ATM machines never screw up, voting machines do. A lot.Why is that? It's not like people are more worried about their vote than their money - or at least that's not true not for the majority of them. Sure, most people feel a bit of frustration, confusion and concern while voting - but most feel the same while balancing their checkbook or pulling out cash.
Sure, voting machines don't get used every day, but the election is a big deal so you'd think states would spend resources to ensure thorough testing and an effective support system. Saying a voting machine suffers more wear and tear isn't a believable answer either. It's not like ATMs rarely see use or abuse. I've seen big lines at strategically placed ATMs. I've seen someone flip out and bang on the ATM because of card issues or (more likely) money issues. Yet we don't hear big stories about mass quantities of ATM errors - I don't even remember hearing such things a decade or two ago when the technology was in it's infancy. When Fred's card got swallowed, it was clearly user error, but when Fred's vote gets muddied up, user error gives way (in our winds at least) to something more sinister.
Many believe (or just suspect) that our votes are being tampered with. We propose conspiracy theories in which machines are being hacked, encrypted, manipulated or just disregarded. Judging from the stories that we hear, and how their frequency eclipses tales of ATM failures, we may just be right.Here's another conspiracy theory, one which I hadn't thought about before. I'm not saying I believe in it, I'm just saying "what if":
What if the reason that we hear all these tales about how our votes don't count is because it fits someone's agenda to promote that tale? Anyone reading this blog knows multiple people who have given up (and who can blame them, 'cause their vote's not getting counted and/or the election is rigged) on voting. What if that's exactly why we're being told about this.
The gamist in me feels this would be a viable tactic for the right. Propagate tales of voting machine error and implied theft of votes, and some fraction of the left will decide their vote doesn't count. It's not worth it, so they stop voting. Another fraction will push for further investigation, and when it doesn't turn up a wide-spread conspiracy and fraud or hacking (because maybe no conspiracy larger than one Governor and the Supreme Court took action on that watershed election) it just makes that active fraction look like fools and nutjob conspiracy-theorists. They don't have to steal our votes, if we never cast them in the first place.
8 comments:
Actually, there is pretty good evidence that votes don't get counted. In the New Hampshire primary family members of Ron Paul complained because the district showed zero votes for Ron Paul even though they all had voted for him. The district came clean and admitted to not counting those votes, and that was the end of it. Nothing more.
"You broke the law!"
"Uh, yep. We did."
"Alright then."
And another thing...
Why is it such a common meme that Republicans benefit the most from getting people not to vote? I'm not talking about this post but on a much larger scale. Many lefty organizations have been absolutely 'certain' of this for quite a long while. The implication here is that Republicans trick the under-priviledged and under-educated into not voting. Let's be blunt. We're saying that stupid people are being kept from voting. I would think that Republicans have the most to gain from stupid people voting.
And the whole right and left thing still drives me nuts. If they are such opposites, why do they do the same damned things but to different degrees? Why do I hate the candidates of both sides so vehemently? I think both of these parties have a hell of a lot to gain from stupid people voting.
I watched an hour of campaign coverage on television this weekend. A whole fucking hour and did not hear one damned thing about any candidate. Any person relying on a major media outlet for information about the candidates will only find out their current poll standings. But it will take a whole fucking hour to tell you about it!
If you look into any major Presidential candidate's platform and voting record, you'll find out they are not the person they say they are. The information just doesn't add up.
Even the 'outsiders' for 'change' are still fucking politicians!
And I'm foaming at the mouth because I keep inundating myself with election coverage like some fucking heroine junkie. I hate it! It consumes me! And I just can't stop watching and listening and reading and yelling and screaming and foaming and shaking and I'll stop now...
I apologize. I didn't mean or intend to imply you (or anyone, in particular, or as a class) is stupid.
Even the smartest people in the world (and you definitely fall into the category) have all been fooled by something or someone at some point. That doesn't make any of them, or anyone else, stupid. It's that "you can fool all of the people some of the time" thing.
Falling for a con-man is never shameful. That's what they do - they practice pulling shit all the time. The rest of us only practice detecting shit when the shit they are pulling is put on a pedestal before us. The con-men have the default advantage, and are going to con us successfully on some percentage of our interactions.
Falling repeatedly for the same con-man after he'd been pointed out to you could be shameful, and is the best not-voting argument I've heard.
Being a con-man is always shameful, IMHO.
"The implication here is that Republicans trick the under-priviledged and under-educated into not voting."
Quite to the contrary, none of the under-educated people I know have ever expressed to me that they've given up voting for good.
Admittedly, I haven't talked to any of them in the 6 months since I left Albuquerque, but I have no reason to believe that someone who isn't analytical and a critical-thinker would come to the conclusion that voting is a waste of their time.
Such a person might often choose not to vote out of apathy, but that is rarely a conviction. Or at least has never been a conviction amongst those non-analytical thinkers with whom I have ever discussed politics.
While I disagree with your decision to not vote, I know you came to that conclusion after thinking about the issues and the process.
"In the New Hampshire primary family members of Ron Paul complained because the district showed zero votes for Ron Paul even though they all had voted for him."
I hadn't heard that story. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Don't believe him Rolfe. He's just doing it because I did it first...
err...
didn't do it first...
uh...
first didn't...
ummm...
Oh, fuck it.
I'd say the voting machines are hackable because the people who have an interest in them being hackable (those in power) have a strong interest in keeping them that way.
In my district, we use electronic voting machines with paper trails. It's nice to see the paper record of the vote you cast printed out, even if the electronic record can be jimmyed pretty easily.
X is right. It is all about me emulating him. That is also why I moved to the Pacific Northwest and became an architect.
Architect of what, exactly?
Post a Comment