DescentBB

We all remember too well the 2000 election and Dade county, well... a pattern seems to be developing. Here in the murder capital of America, Detroit has just had their Democratic primary election and guess what? Yup, seems once known voting station were suddenly closed and party faithful were led down the yellow brick road of "where to vote" musical chairs. End results were large numbers of voters calling for a "Gasp" new election. What? How can this be?
No rascally republicans were even involved!

I'm wondering if this is nothing more than a practice run for the big election come next November. A last ditch tactic that needs to be honed and polished during the primaries, so if a close election happens, can be unsheathed and thrust into the bowels of the american politic. Time will tell my friends.

Curious is it not, this only happens in strong democratic precincts. Even more curious to hear the democratic leadership here in Michigan, gloss over the disenfranchisement issue by saying how they compensated by holding the polls open longer (from 4:00 to 6:00) and that the alledged problem "only" happened in a couple of precincts. I will be curious to see how this plays out. Any bets that it'll die a quiet death?

Depends on who screams louder...the press or Bill O'Reilly..

This is exactly why I am leaning toward third party.

For the sake of argument let's assume that this was on on purpose like WC fears. This would indicate to me that the Democratic party is short on issues and needs to resort to trickery to win.

Taking the other side of the argument, assume that this was done on accident. This would indicate to me that the Democratic party is inept.

Either they are not in touch with the issues facing this country or they are too inept to even get an election right.

Either way would indicate to me that I need to leave the party.

Heh, that only means you've had too much to drink (which is usually how folks join the Democratic Party in the first place). I doubt this was intentional but it does point to a trend now established that if something goes wrong, it requires a complete re-do. It's all about entitlement. I think the voting system needs to be placed online so that people can access their vote to verify that it was counted and that it is as they voted. I've heard the arguments about the insecurity of Internet voting but I have to believe those security issues can be worked out so we don't have the Idealistic People of France adding votes to our elections but it's time to bring voting into the present. Little pieces of paper and ancient machines are outmoded, outdated and prone to breakdown. As a result, it makes it very easy for things like this to go wrong and then we all up paying for the re-elections (and elections ain't cheap, not to mention the court challenges).

Bash that's rubbish. The French don't care who you elect, and couldn't be bothered trying to rig it anyway. That's the franchise of the GOP!

And as to electronic voting being better? LMFAO. Numerous studies from around the world all say the same thing: A well-run paper ballot tallies faster, is more reliable, is more accountable, more auditable, and more trustworthy than any other kind.

Seriously - anyone who promotes e-voting either has shares in it, wants to sell the election to someone, or rig it in some way for their own purposes.

It is a grave and serious mistake to roll out e-voting in the USA. Or anywhere for that matter.

Give it 10 years, and some of the bugs might be ironed out. But probably not - because the vendors will ALWAYS have political vested interests.

I don't think I'll ever have faith in electronic voting. There have already been issues of corruption by the people operating the current electronic voting machines. The only way I could potentially accept the system is if there is a rigorous and public auditing system that verifies the votes. But, then the machines are redundant because ultimately people are tallying the votes anyway.

There's nothing wrong with the way it currently works. And, despite being a CS major, I despise the concept of "technology for the sake of technology."

Can you imagine the futuristic extension of woodchip's suspicion? Whenever an election in the future goes in a way a party doesn't like, they hack the voting machines and force a do-over. Do we really want to deal with nonsense like that? There's nothing wrong with the current system of many volunteers from many creeds coming together to count the votes. It is simple, doesn't break down, and is far less vulnerable to corruption than some moronic technocrats would want you to think.

Sol you bring up a valid concern that I will take one step further:

"Whenever an election in the future goes in a way a party doesn't like, they hack the voting machines and force a do-over."

Imagine a strong democratic state that has way more voters to give that state electoral votes to their candidate. So whats to prevent the dems in a weak democratice swing state from passing enough votes from the strong dem. state and putting them in as votes from the weak state through a series of democratically controlled "addresses"...thus winning the weak states electoral votes. All thru the mystical magic of cyber manipulation. (Hope this isn't too confusing). Anyway I wouldn't trust the internet either.

and what prevents the Republicans from doing the same woodchip?

Lack of motive, Z, seeing as how they are already the party in power.

There is always motive.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by bash:
Lack of motive, Z, seeing as how they are already the party in power.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As if they will be twenty years from now when this technology invariably takes hold? We're talking about the future here. The Republicans probably won't always be the ruling party. After Bush is through (be it this year or 2008), it's a turkey shoot for who is to come next.

There is always motive. What party, republican, democrat, wouldn't jump at the chance to be the only party? Politicians have agendas and plans that they want to see come to fruition. Naturally, they will do anything to make it happen, even if it is deemed unconstitutional.