George(s) Lessard on 16 Dec 2000 19:34:45 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> Against computerised democracy |
As a former poll worker and scrutineer in Canadian elections (where the entire national vote is run by a central elections officer [provincial or federal depending on the election] and is done on simple paper ballots, standardized accross the country and counted in about two hours after the polls close) I am abosolutly amazed that in the land of the free and the home of capitalism... the creator of the voting devices can say ... They are wrong about 5% of the time.... Duh.... I guess that shows how much a vote is really worth in the US... Uggh... On 15 Dec 00, / from / via / thanks to, Torsten Otto <Torsten.Otto@hamburg.de> writing on Subject: Re: <nettime> Against computerised I wholeheartedly agree that companies should have nothing to do with elections and that paper ballots seem the least corrupt way to hold elections. It is not true however, that one has to wait days or weeks for the results. Elections in Germany are held in just that fashion and results are to be had that night: You go, have your name checked of the list and receive a ballot - printed in clear letters, with obvious places where to mark your choice of party and/or individual. With that you enter a cabin where a pen is provided, make use of your electoral rights, fold the paper (and/or stick it in an envelope - they're coming out of fashion for practical as well as finacial/ecological reasons) and cast it in an urn that is overseen by a member of the local voting committee. After the elections are closed, the public is invited to oversee the counting process which takes place right at the place the votes are cast. The papers are counted by hand, the results telephoned to a central office. The counting (I've been part of that several times now) doesn't take longer than an hour, unless the total doesn't come out with the number of people checked off the list. In that case the counting starts all over again. Usually, the results predicted by the TV stations minutes after the closing of the election are pretty correct. They are derived mostly by asking people right after they cast their actual vote. In the course of the night (elections are always on Sunday, always end at 6pm), the results are usually clear with the official numbers made public by Monday noon - no waiting for a week or two. And in case someone doubts the results, the organized bundles of ballots are there to be recounted. Regards, Torsten Otto McKenzie Wark wrote: > > from the New York Press http://www.nypress.com > > Votescam 2000: The Real Scandal Is the Voting Machines Themselves > <....> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net :-) Message ends, Signature begins (-: George Lessard, Member, ICANN @Large Member # 375469 Comments should be sent to mediamentor_no_spam_@cyberdude.com MSN Messanger address lessard99_no_spam-@hotmail.com "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." T.S. Eliot... "If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a closed room with a mosquito..." African Proverb ICQ # 8501081 Moderator Creative-Radio http://www.eGroups.com/list/creative-radio MediaMentor Weblog http://www.eGroups.com/list/mediamentor Homepages http://media002.tripod.com Caveat Lector, Disclaimers & (c) info http://members.tripod.com/~media002/disclaimer.htm Semi-random signature quotes follow: Thought for the day: The only thing that hurts more than paying income tax is not having to pay income tax. _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold