Hey! All I Got Were Blue Ones!
link Voter reports problem with ballot machine | machine, screen, voter – Local – Sun Journal.
Of all of the advancements western civilization lays claim to, the process of democratic election of representatives is probably the most sacrosanct. So important is this concept that the west often sends observers to emerging nations to oversee their elections to discourage corruption, nations that are usually far less civilized than the western experience.
As we recall, in Iraq, they resorted to the simple but effective method of dipping people’s fingers in ink wells to ensure non duplication of votes. Crude certainly, but there were few lawyers and even fewer techies involved other than those hired to fill the ink wells. As much as this was a pragmatic means of voting, it was more importantly a symbolic show that the idea of democracy was taking hold in the war torn nation.
Over here in the west, it looks like we still haven’t quite got the process down as pat as in Iraq, for despite over 200 years of history, they still can’t seem to get the simple mechanics of voting down to a foolproof system. Remember hanging chads during the 2004 elections? Now because we’re in the Internet age, some brilliant marketers have sold new and improved gizmos to elections officials to make the voting and counting process easier, faster and of course, planet friendly. Presumably, the manufacturers of these devices went through some rigorous testing of these things before receiving approval for public use. We would assume there were safeguards to protect against voter fraud, operator error and MOST IMPORTANTLY, to ensure accuracy of vote. Surely, they must have employed chimpanzees to pull the switches to emulate even the dumbest of real life voters.
The hard part of the democratic process is supposed to be the choices between good and incipient evil that are made BEFORE going into the voting place. Once that decision is made, the mechanics of voting should be straightforward. Kind of like choosing between a Mars bar and potato chips at the vending machine. Maybe that’s what should happen. The vending machine people should get in the voting machine business. When you have successfully entered the appropriate vote, a little reward pops out, like a Mars bar as proof of successful voting. As voting machines have gone electronic, it is easy to be leery of the ensuing results as the incidences in the linked article allude. Manipulating data electronically is easier than hiding boxes of votes. We are aware of the data manipulation that has gone on at Google and Facebook. If you push the button for Mars bar, you don’t want nuts. Officials will quickly point out that these are isolated incidents, yada, yada, yada. The fact that it happens at all at this mature point in the history of the democratic process is scandalous and shameful.
They should simplify the process down to the level that would appeal to the most basic instincts of people. Link the process to food. Every voter that shows up gets some M&M’s which they can put into any number of openings in a board corresponding to a candidate. The M&M’s are then counted and the winner is announced. If the voters don’t care for any of the candidates, they can eat the M&M’s and the trip to the polling station was not a complete loss. I’ll just wait here by the phone for the elections people to call me. Meanwhile, buy stock in M&M’s.