[ale] Its over. Maybe

[Jim Popovitch]

On Fri, 2004-11-05 at 20:03 -0500, Tejus Parikh wrote:
> > Why do you need a receipt, to put in your own wallet, of who you voted
> > for?  
> > 
> > The ATM receipt is tailored for the customer's use NOT the banks. 
> 
> Isn't that the point?  The whole point is that if a corrupt bank manager
> fiddles with your account, you have recourse.  

You have an account at your bank, you have no account at the federal
election board, let alone the state and local levels.  Now, if you want
to talk about tying a vote to tax account, then you can have my ear. ;)

> The string of receipts provides the back-up mechanism that puts a 
> check on such activity. 

That doesn't even work in banking.  Try taking a receipt into a bank and
declaring it better than their records.

> The whole idea behind our system of government is "checks and balances."
> Why shouldn't the process by which we put that government into place be
> the same?

There are checks and balances, unless you have evidence otherwise.
There has been a lot of innuendo thrown around about the security faults
in the system, but I haven't seen anything that suggest there isn't
checks and balances, in fact I have seen the opposite.  The checks and
balances aren't all implemented in the one singular piece of equipment.
The checks and balances involve layers of managerial procedures, all
spelled out in the SAIC review for Maryland.

-Jim P.