Excellent voting machine LTTE in today's SF Chron.

[bleever]

'Glitchless' elections

"Editor -- The problem with electronic voting is not perception, but opacity. Californians have no reason to have confidence in election results when our votes are counted in secret on machines that use hackable software and when it is nearly impossible to recount them.

Even our San Francisco systems are not secure. Our ballots are scanned into tabulators that are not adding machines but computers which also use hackable software. They have memories that you can walk around with like a CD player or a ham sandwich.

Canada uses hand-counted paper ballots, which are far less expensive, and their elections aren't plagued by "glitches'' that delay results and produce results that voters can trust. We should, too.

ELIZABETH FERRARI

San Francisco"


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/03/27/EDGCGHTP8K1.DTL


This lady knows what she's talking about.

:)

[acmejack]

1. KIck for the duer that wrote this!

She did a heck of job!

[babylonsister]

2. The writer is a DUer!

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[bleever]

3. Heh heh.

:hi:


:bounce:

[babylonsister]

4. Hi, bleever!

I'd post her name, but will let her have the honors. :hi:

[Pool Hall Ace]

5. Excellent letter!

:kick:

[texpatriot2004]

6. Yes, she knows what she's talking about nm

[glitch]

7. Perfect! All the way down to the "glitches" in quotes. Love it! K & R nt

[Patsy Stone]

8. Go on sfexpat2000!

Thanks for posting this, bleever.

[EFerrari]

30. I will and I will never stop.

We have our vote. That's what we have.

:kick:

[Land Shark]

9. DU does it again!

Get the glitch out of San Francisco!

[ClayZ]

10. Whooo Hoooo! K/R

:bounce: :bounce:

[Land Shark]

11. DID YOU ALL NOTICE WHAT GOT CENSORED FROM THE LTTE???????????

Reply 6 in this thread is the original text:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x418487#418496>

ANSWER: "Hamas uses a more secure election system than we do."

[understandinglife]

12. "Hamas uses a more secure election system than we do." -- gotta love it.

Recommended. Thanks, bleever!


Be The Bu$h Opposition - 24/7

[Land Shark]

13. But the SF Chronicle didn't think too much of that sentence

[bleever]

14. It's not in the delivered copy of the Chron either.

Hmmm..."Edited for clarity"? I don't think so.

Although, in general the Chron gets high marks for good editing, at least by my comparison of the print versions with those I see online, when it comes to wire service stories.

[EFerrari]

21. That was very interesting.

:eyes:

[Kurovski]

15. K&R!

Go sfexpat2000! :bounce:

[Wilms]

16. My assistant editor.

:hug:

[EFerrari]

17. They took out the sentence about Hamas.

But, I'll take what I can get.

:loveya:

[bleever]

19. Oh...uh...Hi.

I hope it's okay I kinda helped publicize this.


:hi:

[EFerrari]

22. bleever! They've been stonewalling my election letters for months

after publishing me just about every 4-6 weeks.

That was before the whole Kevin Shelley smear.

You tell me what that's about. Hum?

/i can't type

[bleever]

26. Empirically: recently published stories in their paper about

voting certification at the state level, Belarus voting issues, voting certification issues at the county level, crazy low approval ratings for the year after being "re-elected" for a "war" time president, and yet further stories about trouble certifying yer garden-variety, run-of-the-mill, electronic voting systems with proprietary code ("secret instructions", to us regular folk).

And: this was an exceptionally short-and-sweet letter. It really hit the important nerve, about verifiability of elections.


:hi:

[EFerrari]

28. Two things

First, this whole letter is from authorank and Guv. I hope they don't sue me.

Second, there is an insugency inside the Chron. :evilgrin:

Third (I lied) as poetry is my form, short is how you'll get it.


But the deal is, these machines are failing all over. Landshark has pointed out how that can backfire.

My thing right now is to put Guv's and Mark's work into people's hands.

I think that is what it will take. We have to do it on our own.

Ack! :hug: :grouphug:

:toast:

/typo

[Bill Bored]

24. It was probably because of the ham sandwich reference. nt

[EFerrari]

25. Yeah, that whole ham thing.

No. They just couldn't say that we're doing worse after more than 200 years than Palestine is doing in the first election they've been allowed.

And, that's San Francisco. But, they published it. They haven't published the ten letters that came before. Nothing like an election year to get your blood flowing.

So please, let's not neglect to catapault the propaganda. Guv has an ebook and Mark Crispin Miller has a book we need to put into hands. Warm pulsing hands.

:loveya:

[Bill Bored]

32. I was thinking more in terms of Muslims not eating ham

or carrying around such sandwiches!

But you're probably right.

Good work! I always find it hard to write those things short enough to be published myself.

[EFerrari]

34. I've made it a game to say what I need to say in the fewest words

So I write the letter, then go hunting for the extraneous. It's slash and burn writing but has a better chance of being published. The NYT used a one-sentence letter once. :)

[Land Shark]

35. Perhaps you could do that with a Bush speech and end up with

nothing but duct tape on his mouth?

If voters can be denied their vote because they mangle ballot directions, then Bush should be denied his right of free speech when he mangles the directives of the English language, right?

[EFerrari]

36. I don't think he speaks English, Land Shark.

And I'm for supplying him with all the duct tape he needs. :)

[Ellipsis]

31. You can take Hammas out of the sentence but you can't take the ham ...

out of the sandwich.

Kudos to you sfexpat2000

[Land Shark]

33. Maybe the editor thought it was a reference to hummus and thought ?????

[bleever]

18. Earlier, I just thought she was sleeping in.

Now: where is she?

Puttin' the komodo dragon on Phil Bronstein for freaking on the Hamas reference?

?


:)

[Kurovski]

20. You're a very, very fortunate person,

as are we all, fortunate to have you both!

[EFerrari]

23. A moment of silence for autorank's ham sandwich.

:evilgrin:

[bleever]

27. R'Amen!

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

29. Oh no

:rofl: