Trust, but verify: A discourse on the LNC’s proposed electronic voting system
Posted in Power to the People by R Lee Wrights on June 30th, 2010 by Chris Edes
The United States has recently seen widespread adoption of electronic voting systems. Yet the technical issues surrounding the use of electronic voting systems are not well-understood by either policy makers or the general public. Poor implementation has resulted in serious problems with the accuracy, reliability and security of vote tabulation.
The Libertarian Party must lead the way. Since we have a higher degree of technical knowledge per capita than other parties, we are uniquely suited to the task both empirically and philosophically. As so often before, the Libertarian Party must be a “beacon on the hill” to light the way for America.
In this essay, we will examine the LNC’s proposed electronic voting system, which delegates rejected in St. Louis at the 2010 National Convention. Does it live up to the standard of excellence our duty demands?
Let us begin with credentialing voters. Ideally, an electronic voting system would not require the collection of any additional person data, beyond that required for paper ballots. The proposed implementation, however, requires that every delegate’s photograph be collected and stored in a database. Safeguards against the abuse or unauthorized dissemination of this information have not been defined.
Through out my years of living in Texas I have experienced much stereotyping from people outside of the state. They seem to think that we are all country bumpkins who walk around with ten gallon hats and speak with thick country accents. There are even some who think that we drive around with cow horns on the hoods of our cars. They also think of us as inbred yokels who are incapable of having any intelligent thought. Unfortunately the recent scandal over what has been written in the textbooks probably reinforced this image for those who like to turn their noses up at this state.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently said in a speech that “health care costs are eating the Defense Department alive.” For returning active duty troops and veterans the problem goes way beyond considerations of the cost to the VA system. These veterans are returning but the war is coming with them in ways none of us imagined possible. An alarming percentage of America’s military are returning home with from Iraq and Afghanistan with Traumatic Brain Injuries and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to a system of health which is sadly lacking.
Five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted an important private property protection in the U.S. Constitution. In Kelo v. New London, the court wrongfully decided it was acceptable for government to condemn and seize private property and give it to another owner.
The old Boston campaign button really does read “Vote Often and Early, for Mayor James Curley”.
One of my favorite anti-war pieces is War is a Racket (WIAR) by Marine Major General (MG) Smedley Butler. MG Butler was the only person to win the Congressional Medal of Honor two times, so he knew a thing or two about war.
By the fall of 1958, I had finished up in St. Agnes Grammar School in Manhattan and we had moved to Bayside, Queens. My father’s 1948 Dodge Fluid Drive four-door had seen better days.
An 80-year-old Chicago man who defended himself and his family from a neighborhood thug this week could be criminally prosecuted, if Barack Obama had prevailed in a 2004 Illinois State Legislature vote on a measure to protect citizens who use handguns in self-defense even when their communities ban handguns.
War involves the use of force to impose one’s way upon others. It brings with it collateral damages that hurt the innocent as much or more than the guilty. . . .
Economics isn’t “the dismal science” anymore. Not when your college research project involves carefully scrutinizing “clear, front-on photographs of Playboy Playmates of the Year” to determine how they relate to the US economy. That’s a quote from a Reuters Health article, which implies that gazing at gatefolds of nekkid women is now a health issue as well.
