Digital Voting Machines

just curious of what you all think of the new touchscreen voting machines being used in many states. you know, the ones which have been known to malfunction, leave no paper trail rendering a recount impossible...the ones that leave the ballots vulnerable to election fraud.

i think this should bother everyone, regardless of your political ideals, since this sword is double edged. New Jersey, Florida, and other states' supreme courts have struck down lawsuits filed against the use of such machines, so it looks like we are stuck with them. so...what do you all think?

here are some related articles:

a detailed explanation of the new system, and the dangers of:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/report/news/2003/february5/dillsr-25.html

cast your vote for one president, and the screen says you voted for the other?
http://abqjournal.com/elex/246845elex10-22-04.htm

Foreign Observers See Problems in Election
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041021/pl_nm/campaign_observers_dc_1

please feel free to post any new related articles

oh christ...wrong forum...could the mods please scoot this over to the general discussion? 😮

EDIT: just reported myself 😛 it should be moved very shortly....

Moved. hehe

thanks lil b. 😂

New Jersey, Florida, and other states' supreme courts have struck down lawsuits filed against the use of suck machines,

Wow. Suck machines have been banned? Poor lonely guys.

D'OH!!!!

how do you write someone in on those? Good thing we dont have them as I am still writing in Vader for president 😂

actually JP, thats a damn good question...perhaps a digital keypad? which would be a real pain in the ass to use i imagine.

i will research this

also, here is a must-see site i just stumbled upon:

http://blackboxvoting.com/

dedicated to digital ballots, and the potential for disaster

how about www.voterfraud.org

i heard some guy on NPR talking about how they expect the computer machines to have a much smaller margin of error than that of hand counting votes.. so i don't know. if you can make a right click to turn 10,000 votes towards the other candidate, i think a margin of error becomes a moot point.

the fact that they could come up with no feasible way to print a reciept of some kind or make some sort of honest paper trail is complete and utter BS.

my mom is helping out at a polling booth, she says the new systems are a lot faster, and pretty easy to use, but she's really afraid that this is only going to create controversy amongst the nation.

all of the machines are hooked together like a chain...and the end machine is hooked up to this larger server looking machine.

I hear there is no printed receipt or any sort of way of confirming your vote once you've casted it. I have a distinct feeling there will be a lot of fraud controversy on the 3rd of November.

you know the bush team is ALL for this. no doubt in my mind that they could corner the election through this means if they had to.

if it's as close as the polls are currently suggesting...

i honestly wouldn't be surprised if Bush won, and if this was the most ambiguous part of the whole process.

i read article about a typical design flaw having to do with touchtone screens, the human hand. sometimes a person's palm touches the screen, or perhaps there pinky or thumb hits the screen. sure, most of us should have no problem...but what about many senior citisens who will most likely have trouble using them? i forsee delays in the lines...perhaps i will get there early.

and yes, they could have easily made the machines to leave a reciept or overall voter printout to record votes. this stinks of fraud. and why is it that these machines just HAPPEN to be landing in swing voter states? hmmmmmm

great question.

I DO know that every polling location should have atleast 2 "traditional" ways of voting as an alternative to using the touch screens. I think they are mostly for the handicapped because the digital booths are tiny, but i'm sure anyone can vote in the traditional way.

I would suggest it just to be as thorough as possible.

A voting machine is a machine and that is all.Just because we try somethng new does not mean there will be mistakes.
I don't see why we have to even inprove it.Bush won last time he ran and that is that.Changing the machine is not going to make a difference.
Being that it was the dems idea makes it almost pitfful.This is not going to win them the elecation so why even try it?
If they think they are going to lose and blame the machine for it.
Well that sounds a little childness to me.Who wins is going to win and the machines is not going to make a difference.I think this is a sorry amepted by the Dems.
But it is ok for the Republicans because this means the dems don't think they can win!GO BUSH!JM 💃

ummm....a ballot with no paper trail is not a partisan issue.
sure, democrats are more suspicious, but the bottom line is a recount is now impossible. it blows my freaking mind that people act like such sheep and never question. oh sure, computers NEVER crash and lose information, and nobody has EVER tampered with a computer...

..nothing to see here, go back to sleep zzzzzzzzzzz

furthermore, i really dont see how you can turn this topic into "GO BUSH!" how the hell does a lack of protection of our democratic process lead to "GO BUSH!"???

I think that the digital machines would be fine if they printed out an actual physical copy of the ballots, which would be so simple and might end up saving both sides so much trouble... I smell fraud.

I agree, but I still think manual voting is safer...

Originally posted by Darth Revan
I think that the digital machines would be fine if they printed out an actual physical copy of the ballots, which would be so simple and might end up saving both sides so much trouble... I smell fraud.

I agree...if they could keep some paper record like a printout, that way in case of a computer crash they still have a record of the votes.

Thankfully Illinois doesn't use those. At least, not that I know of.

Originally posted by PVS
ummm....a ballot with no paper trail is not a partisan issue.
sure, democrats are more suspicious, but the bottom line is a recount is now impossible. it blows my freaking mind that people act like such sheep and never question. oh sure, computers NEVER crash and lose information, and nobody has EVER tampered with a computer...

..nothing to see here, go back to sleep zzzzzzzzzzz

furthermore, i really dont see how you can turn this topic into "GO BUSH!" how the hell does a lack of protection of our democratic process lead to "GO BUSH!"???

I wanted to end my post with go bush because I felt like it!Btw that picture of yours is very distrubing! 😆 JM