Electioneering : Board of Elections Website Analysis | California

• Access to a great deal of information from the first page.
• More organized (if unimaginative) layout of information
• 
• Voter REGISTRATION, Voter INFORMATION, and VOTING SYSTEMS are three separate categories. Should these overlap more?

so, you think Americans can handle open elections?

Perfectly timed to our discussion last week is the following article:A Reminder About Comments by Kate Phillips

We were discussing in class the idea of open elections with more relaxed security where voters can vote multiple times in some cases. The discussion touched on the prediction that the zealots and paid voters would cancel themselves out and that all in all the election would end up fair. Well, here you go. The New York Times had to send home a behavior report to the small percentage (hopefully) of the American public who can’t even handle the comments section of the Times.

It states, “Secondly, a few readers keep trying to post the same comments over and over, for weeks on end, on every item. They add nothing to the development of a conversation, and will not be published.” I think that this is a good point when taken in the context of elections, as well. What does an open election do for the discussion of our leadership? Does it not make even muddier the political waters? Does it not encourage even more the attempts at undermining the system? Would voters still feel as if they participated in a process if it is that unregulated? I understand the need for accessibility and the difficulties some have in acquiring government issued ID’s, but “solving” that problem by changing something else entirely seems rather backwards.

Also, pretty great that the Times actually had to ask for comment writers to end the name-calling. “None of you deserve to be called an idiot, a moron, a juvenile, racist or sexist.” … although I’d have to put money down that some of them really do.

Electioneering : Voter Confidence

How important is voter confidence? Well, it would seem that it’s pretty important. So important, in fact, that it is often the defense taken by digital voting machine manufacturers when inquiries are made about possible errors according to Rachel Gillet in the article, “Pay No Attention to that Man behind the Voting Booth.” It states, “Criticism of a company’s wares is spun as an attempt to “undermine voter confidence,” so it takes a court order to uncover the truth.” I can see how public perception can be a delicate balance; the country does not want to hear about another miscount or mistake. However, I don’t believe that a private company should be able to keep public records from review.  This should somehow be amended to voting law.  In my opinion, it is the secrecy behind the methods that should undermine voter confidence to a far greater extent than asking for a recount.

Also mentioned in this article is a website called VerifiedVoting.org. According to their website, “VerifiedVoting.org champions reliable and publicly verifiable elections in the United States.” I agree with their belief that election results should be able to be substantiated with more than a possibly corrupt form of digital memory. Until the day arises that the digital method can be trusted with a similar margin of error to mechanical voting booths they should remain a joint process with a paper to back up the digital.  This brings up the point that some states have laws against paper records that can be traced to specific individuals.  In that case, it might just be that the states should remain mechanical or change law to accommodate the new technology and its need for backup.

TITLE: Pay No Attention to that Man behind the Voting Booth Curtain
SOURCE: Humanist 64 no5 S/O 2004 WN: 0425202929015