Interesting Electronic Voting Datum from Indiana
November 19, 2004
5:31 a.m., MT
We don't hear much about electronic voting outside the areas where it's being scrutinized or challenged. But this item from a small Indiana town newspaper offers an interesting datum. Quoting from it:

Defeated County Councilman-elect Roy N. Hall said he's satisifed the vote totals are as accurate as humans can make them. Hall said he's not finished questioning the reliability of equipment vendor Fidlar Election Co. or how such an error could have occurred. .... Election officials learned last week there was a programming error in the database that tabulated the county's votes. The program awarded straight --party Democratic ticket votes to Libertarian candidates and straight-party Libertarian votes to Democrats.

Now, since I've not voted in years, I don't know the new systems, but all the same, it seems strange to me that the machine has a separate program for dealing with straight-party votes. Why do that unless you're giving voters an option to vote a straight ticket -- and if that's the case, why encourage straight-ticket voting like that?

If anyone's interested in reading the entire piece, it's in Palladium-Item, of Richmond IN.

And yes, it was another long, mostly-sleepless night last night.

Sunni

Replies: 2 individuals have opined

On Thursday, November 25th, Endervidual said:

Libertarian straight ticket voting doesn't surprise me. As a member of the LPWI Executive Committee I should probably even encourage it. However, as a human being, I don't.

Straight ticket voting shows the "gang" character of political parties, and sadly many Libertarians think that way.

I am more of a libertarian than a Libertarian though. I am neither proud nor ashamed to say I voted this time. I voted for two Libertarian candidates, one Democrat and one Republican. I have met each of those candidates and figure they would do more good than the harm their opponents would do.

Only one of my votes went for a candidate who won and she was an incumbent Democrat who won easily. This may be the last time I vote.

On Saturday, November 20th, Nathan said:

Yeah, many states DO feature a "straight partyline" ticket because it was encouraged by both Demos and GOPpers for many many years as a "convenience" instead of having to check all those little blocks or pull all those little levers. It reduces thinking of the part of voters. What surprises me is that 60 Libertarians voted a straight ticket.