If you refuse to use a vote stealing machine, do you lose your vote?

[Philosoraptor]

I assume if a person said he refused to use a diebold machine to vote with, he'd forfiet his vote. Or maybe a person could try an absentee ballot, but those are stolen and lost too by the corrupt. And then I suppose a person could demand a paper ballot with receipt.

Shouldn't a person have a choice? Or is it mandatory to use the diebold cheating machines? If we all know going into the booths that the votes are stacked, stolen and thrown out, what is the motivation for voting at all?

If close races can be stolen by machinery and trickery, are we doomed to vote impotently forever?

Can a landslide also be corrupted in this way? How the hell do we counteract the advent of the cheating machines?

We could very possibly lose November to republican machinery AGAIN but most folks don't seem to notice or care.

I want to see a revolt against the machines, or a revolt against something, anything.

[CrispyQ]

1. Revolt against the machines.

Nice framing!

Our county has both - paper ballots that will be scanned & electronic voting machines. The election judges told me that90% of the people choose paper ballots. Oh really? :eyes:

[magellan]

4. Scanned paper ballots are no better than DRE

The tabulators the scanned votes are read into have proprietary software that can do anything with the vote once it's in there. You'll never know if your vote was counted properly.

We need paper ballots that are hand-counted and count watchers overseeing the process. Nothing less than full transparency at every level of the process is acceptable.

[seafan]

7. A M E N , magellan

Had this same discussion yesterday:


Re the paper ballot initiative for Nov. '06 in Sarasota County, Florida:

[magellan]

9. "Speed should never trump accuracy when counting our votes."

(As quoted from your post on the other thread.)

And amen to that, seafan! We need to decide as a nation that knowing election results the same night isn't as important as safeguarding our democracy.

I point out the dangers of scanned absentee ballots every time someone suggests it as a safe way to vote. It's troubling to me that even here on DU, where we have access to so much information, many are still uninformed on the full extent of the threat posed by all electronic voting.

For example, as your post illustrates, why would the state of FL make it illegal to perform a hand recount of machine-read ballots? This legislation has stunk to high heaven since it was introduced. It casts even more suspicion on what's going on in the tabulators.

[annabanana]

10. we can have both!

check out this site:

http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/

There has been a lot of good work done in California..

[magellan]

11. Open source software, what a novel idea!

You realize of course it'll take some doing to get this accepted nationwide...because no one can make any money off it!!

Thanks for the link, annabanana, it's good to see the open source community working on this.

[mdmc]

2. In NYS you can vote by affidavit or absentee ballot

they get counted.

[shadowknows69]

8. I had to get an absentee ballot in 2004

they had moved our polling place to a church and I refused to vote in a church. Luckily they accepted with no problem and have now moved our polling place to the city hall.

[mdmc]

16. it is not too hard to vote that way..

:)

[marmar]

3. Un bueno idea...

You ought to be able to demand a paper ballot. Why these election officials seem to hate accountability is perplexing.

[marions ghost]

14. yes

it is perplexing. The people charged with ensuring that our votes get counted apparently have no interest in accountability. Hmmmmmmm.......

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. We have advanced voting here

so you can vote with a paper ballot. Or you can wait till election day and use a machine.

[ecoalex]

6. Oregon's mail in voting scheme has worked well for many years.

My County Supervisor is against absentee , or mail in voting. He says you don't know all the information until voting day.I don't agree. Most people know the * enabling repugs must go. Some of the Dem enablers too.

[Philosoraptor]

12. I vote early by absentee & I make a copy for proof.

Don't know how I'd ever back it up in a court, but I do have a scanned and signed copy as my receipt.

[Philosoraptor]

13. if you vote on a rigged machine, why vote at all?

[sweetheart]

15. superglue can weld in a vote

Then the rigged machine will only count 1.

[Philosoraptor]

17. --------

[warrens]

18. Vote absentee

I'm going to be out in the burbs on election day working for a candidate. So I will have a paper vote.