Vote Flipping

by tristero

It’s not an urban myth:

Notice that after the machine gets calibrated, it still flipped a vote.

As I’ve mentioned several times, my elderly parents were victims of the infamous butterfly ballot down in Florida. We’re pretty sure that my mom ended up voting accidentally for Buchanan while my father probably voted for Gore. Both intended to vote for Gore but got confused. While both my parents were in full possession of their mental faculties, this was a highly disorienting experience for them.

The gadget in this video is no better. The out-of-calibration machine demonstrated on this video would, if used in the election, surely confuse many voters who wouldn’t think to inform an official, or might be too embarrassed to do so. Proofreading a long printout of voter choices also adds needless redundancy and complication. I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know that these machines are not it.

Meanwhile, it is important to stress what may seem obvious to many of us. Everyone who votes should check, and doublecheck, their ballot to make sure that the machine has properly registered their vote. And needless to say, clear, accurate voting technology should have a place of priority on all progressives’ long, long list of issues to address.