Texas voter says he waited 'a little bit over six hours' on Super Tuesday to vote

[ZiprHead]

Why the hell are there votes on USB drives???

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

they ran out of floppy disks

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why the hell are there votes on USB drives???

You have to get the data from the voting machines to the central machines somehow and doing it over the internet risks hacking. That basically leaves flash drives. On the other hand, the system should know what drives to expect and report what drives aren't received.

 

[bilby]

Why the hell are there votes on USB drives???

You have to get the data from the voting machines to the central machines somehow and doing it over the internet risks hacking. That basically leaves flash drives. On the other hand, the system should know what drives to expect and report what drives aren't received.

There is nothing more useless than doing, with great efficiency, that which should not be done at all.

The fundamental concept of voting by machine is deeply flawed. Congratulating people for making this flawed system almost work correctly is missing the fact that you could just have voters mark a ballot paper with a pencil, and count the papers by hand. Anything more complex is asking for trouble - and the benefits are practically nonexistent. Speedy results are of little worth; Accurate results are paramount.

The use of machines reverses these priorities, and so should be avoided like the plague, regardless of what could be (or has been) done to put band-aids on the problems it causes.

 

[J842P]

Why the hell are there votes on USB drives???

You have to get the data from the voting machines to the central machines somehow and doing it over the internet risks hacking. That basically leaves flash drives. On the other hand, the system should know what drives to expect and report what drives aren't received.

There is nothing more useless than doing, with great efficiency, that which should not be done at all.

The fundamental concept of voting by machine is deeply flawed. Congratulating people for making this flawed system almost work correctly is missing the fact that you could just have voters mark a ballot paper with a pencil, and count the papers by hand. Anything more complex is asking for trouble - and the benefits are practically nonexistent. Speedy results are of little worth; Accurate results are paramount.

The use of machines reverses these priorities, and so should be avoided like the plague, regardless of what could be (or has been) done to put band-aids on the problems it causes.

 

[Tigers!]

Speedy results are of little worth; Accurate results are paramount.

The use of machines reverses these priorities, and so should be avoided like the plague, regardless of what could be (or has been) done to put band-aids on the problems it causes.

Indeed.
I am always bemused by the way the press goes on in Australia about the need to know quickly who won the election (state or Commonwealth. Nobody cares about council elections). Why?
The sun will still rise tomorrow, the country will still exist and your mother will still love you even if we don't know the election's result on the night. (Alright I cannot guarantee the last one).

The only ones who might allegedly be affected are the pollies who think that they get paid earlier but their pay does not begin until the writs are declared anyway.

 

[Tigers!]

Why the hell are there votes on USB drives???

They burnt the counting sticks driving away the voters.

 

[bilby]

Speedy results are of little worth; Accurate results are paramount.

The use of machines reverses these priorities, and so should be avoided like the plague, regardless of what could be (or has been) done to put band-aids on the problems it causes.

Indeed.
I am always bemused by the way the press goes on in Australia about the need to know quickly who won the election (state or Commonwealth. Nobody cares about council elections). Why?
The sun will still rise tomorrow, the country will still exist and your mother will still love you even if we don't know the election's result on the night. (Alright I cannot guarantee the last one).

The only ones who might allegedly be affected are the pollies who think that they get paid earlier but their pay does not begin until the writs are declared anyway.

Yeah, it's even worse in the US presidential election, where the news media want to declare a winner before the polls on the west coast have even closed - despite the election being in early November, and the inauguration not until late January.

There's plenty of time to do it slow and steady, and get it right. Multiple recounts (if needed) shouldn't be a problem at all - and with paper ballots, are easy to do in a way that makes cheating very difficult. Machine voting just removes some of the transparency from the process, for the dubious benefit of allowing CNN to make Californians feel like second class citizens.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Kansas City mayor is turned away from polls, told he ‘wasn’t in the system’

Moments after making a plea for people to get out and vote in the Missouri primary Tuesday, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas was turned away from the polls and told he “wasn’t in the system,” the mayor said.

Lucas tried to cast his vote before 7 a.m. at Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church at 22nd and Olive streets, where he said he has voted since 2009. Soon after, he posted a message on Twitter saying he was not allowed to cast a ballot because a poll worker could not find his registration.

