Today in Chicago, we had runoff elections for city aldermen. I voted, because I feel strongly that voting is our sacred civic duty. However, once again, the vote was clearly a choice between the lesser of two evils. Why is that always the case in elections?On the up side, I did get to use the fancy-schmancy electronic touch-screen voting machine, complete with printed record of my vote. Tell me again why Diebold says we can't have printed records from electronic voting machines?
11 comments:
I don't know what system we used here, but we did have a paper printout, one we could read and verify before we submitted our votes. No election without a comparable system should be tollerated.
Surprise--we have the diebold systems here in UT! You can print the record, before submission, but it was under plexiglass being spooled directly into a shredder!?! No touching!
Wait, what?? My printed record was also under plexiglass, and it spooled away into I know not where. I assumed it was going to a secure storage area, where it would be preserved in the event that a paper record became necessary. Was it going to a shredder???
Wow, Kel, yoo shur are in them there fancy precincts. We had this ridiculous "complete the arrow" ballot. Each candidate has an arrow with the middle stem missing. You use a "special" black pen (no Sharpies there!) to block in the arrow stem. Then you carry it in a top-secret folder to the scanning machine, but then once there you have to remove it and the machine guy gets to see your vote. Uhhh. I don't like that.
Kel, remind me to tell you how Mr. Moore almost lost my vote when his goons kept coming by and buzzing to see why I hadn't voted yet. I flipped out on them the second time they came around. Even called his office to complain. Typical Chicago machine politics! I'm still infuriated just thinking about it.
Airan had a complete-the-arrow ballot, too. They had only one fancy-schmancy touch-screen machine at our precinct -- I guess I just got lucky.
I confess, I wasn't happy to vote for Joe Moore. Why must every election be this way?? Why can't we enthusiastically vote for our candidates because we truly believe in them? I demand inspiring candidates!
They better not be going into a shredder.
If you want inspiring candidates get envolved with the party of you choice. It is not enought to just vote you have to be part of the process.
I had the fill-in-the-arrow ballot, too. And even though he might not be the ideal alderman, thank God Joe "Foie Gras" Moore beat Don "Baseball Bat" Gordon!
Kerri, I just read your comment. Sunday night I was home alone about 8:30, when someone rang my buzzer. Even though I thought it might be a neighbor, I opted not to answer it--even though they buzzed three more times! It kind of freaked me out. The next day, I saw a note from Joe Moore stuck in my mailbox saying he was sorry he had missed me. Not too smart to frighten and piss off your constituents that way!
I don't know where the records go to--just an off the cuff response because it reminded me of the documentary Hacking Democracy.
But, who really knows for sure what happens to them.
Joe Moore's lackeys twice rang our buzzer while the twins were napping. Argh!! Don't they understand that door-to-door canvassing is just plain obnoxious?
I applaud your devotion to civic duty. I can remember Chicago elections from my college days. It's much more boring out here.
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