Can We Privatize It? Yes, We Can!
David Weigel | October 16, 2008, 6:11pm
You didn't think Bob Barr
would let this 24-hour Plumbergasm go without comment, did you? "'Joe the Plumber' doesn't need Senators Barack Obama or John McCain'" says Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party's nominee for president. "He needs 'Bob the Builder.'"
"While Senators Obama and McCain seek only to put government patches on today's problems, 'Joe the Plumber' needs a leader who will rebuild our government into one that serves the interests of the people; not the interests of Washington," says Barr. "Senator McCain wants to make 'Joe the Plumber' responsible for his neighbor's mortgage, and Senator Obama wants to tax 'Joe the Plumber' for being successful. Both Senators Obama and McCain want to spend 'Joe the Plumber's' tax dollars on wasteful projects, such as the $850 billion dollar bailout of Wall Street."
I hasten to remind the reader that Wayne Allyn Root is a Son of a Butcher.
joe | October 17, 2008, 12:23am | #
Man, you can't even discuss historical events from the 2000 election without Republicans degenerating into a white-hot rage.
Easy there, fellas. Guilty conscience, or what?
Gore should have conceded on the machine recount But the disputed issue was that the machines were miscounting the votes.
You mean trying to stop Democratic Party officials from taking unmarked ballots to another room to change them into votes for Gore. Heaven forbid that anyone would try to prevent illegal vote tampering. That was the elections board. They used physical intimidation to stop the official body tasked with carrying out a recount from doing so, no matter how you want to phrase it. They were doing the job they were ordered to do by law, and the result was a riot by a bunch of scumbags flown in for that purpose.
Katherine Harris might have come off looking bad, but she did her job according to the law. Her actions were within the letter of the law, but there were plenty of areas where she had discretion, and just happened to use it in a way that advantaged Bush every single time she had the opportunity.
Oddly enough, all the counties that had voting irregularities were ones run by Democrats. Well, no, not all of them, but it's not surprising that more populous, poorer, more urban areas are going to have more problems. Their election machinery is more likely to be underfunded and outdated (punch cards? Is this the Jetsons?), and the larger number of votes is going to create that much more opportunity for something to go wrong.
Fucking get over it. You're the one driven to profanity, chief. Settle down, now.
You're clearly still worked up about the whole thing.
| October 17, 2008, 2:11am | #
Now as to the reasons that while being, theoretically, a good way to cast ballots, punch cards don't work that well.
1)As pointed out earlier, the tabulating machines will count every single properly punched card.
However it seems a portion of the electorate is so technologically ignorant and inept that they do not understand that the stylus has to be pushed
all the way in to punch the "chad" out. This portion includes those that joe refers to as "poorer, [living in] more urban areas". In other words those educationally disadvantaged enough to be unable to follow instructions and to understand the concept of simple machines. Incidentally these people also have problems with optical scan and even oldtime paper ballots.
However, the hole punching device used to mark ballots is sufficiently complex to make the punch card and unsuitable voting device. Nonetheless, at one time it seemed like a good idea and the machines were sold across the country. And I'm pretty sure that not one was bough by an official who walked away from the deal signing rubbing his hand together saying "this will keep the niggers from voting bwaaahhhaaahhhahhhh!!!".
2)The second disadvantaged group are the elderly some of whom have arthritis so bad that they lack the strength to push hard enough to dislodge the chad. This is aggravated by the aforementioned technical ineptitude that leaves the voter not understanding that if they don't push the stylus
all the way in the vote won't register.
All in all a user unfriendly system, but one nonetheless that elections supervisors picked in good faith.
Oh and since the date from the eighties and nineties they were hardly "outdated". For the most part they replaced the old mechanical lever systems that had been in service for decades.
Your a smart guy joe, but on some issues your just ignorant. Especially the ones where you're parroting the party line.
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