Here We Go Again
I have to ask myself, “self… what is so wrong with paper ballots that no one seems to want to use them anymore?” and the only answer I can come up with is, “self…paper ballots make it too hard to rig an election, so that is why we use crappy electronic voting machines.” Oh OK.
Once again places like Ohio and Florida are experiencing voting problems due to crappy electronic voting machines.
from here.
Debra A. Reed voted with her boss on Wednesday at African-American Research Library and Cultural Center near Fort Lauderdale. Her vote went smoothly, but boss Gary Rudolf called her over to look at what was happening on his machine. He touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican, Charlie Crist.
That’s exactly the kind of problem that sends conspiracy theorists into high gear — especially in South Florida, where a history of problems at the polls have made voters particularly skittish.
A poll worker then helped Rudolf, but it took three tries to get it right, Reed said.
”I’m shocked because I really want . . . to trust that the issues with irregularities with voting machines have been resolved,” said Reed, a paralegal. “It worries me because the races are so close.”
…
Joan Marek, 60, a Democrat from Hollywood, was also stunned to see Charlie Crist on her ballot review page after voting on Thursday. ”Am I on the voting screen again?” she wondered. “Well, this is too weird.”
Marek corrected her ballot and alerted poll workers at the Hollywood satellite courthouse, who she said told her they’d had previous problems with the same machine.
Poll workers did some work on her machine when she finished voting, Marek said. But no report was made to the Supervisor of Elections office and the machine was not removed, Cooney said.
…
Mauricio Raponi wanted to vote for Democrats across the board at the Lemon City Library in Miami on Thursday. But each time he hit the button next to the candidate, the Republican choice showed up. Raponi, 53, persevered until the machine worked. Then he alerted a poll worker.
Electronic voting has the potential to be a really good system. However it seems the machines are designed to fail.
- They use crappy touch screens that can get out of sync (by accident or perhaps not…)
- They do not print out a paper receipt and as such produce no hard copy of the vote
- They have laughable security and have been shown in many cases easily hacked
- The final vote counts are not secure and can be altered with ease
If people do not want the air of conspiracy to surround the voting process then all they have to do is make it bone simple.
- Have a machine with BUTTONS on it. Much like the ATM you visit all the time.
- Have these buttons separated with dividers so you know exactly which button lines up with each candidate choice.
- Make the machine keep track of the votes both electronically and on paper.
- Print out a paper check sheet for the voter to look over BEFORE they finalize the vote.
- Have the machine print out two receipts after they have voted to compare to the check sheet.
- Keep one copy of the receipt at the polling station, if a recount needs to be done use the receipts NOT the electronic count.
These are but a few of the many common sense answered to making electronic voting more secure. If this election turns into another round of “amazing comebacks” I feel the American people have no choice but to demand full and open voting systems that are much closer to perfect than we have currently. If we can spent several hundred billion dollars to spread democracy in Iraq, we should have no problem spending some cash to make sure our own voting systems are well maintained at home.
Nov 7th is election day GET OUT AND VOTE. Don’t let them scare you into staying home. Do your best to make sure your vote is counted. The only way to make the system better is to participate in it. And after, if you feel your vote was not counted properly, raise as big a stink as possible. Continue to raise hell until your demands are met. Action and participation are the cures for what ails this country.
Monday Confessional
Best weekend ever. No, seriously it was great. I saw Tess, I ran my first relay marathon, and got to see a bunch of old friends. The race was really exciting. It was super windy. With the tail wind I felt at parts as if I was a super hero. At the end of my leg of the race was a huge hill, but with my new super wind power action, I shot up that hill like a man on fire. On the other side of that coin when the wind was in your face, I felt like a rather slow power walker. I ran and ran and ran.
Tess was super nice, and I had so much fun with her. She was even nice to me when I didn’t run that well. We didn’t win the relay but we did place 38th out of several hundred teams. So that’s pretty good (we did however get beat by the other house team so that sucked.) Next year we will dominate for sure.
In other news we successfully captured and released a flying squirrel from the home tonight. For months I have been diligently filling every hole I thought a mouse could get into. Unbeknown to me the little bastards were FLYING into the house. It’s a whole different ball game when you are facing death from above. Who knows what kind of mayhem a flying enemy can bring. Here is a visual approximation of what he looked like (during the fray we managed to get video but no stills.)
