[internetworkers] Are You Registered To Vote At Your CurrentAddress? Register Online!
David Minton
dminton at mindspring.com
Wed Aug 6 12:32:16 EDT 2008
On 8/5/08 2:02 PM, "Tanner Lovelace" <clubjuggler at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 12:17 PM, David Minton <dminton at mindspring.com> wrote:
>> While not intentional, there was that very public "oops" in NC in 2004 for
>> which votes were not "counted accurately:"
>>
>> "More than 4,500 North Carolina votes lost because of mistake in voting
>> machine capacity"
>>
>> <http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/2004-11-04-votes-lo
>> st_x.htm>
>>
>> If I recall, at least one state-wide office was decided by a few hundred
>> votes, and might have had a different outcome if those votes had not been
>> lost.
>>
>> David
>
> Excellent point, David! And, one that I had actually forgotten about.
> One good thing, though, that came out of this debacle was that it
> really drove home the point that paperless balloting systems are
> just problems waiting to happen. That's one of the reasons I really like
> the optical scan ballots that they use in Durham County. An error like
> that simply couldn't happen because if it did you'd just go back to the
> original ballots and count them by hand.
I really like the optical scan ballots as well (I live in Durham). That they
allow for automated scoring, and have a paper backup that are one in the
same is the best I think there can be. Touch screen devices scare me.
Other than forgetting to flip them over (they are two sided if I recall), I
am not sure what a reasonable person could do wrong, if they read the
instructions. Maybe this is bad for me to say, but they are so easy to use,
if you can't figure them out (with help from the poll workers), maybe you
shouldn't be voting?
David
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