Voting Machines Selecting Default Candidates 794
"Some voters in Las Vegas have noticed that Democrat Harry Reid's name is checked by default on their electronic voting machines. By way of explanation, the Clark County Registrar says that when voters choose English instead of Spanish, Reid's Republican opponent, Sharron Angle, has her name checked by default."
Article Typo... (Score:3, Informative)
Reid's opponent is Sharron Angle, not Sharron Reid.
Typo (Score:3, Informative)
Did they mean Sharron Angle?
Holy crooked election Batman! (Score:5, Informative)
Actually if one reads the link you will see that Slashdot is at it again.
They are touch screen systems. If you keep your finger on them to long you end up with double picking.
This is a coding error. They just need to change the select from touch begin to touch end and maybe add a next button to take you to the next screen.
In other words it is a UI error and not some great evil conspiracy.
Okay Slashdot please stop using the FOX News and the Daily Workers guide to ethical journalism when writing the summaries!
Re:Holy crooked election Batman! (Score:2, Informative)
Thanks.. I kinda figured it had to be an error. I bet Harry Reids name shows up where "Spanish" was and Sharron Angles name shows up where "English" was.
This is a non story.
Re:Why do we need Spanish? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Explanation? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Explanation? (Score:5, Informative)
Well if you read the link and not Slashdot's terrible, slanted, and sensationalist summary you will see that wasn't said.
The problem is a simple UI issue.
From reading the article it seems that they implemented the select language touch as select on touch begin and not select on touch end.
So if you hold your finger down long enough the next screen pops up and your finger will be on one of the candidates.
It is a simple UI issue combined with people being on auto pilot. Honestly not a huge issue because you should really check it before you hit next anyway but it should be fixed.
Not evil or a conspiracy or anything but a UI error that really isn't that terrible if people bother to read. And yes it is so the type of UI problem that I would expect in any program like this.
Re:Explanation? (Score:3, Informative)
The article implies that it's due to people keeping their finger on the touchscreen when they select a language preference. The location of Harry would be in the same screen location as English, where Sally would be in the same screen location as Spanish. Really, it's just sloppy coding, as you should wait until the user's finger is lifted before allowing another selection.
I saw nothing in the article that says all of these voters selected Spanish as their language. The only close I saw was the explanation given by the poll worker.
"Something's not right," Ferrara said. "One person that's a fluke. Two, that's strange. But several within a five minute period of time -- that's wrong."
All these people selected "Spanish"?
Re:I abstain (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fuck Electronic Voting Machines (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously. If Democrats are pulling this and Republicans are renaming candidates "Rich Whitey" with this bald faced implausible deniability imagine what dirty tricks they are pulling behind closed source code. It's a fucking travesty.
You do know that the incident you are referring to occured in Illinois? And that the overwhelmng majority of Illinois elected officials are Democrats? In particular, the state board of elections is dominated by Democrats.
Re:I abstain (Score:5, Informative)
A person can be born in the US and raised and educated speaking a non-english language.
BTW, in some jurisdictions, you can register to vote in local elections just by being a resident. I'm not sure if Nevada has any jurisdictions like that however.
-molo
Re:I abstain (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I abstain (Score:4, Informative)
There is no "citizen or here legally option." It is if and only if you are a citizen. Voting rights are pretty much the definition of citizenship.
Re:I abstain (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I abstain (Score:2, Informative)
You might want to check in Immigration.
If you are foreign born, and want to pass the tests to become a naturalized US citizen, you most certainly do have to show by test a proficiency in English.
*Citation Needed* (Score:3, Informative)
The progressives are bringing up initiatives in several states to where a person can legally vote even if they are here legally.
*Citation Needed*
Re:I abstain (Score:3, Informative)
For better or worse, if you are a natural born citizen then that requirement doesn't exist.
Re:I abstain (Score:3, Informative)
Uh... actually, it is a requirement, at least if someone is not currently an American citizen but wants to become one. Per Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], under "Eligibility for Naturalization", they "must have a working knowledge of the English language". It does note some exemptions for older applicants and those with disabilities.
For immigrants to vote, they must be Citizens. To become one if they aren't already, they need to understand English. Not at a graduate level, perhaps, but they need to know some of it.
And if they do not know English, nor are Citizens, then we have a bigger problem with them being in the voting booth.
Re:I abstain (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know about Iowa, but in California you can only cast a provisional ballot; your vote doesn't get counted until your registration checks out (which usually means the electin is decided before they get around to counting your vote.)
Re:I abstain (Score:3, Informative)
[citation]
http://www.kansas.com/2010/10/24/1555918/portland-may-let-noncitizens-vote.html [kansas.com]
"Portland residents will vote Nov. 2 on a proposal to give legal residents who are not U.S. citizens the right to vote in local elections, joining places like San Francisco and Chicago that have already loosened the rules or are considering it."
