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I voted, have you?

rabbit994

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Jun 23, 2006
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:cool:

I've voted today. Here is to Jackson Miller winning hopefully and Amendment 1 crashing and burning.
 

darrel_h

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unfortunately i'm not registered in the state of va yet so..... will make sure to be registered next go around, if i'm still living in the state.
 

longwatch

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I voted my precinct was pretty empty at 1200. After all the reports about heavy turnout in NOVA that I read I was surprised. Took me longer to walk to the polling place from my car than it did to wait in line, sign in, and vote.
 

Goliath

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I voted at 9:30 this morning. Was a line there to vote. Took my niece to vote for the first time today. She was pretty excited to get a chance to vote. LOL think she was even more excited to get the sticker after she voted, but she is a teen. She was showing it off when we went to get breakfast and out shopping. Was surprised that someone stopped me at Sams to ask where I voted and how long the line was. Couldn't carry my sidearm with me since the polling place was in a school, stupid law.



Goliath
 

ilbob

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, Illinois, USA
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darrel_h wrote:
unfortunately i'm not registered in the state of va yet so..... will make sure to be registered next go around, if i'm still living in the state.
If you are a democrat, that does not matter at all. Go vote, several times. :)
 

darrel_h

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ilbob wrote:
darrel_h wrote:
unfortunately i'm not registered in the state of va yet so..... will make sure to be registered next go around, if i'm still living in the state.
If you are a democrat, that does not matter at all. Go vote, several times. :)
sorry ilbob, not exactly sure what you mean there, but no i'm not a demo, nor a republican. hopefully here soon i'll be a member of the constitutional party. i'm sick of the extreme right and left wings. what happened to the moderate's in this country? but oh well, i'll get off my soapbox.
 

OC-Glock19

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darrel_h wrote:
ilbob wrote:
darrel_h wrote:
unfortunately i'm not registered in the state of va yet so..... will make sure to be registered next go around, if i'm still living in the state.
If you are a democrat, that does not matter at all. Go vote, several times. :)
sorry ilbob, not exactly sure what you mean there, but no i'm not a demo, nor a republican. hopefully here soon i'll be a member of the constitutional party. i'm sick of the extreme right and left wings. what happened to the moderate's in this country? but oh well, i'll get off my soapbox.
ilbob is referring to the fine Illinois Democrat tradition of following the adage to "vote early and vote often." Also, being legally dead has not stopped many Illinois Democrats from voting.
 

longwatch

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I think the Taminy Hall machine was first to embrace the vote early and often philosophy. "It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes." Boss Tweed
BTW Anybody else here not happy with electronic voting?
 

rabbit994

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Electronic voting worked for me without a hitch. Even bitched at me about not selecting a senator. What was your issue with it Longwatch?
 

TEX1N

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I think longwatch was talking about the whole aspect of electronic voting (fraud, etc). I voted on paper this morning. There was noline.

rabbit994; I'm sure not everyone agrees with you about Amendment 1, as this is a gun forum not a marriage forum!
 

longwatch

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Makes me nervious that I don't have a receipt or anyproof that i voted the way that I did. I was watching the HBO documentary last week on hacking those machines and they make a good case for a vulnerability of vote fraud. Also, doing write ins on some of those machines is rediculously tedious.

Edit to add: I also voted against Amendment 1, not because I am for gay marriage but because I don't believe the government should be in the marriage business in the first place or regulating contracts between people.
 

possumboy

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longwatch wrote:
Makes me nervious that I don't have a receipt or anyproof that i voted the way that I did. I was watching the HBO documentary last week on hacking those machines and they make a good case for a vulnerability of vote fraud. Also, doing write ins on some of those machines is rediculously tedious.

Edit to add: I also voted against Amendment 1, not because I am for gay marriage but because I don't believe the government should be in the marriage business in the first place or regulating contracts between people.

You have as much receipt as you do from the old voting machines. There is a printout that each machine does just like the old machines that stamp it as the vote is being cast. You were never given any proof that you voted before. No, if you are talking about the punch ballots that are counted, I don't believe VA uses those. But those have a higher rate of miscount and lost that either type of machine.

The old machines could be "hacked" also, that is why there are procedures that are done before and after to verify that the numbers are correct. This is done on both the old machines, and the electronic machines.
 

longwatch

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Well when I filled out a scantron type paper ballot I knew there would still be a stack of ballots as a paper trail. In the case of the Diebold machines it is possible to flip votes in the way the hacker desires without any participation by the poll judges. They total number of voters would remain the same, just a certain percentage of votes could be changed. Unfortunately you could still get a receipt that says how you intended to vote, while your vote could be recorded differently.
 

VAopencarry

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I don't like the electronic only machines. Aside from fraud, there is no paper trail if there is a 'glitch' and all the votes in the machine go poof.
 

rabbit994

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TEX1N wrote:
I think longwatch was talking about the whole aspect of electronic voting (fraud, etc).  I voted on paper this morning.  There was no line.

rabbit994; I'm sure not everyone agrees with you about Amendment 1, as this is a gun forum not a marriage forum!

I was simply expressing my personal opinion about amendment 1. You may think differently.

As for the electronic voting, I see your point about no paper record to drop in a bucket in case of emp blasts, HD failure or other such mishap.
 

Tomahawk

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I don't know what good giving voters receipts would do. Imagine the scenario:

A race is too close to call and there's a call for a recount. So what now? You going to recall every single voter to show up again at the polls with their receipts in hand? How do you account for those who can't show up again or who lost the receipt (which would be most of them)?

A better idea would be a paper ballot punched by the machine and kept by the election people in case of a manual recount. That way the machines speed up counting and the ballot is only a backup.

In my opinion the machines are dangerous in any case because they add complexity to the process and require specialists (software writers and technicians) to be properly understood, set up, and maintained. They are therefore also a waste of money.

With paper ballots anyone of average intelligence understands them and can count them. They are not foolproof but they are simpler. They also take longer to count, but not that long, and what's the hurry? The world won't end if you have to wait a few hours more before the first count comes in.

IMO Americans are infatuated with anything that looks or "smells" high-tech, but some things work better when they are simple and time-tested. It's the same reason I don't ever want my firearms to be more than rugged, simple mechanical devices. They don't need to be "smart" or "biometric" or Bluetooth compatible.
 

longwatch

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One way receipts could work is if 2 are given to voter, 1 they can keep and one they can put in a ballot box if they elect to. Then after the polls close the receipts can be checked against the computer tally. The percentages could be checked against the computer tally, and individual records could be checked against the receipts, but that would actually be a time consuming process. Personally I prefer scantron ballots checked against computer totals. That can be efficient and leaves physical evidence of voter intent.
 

utbagpiper

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Voted first thing this morning. As I point out in a Utah specific thread, OC'd right into the high school where my polling place was located. No problems at all.

I don't care for e-voting. After spending longenough at MIT to get two degrees in EE, around a lot of brilliant people who crack such systems for fun, I simply don't trust e-voting to be secure. We also have some areas here in Utah with SERIOUS problems this morning with machines not working and so people not getting too vote.



Charles
 

hirundo82

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May 10, 2006
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Houston, Texas, USA
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I voted after school today. I didn't carry though, because Texas prohibits carrying at a polling place for some strange reason.
 
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