So how do we relate election fraud to American Idol?

[Patsy Stone]

Everyone is so worried aboth the validity of the voting on AI (Joe "the intern killer" Scarborough led with this AI crap last night), and they're always looking for fraud and scandals associated with that. How (and to whom) do we point out that we can't verify the validity of elections with a bit more at stake than a recording contract either and that it's kinda important that we should be able to?

[Land Shark]

1. Quick History of Democracy and Vote Counting

1. First there was those who could vote (not enough, but that's another issue) and they would vote openly, say in New England Town Hall meeting with a show of hands. All could count, even if they couldn't vote. No chance of fraud.

2. Early 1800s, political parties actually pre-print ballots commonly used. Public count really important.

3. Late 1800s, concerns about voter intimidation and rampant pressuring and bribing for votes encourages widespread adoption of Australian ballot, aka "secret ballot". This is effective against intimidation but also does two other things (a) it makes the system totally unaccountable because you can not trace ballot back to source documents like a financial audit would, and (b) it drives the pressure points in the system into more hidden and less open areas, i.e. bribing the counters, etc., the long history of intimidation and pressure did not simply vanish, it went underground. COMPARE the secret ballot to putting blindfolds on all persons in the New England Town Hall so nobody knows how the others voted: it provides secrecy but shifts the focus to the COUNT as the be-all and end-all, since only the "officials" can count now.

4. The history of Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed, Chicago Frauds and many others inserted here, though still with at least some but not total chain of custody and transparency.

5. Secret Vote Counting. Whether it is one or two people in a smoke filled back room or electronic secret vote counting and the people hide behind some lines of code and "policies and procedures", stealing an election requires only corrupting one of 20 to 2000 people in an elections jurisdiction. It is comparable to only one person being able to gaze out over all the blindfolded people in the New ENgland town hall, and then that same person announcing the vote totals in this, of course, unverifiable way.

6. Add corporations as the secret vote counters. Focused onlly on profit, with murky connections, and entanglements in criminal cases in recent history, though direct involvement is denied. But does it matter? Even if it were George Washington, he can not count the votes in secret. To desire that power is itself corrupt, regardless of the intent to use or not use the pwer within it to throw elections.

7. Add on top of the corporations the inscrutability and complication of computer code, making even proof of a real fraud hard to explain.

8. Add on top of the complicated nature of most proofs the fact that if the "wrong" result was reached in a race, approximately half of the public will denounce you and every newspaper or media outlet that prints your evidence, which they call "conspiracy theory" and "rambling and unsubstantiated allegations" by a "sore loser" who should "get over it"

OK, and now, for the question you asked. Oh yeah, how to show that it's important.

Well, these secret vote counting corporations existing legally only for profit and not public service using inscrutable systems that are impossible of proof of a direct nature in the usual instance and even with access to secret areas difficult of proof, and would in any case be denounced publicly and widely even if proof actually could be obtained because of all the built-in losers who don't want the election "stolen" from them either..... well...... this is the chosen method to determine who shall control the world's sole superpower and the richest economy, together with govt contracts worth billions, and many a political career and actual or avoided political corruption investigation on the line.

How to impress that American elections are important?

[Patsy Stone]

2. That was an exhaustive history

and I appreciate it, LS.

I was actually thinking smaller. In our current cultural climate, where more people care about the voting procedures and the possible fraud as it pertains to American Idol (there's a current scandal now) than do about presidential election fraud, what is the best way to use that concern, currently coursing through the veins of the public, to make them realize that our voting systems are as just as prone, if not moreso, to fraud and corruption?

[Land Shark]

10. Thanks. You are also welcome to shorten it up, you can even start

with one of the last steps, perhaps just saying that superpower stuff to illustrate the importance, plus add whatever extra ingredients to the soup that the particular audience you talk to may best relate to.

[Tigress DEM]

11. If I can put my bank card in and get the correct amount, why can't I

get that kind of accuracy on my vote and a receipt? Why can't I have a voter id number that is known to me and kept securely, but separately from my name that I can use to verify for myself online that my vote is forever exactly what I cast? And have instant online recourse to file a grievance if it is wrong at any future time.

Then all the voter id numbers and their associated votes could be out there online anonymously but verifiably and there would have to be matching amount of id's and names per precinct.

[Land Shark]

15. good question, but atms and voting are very different

with atms, everything has your account number on it traceable to you personally, you are on video or photographs while at the atm, there is total redundancy of information and while you have privacy rights against the public, the BANK knows everything about you and your finances.

With voting, nothing has your voter number or name on it and is not traceable to you personally, you are not on video while voting, and there is only one official record (typically) and not redundancy, and while you have privacy rights in the sense of the public not knowing how you voted, the government is never supposed to know how you voted, either, and typically doesn't.

Ultimately in order for atm banking to be like voting, everyone would have to make their atm deposits on a single day in november, all anonymously, and no accounting could start til 8 p.m on that november night, and then the media would demand that account balances be disclosed in time for the 11 p.m. news. You can never go back to the atm depositor and check any information with them. After certification there would be a ten day statute of limitations and then the bank would never change the account balance to correct errors, it would be frozen forever and your "fault" for not suing earlier. And if you found an error and complained about it, half the public would denounce you as a partisan sour grapes expert, and urge you to "get over" your "hard feelings" about having an incorrect bank balance and "move on."

While I agree that simple acts of addition that take place in elections should be simple, screw ups are nevertheless legion. In some cases the screw ups are apparently covers for election frauds. the only solution to a system where nobody can be trusted is for all voting and counting be totally above board, public, transparent and open with a single exception: the casting of one's personal ballot, where one can verify their own ballot properly, since nobody else can know equally or better what YOUR choice is, and in any event with only your own personal ballot at stake the only person you can screw is yourself. Thus, even the private and secret ballot can be clearly seen as part of a totally verifiable and public and transparent system.

[Tigress DEM]

16. OK, but you take the photo away and keep 2 records + receipt.

1 set of records is like the voter registration they have now. It shows you are a registered voter who lives in that district. Each person on that list is sent a voter registration number unique to them but that does NOT show on that set of records. The way this works is by having that number in a presealed envelope and the person putting on the address label never sees the number.

1 set of records is created based on that voter registration number and has a web account, but the number itself is used like a password, so no one but you sees it unless you show them your receipt which prints out all your information for verification and which you take with you.

The receipt would have your name/address, voter registration number and a date/order voted code with the id of the machine voted on and come out laminated so no tampering after the fact could be done.

If it came out wrong onsite as many did in Ohio, there would be a form where you could put machine id, the item in descrepency & your voter registration number and it would be taken in the same machine ballots go so the correction could be done at time of ballot counting.

You could check the website and if the change was not made fill out a followup form that you could send a copy to a watchdog agency.

[Kurovski]

3. I don't know, but on the chance that someone will have an idea

I'll give this a recommendation.

[alittlelark]

4. I have never seen American Idol - but I have an idea....

There must have been someone who somehow won even though they were perceived to be of lesser talent (otherwise why ask?). Juxtaposition a few of the most ludicrously improbable political wins in 2000 and 2004 w/ the American Idol 'winner'.

Link their names, link their 'wins'....

[electropop]

5. Perfect!

I saw 10 minutes of it once, and trust me, it was pretty hard to choose among people of so little talent singing such vapid shit. But yeah, there are probably some cases where audience faves lost the vote and questioned the outcome.

[Patsy Stone]

7. Thanks for your idea! n/t

[bleever]

6. "Is America's "Idol" more important than its President?"

Which of your votes is more important?

Or is it the same thing?

[Patsy Stone]

8. A lovely question

and a lovely picture. And: this was one thread I never expected to see on the Greatest Page. :)

[bleever]

9. Me neither.

But, an incisive question, and I really hope other people weigh in with good ideas.

And thanks for showing that there are wise political ideas coming from Florida!

:thumbsup:

[Tigress DEM]

12. What's American Idol?

Just kidding. Don't watch much TV, but don't live under a rock either.

[flyingobject]

13. phone scam

[flyingobject]

14. re-vote by phone