[ale] Voting machines

[Jim Kinney]

That's all perfectly doable. Lets have national holidays for election day. Paid day off for everyone to go stand in line.

The early voting was created because of lack of space for voting in metro areas. As budgets get cut, polling places get consolidated. That led to lines longer than voting day.

Times have changed since the origins of the text that specifies how we vote. There are more people in Atlanta now than the entire US in 1776 :-) (I think).

We could have a better paper ballot process but we won't because it requires better funding for making it happen.  Maybe some smart people can write computer code to figure out how many polling stations and booths are needed so that every eligible voter can get it done on election day.

And, yes. Some people won't participate. That's a social problem if they are mentally competent to drive. Another failure of education.

Of course adding a "none of the above" will drag that crowd in.

Ranked choice voting will help with voter disgust. And may tend to weed out the extremes. I've often wanted to say my choice is A but B is good enough and F is an idiot and should be not given any public trust.

On December 8, 2020 12:49:36 PM EST, Phil Turmel via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>Strongly agree on switching to pen and paper.  Scanners that read the 
>filled-in bubbles are easy with modern machine vision, and are easily 
>spot audited with random samples of actual ballots post-election.
>
>Strongly disagree on pushing people to vote.  Those who aren't inclined
>
>to vote or simply don't care about politics should be left alone.
>
>Strongly disagree on the Oregon model.  I know people there, and they 
>are not at all confident that their ballots and only their ballots are 
>being honestly counted.
>
>Our constitution, as amended, calls for a uniform election *DAY* across
>
>the country.  Early voting and mail-in voting are abominations. 
>Absentee voting should return to the past practice where only military 
>necessity and involuntary travel needs qualify.
>
>There is already a federal law that employers must allow employees 
>sufficient time off to vote on election day.
>
>It simply is not possible to provide ballot security (chain of custody)
>
>under candidate representative observation for early voting and 
>widespread mail-in voting.  It is difficult but possible for a modest 
>number of military personnel and a few others with damn good excuses.
>
>Not to mention the opportunities for vote-buying, ballot harvesting,
>and 
>coercion by nefarious types when many mail-in ballots are circulating.
>
>IMNSHO.
>
>On 12/8/20 11:44 AM, DJ-Pfulio via Ale wrote:
>> I disagree with having any voting machines at all. They are a waste
>> of money, add complexity where it isn't needed.
>> 
>> Voting in Georgia has 2 complex processes (election day and early
>> voting) and 1 simple process (absentee) when only 1 simple process
>> is needed.  Pen and paper.
>> 
>> Why make it harder than that?
>> 
>> Pen and paper can be used for absentee, early and election day
>> voting. Humans (election workers) don't need to learn 2 complex
>> processes and waste time setting up computers, securing power,
>> equipment, and generally wasting money for things not directly
>> related to reading a ballot.
>> 
>> Paper ballots scale by adding tables and chairs.
>> Power outages don't stop voting.
>> 
>> Missing memory cards?  Huh? Why is that even a thing?  Human training
>> failures will continue to happen, as long as the processes are
>complex.
>> 
>> Pen and paper is the answer.
>> 
>> Question: Why don't ACT/SAT use computers for testing kids?
>> Answer: because it is a stupid idea due to logistics, expense,
>>          complexity.
>> 
>> If I had my way, Georgia would move towards the way that Oregon
>> votes and registers voters. The goal is to get every Georgia citizen
>> to vote legally and to allow citizens who choose not to vote or be
>> registered to do that as well. But it needs to be harder NOT to be
>> registered than to get registered, not the other way around.
>> 
>> Voting on my kitchen table, where I can spend a few days looking
>> through candidates, their platforms, and considering each is much
>> better than "winging it" on election day after waiting in line.
>> Someone said they "only" had to wait in line 2 hours to vote early
>> in October.  That's a waste of time. Have the absentee ballot
>delivered
>> to your home, then vote when it is convenient to you any time before
>> election day.
>> 
>> If your postal delivery isn't secure, then use early voting ... or
>> pick up a ballot package, take it home. This isn't possible today in
>> Georgia, but hopefully they will make it so. No need to have both
>> early voting as a separate process.
>> 
>> I love the ballot drop off boxes. Simple, elegant, convenient. No
>need
>> to trust the USPS, if you don't want that.
>> 
>> In Oregon, they've not seen any widespread voting fraud in the 20+
>yrs
>> they've been voting by mail. Seems like a good system to me.
>Definitely
>> more convenient.
>> 
>> IMHO.
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-- 
Computers amplify human error
Super computers are really cool
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