Dr. Vora and Popoveniuc introduces a vote-counting system that enables individuals to verify that their ballots have been collected and accurately tabulated. Scantegrity is the only such system in the country that can be used with current optical scan ballots and does not change the voting experience for users.

Each optical scan ballot has a serial number, and every choice on the ballot has a special confirmation number attached to it. Using a special pen, voters select their choices, and when they do so, a special confirmation number associated with each choice is revealed. The confirmation numbers are posted publicly following the election, and voters can check to see that their confirmation numbers have been recorded.

However, the confirmation numbers do not reveal voter choices. To obtain the election tally, the list of confirmation numbers is decoded in a manner that can be verified by any organization or individual who wishes to check the mathematics. The decoding and the verification do not reveal the candidate choices of a voter.

Personal Note

Privacy is good, but what about making sure that the vote accutally counts!  Does this eliminate fraud?  How can you hand count?  Will lemon juice and light bulb help?  Make sure it is an efficient bulb.  Think of the enviornment.

“Government accountability is a two way street, and it’s time for all Americans to start walking the walk and making sure they really understand the big issues,” said Public Agenda Vice President Michael Hamill Remaley. “As long as we let them, most politicians will try to get by with slogans and easy answers to America’s big challenges. We can only force them to be honest about the real trade-offs of their policy positions if we understand the issues ourselves.”

The Voter’s Survival Kit issue guides are designed to help typical voters sort through the campaign rhetoric and make up their own minds about which candidates have the best ideas. The issue guides highlight fundamental facts voters need to know and explains more about the choices the country faces in down-to-earth, easily understandable terms, on the following topics:

• The Economy
• Iraq and Beyond
• Climate Change
• Health Care
• Immigration
• Taxes, Spending and Debt

Each issue guide includes a brief overview of the topic, an evenhanded review of possible solutions and the pros and cons of each approach, both on an interactive web platform and in a downloadable PDF format. The Voter’s Survival Kit also includes online discussion, links to candidate positions on issues and other sites with extensive information on issues, blogging opportunities, links to voting information sites, widgets and more.

]]> http://www.thecontemplation.com/index.php/2008/09/22/get-the-facts-decode-the-spin-and-make-a-choice/feed/ 0 http://www.thecontemplation.com/index.php/2008/09/17/sad-stock-market-sadder-for-mccain/ http://www.thecontemplation.com/index.php/2008/09/17/sad-stock-market-sadder-for-mccain/#comments Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:54:42 +0000 rhea http://www.thecontemplation.com/?p=1580 With the stock market taking a beating the economy doesn’t look good for the poor, middle or the wealthy class of US citizens.  What will the current stock market snapshot change how someone votes?

“With the recent news of the dramatic stock market decline and the government bailouts of leading mortgage industries, the economy is quickly turning voters’ attention to domestic issues. A lot of Republicans could be persuaded by our economic problems to vote Democratic – it’s the wedge issue that could send even committed Republican voters to the other side,” political scientist Todd Shields of the University of Arkansas says.

I guess it goes to show that when it comes to principles, everyone has a price.  Exception will go to those who who could careless about the global economy, do not believe in science, recycle only because it is the law, have children because they are told to have children, have strict social beliefs and probably home school or private education of like kind.

The economy is going to be the wedge issue, as an issue that is so important to voters they are willing to cross over when they disagree with their party’s position. While Palin’s candidacy serves more to mobilize the social conservative base of the GOP.

“Sarah Palin has energized social conservative voters in ways John McCain could not. In particular, she has the potential to mobilize voters in Missouri and Florida, homes to large Assembly of God congregations,” Shields says.

Is Palin enough?  If so, why did Obama raise $66 million after Palin’s convention speech?  The more we find out about Palin, the less are likely to vote Republican in the privacy of their voting booth.

I guess the basic question is, “Is your life better, more richer, financially secure, and have economic confidence since the start of the Bush Administration?”  If it is, then I guess you are voting McCain . . . if not, and you still vote McCain . . . why?

There is nothing fundamentally good about voting for a party that has proven that it disregards the constitution, disregards any minor need of its citizens and unwilling to accept accountability.

If you do not like Obama, I understand . . . but there are candidates that are not as liberal and would welcome your vote and understand the new market, global economy, and have solutions for the current and new issues as the United States has growning pains.

Authors Wilbur O. Colom and James W. Parkinson have teamed up to write a new 104-page book that makes a fiscal and social argument on why conservatives should vote for Obama. Their book, “Turning Red States Blue: Obama’s Mission to Win the Republican Vote”. (read more . . . )

“Small town America is hurting and crying out for change,” said Colom, president of Genesis Press which is publishing the book. “For years conservative voters have been distracted with wedge issues like gay marriage and abortion, while their jobs are being exported away, killing the local economy.”

In the book’s introduction, the authors write, “The single most important reason we support Barack Obama is that he has emerged as a leader who can cast aside labels and focus on solutions rather than on partisan verbal assaults.” In another passage they write, “Sen. Obama understands that the ‘smallness’ of politics and making ‘cheap political points’ stops elected leaders in Washington from rolling up our sleeves and building a working consensus.”

Colom and Parkinson also want to dispel the myth that conservative white voters won’t vote for a black man to represent them, pointing out that Mississippi State Senator Eric Powell (D – District 4) won in rural Mississippi in an area that is 87 percent white, and Alabama State Representative James Fields (D – 12th District) won in a rural area that is 96 percent white.

They believe that Obama can do nationally what Powell and Fields have done locally in their rural cities.

“Fiscal conservatives and budget-watching Republicans who don’t believe that Jesus has a position on tax policy, climate change, or judicial appointments, find the current state of the Republican Party frustratingly off-track.” Added Colom, “Our larger goal is to address the issues that concern all Republicans and hopefully provide information and analysis that will lead them to cast their ballot, with pride, for Barack Obama in November.”

Will it be enough to win?  Forget the polls, forget the news, go to NPR for unbiased information. NPR has a map that is not based just on national polls and national media. The election 2008 map on NPR is connected to local politics and something to trust.  Also, you can see what happens if Pennsylvania, currently undecided, goes red or blue . . . it makes all the difference in the election and the world.

This screenshot is current, for this date. As you can see there is allot of yellow and it could go in any direction.  Although I would guess that if the election is an ethical election most would be blue.  But, if it is not, the GOP will win by unethical means, just like in 2000 and 2004.

But, I hear that many US citizens will be moving to Canada . . . and I would too.  Maybe a nice house boat on Lake Superior.

Chafee left the Republican Party last year after losing his bid for re-election and now supports Obama. He told an audience Tuesday at the New America Foundation in Washington that the Alaska governor has revived a “lackluster McCain candidacy.”

“They’ve just thrown this firestorm, this tornado, into the whole presidential election,” Chafee said in response to an audience member’s question about whether the Obama campaign should worry about Palin’s presence in the race.

He said her speech at the Republican National Convention had the unintended effect of energizing Democrats and Obama supporters. “People were coming into my office, phone calls were flooding in, e-mails were coming in, ‘I just sent money to Obama, I couldn’t sleep last night’ — from the left. To see this cocky wacko up there,” Chafee said to laughter.