As most who visit this newsgroup are tool users, I ask for a sympathetic
reading. Just a minor soap box rant for the old days.

My local municipality has just plain junk voting equipment; plastic,
plastic, and cheap. No class, no flair, no nothing. As much as I rail
against the Style .VS. Substance cultural wars, there is something to be
said for marketing flair and elaborated protocol when it comes to civic
duty.

I am old enough to remember the mechanical lever voting booths. The
voter steps-up and enters the solid metal machine booth and forcefully
pushes the hand lever over. The force about equal to a holding bag of
flour as I recall, not a lot but it did take an effort. The curtain
closed with a mechanical thump; the sound of the thump resounding in the
mental awareness of the importance of what about to happen, voting.

The levers are arrayed before your eyes. There is no mistake here about
who or what you are voting, the physical movement of any of the levers is
clear, concise, and physically rewarded; you can see the lever move, you
can feel the lever move, and you hear the soft subtle click. Feedback to
the voter is visually, tactile, and audibly apparent; all three senses re-
enforcing the selected choice to be correct.

And when voting selection is completed, the large red handled lever is
now pulled; the noise of the small voting choice levers now turn the
mechanically linked tabulation cylinders with a sound more akin to the
clanking of an iron bar door. The sound of finality, no undo, or erasure
of choice for all of eternity. The voting booth curtain now opens with a
swish and a small bell rings as fresh light from the room re-illuminates
the voter. An all too minor shift in air brings the sense of smell to aid
the visual shift of light and sound to concluded the experience to a
(mostly) joyous resolution; the citizen has fulfilled his(her) duty (and
obligation to) others who in the past have sacrificed to make it possible.

Oh, about these new touch screen monitors and small plastic dividers, you
know I have played computer games on such things. Not while standing up,
mind you. Don't quite get the same sensory feedback with all that
plastic. Not quite the same. No feedback to the physical senses that my
vote was counted, just toy plastic junk for my vote.

Ok, I will stop pounding the porch with my cane. Time for my nap
anyway. Thanks for reading.

Phil

Phil Again wrote:
As most who visit this newsgroup are tool users, I ask for a sympathetic
reading. Just a minor soap box rant for the old days.

My local municipality has just plain junk voting equipment; plastic,
plastic, and cheap. No class, no flair, no nothing. As much as I rail
against the Style .VS. Substance cultural wars, there is something to be
said for marketing flair and elaborated protocol when it comes to civic
duty.

I am old enough to remember the mechanical lever voting booths. The
voter steps-up and enters the solid metal machine booth and forcefully
pushes the hand lever over. The force about equal to a holding bag of
flour as I recall, not a lot but it did take an effort. The curtain
closed with a mechanical thump; the sound of the thump resounding in the
mental awareness of the importance of what about to happen, voting.

The levers are arrayed before your eyes. There is no mistake here about
who or what you are voting, the physical movement of any of the levers is
clear, concise, and physically rewarded; you can see the lever move, you
can feel the lever move, and you hear the soft subtle click. Feedback to
the voter is visually, tactile, and audibly apparent; all three senses re-
enforcing the selected choice to be correct.

And when voting selection is completed, the large red handled lever is
now pulled; the noise of the small voting choice levers now turn the
mechanically linked tabulation cylinders with a sound more akin to the
clanking of an iron bar door. The sound of finality, no undo, or erasure
of choice for all of eternity. The voting booth curtain now opens with a
swish and a small bell rings as fresh light from the room re-illuminates
the voter. An all too minor shift in air brings the sense of smell to aid
the visual shift of light and sound to concluded the experience to a
(mostly) joyous resolution; the citizen has fulfilled his(her) duty (and
obligation to) others who in the past have sacrificed to make it possible.

Oh, about these new touch screen monitors and small plastic dividers, you
know I have played computer games on such things. Not while standing up,
mind you. Don't quite get the same sensory feedback with all that
plastic. Not quite the same. No feedback to the physical senses that my
vote was counted, just toy plastic junk for my vote.

Ok, I will stop pounding the porch with my cane. Time for my nap
anyway. Thanks for reading.

