Despite compromise, paperless e-voting machines are history

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VOTING

HI
Thanks for the article, getting more accurate vote counts
seems to be the right thing to do, President Bush was correct in one of his African speeches when he said the only acceptable form of government he could recomend is democracy. He also defined democracy, in that speech, as one vote one-person government. This requires every vote be counted and every vote is counted correctly AND Verifiable when QUESTIONED. In the republic of Ireland, they seem to have a very reliable paper ballot system without using machines. They refuse to use all those e-voting machines they bought a few years ago and have in storage. The same kind that were shown to be unreliable in Holland?s elections where the wrong results were given by the machines.

It takes more time to count in Ireland because each ballot box is opened and votes counted in front of both partisan and neutral vote observers using hand counting.
It, also, takes additional time because they count twice. They start with an overall total count with out regard to whom the votes are for because of proportional representation. This lets them know how many votes are needed to win a particular race. By this method, votes for a person are counted until he has enough votes to get a seat.
If 5 seats are being contested as soon as one candidate gets twenty percent he is elected and the ballots of other people who chose him continued to be counted using their second choice as their first choice. Everyones vote is counted. This way more peoples votes count in making up the legislature. If you voted for a person who already has enough votes to be elected WHEN your vote is counted then your second choice is counted as your vote in that particular race.
They do this to overcome a legislative districting map that, like in Pennsylvania, packs many voters of one party into one district where the majority wins the seat by a wide margin, but allows minority parties to win other districts by small majorities. Minorities in these cases can win majorities in the national and local legislatures or executive ie us 2000 presidential election. In this case control of public laws and policies goes to minorities. This is defiantly not one vote one-person democracy, because a minority of voters can control the legislature and policy. The extra cost in time in getting the results in one-person one vote democratic majority government is a requirement for democracy to result from election procedures. Optical scan paper trail voting could speed up the counting if necessary.

Posted by: JIY   Posted on: 12/09/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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