RSSDebug the vote? Looking out for trouble on Tuesday
By Angela Gunn | Published November 3, 2008, 8:06 PM
With unprecedented turnout expected for Tuesday's elections, a number of efforts are underway to use the net and allied technologies to monitor voting glitches or irregularities.
Individuals connected with many vote monitoring efforts have already gotten their marching orders. Calls went out this summer for geeks of all sorts to step up as election site workers and e-voting machine technicians; Premier, Hart InterCivic, ES&S, and Sequoia all posted multiple calls for tech folks to serve as on-site tech support on November 4. As for observers, groups such as Mobilize.org were signing up younger and perhaps more tech-aware poll workers. And outspoken BlackBoxVoting.org has published a 78-page guide (PDF available here) to monitoring every step of the current elections.
Twitter users are in a very good position to report on what's happening -- after all, you're more likely to have your phone on your person at the polling place than your laptop. Twitter Vote Report, a nonpartisan effort, will collect eyewitness information on long lines, machine breakdowns, and other trouble throughout the day. (Twitter users may submit reports by using the hash tag #votereport, and there's a tag in case you need to report serious trouble -- use #EPxx plus your two-letter state abbreviation. Nonusers can also participate through various means.)
On the other hand, some folks are bolder and may wish to deploy video cameras in the quest for fairness. Video the Vote is accepting footage of problems -- suppression, disenfranchisement, long lines and so on -- though potential filmmakers are asked to adhere to guidelines covering recording in and near polling places. The Citizen Media Law Project has an excellent work-in-progress guide to state laws covering recording in and near polling places, not to mention public display of your own ballot.
If you'd like to report on your voting experience or alert the world to trouble, some sites allow you to file reports either by phone or online. Election Protection has a toll-free number (866-OUR-VOTE, or 866-687-8683) for reporting purposes; Our Vote Live is already cataloging and displaying those reports as they arrive -- 40,511 at press time. You can also document bad experiences on its Web site. The Voter Suppression Wiki has also been monitoring the situation.
What if you just want to get through the day with minimal drama and maximum effectiveness? Many election observers suggest that if you have a choice, traditional paper ballots or optical-scan ballots are a better bet than DRE (touchscreen) machines. And if DREs are your destiny, a former ES&S employee suggests that you take an ordinary #2 pencil with you into the booth and use its eraser, not your fingers, to tap the screen.
Above all things, voters are strongly encouraged to pay attention to what's happening as they vote -- in particular, voters should scrutinize summary screens for problems if they're using DRE machines. After all, if it happened to Oprah it can certainly happen to you.
ok....I found this article on CNn.com. Now usually I like Amanpour but this title ranks right up there with BNs articles.
"This election will change the world"- Just a tad over the top but I bet the folks at BN love it.
Have an nice day:)
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|And if DREs are your destiny, a former ES&S employee suggests that you take an ordinary #2 pencil with you into the booth and use its eraser, not your fingers, to tap the screen."
I guess that means I can't get over the top drunk before voting because both candidates, like their parties, are corrupt. I think I'll wear a blindfold or throw darts to make my choices.
Well
Have a nice day :) and don't think your vote really matters. I'm a child of the 60's and I'm cynical. At least we don't have Daley and Johnson raising so many people from the dead in 60 that even Jesus would be jealous. Now we are more sophisticated.
In the electronic age, I wonder what would be a hanging chad? Maybe a BSOD? just kidding
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|It's always encouraging to see a voter as inept as he claims the parties and candidates to be.
Judging from this post, we do indeed get what we deserve.
One can only hope that the Flying Spaghetti Monster and His Noodly Appendage will take pity on us - as soon as he can stop laughing...
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|Aww... fox...you are so cute when you take yourself so seriously. Let’s hear more from you and your pontificating about Much Ado about Nothing.
And I believe the word is corrupt not inept. If you don't see the corruption in politics going back to almost our beginnings then one has to wonder about our educational system.
But, hey, we are a country of diversity so I guess that applies to humor and pontificating. :)
Have a nice day. :)
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|On a more serious note- I am an independent ( that basically means I am a fiscal conservative and on social issues liberal) and didn't vote for either candidate but did vote in local and state elections and split my ticket. I didn’t vote for either because I think that both are not capable of solving the complex and looming problems of our country well on its path to being 2nd rate because both are 1) tied more to their party than country and 2) I believe that a liberal or conservative approach will fail and make us worse off in the new global market. As far as the DRe issue, this has been a problem since 2004 when it came out that supposed testing did not include security testing and in an independent test, hackers were able to hack into the voting machines in less than 10 minutes.
Finally, I am one of those that believes government is most effective when we have different parties in the White House and Congress. All one has to do is look at leading Democrats saying that it's about democrats winning the Congress and not about what is best for the country.
If history is a guide then the Democrats will lose a substantial number of seats in 2010 and look for Clinton to make a run in 2012.
One thing I will say about Senator Obama is that he can put two complete sentences together unlike our current president.
Have a nice day and look for more U.S. companies to go under or overseas and unemployment to go up and inflation to take off and, finally, the dollar to hit new lows over the next 2 years.
Yes, it is, in one sense a great moment in our history in that an Afro-American won but it takes more than flowery speeches and 300 advisors to make a good President and when your opponent runs one of the worse campaigns in history (yes, even beating out Dole's run in 96) to only win by 4-5 points while that may translate into a landslide in the Electoral college, it shows a divided country.
Each person is entitled to their beliefs and respect for those differences and, my belief, based on this campaign and history is both parties really aren't concern about you but about themselves. That translate into corruption and the voting machine issues will be the next "hanging Chad"
See Fox... I can pontificate too just with a little more intelligence but you have a great day and I do respect your different opinion whatever that opinion might be.
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|"use #EPxx plus your two-letter state abbreviation"
Not a twitter user, but would that also be "where
'xx' is your two-letter...."
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|well
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|A deep hole in the ground, usually filled with water¿
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|A distant cousin to the Welsh.
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|well
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|well
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|A deep hole in the ground, usually filled with water?
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|well
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|A deep hole in the ground! Usually filled with water!
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|well!
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|A deep hole in the ground. Usually filled with water.
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