Phil



We could look to India for a superior electronic voting
machine and verification system.

http://techaos.blogspot.com/2004/05/...h-diebold.html

TDD

Phil Again wrote:

-snip-
I am old enough to remember the mechanical lever voting booths. The
voter steps-up and enters the solid metal machine booth and forcefully
pushes the hand lever over. The force about equal to a holding bag of
flour as I recall, not a lot but it did take an effort. The curtain
closed with a mechanical thump; the sound of the thump resounding in the
mental awareness of the importance of what about to happen, voting.

Y'mean like these;
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runnin...ng-machine.jpg

I'll be voting on one tomorrow for the last time. We in NY are
fortunate enough to have contentious enough debates over such things
that we haven't gotten around to complying with the federal mandate to
replace these old reliable machines with something that doesn't leave
a paper trail, can be hacked by either party or just some
ne'er-do-well, and will break every election day.
[that sentence is a bit long- but I diagrammed it in my head and I
think it works]


The levers are arrayed before your eyes. There is no mistake here about
who or what you are voting, the physical movement of any of the levers is
clear, concise, and physically rewarded; you can see the lever move, you
can feel the lever move, and you hear the soft subtle click. Feedback to
the voter is visually, tactile, and audibly apparent; all three senses re-
enforcing the selected choice to be correct.

And when voting selection is completed, the large red handled lever is
now pulled; the noise of the small voting choice levers now turn the
mechanically linked tabulation cylinders with a sound more akin to the
clanking of an iron bar door. The sound of finality, no undo, or erasure
of choice for all of eternity. The voting booth curtain now opens with a
swish and a small bell rings as fresh light from the room re-illuminates
the voter. An all too minor shift in air brings the sense of smell to aid
the visual shift of light and sound to concluded the experience to a
(mostly) joyous resolution; the citizen has fulfilled his(her) duty (and
obligation to) others who in the past have sacrificed to make it possible.


And it leaves a paper trail to confirm or disprove allegations of foul
play.

Oh, about these new touch screen monitors and small plastic dividers, you
know I have played computer games on such things. Not while standing up,
mind you. Don't quite get the same sensory feedback with all that
plastic. Not quite the same. No feedback to the physical senses that my
vote was counted, just toy plastic junk for my vote.

Ok, I will stop pounding the porch with my cane. Time for my nap
anyway. Thanks for reading.

If you lived in NY & fell in love easily you could have voted on one
and only be 20.g

Jim

Phil Again wrote:
As most who visit this newsgroup are tool users, I ask for a
sympathetic reading. Just a minor soap box rant for the old days.

My local municipality has just plain junk voting equipment; plastic,
plastic, and cheap. No class, no flair, no nothing. As much as I
rail against the Style .VS. Substance cultural wars, there is
something to be said for marketing flair and elaborated protocol when
it comes to civic duty.

I am old enough to remember the mechanical lever voting booths.

Ah, the old Shoup Voting Machine. It went the way of the paper ballot in
that elections are just too complicated to be accommodated by the
capabilities.

In my county, there must be 1500 people running for this and that -
everything from President down to Judge Court of Domestic Relations #27.
We've got 8 Justice of the Peace precincts, 5 congressional districts, 7
state house and 3 senate districts. 20-odd city governments with all their
council seats, sheriff, 8 constables, god-knows-how-many judgeships,
municipal utility districts, blah-blah-blah. All with overlapping
boundaries. In all, there are probably 500 DIFFERENT ballots for my county
alone.

When I was going to college, we used Shoup voting machines for a student
election (the county was glad to furnish them under the rubric of
'education'). Turns out, the machine couldn't handle one permutation. The
college rules stated that the top four candidates won the office for the
Student Senate and each student could vote for two. This combination was
impossible for the Shoup.

Phil Again wrote:
As most who visit this newsgroup are tool users, I ask for a sympathetic
reading. Just a minor soap box rant for the old days.

My local municipality has just plain junk voting equipment; plastic,
plastic, and cheap. No class, no flair, no nothing. As much as I rail
against the Style .VS. Substance cultural wars, there is something to be
said for marketing flair and elaborated protocol when it comes to civic
duty.

