What significant things have I done today?

[ivor]

I did the early voting thing in Floriduh.  The have paper ballots with optical scanners.  I am doubting that anybody is going to steal this one at the ballot level anyways. There were lots of Obama people there. Provided all the people get out and vote I think it will be a landslide for Obama.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

6 more days, can we just forward 6 more days to the celebration/duel?
--
When I voted it seemed that most early voters were for Obama, but then again I live in a solid blue (Democrat) county. We can only hope...

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Heard on the radio (NPR) that many of the touch-screen "voting" machines will be replaced with optical scanners.

We've had optical scanners here in Oklahomer since....well, the 80's at least.   And EVERY TIME there was a cry for "recount" guess what?  The results were verified by a hand-count.

The ballots are so simple, an illerate could operate one, provided someone explained to him (_{yes, him...the odds are higher it's a 'him' and not a 'her'}) which was which. 

What you basically do is complete an arrow, which not accidentally, points to the candidate you want.

That is: there is a nice bold black arrow-head pointing to each candidate.  There is a gap, then there is a nice bold arrow-tail, "feathers" next to each 'head'.

All you gots t'do, is complete the arrow..... a 2 year old could do it, if each arrow-head was explained.

And the idiotic machines can read which arrow is complete, and which is not.   Flawlessly (as long as only ONE arrow is complete, obviously.....SOME TINY intelligence is assumed).

I always thought that if someone could not complete the ballot properly, do we really need to lower the bar THAT low?

(blind people NOT included in that-- there are braille ballots, and anyone may ask for help from any volunteer at any time during the voting process...these are always helpful people, who just LOVE to help out-- that is WHY they volunteered!)

No, assuming the person can see the letters well enough, then why not make it a slight test of the tiny bit of intelligence needed to guide the black pen through the broken arrow halves, completing the whole?

(again, no slight to people who cannot manipulate a pen-- help can and will be provided if asked. OR you may elect to take someone with you into the "booth" for help)

....

Anyway, the NPR bit seemed to worry that some poor benighted folk would be unable to complete the paper-to-optical-scanner ballots properly.

Were they serious? 

*bleah*

when did we, as a people, start lowering the bar to the point that someone with only a single working brain cell would be the "standard"?


Oh!  Of course..... when we ELECTED someone with that condition....

[Griffin NoName]

when did we, as a people, start lowering the bar to the point that someone with only a single working brain cell would be the "standard"?


Oh!  Of course..... when we ELECTED someone with that condition....

Yeh, see my thread Bible and the Ballot - cross posted with this LOL.

Hmmm. 

Time for Pikktures.

Draw a moustache on the candidates you don't like. If the already have one deface them as you wish.

[Sibling Chatty]

We vote with e-slate. NOT a touchscreen, not easily manipulateable...in fact, not manipulateable at all.

I've voted. Of course, I'm voting in Texas, where due to the need for redistricting the US completely, my vote is 'worth' about one third of what a vote in Alaska is.*

Thanks, electoral college...

* See chart.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/info/states.html

The figures are even worse for this year, that's 2004's numbers. One Texas elector now represents over 700,000 voters. Zono's vote is worth a bit more, but Bob's up there!!

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Mine is worth slightly less than yours, Chatty.

Got about $90 worth of my books and comics back from a friend. She's had then since...May? She moved up into the mountains and was here on the floor today to see her girlfriend for Halloween, so she brought them back!

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

We vote with e-slate. NOT a touchscreen, not easily manipulateable...in fact, not manipulateable at all.

I've voted. Of course, I'm voting in Texas, where due to the need for redistricting the US completely, my vote is 'worth' about one third of what a vote in Alaska is.*

Thanks, electoral college...

* See chart.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/info/states.html

The figures are even worse for this year, that's 2004's numbers. One Texas elector now represents over 700,000 voters. Zono's vote is worth a bit more, but Bob's up there!!

I'm with ya, Chatty: scrap the EC.

Over all, I seriously admire the founding fathers and mothers and their ideas of government.

This is one they got extremely wrong. 

My idea?   I have given it some thought.

I would institute voting (at least on the national level) takes a full week, including weekend.   I would mix up the hours the polls would be open over the course of the week, to accommodate different work schedules.

