Don't make wishes - you might get more than you dreamed of.
This adage comes to mind when it was revealed that paper ballots , in Cobourg, are as dead as the dodo. A dangerous move and one subject to manipulation. Now people may call the objectors to voting machines and internet voting conspiracy theorists or just plain cranks but as the guy in Missouri says, "If I can't see it I don't trust it!" Just remember the missing votes in the Al Gore election and who are these people running the election anyway, they certainly aren't the little old ladies with the blue hair that have been running electioni all their lives?
Say goodbye to recounts and polling figures. This move will throw political science for a loop. Nobody will know where the votes come from, only those who vote. The wonderful thing about this is that traditonal "vote-pulling" and "marked lists" are gone so local rainmakers are now redundant. After all how will scrutineers know who has voted and when? Internet voting has reduced the election period by a week as any candidate stupid enough to waste time door-knocking in the voting period will be met with the voter at the door telling them that not only did the voter vote but guess what, "And I voted for you!"
So the modern day mystery will be the way internet voting will unfold, every body has access to a computer and if motivated enough to get off the couch and put the beer down might do it. We can't wait for the mystery to begin.
9 comments:
if it gets rid of some of our so called "rainmakers" all the better in my view. enough with the backroom BS of these people. put your name on the ballot and stand up to be accountable, or get out of the process of manipulation behind the scenes.
"put your name on the ballot and stand up to be accountable"
Several dictatorshits over the years held 'elections' and required names -- for accountability reasons you understand.
poor idea
To try and create a parallel between dictatorial countries and the Ontario municipal election process is a stretch to say the least!
how is reducing the influence of the "back room folks" not in the best interest of the population? how is it a "poor idea"? More transparency and less manipulation by these paid hacks seems like a good step forward in restoring some confidence in our local political system, and in ensuring that our candidates are thinking for themselves, not spouting the words of the puppeteers in the background.
"put your name on the ballot"
I will stand up to assert that I voted, but there is not a chance in hell that I will put my name on a ballot. It was required in olden days, but no longer. SECRET ballot enhances democracy, signed ballots NOT.
I think there has been some miscommunication here Wally, to say "put your name on the ballot" does not imply to have to sign ones name on the ballot following voting, but instead, it refers to these individuals who practice their influence by guiding politicians from the back rooms, who I feel should submit their names for election. bring that process into the open.
i agree with you completely that the process of voting should still be a private matter with the current anonymity kept in place.
Actually by 'rainmakers' I referred to those individuals who like to think because they know who their supporters are, also know, by means of having scrutineers in the polling stations know if they vote. If they find out they haven't voted then a quick phone call is in order. Reputations have been made by this diligence. Hence the need for marked up lists. With internet voting and no polling stations this practice is useless. Thus 'rainmakers' will be disadvantaged
Guess it officially makes me an old codger, but I don't trust computers and the internet nearly enough to want to cast my vote that way.
We should be entitled to a choice. For those of us who want to, we should have the opportunity to go to a polling station and vote and hand our paper ballot to a human being to count it with supervision.
Remember when George Bush Jr. stole the election from Al Gore? Yes, it could happen here too.
How, do you think the bank keeps tabs on your money? How do you think the government keeps track of where to send your monthly goodies? How do you think the unions keep track of their enormous membership? all done with those computers you don't trust.
Almost four years ago, when the term 'hanging chad' was more familiar that it is now, I ran for council in Port Hope. Near the end of one all-candidates meeting at Port Hope High I brought up the idea that Port Hope was about to go down the slippery slope of electronic voting and that many, many questions still surrounded Florida, Diebold and who actually won the American presidential race.
Looking out at the audience, a slack-jawed group of troglodytes if ever I'd seen one, I recognized that 95% of them didn't have the faintest idea of what I was talking about and the other 5% didn't care. "There'll be no paper trail" I declared "no way of doing a scrutinized re-count. So whatever you do with that machine, make sure you do it right the first time. And if you're not comfortable with electronic voting, make it known to Canada's Chief Electoral Officer because the two-bit bureaucrats running this burg really couldn't care less about your discomfort. They're running things; not you. So you'd better start at the top if you want anything done about this travesty."
Well, you'd have thought I'd invoked the anti-christ. Imagine, a candidate with the temerity to question Town Staff. And....HE WASN'T EVEN BORN AND RAISED HERE AND HASN"T SPENT HIS WHOLE LIFE HERE LIKE THE REST OF US AND THE CANDIDATES WE INTEND TO VOTE FOR!!!
As time went by and I attended a fair number of Council Meetings I began to thank gawd I came in 7th out of 14 candidates. The good citizens of Port Hope got exactly the government they deserve -no more, no less. And, in October, the only major change will be Rick Austin (who was born and raised in Port Hope and has lived here all his life) replacing Dave Turck (who was born and raised in Port Hope and has lived here all his life) on council and becoming deputy mayor instead of Jeff Lees (who was born and raised in Port Hope and has lived here all his life).
Port Hope is a Conservative microcosm of Stephen Harper's Conservative 1950's Presbyterian Canada. In the four years of Linda Thompson's dreary, tired, incompetent council, the town has become listless, lifeless and so deep in hock it may never get out. It wasn't always like this. When I came here 20 years ago there was a buzz. There was a newspaper that won national awards. Toronto saw the place as the new Niagara-On-The-Lake or a better Millbrook or the county before The County. The Capitol was booking real acts worth seeing instead of a revolving door of cornball English sex romps. There was a pub worth going to on John Street.
In fairness it isn't just a lame council that brought down Port Hope. FARE did their share of the damage aided and abetted by shamefully one-sided media reports. Failure of our provincial and federal representitives to even acknowlege the existance of West Northumberland helped the slide too. Then there's the newspapers -newspapers in name only wherein there's only one story worth reporting; the next box heading down the 401 under the bridges of Port Hope upon which stand, faithfully waving their Made-In-Taiwan Canadian flags, Export Plains hanging from their lips, the same bunch who didn't have a clue what a hanging chad was or why they should even care.
Bu there's a wisdom in voting that I completely overlooked; all voters in all elections will, given the choice, vote for the candidate that most sounds, looks and acts like themselves. Ergo, if you want to know what the population of Port Hope (or Cobourg) sounds, looks and acts like, look at your council.
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