BS: Please sign if you want paper ballots

Subject: BS: Please sign if you want paper ballots
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 01:16 PM

Petition for paper ballot for next US election

Subject: RE: BS: Please sign if you want paper ballots
From: PoppaGator
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 02:57 PM

I received this message from MoveOn a day or two ago and signed the petition.

A couple of years ago, I volunteered to serve as a poll commissioner in my home precinct ~ shortly after Katrina, in time for the New Orleans mayoral election, for which the polls were going to be impossibly understaffed without an influx of new volunteers.

Louisiana had installed an entire new system of voting machines statewide not long before the flood. Each machine generates a printout of results. We commissioners are required to crank out a "zero proof" printout at the beginnnig of the day (to verify that no invalid votes had been "pre-entered"), and multiple copies of the results at the end of the day.

Our machines are NOT Diebold products, incidentally. That is, they are not the machines that have been successfully hacked in experiments/demonstrations conducted by Princeton University, and that (coincidentally or not) happened to be in use in Ohio for the 2004 election.

I'm not sure whether or not the paper trail generated by these machines meets the standards requested by MoveOn. I am concerned about fraud, and find it entirely credible that parties or factions in power might very well "steal" a close election, whether or not it can be proven that such an event may have already occurred. On the other hand, I'd hate to think it would be necessary to go all the way back to the dark ages and revert to entirely "manual" methods. I'd like to believe that an automated electronic system with print backup and double-checks, could be considered sufficiently foolproof. And I'd really like to believe that the system in place here in Louisiana fills the bill. It would be nice for us to be ahead of the curve in some sense, for once...

Subject: RE: BS: Please sign if you want paper ballots
From: artbrooks
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 07:39 PM

Full petition text:
"We must act quickly to secure our elections with paper ballots and audits before November."

That is a declarative statement. Most petitions I have seen state the desired outcome. What, exactly, are they petitioning for?   For Congress to pass a law mandating paper ballots and post-election ballot audits on a national basis? Well, that's allowed by Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution, but is it likely to happen with the Republicans controlling the Senate?

State law here in New Mexico, by the way, requires paper ballots.

Subject: RE: BS: Please sign if you want paper ballots
From: Bert
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 10:59 PM

Ok. I signed. I don't want our president to be chosen by a one armed bandit.

Subject: RE: BS: Please sign if you want paper ballots
From: kendall
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 05:00 PM

I read somewhere that petitions are widely ignored. If you want action, write a letter..longhand.


"Those who vote decide nothing. Those who COUNT the votes decide everything." J. Stalin

Subject: RE: BS: Please sign if you want paper ballots
From: Riginslinger
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 05:43 PM

The moral is, use paper ballots and count them!

Subject: RE: BS: Please sign if you want paper ballots
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 07:22 PM

Fortunately in New Hampshire we still use paper ballots (basically 4 different types) and the machines are tabulators -- there's a paper trail.

Most on-line petitions are ignored. They just give a person a feeling that he or she is doing something. Best write (and follow-up with a phone call) your senators, congressmen as well as your state representatives, etc.


Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Please sign if you want paper ballots
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 08:03 PM

We use optically scanned paper ballots where I live. They're supposed to be foolproof, but feeding the completed ballot into the scanner is a bit reminiscent of feeding it into a paper shredder.

Subject: RE: BS: Please sign if you want paper ballots
From: Peace
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 08:07 PM

"They're supposed to be foolproof,"

You can make something foolproof, but ya can't make it damn foolproof.

(I think that was Twain.)

Subject: RE: BS: Please sign if you want paper ballots
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 09:30 PM

The petitions which MoveOn and the ACLU, to name just two, put online are not ignored. They are strong and have been the main way MoveOne has become a major force online and in the 3D world of progressive politics.

Also, a lot of the things I sign online, are not just petitions, but actually generate a letter, with my own words, which is then sent to the appropriate person in government.

This was on NPR: Online petitions and e-mail to legislators are the Internet-age equivalents of traditional techniques like direct mail and paper petitions. But Michael Cornfield, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University, says that blogs, chat rooms and other Web creations can generate their own grassroots energy. An example of this can be seen in former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's presidential campaign. Many of his supporters have used apolitical Web sites like MeetUp.com to link up with each other.

HERE are a few of the success stories from moveon's action, which included online petitions.