I am old enough to remember the mechanical lever voting booths. The
voter steps-up and enters the solid metal machine booth and forcefully
pushes the hand lever over. The force about equal to a holding bag of
flour as I recall, not a lot but it did take an effort. The curtain
closed with a mechanical thump; the sound of the thump resounding in the
mental awareness of the importance of what about to happen, voting.

The levers are arrayed before your eyes. There is no mistake here about
who or what you are voting, the physical movement of any of the levers is
clear, concise, and physically rewarded; you can see the lever move, you
can feel the lever move, and you hear the soft subtle click. Feedback to
the voter is visually, tactile, and audibly apparent; all three senses re-
enforcing the selected choice to be correct.

And when voting selection is completed, the large red handled lever is
now pulled; the noise of the small voting choice levers now turn the
mechanically linked tabulation cylinders with a sound more akin to the
clanking of an iron bar door. The sound of finality, no undo, or erasure
of choice for all of eternity. The voting booth curtain now opens with a
swish and a small bell rings as fresh light from the room re-illuminates
the voter. An all too minor shift in air brings the sense of smell to aid
the visual shift of light and sound to concluded the experience to a
(mostly) joyous resolution; the citizen has fulfilled his(her) duty (and
obligation to) others who in the past have sacrificed to make it possible.

Oh, about these new touch screen monitors and small plastic dividers, you
know I have played computer games on such things. Not while standing up,
mind you. Don't quite get the same sensory feedback with all that
plastic. Not quite the same. No feedback to the physical senses that my
vote was counted, just toy plastic junk for my vote.

Ok, I will stop pounding the porch with my cane. Time for my nap
anyway. Thanks for reading.

Phil


So your objection is about style and not accuracy? My objection to the
Microsoft OS based voting machines is that there is a high probability
of incorrect vote tallies because the software is complex and the voting
machine vendors will not release the software for peer review even with
a NDA so the voters can't be assured of the accuracy of the machine.
Also there is sloppy handling and tracking about what software happens
to be running on the machines. And since there is no paper trail there
is no methodology for a recount.

"George" wrote in message
I am old enough to remember the mechanical lever voting booths. The
voter steps-up and enters the solid metal machine booth and forcefully
pushes the hand lever over. The force about equal to a holding bag of
flour as I recall, not a lot but it did take an effort. The curtain
closed with a mechanical thump; the sound of the thump resounding in the
mental awareness of the importance of what about to happen, voting.

The levers are arrayed before your eyes. There is no mistake here about
who or what you are voting, the physical movement of any of the levers is
clear, concise, and physically rewarded; you can see the lever move, you
can feel the lever move, and you hear the soft subtle click. Feedback to
the voter is visually, tactile, and audibly apparent; all three senses
re-
enforcing the selected choice to be correct.

And when voting selection is completed, the large red handled lever is
now pulled; the noise of the small voting choice levers now turn the
mechanically linked tabulation cylinders with a sound more akin to the
clanking of an iron bar door. The sound of finality, no undo, or erasure
of choice for all of eternity. The voting booth curtain now opens with a
swish and a small bell rings as fresh light from the room re-illuminates
the voter. An all too minor shift in air brings the sense of smell to aid
the visual shift of light and sound to concluded the experience to a
(mostly) joyous resolution; the citizen has fulfilled his(her) duty (and
obligation to) others who in the past have sacrificed to make it
possible.


??? I'm in upstate NY, and that's what we have now. I never could understand
the kerfuffle in FL with the hanging chads until someone explained that most
places don't have mechanical booths. Of course not. It's much easier to
screw with ballots and screens than mechanical booths when you're trying to
rig an election.

HeyBub wrote:
Phil Again wrote:

Ah, the old Shoup Voting Machine. It went the way of the paper ballot in
that elections are just too complicated to be accommodated by the
capabilities.


In New York we still have the old mechanical monsters with levers and
the huge lever that reminds me of an antique car hand brake lever.

Steve Stone wrote:
HeyBub wrote:
Phil Again wrote:

Ah, the old Shoup Voting Machine. It went the way of the paper
ballot in that elections are just too complicated to be accommodated
by the capabilities.


