Wednesday June 11, 2008
An illustrated demonstration of the new optical voting machines and accompanying article. It’s like taking a test in college, with multiple-choice bubbles you fill in with a #2 pencil. But so then why do the scanners need to be at the polling stations? Why not a big fast scanner at election headquarters?
Tuesday March 18, 2008
What's up with a Florida primary?
It was decided yesterday that there will not be a re-vote for Florida’s Democratic primary. The story so far (skip to next graff if you’ve been following the news): Last year, the Florida legislature decided to move our primary up to January 29th in this primary season. The Democratic National Party had previously decided that no state, except four that have historically had early primaries, could have a primary before February 5th (Super Tuesday), and threatened to not seat Florida’s delegates at the convention, i.e. to not count our votes. The conventional wisdom at the time was that since most candidates are determined on Super Tuesday, Florida’s primary would count where it mattered — by giving a candidate “momentum” — and that actual delegate votes at conventions haven’t decided a nominee in decades. Except that the subsequent primaries have been very close, and there now appears the very real chance that Florida could have been the deciding vote, leading everyone to look for a way to fix the mess.
The response that you hear often to this is, “well, Florida knew the rules when it made the decision to have an early primary.” It’s shocking how often statement to this effect are repeated without being questioned. “Florida” is not a sentient being. The decision was made by one group (Florida state legislature) and impacts another group (Florida voters). To say that our elected officials disenfranchised us and that’s all there is to it reeks. So what now? Well, counting the vote goes against the rules that were established at the beginning of the process (= not democratic). Not counting the vote disenfranchises Florida voters (= not democratic). And re-voting has been determined to be unfeasible, not to mention an affront to those that voted on January 29th (so also = also not democratic).
So what’s the solution? Well, there is none; not for this election. The whole thing is dominated by realpolitik self-interest (e.g. I’m a Barack Obama supporter, so I should be happy that Florida isn’t being counted, as it was won by Hillary Clinton). There are lessons to be learned, however, starting with the fact that the whole primary system is an anti-democratic catastrophe in need of overhaul. Other then “because it was always so,” why should Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina have a more influential voice in selecting the president then any other state? Why do some states hold “caucuses,” some “elections,” and some (I smell Texas) such convoluted combinations that nobody even tries to explain them? And what’s up with “super-delegates,” anyway?
This, my friends, is no way to elect a president. The whole system is screwed (you can tell, in part, by looking at the men it has elected for the last 40 years or so). There are lots of ways to have an election, all with their valid criticisms, but all better then this. (Interjection: And what about Ralph Nader? What’s up with him??) Let’s pick a system and go with it. Do I think that’s going to happen? No, not yet. It’s going to take a few more disasters like this first. But it’s on the way.
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Wednesday March 12, 2008
Yeah, what is it about Florida and voting? I mean, we can’t even have a vote for best burger without “voting irregularities.”
Wednesday November 7, 2007
SotP takes a swipe at Coconut Grove Grapevine.
Monday November 5, 2007
Double the Vote
Double the Vote, a project of Category 305, is out to increase participation in local elections, starting with tomorrow’s elections in Miami Beach, Miami, Hialeah, Surfside, Homestead, and Golden Beach. Only 10% of registered voters vote in local elections in Miami-Dade. This is particularly silly when you realize that in local elections, every individual vote is proportionally much more important then a vote in national elections, and that local issues have much more effect on your day-to-day life then national ones.
Ah, but who to vote for? Who follows local politics, anyway? Well, DtV has links to information about Miami Beach candidates at Category 305, and the Sun Post and Miami Vision. See also the Herald’s recommendations for tomorrow from their politics page, which links to numerous stories related to the election(see also this). So read your ballot, do your research, tell your employer you’ll be in late tomorrow cause you’re voting (prepare for looks of shock, but most bosses have no problem with this), and off to the polls first thing in the morning.
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Monday February 12, 2007
Charlie Crist wants to get rid of all the electronic voting machines in Florida. I say great. But just before we do, I want someone to add up exactly how much they all cost (in equipment, training time, and fixing time, putting aside the priceless lost votes), and I want to sock someone in the jaw. Seriously. Find me the idiot who actually made the decision to spend that money and let me hit them just once.