It was so funny seeing everyone huddled around the cupboard that we had trapped him in, just waiting for the action to unfold. In the end however he just ran into a recycling bin and was escorted out of the home with not a bit of trouble. I had been setting traps for him, and every morning the traps would be sprung with no food left on them and no dead mouse. It seems our little flying squirrel is a smarty pants.
I am pretty tired right now. We planted over 30 thousand bulbs today for this heritage garden. The place is amazing and we had a great time. Things are going pretty well and I might have a couple of web jobs lined of for some extra cash. I get to see Tess again on Thursday and she is going to come do a service project with the house on Friday. Life couldn’t be better.
What If…There Were No Countries?
Our main man in England Keith has just published his latest in a series of great “what if” articles. This time he tackles the idea of why we have countries and what would happen if they were all gone.
“What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can’t all be worth dying for.”
Catch-22, Joseph Heller, 1961
Can you feel the heat of competition growing, coming in from all sides and pressing on the borders of the country you live in? Are you feeling helpless as your government makes political decisions that damage the global environment; repress your ability to speak out and act as you feel compelled to do; compete in the white-hot global economy whilst the basic needs of its own people are driven by profit-based consumption which just keeps turning up the temperature?
Welcome to the world we live in.
Read this article here
Check out more of Keith’s stuff here.
Brockton Brightfield
I was lucky enough to attend the opening of the nations largest Brightfield (old brownfield turned into a solar generation center). As I pulled up to the site I could see that this was still clearly an industrial area. Smoke and steam billowed from a near by smoke stack, showing the past, and in front of me I saw the future.
Row after row of perfectly aligned solar modules. Each standing shoulder to should marking in unison towards the future. It is a grand site to see.
The Brockton Brightfield started its journey over 6 years ago in 2000, and today with the help of federal state and local help it is providing clean renewable electricity to the city of Brockton.
I arrived on a cool but sunny morning and was blown away by the 3.7 acre 425-kilowatt (KW) system. Built on top of an old polluted and dangerous brown field the site now looks like a wonderful solar sculpture garden. I learned that the city also has plans of expanding this same setup across the street to another brownfield, bringing the overall capacity to 1 megawatt (MW).
The system was designed by Global Solar Inc. and uses 1395 Schott ASE 300 modules, making it a kick ass system. I can personally attest to the quality of Schott modules, having seen them in action several times. They make a sturdy double paned glass module. Its hard to get them, but if you can you are getting a quality product.
These solar panels were made in near by Billerica MA. They will generate an estimated 535 MW hours (!!) a year. Enough to power the entire neighborhood (approximately 71 homes.) I was also able to visit the solar production plant in Billerica and saw the amazing process by which raw silicon becomes a solar panel. Very cool stuff.
The Brockton brightfield will benefit the town of Brockton in many ways. The field will offset 589,570 pounds of carbon dioxide per year, about the same as removing 51 cars. It will also help to avoid about 1086 pounds of sulfur dioxide and 289 pounds of nitrogen oxide. All nasty stuff and all avoided by the use of solar.
The field will also be used as an educational model for the entire area school system. Children and adults will be able to come to the brightfield and learn about renewable energy and solar power. Fat Spaniel will be creating an educational complex at the site as well as a website that will allow people from all over the world to learn more about solar power.
The neighbors are also very happy about the brightfield. Before all they had to look at was a dangerous and polluted strip of land. They now have a clean and bright symbol of progress to look at instead.
“The Brockton Brightfield is the most forward thinking project I have seen built in the neighborhood during my lifetime.” Charles Vella local resident for over 58 years.
The field cost about 3 million dollars to produce. This money came from a variety of sources. $1.6 million as a city bond, $789,000 as a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, and more than $1 million from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s Renewable Energy Trust. The EPA and NiSource also provided planning and educational grants for the project. I was really struck by just how many people had worked so hard for so long to get this project off the ground. It was amazing to see what a group of committed individuals can do.
