Paper ballots NOW!!! Hand counts NOW!!! Impeachment NOW!!! nt

[In Truth We Trust]

[Spock_is_Skeptical]

1. I concur!!

[jmatthan]

2. Neither Democrat nor Republican Power Brokers will listen to YOU!!

eom

[ClassWarrior]

3. Not yet. But they will soon enough.

NGU.

[dogday]

4. You bet we need that, the country needs that

and without it, all elections are false.. It is that simple... My husband and I were talking about the Bush/Richards race and wondered about that.

[msrbly]

5. Just out of curiosity . . .

Before we had optical scanners and other electronic means of counting votes how long did it take for election results to come in? How were votes counted? Who counted the votes? I'm only 30 so I've grown up in an era of immediate results. Do we really need to know thisminute who was elected? Especially in a presidential election where the inauguration isn't until January!

[In Truth We Trust]

9. I can't definitively speak for the period prior to the 1900's but I can

say that results were reported at the latest on the morning after the general election.There is a famous picture of Truman holding a newspaper falsely claiming "Dewey defeats Truman" which was the next morning. That was in 1948 before the use of any digital technology. The 1960 race was exttremely close but was called in favor of JFK in the wee hours of the morning.

Good question though.

[PATRICK]

12. At war or Cold War it didn't much matter

but when the TV pundits started forecasting with instant results from exit polls that put the pressure on. The larger the election official the more they wanted neat control over all those paper counters for variuous reasons.

But the actual history of the optical scan and the early new machines is immediately disturbing, the vaporizing of the evidence and the hidden paths of reconstitution. The trajectory though is also now revealed as somewhat disturbing. For every thing that needed "protection" some neat piece of machinery or law came in with greater and more hidden dangers of manipulation. Punch, cards, lever machines- all have larger and less obvious ways of being defrauded.

Considering the press and the pols begrudge the people's clear will about campaign money influence one wonders why the cost of billions is no big deal over the sudden need we are told we have for a "new" shiny comfort bauble that eats our democracy.

One of the reasons why the issue has not been enjoined clearly is that some computer people were enlisted to sell these monsters and many of their colleagues, including critics, couldn't at first conceive of the possible abuse. Now we are left like mice trying to bell the cat with printers.

[Al-CIAda]

6. Love your persistence. nt

:thumbsup:

[In Truth We Trust]

7. thanks.. I hate to be so repetitive but this is how i feel. Almost like

the madison avenue thing whereby they charge by the amount of "impressions" seen. Keep on repeating until it sinks in.

[SonofMass]

8. Technology will be the death of us all.

[yowzayowzayowza]

11. Like mebbie...

the internets?
:rofl:

[ladjf]

10. Yes to all of that!

[kster]

13. kick.nt

[kster]

14. Heres a great thread for you

PBHC IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO !!http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=387455&mesg_id=387455

[burrowowl]

15. Right ON! eom