Re: Vote!
Re: Vote!
- Subject: Re: Vote!
- From: "Gary (Lists)" <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 20:51:26 -0400
"Roy Whelden" wrote:
> I propose
> that interested scripters work together to build a very simple "proof
> of concept." In other words, we build the simplest possible voting
> machine V using just AppleScript. To keep things simple, the voters
> should be given, in a given segment of time, just two choices: party
> A or party B. The voting machine V should have the capability of
> erasing, at a predetermined time t, a subroutine S contained within
> V. The subroutine S should be capable of switching votes from party B
> to party A if it senses that party A is falling behind party B.
I don't understand the need to do a prototype. Of course this is possible.
Yes, a computer program can be made to produce an outcome of balloting that
is wholly different than the actual balloting. And even to then alter
itself.
That's hardly the relevant topic, or even of much interest. "Voting machine
rigging" is not synonymous with "vote rigging" is not synonymous with
"opinion rigging".
Computer software dissection is a forensic issue and is best addressed
through forensic means. Additionally, human error provides additional
potential evidence for such activity (copies exist somewhere, a person
actually wrote the software, etc.)
However, the issue of "truth rigging" in a wider social sense is a primary
suspect and the most grievous offender.
News coverage and selection, the replication of content across media without
any context (news headlines, sound bites, talking points) (RSS is an example
of just one more tool for sharing our banality), lack of cultural and gender
diversity in editorial gatekeeping (the selection of stories and their
framing), lack of technical means to articulate the individual voice above
the din of the masses (representative democracy in mass populations is
neither representative nor democratic), and so on.
If we can whip up a software to synthesize all these issues with all the
other unmentioned issues of equal, or related, importance, now that would be
worth some time.
(I'll be over here working on my Precision Tornado Touchdown software. We
should finish at about the same time.)
The only vote that matters is 6 inches long and a terribly Puritan color of
green (sorry, Europe; sorry Canada; sorry Brazil, with your 65 million less
this week than last)[1]. You'll see one of several dead white men on the
front of "The Vote". Be sure to cast yours well.
If you are a "technical type" (if there is such), and if that then means
that you like lots of data (as opposed to the plain ole' fun of Michael
Moore, whose truth is more direct, if less concrete), then I would suggest
that the best source of American intellectual thinking (and writing) about
"Democracy" is being done by Noam Chomsky.
Do yourself a favor and watch "Manufacturing Consent", a documentary about
Noam and about how public opinion (and therefore public action) is
disseminated in an era of increasing globalization and conglomeration of
media sources and the growing technological sophistication of targeted
marketing.
--
Gary
... hoping the Baghdad Burger King will hurry up and open ...
[1] Best news story of last week: The Brazilian bank heist. Second largest
in history, after the 1.28 billion USD which was stolen from the Iraq
Central Bank in 2002. Hmm... maybe Diebold did it...they made the lock,
afterall!
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