In New York we still have the old mechanical monsters with levers and
the huge lever that reminds me of an antique car hand brake lever.

God, you must live in the darkest part of New York.

That huge lever you describe is for situations where there is no electricity
!

"HeyBub" wrote in message
In New York we still have the old mechanical monsters with levers and
the huge lever that reminds me of an antique car hand brake lever.

God, you must live in the darkest part of New York.

That huge lever you describe is for situations where there is no
electricity !


Right, Here is CT we got rid of those old machines a year ago. We're a
progressive community.

rochacha wrote:

On another note, we don't have long voting lines as they're showing in
other states. Perhaps since we have many districts here, not so many
people are trying to jam into one place to vote. On voting day, the hours
are from 6am to 9pm. Maybe that helps,too. We don't have early voting
that is easy to perform. You better have a damn good reason for early
voting or they tell you NO.

Yeah, I too am in NYC and I never understand the problems one sees on
TV. Do they shut down the schools in other states on election day? Do
they pay the poll workers too? (There always seems to be a huge
over-manning.) I wonder what the turnout is? In my district, if he
were the democratic nominee we would elect Osama bin Laden. Maybe most
people don't vote here?

It's indeed a mystery.

Ed Pawlowski wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message
In New York we still have the old mechanical monsters with levers and
the huge lever that reminds me of an antique car hand brake lever.
God, you must live in the darkest part of New York.

That huge lever you describe is for situations where there is no
electricity !


Right, Here is CT we got rid of those old machines a year ago. We're a
progressive community.


Sometimes progress isn't a good thing. There should be no doubt as to
the accuracy of a voting machine. Since none of the manufacturers of the
Fisher Price electronic machines allow peer review of the software we
just don't know and can never trust them and since there is no paper
trail there is no actual way to do a recount or check. We had those big
manual machines until the last elections. In my state the county buys
the machines choosing from the list approved by the state. My county has
now purchased its second set of the toy machines because the first set
were found to be so badly designed that no one would ever approve them
for use even under the very loose requirements. The next county over is
on their third set of machines. The first two they bought were also duds.

In article ,
wrote:


I personally miss one thing about the old machines. I used to feel I
was really doing something when I pulled that big lever over hard, and
it went "clunk". Puuting a sheet of paper into a silent scanner isn't
very demonstrative.

I still get flashbacks to the tests of all my multi-thousand-person
100 level classes in college when I use the scanners to vote.

On Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:07:47 -0500, Steve Stone
wrote:

HeyBub wrote:
Phil Again wrote:

Ah, the old Shoup Voting Machine. It went the way of the paper ballot in
that elections are just too complicated to be accommodated by the
capabilities.


In New York we still have the old mechanical monsters with levers and
the huge lever that reminds me of an antique car hand brake lever.

Yes, and I just voted on one with GREAT satisfaction shortly after 6
am EST today.

wrote:
On Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:24:16 -0500, George
wrote:

Ed Pawlowski wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message
In New York we still have the old mechanical monsters with levers and
the huge lever that reminds me of an antique car hand brake lever.
God, you must live in the darkest part of New York.

That huge lever you describe is for situations where there is no
electricity !

Right, Here is CT we got rid of those old machines a year ago. We're a
progressive community.


Sometimes progress isn't a good thing. There should be no doubt as to
the accuracy of a voting machine. Since none of the manufacturers of the
Fisher Price electronic machines allow peer review of the software we
just don't know and can never trust them and since there is no paper
trail there is no actual way to do a recount or check.

Connecticut got it exasctly right by choosing the optical
scanner/paper ballot route. Using touch screens for this application
are simply absurd. Especially in Flu season!


Agree, scanner w/paper ballot is a great solution. You have a paper
trail and you have an easy way to tally the count.


I personally miss one thing about the old machines. I used to feel I
was really doing something when I pulled that big lever over hard, and
it went "clunk". Puuting a sheet of paper into a silent scanner isn't
very demonstrative.

On 11/03/08 06:42 am Phil Again wrote:

As most who visit this newsgroup are tool users, I ask for a sympathetic
reading. Just a minor soap box rant for the old days.