Tuesday November 7, 2006
Voting-day observations
- Go vote dammit. That means you! It’s part of your civic responsibility. (Take an umbrella with you — it’s going to rain.)
- Actually, there’s more to your civic responsibility. According to Noam Chomsky, your vote becomes more relevant if you (1) pay attention to the issues and (2) discuss them with other voters. If you’re like me, you haven’t really done enough of either, especially as concerns local politics. You know voting in local politics is more important then the nationals, right? Now’s the time to start taking an interest; let’s keep tabs on whoever’s elected, and think how who’s ever not elected would have done different, and be better prepared for next time.
- Elections website. Get a sample ballot, a list of voting sites, info on what to bring (hint: photo ID), and voting results.
- How to vote from last time. A tempting strategy is to vote the opposite of the Herald’s recommendations, on the logic that you cancel out a non-thinking drone, and give more of a voice to anyone who’s looked into the issues and made an intelligent decision. Of course the problem is that lots of people make informed, intelligent, and wrong decisions, so the intellectual and mathematical validity of this approach remains uncertain.
- Here’s the Herald’s elections page, with links to recommendations and all that.
- From personal experience, I know that if you haven’t notified the voting department about an address change, you should go to your old voting location, not the new one.
- Keep an eye on those fucking machines.
- Check in with our friends at the Elections Reform Coalition. My computer has trouble with PDF’s, so their website is like a broken monitor to me, but they might have some good advice. At the very least, try to take some photos of your polling place.
- Final thought: the Carter Center and the National Democratic Institute monitor elections in many countries around the world. On the radio the other day, Carter said that elections in the USA don’t even qualify for the monitoring, because they don’t meet the basic requirements. For example, they require standardized voting procedures for the countries they monitor. Yikes!
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Thursday November 2, 2006
“He touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican, Charlie Crist.“ This is totally fucked; those electronic voting machines are a lot worse then a waste of money: they’re a complete disaster. And people told the elections officials they were a bad idea. They went ahead and bought them anyway. Bad, bad stuff. Here and here we discussed voting online, which I still think is the obvious way to the future — and with no hardware cost. (via BoingBoing) Update: At The Register. Update: Fuck me: the Herald’s doing online polls now.
Tuesday March 28, 2006
Poquito Tuesday
- Sunset over Miami, taken from the
RickenbackerJulia Tuttle Causeway (thanks for the correction, Kyle!); downtown is at the left, the rest of the skyline is the midtown development. - Something stinks about Florida’s voting machines. There is a lot more information, including what you can do about it, at hidden city.
- Potboilers: Artblog tears into the Rosenquist show at the MAM (which I found likable, but I pick my fights with those dudes).
- MiamiSNews is a strange and interesting site. (Via SotP)
- A lot of data entry has gone into Restaurant Place, an effort to consolidate all the menus of all the restaurants in one place. Two thoughts: (1) One day soon a restaurant without a website will be as foolish as a hotel without one is today; (2) as long as tying the name of a restaurant into Google (maybe along with a pertinent city name or cross street) is the fastest and best way to get this information, who needs a standalone directory?
- A little glimpse into life on South Beach.
- Stuck on the Palmetto treats us to pictures of ad planes snagging banners at North Perry.
- “Miami-Dade County remain[s] one of the least fair and reasonable jurisdictions in the country.”
- Just by the sheer force of sitting in front of her computer, reading all the Miami blogs, and posting comments everywhere, Manola B is rapidly becoming the glue in what may turn out to be a Miami blogging community.
- Maybe there’s a real magazine called Miami Monthly; in any case, there is this website. Anyone have any thoughts?
- Wow, a lot of people wrote about Guillermo Fariñas yesterday.
- A disastrous Patti LaBelle concert at the Riviera Beach Jazz and Blues Festival was apparently the fault of the festival organizers. (Via the Daily Pulp, now at its new location. w/r/t which location Bob is pretty ambivalent. Check out his weird, Dave-Eggersesque self-interview, here and here (it’s the 2nd half of each of those posts).)
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