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It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of
a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into
privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing
algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the
planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.
Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.
In the year 2000, enough votes were miscounted to swing the election to George W. Bush.
In the 2004 election, praises be, we don't have to worry about that sort of thing. Thanks be to Jesus for the technological wizardry of touch-screen voting, which offers a new no-mistakes, error-free method of...
um...
Now that everything's working just as it should, I'm sure we all can be confident that our votes are indeed being counted, even if we don't get a paper trail to verify that pesky computer electronicky whiz-bang equipment is doing what it's supposed to be doing. Who needs piddly things like verification? Democracy is working: my government told me so!
There's nothing to see here. Nothing to see. Move along, folks. Move along.
Posted by James Cook at 10:22 AM.
# (permalink) 
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These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.
Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.
In the year 2000, enough votes were miscounted to swing the election to George W. Bush.
In the 2004 election, praises be, we don't have to worry about that sort of thing. Thanks be to Jesus for the technological wizardry of touch-screen voting, which offers a new no-mistakes, error-free method of...
um...
Albuquerque Journal October 22, 2004
Kim Griffith voted on Thursday— over and over and over.
She's among the people in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties who say they have had trouble with early voting equipment. When they have tried to vote for a particular candidate, the touch-screen system has said they voted for somebody else.
It's a problem that can be fixed by the voters themselves— people can alter the selections on their ballots, up to the point when they indicate they are finished and officially cast the ballot.
For Griffith, it took a lot of altering.
She went to Valle Del Norte Community Center in Albuquerque, planning to vote for John Kerry. "I pushed his name, but a green check mark appeared before President Bush's name," she said.
Griffith erased the vote by touching the check mark at Bush's name. That's how a voter can alter a touch-screen ballot.
She again tried to vote for Kerry, but the screen again said she had voted for Bush. The third time, the screen agreed that her vote should go to Kerry.
She faced the same problem repeatedly as she filled out the rest of the ballot. On one item, "I had to vote five or six times," she said.
Michael Cadigan, president of the Albuquerque City Council, had a similar experience when he voted at City Hall.
"I cast my vote for president. I voted for Kerry and a check mark for Bush appeared," he said.
He reported the problem immediately and was shown how to alter the ballot.
Cadigan said he doesn't think he made a mistake the first time. "I was extremely careful to accurately touch the button for my choice for president," but the check mark appeared by the wrong name, he said.
Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera said she doesn't believe the touch-screen system has been making mistakes.
Now that everything's working just as it should, I'm sure we all can be confident that our votes are indeed being counted, even if we don't get a paper trail to verify that pesky computer electronicky whiz-bang equipment is doing what it's supposed to be doing. Who needs piddly things like verification? Democracy is working: my government told me so!
There's nothing to see here. Nothing to see. Move along, folks. Move along.
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