Comment on US Politicians praying inside the House of Representatives
limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks agoMost democracies use hand counted paper ballots. It works, and it’s fast enough, no need to improve it.
I don’t understand the American need to tinker with a good system.
That said, there is no way the majority of USA states will switch over to better counting systems. Some areas of the world will never be able to be truly democratic. The Americans have some weird system that works for their upper class, and the lower classes fully believe in it. This will not change in my lifetime
crusa187@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
It sounds like you were politically active in TX around the same time I was, during GW era, based on prior comment. But this reads as if you are an expat now. Did you leave?
limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
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. GW was never properly elected, in my mind, and he made several problems for the USA that still have ramifications to this day, including his introducing 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
crusa187@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
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.
limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I think if one follows the same practices as what is implemented in the UK and France and other democracies, then the issues we speak of with American ballot counting will simply go away.
I would not trust any improvements over the ballot counting methods perfected over 200 years ago. Scantrons, as mentioned, obfuscate witnesses trying to spot issues, and anything else is simply worse.
The modern crop of voting machines are not that much better than the Diebold machines, its hard to tell due to everyone being locked out of investigating them. Most people do not understand that these systems can have the owners throwing the elections without the employees being any wiser. We do not know this is happening, but with the exit polls and other hints going on, I would rate is as probable.
I think my issues with voting machines are influenced by me making similar systems myself. But still, I have no idea why people think they are a good idea. I do not think its a matter of education, or lack of awareness, because I tried for a few years to educate people, and have talked to others who tried too. I think it boils down to some taboo against calling out cheating in the American culture, to be honest. But that is just my idea
Texas is ok. Yes, it has a corrupt bad government steeped in endless corruption. But the big cities are just regular North American cities in both outlook and being cosmopolitan in nature (there are dozens of ethnic groups that have a huge impact on Houston, for example). And most of the rural population is allergic to politics. There is a warming trend that is going to cause mass migrations out of Texas in the next two generations, though.