Concerning Election Reform It’s very exciting to me that with our technology, even the confused little old lady in Florida cannot screw up the voting system. Instead of her being able to carefully hang a chad, or vote for both Gore and Bush, she must now press a frail, uncertain finger against a touch screen that won’t tolerate anything other than a single choice. But now, as the election reform issue turns to other topics, there is a growing mindset that is willing to sacrifice secrecy for accurate vote count. This bothers me because I don’t want man or machine to know how we vote. The question, then, is how do we obtain both a very high degree of voting privacy and accuracy? This is how: (1) Require photo identification against the up-to-date list of names of registered voters. We should stride into the voting precinct and show picture I.D. to the poll worker, who then finds us on the list. Then we sign on the line next to our name, and go vote. (2) Use a computer touch screen which both issues a paper ballot, and records the vote electronically. The paper ballots are then carefully counted, the count is matched against the number of people who showed i.d., and signed the list, and against the computer disk record. All three must match: paper ballot, number of people who signed to vote, and computer disk count. So if 2000 people showed I.D.., 2000 must have voted electronically and there must be 2000 paper ballots. If they don’t match, work it out amongst all parties to satisfaction. (3) Randomly pre-assign the ballot with a number, issued to the voter. For example, the number 4XXX2170 might be your ballot number. This number is on your paper ballot and you either write it down or tear a little tab with the number on it before putting the paper ballot in the ballot box.. Then all the numbers are displayed on the internet. No one else has any idea who 4XXX2170 is, but you can find it, thereby showing that your vote was recorded and counted. This also gives the total number of voters, again. If not there, voter reports discrepancy. (4) Provide appropriate punishment for those who cheat, so it’s not worth it to do so. For example, in Chicago more people voted for Al Gore in 2000 than there were registered voters! Cheating like this should be investigated and prosecuted at least as vigorously as when a finger is supposedly found in Wendy’s Chili. One thing I really dread is a federal takeover of our election process. States are reforming their ballot process just fine, thank you very much, and should receive neither federal mandates nor federal money, in spite of what Jimmy Carter wants. The state run election is one of the more subtle yet powerful checks and balances in our system of government and besides, the fed is already too large, powerful and wasteful to be taking on more responsibility. Also, people should not be overly encouraged to vote. I’m very willing to study the issues and candidates and vote for those who don’t feel like it. Being able to register and vote the same day is a bad idea because it disrupts the carefully maintained list of registered voters needed for accurate elections (see point #1). It’s an embarrassing fact that one of the components of our Judeo/Christian heritage, honesty, is now so lacking in our culture that the foregoing is necessary. As a result, our voting system, in order to be accurate, must contain redundancy and therefore be expensive to administer. But I’m certainly willing to pay the price for secret, thoroughly accurate elections, and suggest the preceding as a way to achieve needed election reform. Grimgold

Salon, August 16, 2007 "Diebold Election Systems" are three words synonymous with the aggressive pursuit of failure. Not only did the company badly implement a dubious concept -- unverifiable electronic touch-screen voting machines -- but it did so with determined flourish, letting its code and internal communication leak out onto the Web; employing as a chief executive a man who declared he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year"; abusing copyright law in an attempt to quell its critics; and, among many other caught-red-handed indiscretions, deleting criticism of itself from Wikipedia. No wonder, then, that Diebold Election Systems has decided to steal a page from the playbook of that paragon of corporate responsibility Philip Morris (aka the Altria Group): Diebold will erase its sorry history with a simple name change! Henceforth, when reaching for an example of mind-boggling incompetence, please say "Premier" rather than "Diebold," because Diebold Election Systems is now Premier Election Systems. The name change, the company says in a press release, "signals a new beginning" and a "fresh identity" -- though in the same release the firm concedes that it will still be making and pushing the same sorry voting machines (machines that, as Princeton computer scientist Edward Felten and his colleagues showed last year, are actually vulnerable to a virus-based attack). Read More Here

BartCop.com Volume 2026 - Broiling. In Today's Tequila Treehouse...

	'Conviction Politics'
	Iraq Bmbings kill 200
	Hillary upsets Boy King
	Bush pays for good news
	Why I hate Hillary
	Video games for troops?
	Toke Like a Girl
	Who Didn't Kill JFK
	Jennifer Morrison avail

MediaBistro, August 15, 2007 In a memo to senior producers this afternoon, FNC's SVP of programming, Bill Shine announced the network "will not continue the Half Hour News Hour beyond its current 15 episode run." Shine did leave the door open, however: "we are considering ways to retool the show for future scheduling needs." The TV news satire show which airs Sunday nights, stars faux anchors Kurt McNally, played by Kurt Long, and Jennifer Lange, played by Jennifer Robertson. The first airing, February 18 was a hit, with more than 1.4 million viewers. The show averaged 258,000 viewers (25-54 demo) in its last 10 airings, winning its timeslot all but once. FNC will air the final show September 16. Read More Here

  Anna Schecter, ABC News, August 15, 2007 Plans by a Christian group to send an evangelical video game to U.S. troops in Iraq were abruptly halted yesterday by the Department of Defense after ABC News inquired about the program. Operation Start Up (OSU) Tour, an evangelical entertainment troupe that actively proselytizes among soldiers, will not be sending the "apocryphal" video game in care packages as planned, according to the department. "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" was inspired by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' best-selling book series about the battle of Armageddon, in which believers of Jesus Christ fight the Antichrist. The game has inspired controversy among freedom of religion advocates since it was released last year. "It's a horrible game," said the Rev. Timothy Simpson of the Christians Alliance for Progress. "You either kill or covert the other side. This is exactly what the Osama bin Ladens of the world have portrayed us." Troy Lyndon, the producer of the game, said the game's "warfare" is not violent, and that it emphasizes "spiritual battles" over fighting with guns. The game gives incentives to recruit believers instead of killing the forces of the Antichrist, according to Lyndon. Read More Here