Re:I abstain (Score:3, Informative)
The progressives are bringing up initiatives in several states to where a person can legally vote even if they are here legally.
If you heard this secondhand, then you need to check out your sources before spouting off.
There is one city - not state - putting this up for vote: Portland, Maine. And it only applies to the local elections. Other cities and states do this, and have in fits and starts over the last 150 years or so.
It is a GOOD thing for the residents of a city to be involved in local politics. Let localities decide who is an is not a "citizen" of their region. That's not "progressives" - that's good old-fashioned individual liberty tea-party style talk.
you don't always have to be a citizen to vote (Score:5, Informative)
Voting requirements are typically established by local and state government, not by the Feds. I assume small-government types would like it that way. Historically, non-citizens have been able to vote in local, state and federal elections in over 40 states and territories. [immigrantvoting.org] It is more recent, anti-immigrant sentiment that has started to restrict voting to citizens only.
Historically, voting has been considered a right of anyone who pays taxes. "No taxation without representation!" was the rally cry of the original Tea Party. The current "tea party" seems to have an altogether different agenda.
There are tens of millions of workers in the U.S. who are not citizens but pay taxes. According to the principles of the founders the U.S., their payment of taxes entitles them to vote.
Re:I abstain (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, it is 'progressive'. A major aim of the Progressive Era was election reform. Without that, there'd be no recall or ballot initiative laws, and party bosses would still pick candidates instead of having primaries, and, of course, the seventeenth amendment directly electing Senators and the nineteenth allow women to vote.
While I can't think of any specific 'let non-citizens vote' concept (I suspect the Progressives would actually push for immigration reform instead.), it's not incredibly off-kilter from the rest of the stuff. I mean, they demanded letting all citizens vote. (People tend to get confused. Women were always citizens. It's just there's no requirement that all citizens be allowed to vote.)
Re:I abstain (Score:3, Informative)
"So how would one indicate a lack of confidence in the system, as opposed to the specific candidates? Abstaining is not simply a way of expressing apathy; it can also indicate that one finds the office itself illegitimate."
That's not the problem. The real problem is that under a representative democracy (or republic) you ended up putting the fox to take care of the hens in this issue.
Solution (to your proposed problem): allow for a blank (or "no one of the above") vote. I don't know for the USA but a ton of countries allow for that option.
Why it doesn't work? Because your representatives don't want to lose the power your vote -or your no-vote give to them. That's why while a lot of countries allow for a blank vote, no one -that I know of, allow for those blank votes to hold representatives (as empty chairs in the representatives office). Politicians live quite a sweet life knowing that the more disconnected they are from the citizens they say to represent the easier for them to go after their own bussiness.
I wouldn't support dismantling government for too a high percentage of blank votes since that would lead to anarchy (see Irak or many African countries to see why anarchy is bad) but I certainly would favour for government going progressively into autopilot by means of blank votes leading to empty chairs.
In Spain for instance (and I presume it's more or less the same in USA) you need different majority levels for different kind of laws (like 2/3 in order to be able to ammend the Constitution, absolute majority for national budgets, simple majority for other laws...). Taking into account blank votes, then, first you wouldn't be able to ammend the Constitution, after that you wouldn't be able to pass yearly budgets (so you automatically would work on last years budget), then you wouldn't be able to pass any law: you would be forced just to be sit down and quiet in the Congress. Which can only make sense: if you didn't earn people's support you aren't entitled to govern the country -the less support you earned, the less important the changes you are allowed to introduce.
That's easy to acomplish and it would have the immediate effect that politicians would be *very* interested on gaining the attention and support of citizenship which would only be good for democracy. It's only that those in charge to pass such a law are the most interested on such a law never to be aproved.
Re:Does it really matter? (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe on a handful of issues. There are pretty significant differences between Reid and Angle's legislative agendas.
Re:Explanation? (Score:3, Informative)
"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence..."
.... Never (and always) are strong superlatives that one would be wise to avoid.
Re:I abstain (Score:2, Informative)
Obligatory xkcd, but it's old, so perhaps this plug is excusable.
National Language [xkcd.com]
Re:It's badly flawed [Re:I abstain] (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.ctl.ua.edu/math103/voting/approval.htm [ua.edu]
http://www.tursiops.cc/idhop/av/ [tursiops.cc]
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/government/approvalvote/center.html [boulder.co.us]
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Really? (Score:3, Informative)
All the Amish schools I know of around here teach German as their primary language.
The fact that you can't think of one has no bearing on what actually exists.
Re:I abstain (Score:3, Informative)
How is it dehumanizing? Yes, a bit harsh and sarcastic, but it doesn't seem really dehumanizing. He could have phrased it all a bit better, but I don't really see anything inaccurate or particularly vile about it. The truth of the matter is that it is a stupid law that made sense at the time but makes none now.
I don't think the drafters of the Constitution were in favor of today's "anchor babies". Or would be.