Comment Re:Wiki hype (Score 1) 140
Fair enough, but you are but one user of the service and we should probably look at why they have their policy from their perspective rather than one user's.
Fair enough, but you are but one user of the service and we should probably look at why they have their policy from their perspective rather than one user's.
Yeah, I understand the paper system...I read about that. What I had no information about was electronic voting machines you used in places. Sounds like the system fails transparency then.
There's more than just text and you forgot to include transmission, replication, off-site backups and updates. I'm not saying it's undoable, but it does take resources and those resources are donated to the public good so limitations are present.
Yeah, I tried Wikipedia. Uploaded things like rare book covers. 100% public domain stuff. Had them deleted. Computer storage is infinite and free, but the powers that be at Wikipedia delete anything and everything that anyone contributes.
Computer storage is not free and infinite. If they delete anything and everything that anyone contributed, it would be an empty site, and it's not.
>"...your foundational value is that 'every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge'"...
Hah. If I could only count the number of factually correct pages that have disappeared over the years for failure to be "relevant" or "sufficiently important" or whatever metric they use, I'd be counting pretty damn high. Care about a regionally famous indie band from the mid 90's to the point that you'll carefully assemble what little information is out there about them? Too bad, gone in a blink, as if archive.org were complete and searchable for that stuff.
I've just never understood why something true should be excluded there.
While it would be nice to have information about everything, those that are paying the bills for storage, replication and transmission have decided that there has to be a line somewhere or the data set gets too large. While I wish there were no line I do understand why one might exist.
Ah, so your boss could demand your receipt, and fire you if you don't provide it. Then he'll know how you voted. Or will it only tell you whether it was counted, not how? So the government can track your vote, but nobody else. And you can't tell whether your vote was counted the way you intended.
The receipt will tell you if your vote was accepted. If there was a problem they contact you. All it proves is that you tore it off the ballot. One could use it to verify if you voted or not if they had it. It does not tell you how you voted.
It's difficult to track if one individual vote was counted correctly, but the counting room is open to the public and anyone can observe the counters taking ballots and adding to the tallies.
How is their electronic voting system transparent? I don't know much about it.
Which election system does not fail at least one of those?
And how do you know that your vote was received and accurately counted?
To verify your vote was received: That would depend on where you live. In my county you go to https://info.kingcounty.gov/el... and check if they received your ballot and whether your signature passed verification.
To verify your vote was accurately counted: You stand in the room where they are looking at each ballot and adding to the tally for each race. If you do not wish to spend two weeks standing in said room while they count the ballots you may send a representative on your behalf. In fact, in my county, there are always many interested citizens watching the process as the elections here are observable by the public.
Much better solution. No lines. No scheduling around work. Several weeks to study out everything.
It's also much easier and lower-risk to vote fraudulently by mail. Even if someone comparing the signatures detects a forged vote, it will be pretty much impossible to find the person who forged it.
First, you'd have to find someone you know will not vote. Then, you have to rob them of their ballot from their mailbox. Then, you have to forge their signature enough to fool several observers. Then you have to mail the ballot in. Then, if the signature matches you get away with it, congratulations you've stolen a vote. If the signature does not match the voter will get a letter saying their voting signature was challenged and for them to call the elections officials. You hope they don't or they have a place to start (they can get a pretty good date around when you stole their ballot from the mail) and investigate. Either way, the fraudulent vote was prevented.
So, the system is as secure as their signature verification. Since my signature is pretty consistent and they've flagged me twice in the last ten years, I do know that they do check it fairly well.
You are assuming untraceable paper ballots. In my county ballots have a serial number. You'd have to first steal 1,000,000 ballots without any one of those people noticing their ballot missing. I can go on the election office website and see if and when they counted my ballot (they haven't as of this writing).
You walk into the polling station, check in at the desk with the voter registration card you received in the mail and your government issued ID. If you didn't receive the card then you just need to go through a more thorough ID check, but the result is still the same. Your name is crossed off of the list and you are handed the appropriate ballot and shown to a nearby booth. Once in the booth you pick up a pen and mark next to the correct names, fold it up and walk over to another group of volunteers near the exit. Your ballot is then run through a scanner which verifies that it is readable and the correct number of boxes in the correct sections have been marked. If they aren't then you have the opportunity to go back to the booth and correct it. Once you are satisfied that the ballot is accurate it is scanned again and placed in the sealed ballot box and you go home.
At the end of the evening a group of elections officials including volunteer observers from each party count the ballots by hand and compare that to the counts produced electronically and then you're done.
So, not a problem, not a problem, not a problem, and not a problem. All you need is to do it right. The only people with an interest in complicated computerized voting systems are the ones who sell the machines and the ones who buy the votes.
The one big problem is that we are not given free government-issued IDs that I am aware of.
I don't know about Colorado, but Washington has had physician-assisted suicide before it had legal recreational marijuana.
TubeSteak didn't claim hemp wasn't farmed, he claimed that nobody designed purpose-built harvesting machinery. We have purpose-built harvesting machinery for other crops which makes them cheaper and easier to use in our industry, so we continue to put more of our efforts into those other crops.
Yes, it's true that some people have specific challenges, but the median case is one of learning. There are syndromes we've identified that make it harder for some (and its not binary but rather degrees). I think the point here was that most people never even tried, having assumed it was some magically thing one either had or didn't. Trying and failing is one thing but saying "I have no talent" without trying to better that skill is all together another.
"If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak." -- Phil Wayne