My local municipality has just plain junk voting equipment; plastic,
plastic, and cheap. No class, no flair, no nothing. As much as I rail
against the Style .VS. Substance cultural wars, there is something to be
said for marketing flair and elaborated protocol when it comes to civic
duty.

I am old enough to remember the mechanical lever voting booths. The
voter steps-up and enters the solid metal machine booth and forcefully
pushes the hand lever over. The force about equal to a holding bag of
flour as I recall, not a lot but it did take an effort. The curtain
closed with a mechanical thump; the sound of the thump resounding in the
mental awareness of the importance of what about to happen, voting.

The levers are arrayed before your eyes. There is no mistake here about
who or what you are voting, the physical movement of any of the levers is
clear, concise, and physically rewarded; you can see the lever move, you
can feel the lever move, and you hear the soft subtle click. Feedback to
the voter is visually, tactile, and audibly apparent; all three senses re-
enforcing the selected choice to be correct.

And when voting selection is completed, the large red handled lever is
now pulled; the noise of the small voting choice levers now turn the
mechanically linked tabulation cylinders with a sound more akin to the
clanking of an iron bar door. The sound of finality, no undo, or erasure
of choice for all of eternity. The voting booth curtain now opens with a
swish and a small bell rings as fresh light from the room re-illuminates
the voter. An all too minor shift in air brings the sense of smell to aid
the visual shift of light and sound to concluded the experience to a
(mostly) joyous resolution; the citizen has fulfilled his(her) duty (and
obligation to) others who in the past have sacrificed to make it possible.

Oh, about these new touch screen monitors and small plastic dividers, you
know I have played computer games on such things. Not while standing up,
mind you. Don't quite get the same sensory feedback with all that
plastic. Not quite the same. No feedback to the physical senses that my
vote was counted, just toy plastic junk for my vote.

Ok, I will stop pounding the porch with my cane. Time for my nap
anyway. Thanks for reading.

As a non-citizen, I don't have a vote here (I'm one of the taxed but
unrepresented), but I recall the voting system in Australia, where
registration and voting was compulsory (of course one could drop in a
blank paper or scrawl obscenities on it -- the only thing really
compulsory was showing up).

Paper ballot, with preferential voting: number candidates in order of
preference.

One could vote at any "precinct" in one's own "electoral district" (to
use the US terms). Even voting outside one's electoral district was not
difficult, although I never did it: I think the supervisor may have had
blank ballot forms on which s/he wrote the names of the candidates for
that other electoral district.

I don't recall ever having to wait more than a few minutes to vote.

No results were announced until the polls had closed everywhere.

The result of the election was usually clear before the night was out.

I do not understand the US system -- either its logic or its implementation.

Perce

wrote:

On Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:07:47 -0500, Steve Stone
wrote:
-snip-
In New York we still have the old mechanical monsters with levers and
the huge lever that reminds me of an antique car hand brake lever.

I don't think so... Check again!

I just voted. . . On the same lever machine that I've been using
since 1976 & the state has been using since God-knows-when.

For once I'm proud of our contentious politics that kept the debate
alive long enough to save us a bundle on electronic machines that
would already need replacing.

Jim

In article ,
wrote:


to send. There is often at least one faithless elector that goes rogue
and doesn't vote for the guy he was selected for and there is no real
legal way to force any of them to.
Depends on the state. 24 of them have laws that say who they must
vote for with penalties for not doing so, In 1952, the constitutionality
of state pledge laws was brought before the Supreme Court in Ray v.
Blair, 343 U.S. 214 (1952). The Court ruled in favor of state laws
requiring electors to pledge to vote for the winning candidate, as well
as removing electors who refuse to pledge.

In article ,
wrote:


That is true but if an elector says "come and get me copper" I am not
sure the EC can ignore his vote. I suspect the best the state could do
was withdraw his vote and go with one fewer electors.
That would probably depend on the specific method to choose electors
used by the state and that state's election laws. Those appointed by the
party leadership could probably be fair easily removed and replaced if
the state laws allowed such things (and I don't even want to paw through
50 states worth of election law to see). Those chosen by the the party's
convention might be a little dicier.