Bill Maher: "Call the slot machine guys!"

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

As Bill Maher pointed out last night on Larry King (which I watched ONLY because someone on DU mentioned Maher would be on), Vegas gets results correct down to the nickel. Have you ever heard a casino say, "It's _about_ $10,000"?

Voting integrity is not a technical challenge. It's about political will. If the vote-"counting" machine programmers weren't all criminals and partisans, we would have fair vote-counting. If code were open-sourced and testing were open to anyone, we would have fair vote-counting. If electronic voting machines also printed a ballot for each voter to visually inspect and stick in a box after voting (to ensure recount validity), we would have fair elections. If exit polls were carried out openly and discrepant results seriously investigated, we would probably have fair elections. If election officials were apolitical, full-time professionals who completely understood the equipment they're relying on, we would have fair elections. The reason we KNOW there's a conspiracy is that NONE of these completely logical things is happening:

• No professional, reputable coders
  
• No open-source code
  
• No legitimate machine testing
  
• No visually-inspected receipts deposited into a box after voting
  
• No public exit polling capable of proving fraud (to the standards required by most judges)
  
• No auditing (or credible recounts, where auditing is possible)
  
• Many strong partisans running elections on equipment they don't understand (or whose "flaws" they understand all too well)
  

The truly amazing thing is that, despite all the above, they still need to resort to old-fashioned vote suppression in Democratic areas.

[The Flaming Red Head]

1. Maybe that's who they did call (aren't they rigged, too)

I never win anything from the slots.

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

2. True, but each casino tells you how much of your money they're stealing

My grandmother wins on the slots... or at least claims to.

Casinos are regulated and can't take more than x% on average. (See GamblingWiz.) They do program the machines to take your money. But the house's take is fixed and monitored.

I'm curious how they regulate gambling establishments. But someone is watching them because you can get the exact odds by casino: GamblingWiz - Payouts.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

4. Riiiight ...do you really believe there isn't skimming and cheating ...

going on? I sure do. And who is monitoring? and might they get a kickback for overlooking things?

[JohnnyRingo]

3. I saw that last night....

That was the best analogy I've heard yet.

I saw a rep from a touch screen voting machine company in an interview this summer.

She had the nerve to claim: "The technology doesn't yet exist to create a paper receipt". She said "maybe in five or six years, who knows". I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard her say it myself.

Tell the businesses that use electronic cash registers that "the technology doesn't exist to print a receipt".

[The Flaming Red Head]

8. Even the Afghanis got indelible ink (sort of)

[eowyn_of_rohan]

5. I thought this post was going to be about the apparent connections...

between computer voting machine and software companies, and the online and casino gambling industries.

[Spongebob76]

6. Destroy the machines!!!

Just like in the Terminator movies, the machines must be destroyed.
Instead of wasting zillions of Dollar for expansive machines, why don't we do the following:

USE PAPER BALLOTS!!!!!

Publish the exit polls, then the poll workers count the votes in each precint after the polls have closed . It might take a little longer for the votes to count, but it has never failed.

Have the presidential election separated from local / state elections OR have each race on a single page of paper.

Technology is great, but we should not depend on it.

[Wordie]

7. Another typically hilarious Maher comment on e-voting:

"Somewhere in Iraq there is a warlord saying, '...you mean, they DON'T have a paper trail over there???'"

LOL

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. No we use it for toilet paper instead

n/t