« Idiot Tries to Clone the Dead | Main | What? »

September 04, 2004

Comments

If soldiers *are* required to give up secret ballots, they can collectively anounce their votes and see whether they collectively got reported accurately.

It's much harder to check whether votes are handled correctly when they can't be checked back to the voters.

Soldiers aren't required to give up their access to a secret ballot -- they can mail their ballots in via the "absentee ballot" procedure for their state of residence, as stated in the paragraph that you skipped over. The problems with this system, though, are well-known; the ballots don't always arrive in a timely fashion, and sometimes they just disappear.

This is an imperfect situation, and there's not a perfect solution to it. It's not enough to say, "Don't let Republicans near it", as Democrats have been known to monkey with systems before, too -- ask anyone familiar with Chicago politics for details.

It burns me up to see the New York Times quoting Laughlin McDonald, saying "he cannot recall another group of voters being asked to give up such secrecy." I can think of one -- blind voters.

Full disclosure time here; I work for the National Federation of the Blind, and I've been heavily involved with the Federation's efforts to assure that voting machines are made completely accessible to the blind.

It's just as unacceptable for people to insist on paper ballots, when it's painfully obvious that blind people can't read them without assistance. People are perfectly happy to ask blind voters, or voters who cannot read the ballot in the language it is printed in, to only vote with the assistance of another person, thereby bringing up all the potential security issues that are raised here, and the NFB has been yelling about this for years now. We even got mentioned on the NYT editorial page, in a sloppy piece that was effectively ghostwritten by Bev Harris, so the Times can't claim to be unaware of the issues involved.

I think there are problems with the procedures described in the NYT editorial, but I'm even less happy with the implication that anyone associated with the elections process can belong to a certain political party. When the Times comes out against requiring anyone to give up the right to a secret ballot, and for denying the right to any partisan activity on the part of election contractors, then we've got a story.

Until then, I think we just have to call this a case of NYT partisan wankery and let it go on by.

It's just as unacceptable for people to insist on paper ballots, when it's painfully obvious that blind people can't read them without assistance.

If you have a short answer on hand, how is it unacceptable for people to insist on paper ballots? On what material, or in what medium, should the votes be cast?

The comments to this entry are closed.