An asylum for the preservation of illusion.

Looks Like a Standard Cook County Election

Here's follow-up to the previous article about the election machines. The debacle in that election, for which the votes weren't fully counted until last Friday is primarily being blamed on "human error" although aldermen are calling for an investigation into the machines themselves. Regardless of if the machines would have performed properly with tech-savvy judges, however, the question remains, why do these machines have to be so high-tech?

In my precinct, the touch screen machine was not functioning so they gave everyone optical scan ballots. The ballots were huge and they gave us large sheets to cover them, but then the election judge took the sheet off to stick my ballot in the reader and the votes were visible to all. A friend of mine from Little Village said that when he voted on the touch screen machine, the thing did not give him a receipt. Of course that wouldn't be a problem if they had an actual person give you a receipt when you stick your punch card ballot in a cardboard box.

[Apr 05, 2006] | [politics] | # | G

Hello, Dimitry?

Tonight on WBEZs pre-election coverage (which was surprisingly useful) was interviewing a representative of the Cook County Board of Elections about the new gee-wizz voting machines when a caller asked a pointed and topical question. Does there exist, he asked, a way for the new video touch-screen voting machines to produce a paper trail that will allow for an audit or recount of election results?

There has been a large amount of concern over this issue. Why is it that voting machines from such companies as Diebold do not include paper trails when Diebold consumer products — from ATM machines to grocery store checkout counters — have such features. Moreover, why do we need such complicated voting systems at all?

[READ MORE] | [Mar 20, 2006] | [politics] | # | G

Quick, Somebody Think Up a Pun on "Istook"

One of my personal very favorite people in Washington is the representative of the good people of the 5th district of the State of Oklahoma, Ernest Istook. Rep. Istook served for several years as the chair of the House Appropriations Transportation and Treasury Subcommittee. That powerful post allowed Rep. Istook to wage war against Amtrak and Urban Transit, which he considered wastes of money, while pumping transportation dollars into road projects in his district.

So it is not without a bit of schadenfreude that I see that Rep. Istook's boat has been caught in the ever-widening whirlpool of the Congressional lobbying scandal. Like Tom Delay, Rep. Istook has been caught using lobbyist money to fund Oklahoma state candidates, some of it from Jack Abramoff. Granted, it looks like criminal charges are unlikely (Rep. Istook wasn't skirting state campaign financing laws in funding the candidates, like Rep. Delay) but the taint of the scandal will undoubtedly weigh heavily on his Oklahoma gubernatorial bid.

[Jan 09, 2006] | [politics] | # | G
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