Vote Early and Often

The sweet smell of peaches is filling the kitchen. 48 ripe, and almost ripe, peaches are on the counter and in the peach cobbler that we are assembling. We have company coming; our twin grandchildren and their dad, our son. The cobbler, with a spoonful of ice cream will cap the evening for us. But there’s another sweet odor in the kitchen as well; I roasted a batch of tomatoes and then did the food mill routine. Now the sauce, with spices and garlic, is simmering on the stove. A little bit later, after it is thicker, it will go into the freezer for this winter. Of course I will share some of it with my oldest daughter, whose garden provided most of the tomatoes.

But enough of that; it seems that my dear granddaughter had some comments to make regarding the Secretary of State (California) and her recent move to decertify the electronic voting machines. And instead of my using the comment section of my flog to answer her, I thought I would start right here with a new posting on the subject.

As I looked through the news stories, the first thing I noticed was that Secretary of State Bowen was not alone in her decision; New Jersey has done the same thing… see this story. That’s always a good sign. If you’re going to make a mistake, it’s best to do it with some company. If it's not a mistake, you share your good fortune.

But is it a mistake? I think not. What is painfully obvious to the public is the fact that the manufacturers of these machines have been less than honest during the past few years. For instance; all machines can be cracked. (Note; hackers are good people. I am one. Crackers are the bad people. The press never gets it right.) Why deny it and say that your machine can’t be cracked? Of course it can! And then the manufacturers professed an inability to provide a paper trail. What? This in an age where your local supermarket spits out a receipt that tells you how much you saved on each item, how many points you now need to get a free latte and then gives you coupons to match what you just bought. A paper trail is far less complicated than rocket science and the manufacturers were simply lying.

Enough about the machines. I will do my best to never use one and so their trustworthiness is of no importance to me. I vote by mail. The All American Way to Vote! I sit down with my ballot weeks ahead of the Election Day and I actually study the darn thing. I read the voting materials and I scan the internet for more information before I vote. Now compare that to how I used to do it. After getting home from work, I would race around the house trying to find the piece of paper that told me where the polling place was. Once that was found, I would head off to vote, hoping that I could get it done and over with in a hurry. I wanted to get back home and have dinner and relax. In the voting booth, it was a quick scan and then punch, punch, punch…all done in two minutes or less! Mission accomplished, I was a voter. Democracy has been saved! See you next fall. Or spring. Now tell me who is the better voter, the intelligent voter? Me, 30 years ago? Or me, today?

Now the enlightened folks in Oregon do the vote by mail program all of the time. Hopefully it will spread in California. It did start once before, a few years back, but then some politician thought it was More American to vote in a voting booth and introduced a bill to outlaw it. The bill passed and the vote by mail program lost a few years here in California. (Politicians hate voting by mail...it doesn't allow them to focus their ad money)

Some other enlightened folks, those living in Johnson County, Kansas, a suburban area near Kansas City. They have given themselves a full week (or more?) to vote. Now that’s civilized! Day after day, the polls are open. Lots of other places do that as well. Who said it had to be done in one day?

I guess those two, Oregon and Kansas, are examples of what happens when the public gets involved with voting and takes control of the process. Isn’t it very important that all the citizens vote? Sure it is…but the public is never or rarely involved in any discussions as to how to make it more attractive. Bureaucrats (and politicians) want to do it just as it has always been done and asking the voters for suggestions would be counterproductive to that mindset.

Now, some stuff I found while researching… and some of my comments.

August 5^th

California’s top election official on Friday decertified three voting systems widely used in the state but said she would let counties use the machines in February’s

Her announcement, made just nine minutes before a midnight deadline, was condemned by the head of the state's county registrar's association, Contra Costa Registrar Stephen Weir.

Weir said Bowen's actions -- along with an unusual audit in which she dispatched several computer experts to try to hack into the machines, which they did -- had undermined public confidence in the security of the new electronic machines. But her solutions, he said, would not do anything to restore the public peace of mind, especially for elections that will occur this year, such as a special Congressional election in Los Angeles in two weeks.

"I think the secretary has redefined the definition of midnight madness," Weir said. He said that while he was not sure what the impact of the new rules would be, they had enough potential for causing chaos and delays at the polls that he encouraged people to vote by mail. Aha! The solution…and if it were already universal, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Her restrictions on the use of two types of machines to one per polling place would require the printing of far more paper ballots that planned, and that could prove difficult to achieve.

"Tens of millions of additional ballots, you don't just go to Kinkos," Weir said. "The timing is way too tight." Actually, you can go to Kinko’s. And they would do a first rate job of it. Just don’t try getting them to accept a state voucher to pay for it.

He also predicted that the changes could delay the counting of votes. "If people don't see results, they start going 'something's wrong,' " he said. Start going? Maybe 1% would be worried that something evil was afoot if they didn’t know who the winner was, 10 minutes after the polls are closed. The rest of us would see it as normal. Me? I want them to take as long as possible. Weeks!

And last, this silly comment from a Republican…

"This is the most frustrating thing. Why would she do something like this, make people wait this long for something that should have been taken care of ages ago?" said Assemblyman Anthony Adams (R-Hesperia) in a telephone interview from San Bernardino County.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe it’s the Republicans that have hijacked the state budget process, stalling it for political gain. Why would they do something like that, make people wait this long for something that should have been taken care of ages ago? (I couldn’t resist.)