Those were really badly designed ballots. Look at France or the UK or Canada or Virginia etc for how they should be. No self respecting democracy should ever use a half mechanical design that fails like that.
What really made me angry later was that this was used to justify worse ways counting ballots. But my main issue was the shut down recounts. Busy was never properly elected, in my mind, and he made several problems for the USA that still have ramifications to this day.
His dad introduced modern computer voting. He used his contacts to form the first private voting companies we know today. And in my view his son was elected to Texas only because of that.
an expat now. Did you leave?
No, still in Texas. Unfortunately, during the gw era I was not interested in politics much. If I sound like an expat its because I am totally not on board with any of the major political movements
Ah yes, the now infamous Diebold voting machines. Manufactured by… drum roll… Dick Cheney‘a Halliburton, a company with every intention of getting us into forever wars for them to profit off of. Certainly nothing fishy about that, nor the countless reports of the machines glitching and flipping votes. This was the precursor to the refined technique which made news for allegedly swinging the vote for Biden and cost Fox all that lawsuit money, but if you ask me that’s just classic Republican projection. They know what they did to get Bush in office.
Glad you’re still here in the US, sorry it’s still tejas though. Such a mix of amazing and terrible things in that state. Politics is so frustrating there…it’s far more purple than Repugs would like to admit, but they gerrymander it like crazy and exploit people’s religious beliefs to keep the state turning blue seemingly perpetually out of reach. I was lucky to escape to one of the coasts in the aftermath of the pandemic, but not sure it makes much difference given the current socio-political landscape. Summers aren’t quite so brutal though so there’s that.
I do think there are better ways of doing ballots digitally, and yeah even old school methods like you described can work well. The states you mentioned use a type of scantron, very clear what you circle in but still subject to the same type of partisan nonsense as the hanging chads (eg, look they only filled in 90% of this circle, clearly we have to toss this vote.) speaking of tossing votes, that’s the other thing about paper ballots…they can literally just dump them before dropping off at the county election centers, and we had several cases of that in the ‘24 election. I think a permanent record that is a verifiable source of truth for election results is quite feasible, can still be anonymous, and provably non biased, but it has to be built that way and neither party can be trusted to do that.
Those were really badly designed ballots. Look at France or the UK or Canada or Virginia etc for how they should be. No self respecting democracy should ever use a half mechanical design that fails like that.
What really made me angry later was that this was used to justify worse ways counting ballots. But my main issue was the shut down recounts. Busy was never properly elected, in my mind, and he made several problems for the USA that still have ramifications to this day.
His dad introduced modern computer voting. He used his contacts to form the first private voting companies we know today. And in my view his son was elected to Texas only because of that.
No, still in Texas. Unfortunately, during the gw era I was not interested in politics much. If I sound like an expat its because I am totally not on board with any of the major political movements
Edit: confused bushes
Ah yes, the now infamous Diebold voting machines. Manufactured by… drum roll… Dick Cheney‘a Halliburton, a company with every intention of getting us into forever wars for them to profit off of. Certainly nothing fishy about that, nor the countless reports of the machines glitching and flipping votes. This was the precursor to the refined technique which made news for allegedly swinging the vote for Biden and cost Fox all that lawsuit money, but if you ask me that’s just classic Republican projection. They know what they did to get Bush in office.
Glad you’re still here in the US, sorry it’s still tejas though. Such a mix of amazing and terrible things in that state. Politics is so frustrating there…it’s far more purple than Repugs would like to admit, but they gerrymander it like crazy and exploit people’s religious beliefs to keep the state turning blue seemingly perpetually out of reach. I was lucky to escape to one of the coasts in the aftermath of the pandemic, but not sure it makes much difference given the current socio-political landscape. Summers aren’t quite so brutal though so there’s that.
I do think there are better ways of doing ballots digitally, and yeah even old school methods like you described can work well. The states you mentioned use a type of scantron, very clear what you circle in but still subject to the same type of partisan nonsense as the hanging chads (eg, look they only filled in 90% of this circle, clearly we have to toss this vote.) speaking of tossing votes, that’s the other thing about paper ballots…they can literally just dump them before dropping off at the county election centers, and we had several cases of that in the ‘24 election. I think a permanent record that is a verifiable source of truth for election results is quite feasible, can still be anonymous, and provably non biased, but it has to be built that way and neither party can be trusted to do that.