If you haven't heard Obama's speech from yesterday, go listen to it. Now. It's fine, my blog will still be here when you get back. Or watch it here:
How great was that? Seriously, it gave me chills, I can't remember the last time I heard a speech I could even stand to listen to, let alone liked. Rumor has it Obama wrote that speech single-handedly. If he did, we might not end up destroying the world after all like I figured was pretty much inevitable at this point. Even if he didn't write it alone, still, it was great. Now, I understand that our southern voters might worry about electing someone who "knows stuff". (Yes, I went there. Be happy I left the racism out of it for the moment). But please. Please. Don't keep electing crazy morons, we can't afford another four years of insanity. Presidential candidates seriously worry about "looking too smart", because "people don't want to elect someone smarter than them". WHY NOT? Here is pretty much my formula:
(elect (apply max candidates))
Why would you not want the smartest person possible? Are you jealous? You should be, they're President and you're not. Sorry I went all second-person on you, but I'm imagining getting my hands on all the people that, to put it bluntly, vote wrong. Don't vote for somebody because they make you feel smart by comparison, vote for somebody that can actually fix everything.
How hard is it to write voting machine software? Seriously, ignore all the problems we've had with them, and (if you're a CS, or just bored) picture it. How long would it take you to write something that asks the user who they vote for, and records it?
Who do you vote for?
DONE. Slap a database connection on that thing and it's already more successful than the voting machine software in use today. What is wrong with these companies? Furthermore, what could possibly make them think this is ok:
Union County has backed off a plan to let a Princeton University computer scientist examine voting machines where errors occurred in the presidential primary tallies, after the manufacturer of the machines threatened to sue, officials said today.
A Sequoia executive, Edwin Smith, put Union County Clerk Joanne Rajoppi on notice that an independent analysis would violate the licensing agreement between his firm and the county. In a terse two-page letter Smith also argued the voting machine software is a Sequoia trade secret and cannot be handed over to any third party.
Excuse me? How can we possibly still allow security through obscurity designs? Haven't the *epic failures* of these designs in the past proven that we should maybe not do them anymore?
If you missed what actually happened that prompted this investigation, there's coverage elsewhere, I'm not going to go though it all. In short, dozens of voting machines in New Jersey were disagreeing with themselves: the number of votes for each candidate didn't add up to the total number of votes the machine said were cast. The article I just linked to had a fantastic example of how bad this is:
This is a single voting machine, disagreeing with itself about how many Republicans voted on it. Imagine your pocket calculator couldn’t make up its mind whether 1+13+40+3+4 was 60 or 61. You’d be pretty alarmed, and you wouldn’t trust your calculator until you were very sure it was fixed. Or you’d get a new calculator.
We (as in, the country) should refuse to so much as consider a voting machine that isn't completely open. And I know this is the OSS inside of me talking, but in this case I would think everyone would agree that a voting machine that can be examined by everyone is better than "It works and doesn't cheat at all, pinky swear. Love, Sequoia". Anyone that wants to can view the source code for this page and look at how my voting buttons above work, so they can clearly see that clicking Hillary's button seems to very suspiciously cast a vote for Obama anyway.
Finally, this is somewhat unconnected to the general "closed-box voting machines are bullshit" argument above, but I noticed this in the article too:
Sequoia maintains the errors, which were documented in at least five counties, occurred due to mistakes by poll workers. The firm, which is based in Colorado, examined machines in Middlesex Count, and concluded that poll workers had pushed the wrong buttons on the control panels, resulting in errors in the numbers of ballots cast.
Why in the world do poll workers have buttons that change the number of votes that have been cast? Why do poll workers have buttons that do anything at all? Let's take a poll on what poll workers should be able to change:
Add votes Subtract votes Nothing at all It doesn't matter, I'm just going to change your votes anyway
Good news, you all voted for "nothing at all", because I changed your votes. Perhaps I shouldn't have this power, and neither should the fairly technology-illiterate poll workers who just have to see what the blue button does.
Thanks to the fine folks at the Board of Elections, I received my absentee ballot today. March 5th. Now I can vote and ensure Hillary doesn't....wait, what? What the hell do you mean she already took my state yesterday? Well shit.
