers, because they made such a loud and satisfying BANG when you marked your ballot on the little metal shelf in the voting booth. If they go to computers in CoCoCounty I'm going to to the absentee thing, too.

[(Anonymous)]

I have been voting absentee for years now. Much easier to do. It does worry me sometimes when they say things like 'we don't bother to count the absentee votes unless it is a close election.'

I haven't heard that in a while now tho.

(waving at Branwen!)

Marty