Stop the election!
Voting begins (and ends) today in the primary round of the Spring 2008 Round 2 elections.
Yet, problems in the voting software have rendered the results of the primary suspect.
Observe:
As you can see, one should be able to vote for two candidates for Senate. The software only allows one vote. This is a serious problem. Hopefully they’ll allow a revote one the problem is fixed.
Update: They seem to have fixed the problem now. However, that doesn’t solve the problem of every voter who mistakenly only cast one vote. Since they caught it so early, I doubt that this problem tipped the election, but it’s still not an encouraging sign.
Pardon, real life was a very poor choice of words. This is real life. I meant to say “this is a good example of why electronic voting is a bad idea in American government elections as well.”
Nelson says about 20 people voted before the problem was fixed, and says, “I will discuss with my commission whether we will allow, at some point later in the day, voters to ‘change’ any of the votes they have already made in order to add people.” More on vote ‘changing’ later on. Nelson’s statement is pretty damn despicable if there needs to be a ‘discussion’ over whether or not people should have their right to vote for two candidates when it was he who fucked up the elections system.
Furthermore, in addition to the problems above…
When I initially voted at 12:01 this morning, I did not have to log in, and I was capable of voting for Senator for Racial Minorities and F-Board for Racial Minorities, despite my whiteness (and my record with the University as being white). Nelson denies this as a voting irregularity and claims this is because I am incorrectly registered with the University.
This is also not true because when I voted again (as the old saying goes: vote early, vote often) at 12:15 (after the voting problems were fixed), I was only able to vote for the candidates I am eligible to vote for (as in no racial minority positions).
An interesting question is whether or not people can change their votes. If you try, the voting system will say “Sorry, this vote not recorded, you cannot vote in this poll again.” However, if you go back and look at your receipt, it will show your new preferences and not your old. When I spoke to Mike Kerns after polls opened last night, he said you should be able to just go back and change your vote. However, Nelson’s quote in the first paragraph of this comment indicates that people can’t.
When I’m in the Senate, we’re going to whip the elections system into place so shit like this doesn’t happen. Or maybe we won’t need to because I tend to trust Tia Chaterjee more than Nelson (a lot more…).
Also, this elections is a good example of why electronic voting is a bad idea in real life too.