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Tchaikovsky Sounds Funny: If a Vote Cast is Not Counted, Does it Make a Sound?

Is this where I put in key words such as sex, lesbians, vampires, Christopher Lloyd and others things to which this blog do not pertain, but by putting them here, I may get hits from all the Christoper Lloyd lesbian vampire fans (and you know who you are)? This is the primarily humorous and occasionally rambling writings of Leon Tchaikovsky, humor writer. Enjoy.

Monday, April 10, 2006

If a Vote Cast is Not Counted, Does it Make a Sound?

Pennsylvania faces potential financial sanctions from the Federal government as some of our counties have failed to purchase new voting machines as required by recent Federal law. Yet, if the voters in these counties are not satisfied with the operability of these machines, perhaps the Federal government needs to review its own laws and give the people more time to decide which voting machines with which they are comfortable.

The private vendors of these machines all proclaim their machines are state of the art and impossible to manipulate. Yet, one manufacturer has had to pay significant fines in California for selling them machines that were later proven to be unreliable. An employee of this same company has testified that the vote totals of their machines can be manipulated by an outsider, despite their earlier contrary claims. A Carnegie Mellon Professor and an elections official in Florida have shown how voting machines can have their correct vote totals changed by an outsider. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor has shown that the machines in Florida may have tabulated the 2004 results by an error of over 100,000 votes. This would not have changed the results in Florida, yet this degree of error is significant as history has shown state results are sometimes closer than that. This does not necessarily mean that anyone manipulated the machines, but it does give us strong warning that there is some malfunction or poor design in these machines that we purchase with our tax dollars. The sad reality is these machines do not deserve the public trust which they advertise they have.

It should not be that hard for voting machine vendors to build reliable machines. These are not machines that are overstressed being used usually just twice a year. No other industry would accept delivery of machines with such a high degree of inaccuracy. We should demand the voting machine industry to construct reliable and verifiable machines. Anything short of that is an insult to democracy.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello fellow "Gravelite"! Yes,,a vote not counted makes a hollow, wrasping, wimpering sound....I wish to introduce myself...I'm a human being....earthling if you will, believe in God and will be investigating Mr. Mike Gravel's stance on various issues as it appears I may be volunteering my time and effort for his presidential nomination. Take care!

6:27 AM

 

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