I would institute severe penalties on premature release of numbers from any precinct.  At the end of the week (and only then), the numbers nation-wide would be totaled.   

President would be majority of the registered voters, not the majority of those who voted.  If insufficient people vote (lack of a quorum) the election is null, and will need to be rescheduled.  Two insufficient quorum in a row, automatically becomes a  "none of the above" (see next).

All ballots will include "none of the above".  If 'none of the above' wins, all the candidates who were on that ballot must withdraw this election cycle, and a new election will need to be rescheduled.

Elections will take place early enough so that reschedules can be accommodated, typically 6 months before the end of term.

Yeah, it creates 6 months of lame-duck, but so what?  The party responsible for the misbehaviors of their chief candidate, especially if he/she's lame duck, also get penalized in some way (likely confiscation of their election funds).  This will help ensure that party helps keep the lame duck from doing something stupid. (not 100%, but would help a great deal.  Hit'em in their pocket-books, where it REALLY hurts.  Politicians don't have hearts, after all....)

Oh, and to help with the voting quorum?  Penalty for not voting-- after all, there is ALWAYS a 'none of the above', so there's no excuse if you don't like the choices....


*sigh*

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I assume you would mean a 2/3 majority? Otherwise (and possibly still) places like LA, San Fransisco, New York, etc. WILL out weigh places like Libby, Montana and Kerville, Texas. And that's not really fair.

[Pachyderm]

I went shooting.

It's not really significant, other than that I love doing it, and haven't had the chance to pull a trigger for quite some time now.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I assume you would mean a 2/3 majority? Otherwise (and possibly still) places like LA, San Fransisco, New York, etc. WILL out weigh places like Libby, Montana and Kerville, Texas. And that's not really fair.

No, majority of registered voters, not a majority of those who actually vote.

And if Libby, Montana do not have a "voice" in the nationals, that is what their representatives/senators are for.

I'm for returning to one citizen, one vote.

Instead of what it is NOW:  one citizen=many votes in Montana, but one citizen=0.00001/vote in New York.   Very unbalanced.   The rural folk get "votes" all out of proportion to their population....

And, as an added benefit, they will likely be spared national election ads, too..... why bother?

[Aggie]

I went shooting.

It's not really significant, other than that I love doing it, and haven't had the chance to pull a trigger for quite some time now.

Me either.  Thinking about taking up air rifle this winter (cheaper and less hassle than firearms).  Later I'd like to get into full bore shooting and maybe archery.

[Griffin NoName]

I went shooting.

It's not really significant, other than that I love doing it, and haven't had the chance to pull a trigger for quite some time now.

Hunting season began yesterday; time to bag a few Tories again


Saw some bits of the family yesterday, and spoke to some others on the phone, all pleasurable but leaving some lose ends, all of which now tied up, but all of which over-exercised the brain and caused two significantly sleepless nights so far.

[beagle]

I went shooting.

It's not really significant, other than that I love doing it, and haven't had the chance to pull a trigger for quite some time now.

Hunting season began yesterday; time to bag a few Tories again

It's the lowland Scots who are all communists. In the Highlands they're all lairds. Never worked out how you fit the two in one country without some sort of explosion.

[Pachyderm]

Periodically we sally forth from our Highland fortresses and belt a few Sasannachs, and their subversive Bolshie worker drones.

"Chlanna nan con thigibh a so's gheibh sibh feoil"

We just don't tell the media bods when we do it...

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Fixed my main laptop, today.

Had to re-install Micro$uck software...*bleah*  Seems I forgot my admin password, and I can't be bothered to make a "fetch the password boot disk" so I just re-installed.

Didn't loose anything, I had backedup all significant data on a flash, soooo....

Now, I'm back on my curvy-keyboard, with my trackball/mouse and my rotatable 20" monitor.  Heaven.

I'm reading this in portrait mode, with 20" of screen real-estate to read on.....

(a little-known trick of Windoze XP is the "rotate the screen" function.  CONTROL-ALT-ARROW-KEY changes the screen's rotation to match whichever arrow-key you use.... a nice practical joke to play on coworkers at lunchtime...)