http://www.sundriesshack.com/2008/11/11/minnesota-monkey-business/ Delivering the Best of the New Media Since 2004. Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:08:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.sundriesshack.com/2008/11/11/minnesota-monkey-business/comment-page-1/#comment-672456 fostert Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:20:36 +0000 http://www.sundriesshack.com/?p=6548#comment-672456 If that's all you got, the election went smoothly. But let's look at the issues. Typos were corrected. What else are we supposed to do? Both sides agreed that it was a typo, but you think it shouldn't be corrected? And modems failing? That happens sometimes. And that's exactly why the vote is stored in two places. If one method fails, you still have the results. Granted, that's not good enough in my book. When I worked on the design of a voting machine, we stored the data using four different methods in four different places. Unfortunately, the people who authored the HAVA were more concerned with giving Diebold business than ensuring an accurate count. Diebold couldn't meet the four count standard, so it wasn't part of the law. Regardless, the problems in Minnesota are very minor and very normal for the US. That's not to say they are acceptable. We should at least be able to count votes as efficiently and accurately as India. But I doubt I'll live long enough to see that day. If that's all you got, the election went smoothly. But let's look at the issues. Typos were corrected. What else are we supposed to do? Both sides agreed that it was a typo, but you think it shouldn't be corrected? And modems failing? That happens sometimes. And that's exactly why the vote is stored in two places. If one method fails, you still have the results. Granted, that's not good enough in my book. When I worked on the design of a voting machine, we stored the data using four different methods in four different places. Unfortunately, the people who authored the HAVA were more concerned with giving Diebold business than ensuring an accurate count. Diebold couldn't meet the four count standard, so it wasn't part of the law. Regardless, the problems in Minnesota are very minor and very normal for the US. That's not to say they are acceptable. We should at least be able to count votes as efficiently and accurately as India. But I doubt I'll live long enough to see that day.

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