MetaFilter posts tagged with ballots

Nader Challenges Black Box Voting

snakey — Fri, 05 Nov 2004 20:42:00 -0800

absentee ballot fun

taumeson — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 09:49:59 -0800

So I saw this image online (of a Michigan absentee ballot...which arrow is for Kerry, and which is for Bush?) and it made me think, what the hell is going on with this election? On the one hand, I'm told your vote might just be worthless if you use electronic voting machines but on the other hand the alternative (in my state, at least) is to use an absentee ballot, which, according to some, might be easier, if only because I can have members of a political party help me fill it out.

A better way to vote?

Turtles all the way down — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 20:57:46 -0800

Looks like a minority liberal government for Canada. The entire process will have been completed in a single day. The voters used pencils to mark X's on paper ballots, which were stuffed into ballot boxes then counted by hand. Despite the differences in population, is there a lesson here for our southern neighbours?

Quinn — Tue, 05 Nov 2002 11:27:40 -0800

Are we using the worst voting procedure? "Voting theorists argue that plurality voting is one of the worst of all possible choices." Plurality voting, in which each voter selects one canidate, is vulnerable to a third party spoiler (Nader) or with many canidates can lead to the (near) election of a candidate most voters despise (le Pen). Some alternative voting systems include instant runoff where canidates are ranked by voters, a Borda count where voters assigns points to each canidate, or approval system where voters vote for as many canidates as they like. (via argmax.com)

owillis — Sat, 14 Jul 2001 21:44:56 -0800

NYTimes: "How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote" "Their goal was simple: to count the maximum number of overseas ballots in counties won by Mr. Bush, particularly those with a high concentration of military voters, while seeking to disqualify overseas ballots in counties won by Vice President Al Gore.

A six-month investigation by The New York Times of this chapter in the closest presidential election in American history shows that the Republican effort had a decided impact. Under intense pressure from the Republicans, Florida officials accepted hundreds of overseas absentee ballots that failed to comply with state election laws. "

Postroad — Mon, 05 Mar 2001 04:58:52 -0800

Stealing votes and stealing home I had heard from some in the military that there was odd things going on with absentee ballots. This purports to address the issue.

rschram — Thu, 18 Jan 2001 18:04:04 -0800

Counting is profoundly political
The standards used to count (or not to count) Florida ballots is similar to the way the media reports on welfare reform success. It all depends on what you want to consider legitimate. (Happy birthday, Dad!) [PXQTZ.com]

owillis — Tue, 09 Jan 2001 22:51:20 -0800

Clinton: "They thought the election was over, the Republicans did. By the time it was over, our candidate had won the popular vote, and the only way they could win the election was to stop the voting in Florida". Give 'em hell Bill!

holgate — Sun, 24 Dec 2000 14:24:19 -0800

"the new director of the Environment Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, has proposed that the Florida ballots be sealed for 10 years. " Fuck the Christmas ceasefire. While the Anglo-Saxon world stuffs itself comatose, the forces of conservatism are busy mobilising. Yum.

da5id — Thu, 07 Dec 2000 10:00:29 -0800

Own a piece of History! At least it is for a good cause. Though, I don't know who would want to buy it. I am sure there are a few people out there who will.

tiaka — Sat, 02 Dec 2000 12:50:57 -0800

When you're an aiga member they send you e-mail, I usualy don't read them, because they're accouncements of conferences and such, but this one was about Chicago enlisting the help of AIGA to design new election ballots. 'Some possibilities for making Chicago ballots more user-friendly include enlarging candidates' names, changing the font size, altering the color of pages, making wider ballot booklets.' Since I couldn't find the article on-line, I'll just cut-n-paste the e-mail inside. :)

dhartung — Wed, 29 Nov 2000 19:27:05 -0800

Chicago to enlist graphic designers for friendlier ballots. [free reg may be req'd] There's been a bunch of discussion about the usability problems with various voting systems, notably punch-card ballots. Chicago didn't have anything as dramatic as a "butterfly" prexy ballot or two pages' worth of candidates, but we still had close to 120,000 discards from 2.1 million votes -- and when compared with jurisdictions using other systems, there's little evidence to suggest that voters are skipping the presidential ballot. That's just how bad manual punch card technology is. Even if we can't get rid of them just yet, at least we can make sure they aren't confusing. Did I just post the twenty-sixth link on Metafilter today? GO AWAY. METAFILTER IS FULL. :)

owillis — Wed, 22 Nov 2000 14:32:56 -0800

Republican mob scene video The guy in the video is being accused of stealing a ballot for the Democrats...

baylink — Mon, 20 Nov 2000 10:07:58 -0800

ELECTION: Dan Bricklin thinks the ballots sucked, too. Remember him? He helped write VisiCalc, and now runs Trellix? I'm still wondering why no one's agitating to invalidate that election in PBC.

holgate — Sun, 19 Nov 2000 01:01:10 -0800

"The rules of this game were set by the people, underwritten by the people, financed or not." Yet another opportunity for the British Observer to put the US newspapers to shame, with an closely-argued, even-handed reflection on the fun in Florida. "The system, full of inefficiencies and coagulations, may stink, but it is also a system which belongs to the voters who now complain so shrilly about it."

rushmc — Sat, 11 Nov 2000 21:07:30 -0800

Change the ballots yourself—don't wait for the government to fix things!

mikewas — Fri, 10 Nov 2000 12:50:47 -0800

Ballot called "childs' play" by class of 8-year olds

mathowie — Thu, 09 Nov 2000 20:03:40 -0800

Porter Glendinning on a weblist noted: "According to http://www.tcpalm.com/_special/pres_returns.shtml, David McReynolds, the Socialist candidate who had the hole beneath Gore's on the ballot, got no more than 36 votes in any county in Florida except Palm Beach, where he got 302. Seems questionable to me." So we've definitely got a problem with the ballot. Is it do over time yet?

snarkout — Wed, 08 Nov 2000 06:50:04 -0800

Conspiracy theorists, start your engines. Regardless of the outcome, those "9 missing ballot boxes" are going to figure in conspiracy theories for decades to come -- there are still people talking about how Nixon was robbed by the Daley machine in 1960. (The fact that a Bush is governor in Florida surely won't shut anyone up.)