Due to its size and scale the field came in a about 7 dollars a watt, 30% cheaper than your average PV installation. This means that by selling the energy it creates back to the grid the bright field will generate about $130,000 a year from the site. It should pay for itself in about 15-20 years using today’s energy prices.
The event and the tour afterwards were very informative, it was super sweet to see a laser cut solar cells out of a giant tube of silicon, unfortunately I was unable to take any pictures as its all super secret technology. But I may be sent some “clean” pictures soon. I did get to meet a lot of really cool people, the people from Renewable Energy Access were there, as well as Shawn from energy teachers. We talked about the brightfield and the future of solar.
It’s events like this that make you feel that the tide may be turning in our favor. The future of this country lies in renewable energy technology. When the rest of America catches up with Brockton we will all be better off.
For some more pictures of the field (including some very hi-rez .tif’s) check here.
If you would like to visit the field yourself check out directions here
The Constitution Article I Section 6 Clauses 1-2
Article I Section 6 Clauses 1 and 2
[1] The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.
[2] No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.
Members of congress get paid from the U.S. Treasury and get to vote for there own salaries. A fairly stupid setup if you ask me, but I was not at the convention when this was getting put down on paper.
Salaries of Members of Congress, 1789-2006 (from here pdf)
Payable Salary Effective Date
$1,500 March 4, 1789
$1,500 March 4, 1795
$1,500 March 3, 1796
$1,500 December 4, 1815
$1,500 March 3, 1817
$2,000 March 3, 1817
$3,000 December 3, 1855
$3,000 December 23, 1857
$5,000 December 4, 1865
$7,500 March 4, 1871
$5,000 January 20, 1874
$7,500 March 4, 1907
$10,000 March 4, 1925
$9,000 July 1, 1932
$8,500 April 1, 1933
$9,000 February 1, 1934
$9,500 July 1, 1934
$10,000 April 4, 1935
$12,500 January 3, 1947
$22,500 March 1, 1955
$30,000 January 3, 1965
$42,500 March 1, 1969
$44,600 October 1, 1975
$57,500 March 1, 1977
$60,662.50 October 1, 1979
$69,800 December 18, 1982, for Representatives July 1, 1983, for Senators
$72,600 January 1, 1984
$75,100 January 1, 1985
$77,400 January 1, 1987
$89,500 February 4, 1987
$96,600 (Representatives) February 1, 1990
$98,400 (Senators) February 1, 1990
$125,100 (Representatives) January 1, 1991
$101,900 (Senators) January 1, 1991
$125,100 (Senators) August 14, 1991
$129,500 (Reps. and Sens.) January 1, 1992
$133,600 (Reps. and Sens.) January 1, 1993
$136,700 (Reps. and Sens.) January 1, 1998
$141,300 (Reps. and Sens.) January 1, 2000
$145,100 (Reps. and Sens.) January 1, 2001
$150,000 (Reps. and Sens.) January 1, 2002
$154,700 (Reps. and Sens.) January 1, 2003
$158,100 (Reps. and Sens.) January 1, 2004
$162,100 (Reps. and Sens.) January 1, 2005
$165,200 (Reps. and Sens.) January 1, 2006
However we are lucky as the 27th amendment (ratified in 1992) made it so that the pay raise takes place only after the next election. This (in theory) gives us, the poor voters, the ability to vote anyone out of office we feel may be giving themselves a bit too much money. However because most people don’t pay a lick of attention to what the people who lead them do, this rarely if ever happens.
This part of the Constitution also protects legislators from arrests in civil lawsuits while they are in session, they may however be arrested in criminal matters. Congress members are granted immunity from lawsuits for the things they say and do as legislators. While this allows them to make statements without the fear of a libel or slander lawsuit it also lets them get away with saying some of the dumbest shit.
“There is no one person in the Bush administration who is indispensable — with the exception of the president,” Rick Santorum
“The Internet is not a big truck…it’s ah, ah, it’s a series of tubes!” Ted Stevens
We the voters are supposed to serve as the check on this branch of government. We are supposed to be watching what they say, and if its a crock, voting them out of office.
To ensure the separation of powers between the three branches, senators and representatives are prohibited from holding any other federal office during their service in Congress. They are however allowed to run for another office (say run for president while you are a senator) and simply step down from being a congressperson if they get the new job.
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