The nation’s third most populous state — Florida, a laughing stock in the days and weeks after the 2000 election — is able to get a complete and accurate count of its 23 million citizens within 90 minutes of the polls closing. Why did it take Pennsylvania some five hours to call? Well, we all know why. Bill, Steve and Scott talk about some of the options on the table.
Listen here on Soundcloud:
I think the best solution I’ve heard is to go 100% paper ballots, all with it’s own serial number. This would be similar to the serial numbers on our dollar bills.
A government employee and the word ‘work’ are incompatible. Everything a government employee does is a ‘specific’ task they are paid to perform in a time span. However, the time span designated is never to complete the task; it is simply to report doing something of a task to account for the funds the task is allowed to use and nothing outside of the ‘specific’ task. It is like expecting a barkeep to clean up the peanut shells on the deck right after you threw them – never will happens.
I work at the IRS. What you say is sometimes true. However, reporting of a completed task occurs at least for me sometimes more than once a day. You read that right. Completed task. That oddly enough, is requested by Congress in my case. It is ongoing, yes, but thats because Congress wants updates, weekly, monthly and yearly. Its like you’re saying mowing the grass and reporting it done is not work, because you do it over and over. Its still work..And necessary work.
At the risk of generalizing … Generalizations often do not give good service. I’ve worked for the government in more than one capacity in my life. I worked damn hard, long hours, far from home, lots of risk and danger, when everyone else was home watching TV or some such thing. My best buddy works for the government in an intel shop providing product to the the Marine Corps. He’s worth every penny they pay him. In fact, I’d argue they don’t pay him enough as it is. I also know people, or of people I should say, who work… Read more »
I’ve worked in the private sector longer than I have for the government. (25 years vs 22 going on 23 in April this year.) I’ve seen excellence, BS, laziness and incompetence in both. A bit more of the bad in the government, especially the BS and laziness. I’ve also seen more bad stuff in places with strong unions. But if people think unions are totally bad, they have never worked for bad managers even in good companies. I have. And believe it or not, the IRS has unions and union contracts. They just can’t strike. I have personally experienced or… Read more »
Wisconsin cannot count absentee ballots early, have to start day of election. The general feeling among Republicans, who currently hold the Assembly and Senate and thus have prevented changing that, seems to be that if we count ballots early the Dems will know how much they’ll be short and “find” ballots in either heavily Dem Milwaukee or Madison. Those two cities are also the ones counting latest in the day, so that probably figures into that. BTW Wisconsin has 72 counties but some of districts are larger than a single county in the rural parts, and other counties have multiple… Read more »
Hate to tell you this, Scott, but there are MANY in election offices who don’t give a DAMN if you see they’re crooked. Look no further that Palm Beach County, Florida for three election cycles in the 2000s and 2010s.
In Ohio, districts are not by county. The county I live in has a large population, and is split…with part of it combined with part of another county. The more rural areas sometimes have more than one county combined. And as to day of voting, there is a federal law; U.S. Code § 7 – Time of election The Tuesday next after the 1st Monday in November, in every even numbered year, is established as the day for the election, in each of the States and Territories of the United States, of Representatives and Delegates to the Congress commencing on the 3d… Read more »
My ‘vison’ for voting is to leverage advances forged by bitcoin, or more specifically, blockchain. See bitcoin 101 here. Now imagine replacing all references to ‘bitcoins’ with ‘votecoins’. The ledger now tallies all votes, instantly. Anyone can verify their own votes, knowing all (city, state, feds, and individual) ledgers MUST agree to be valid. All votes cast MUST be validated either onsite by live vote w/gov-ID (passport, drivers license, etc.), or a valid login to (say) the social security site (password plus authenticator), or mandatory notary republic (or equivalent to verify w/ID) for all ‘paper mail-in/drop-off’ votes. Make voting as… Read more »
The problem is that our voting machines were DESIGNED to be a tool to rig elections. The idea of a voting machine is not flawed. Paper ballots are actually very easy to cheat with. Pull out the opponent ballot, replace with one that has preselected choices on it. You can also just lose the opponent’s ballots. It is possible to create a voting machine that cannot be tampered with, without obvious proof it has been tampered with. They simply aren’t doing it. Bill made the most obvious point in lacking trust on the voting machines, although it applies to paper… Read more »
You do realize that you’re basically advocating for The Mark of the Beast, right? I would never trust the government with an ID system like that, at least not voluntarily. Things are bad enough as they stand now without going that far. The ID system you’re talking about would be prone to unimaginable abuses and disastrous unintended consequences. If I recall correctly, and granted that may not be the case, aren’t you familiar with IT systems, computers, programming, etc.? If so then you should know that anything that can be programmed by human beings can also be fudged by human… Read more »
I’ve heard it said “Its impossible to idiot proof anything, because idiots are so darned ingenious”
And if they are trying to break something, it will be broken.
I am very familiar with IT systems, computers, programming, etc. My degree is in electrical engineering. I have more than 30 years experience as a computer programmer. I understand the technology from both sides (hardware and software). Years ago, I was shocked and appalled to discover how impossibly easy it was to break our online encryptions. Only if you approach it from the angle that they tout (the idea that you must find a matching prime number of the correct length to what was used to encrypt it, could you break it) is it difficult. Those numbers are divided into… Read more »
If you think an unbreakable encryption scheme is an answer to what I said, you missed my point entirely. It doesn’t matter how unbreakable encryption is, it doesn’t matter how foolproof and how failsafe the mousetrap you build is. Because the failure point is not the technology. It’s the human beings in the loop. The whole screed about encryption was a waste of time, I already know all that as well as you do. I just don’t have as much faith in it as you do. With good reason. I have considerable experience in IT systems too. I’m a systems… Read more »
I agree with most of what you’ve said. The point I was making on the technological solution was to remove people from any point where tampering could be possible. Black box. Plug it in, and let it do it’s thing. Any such black box that had been tampered with would require it to be crushed, etc. While I can see your point on technology not being the solution, there seems to be an equally valid point that you are missing. Corporal punishment has been around almost as long as people have been around. Can you point out to me the… Read more »
Crime is never going to be completely stopped by anything. Of course punishment will never completely stop crime. That whole concept and everything you hung on it is an absurdity. I never said any such thing nor expressed any such opinion directly or obliquely. I said what I said, I was very clear about what I said. I work hard to BE clear about what I say. You are not addressing what I actually said. You are building a straw man fallacy to attack what I said by making out that I said something I didn’t. I do not appreciate… Read more »
The simple truth is balloting is or should be very simple. The way it’s done here is you fill in the little ovals with a permanent black ink pen like every other electronically tallied “test” you’ve been taking since you were a kid in school. Then take your ballot over to a scanner, place it in the machine yourself and wait for the message that says the ballot has been scanned successfully. The ballot is dropped into a locked compartment on the machine after it’s scanned. This gives an instant electronic count and retains the paper records in case of… Read more »
I live in Cincinnati Ohio, and your system is identical to mine.
And given me and my wife are one of the few white conservatives around here, I feel I’m almost being contrary with my votes. I love it!😉😏
And would you have any idea what had happened if someone removed your ballot and replaced it with another (contrary to your own)?
I wouldn’t. No more than you’d know if someone using the system you propose managed to intercept and interdict counting information and alter it to their own purpose. There’s an inlet and an outlet controlled by human beings at each end of the technological pipe. Just because you know your OWN vote went all the way through the system unadulterated doesn’t mean you know what all the other votes tallied up to. The system breaks down where human beings gain influence … Do you think getting rid of the secret ballot is a good idea? I don’t and I’ll be… Read more »