Mhall46184@aol.com
The Great American Dream Ballot
After our nation’s recent fratricidal dust-up, and in anticipation of the next, I propose that we consider a return to paper ballots for all elections.
Mr. Mueller’s investigation of purported hanky-panky-Pokemon™® between Mr. Trump and the pesky Russians has being going on for two years now. While Thanksgiving dinner with that uncle who insists on sharing over the turkey all the details of his latest gastrointestinal adventures might seem longer than two years, it only seems that way.
That Vladimir Putin was sitting at his glorious desk in the Moscow Kremlin and manipulating your auntie’s vote via his Official Danger Man®™ Snoopocontrolloscope (the collectible model comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by the late Patrick McGoohan) seems unlikely, but the allegations of electronic tonkering have cost all of us millions of dollars in order to pay the alligator-shoe-boys to share tittle-tattle.
Further, the reports of hardware failures, computer failures, printout failures, power failures, and in at least one Houston location a shortage of extension cords – yes, extension cords – delayed last week’s voting in many locations.
How much do the various brands and models of gollygeewhizpinball voting machines cost us? How reliable are they? How much do the various brands and models of tabulating machines, printers, scanners cost us? How much do the legions of IT functionaries, electricians, operating crews, programmers, software developers, software sales people, and the bidding and acquisition processes cost us?
And, yeah, the extension cords – the glories of our mighty Republic had to be put on hold while someone found a hardware store still open late at night.
And, in the end, how many Americans trust a jumped-up video game to have been programmed honestly and to record accurately even one vote?
The honest, effective, rational, and cost-saving approach to fair elections is to vote on paper ballots, and then for each ballot in its turn counted, checked, and verified by small committees of thoughtful people who don’t quite trust each other. If a ballot is approved by all it is counted; if there are disagreements then the ballot is carried by a messenger to another room where another small committee of thoughtful people who don’t quite trust each other resolve the problem.
Make the ballots big. Make them clear. Make the choices obvious through plain language free of weak verbs, the passive voice, and euphemisms.
The useless pachinko voting machines could be broken up for scrap metal or sunk along the coast as artificial reefs for the little fishes.
Paper ballots – good for America, good for the little fishes, bad for the Chinese manufacturers of videogaming toys, and really bad for the comrades in Broward County, Florida.
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