Election officials later blamed the incident on a mistake by a poll worker, and Lucas returned later in the day and voted. But the mayor said the incident pointed to a larger problem in how elections are run.

Amen. Incidents like this speak for themselves. A vote in the USA from Joe or Jane Sixpack isn't important. It's no wonder so many young people don't want to jump through the hoops.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why the hell are there votes on USB drives???

You have to get the data from the voting machines to the central machines somehow and doing it over the internet risks hacking. That basically leaves flash drives. On the other hand, the system should know what drives to expect and report what drives aren't received.

There is nothing more useless than doing, with great efficiency, that which should not be done at all.

The fundamental concept of voting by machine is deeply flawed. Congratulating people for making this flawed system almost work correctly is missing the fact that you could just have voters mark a ballot paper with a pencil, and count the papers by hand. Anything more complex is asking for trouble - and the benefits are practically nonexistent. Speedy results are of little worth; Accurate results are paramount.

The use of machines reverses these priorities, and so should be avoided like the plague, regardless of what could be (or has been) done to put band-aids on the problems it causes.

Then you would have the same thing with boxes of ballots.

And when you have people mark the paper by hand you end up with questions as to intent when they are mismarked. Look at stuff about the recounts in Florida in 2000 for examples.

 

[bilby]

There is nothing more useless than doing, with great efficiency, that which should not be done at all.

The fundamental concept of voting by machine is deeply flawed. Congratulating people for making this flawed system almost work correctly is missing the fact that you could just have voters mark a ballot paper with a pencil, and count the papers by hand. Anything more complex is asking for trouble - and the benefits are practically nonexistent. Speedy results are of little worth; Accurate results are paramount.

The use of machines reverses these priorities, and so should be avoided like the plague, regardless of what could be (or has been) done to put band-aids on the problems it causes.

Then you would have the same thing with boxes of ballots.

And when you have people mark the paper by hand you end up with questions as to intent when they are mismarked. Look at stuff about the recounts in Florida in 2000 for examples.

The Florida ballots weren't marked by hand.

So clearly machine voting doesn't prevent this alleged problem.

But a box of paper ballots is a LOT harder to overlook than a thumb drive.

 

[Tigers!]

But a box of paper ballots is a LOT harder to overlook than a thumb drive.

But it happen in the 2017 Western Australia Senate election so we should not be too smug.

 

[Tigers!]

And when you have people mark the paper by hand you end up with questions as to intent when they are mismarked. Look at stuff about the recounts in Florida in 2000 for examples.

That problem is greatly overstated. It can not be ignored but provided you have clear guidelines and no to few idiots it is achievable.

 

[Gun Nut]

In Florida, it was fake problem created to (successfully) manipulate the election results. Florida has a lot of weak old people that couldn't pull the lever all the way, so their paper ballots were only partially punched. Republican-controlled committees successfully managed to claim that "Ye" is just as close to "NO" as it is to "YES", and had them all thrown out as "ambiguous". A partial mark in a spot versus no mark in the other spot.. and they threw them out.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There is nothing more useless than doing, with great efficiency, that which should not be done at all.

The fundamental concept of voting by machine is deeply flawed. Congratulating people for making this flawed system almost work correctly is missing the fact that you could just have voters mark a ballot paper with a pencil, and count the papers by hand. Anything more complex is asking for trouble - and the benefits are practically nonexistent. Speedy results are of little worth; Accurate results are paramount.

The use of machines reverses these priorities, and so should be avoided like the plague, regardless of what could be (or has been) done to put band-aids on the problems it causes.

Then you would have the same thing with boxes of ballots.

And when you have people mark the paper by hand you end up with questions as to intent when they are mismarked. Look at stuff about the recounts in Florida in 2000 for examples.

The Florida ballots weren't marked by hand.

So clearly machine voting doesn't prevent this alleged problem.

But a box of paper ballots is a LOT harder to overlook than a thumb drive.

Write-ins.

 

[bigfield]

The Florida ballots weren't marked by hand.

So clearly machine voting doesn't prevent this alleged problem.

But a box of paper ballots is a LOT harder to overlook than a thumb drive.

Write-ins.

Left-outs