One for the older folks!

Now what, this story comes after the guntoting 92 year old was gunned down in the USA after shooting three police. What is going on here - everybody on youth pills? Suicide-bomber granny attacks Israeli troops

An opinion about the 2006 vote and electronic voting

OpEdNews Exclusive
Clear Evidence 2006 Congressional Elections Hacked

Now why didn't they ask Him in the first place?

Now the Parliament has egg on its face, perhaps they should have asked the old guy if he wanted to participate!
First World War vet declines state funeral

Cracked it! Veerrry Scarrry stuff!

Cracked it! Here is a long story about a couple of techies who hacked the code for biometric passports and the Governments of the world want to make us all carry these things.

Some musing about figures

The mayor's race attracted 6995 voters, the DM's race 6689 and the councillor's race produced an average of 5905 per available place. That means a number of people, 1090, did not vote for all of the Council candidates. Just imagine in a race that saw the places 5 - 9 only 500 votes apart where those missing votes were thrown back in the mix. The moral of this speculation is that all votes should be used but not for the people that you do not want to win.

One day after - Thank You

What is left to say? The winners will say they won and the losers will be picking over the chicken's entrails for hints. Manfred will be wondering where he lost the 250 people he needed to win and the "three musketeers - the returning incumbents" won't care much: they won! Meanwhile Miriam and Stan better enjoy their five minutes of fame for topping the polls, it is all hard slogging from here just to make oneself heard. My advice would be to "pick your fights"

In another vein, thanks go to COGECO for having the strength to ask me to appear on the election show. I enjoyed it and managed to ask a couple of questions of the candidates that I am sure they didn't expect. I am not sure if I will be asked back, but thanks anyway.

The writing on this site will of a sporadic nature from now on, due to all of us having other lives. As the saying goes it's been great and I thank you for the feedback.

Ben

Only in Cobourg - more details later

Only in Cobourg can a smug electorate claim to have created change by voting two new faces the top two vote getters. Only in Cobourg can the last placed councillor claim a resounding electoral success when it is pointed out to him the the opposition only lost by 500 votes in the top two races and the incumbent councillors were relegated to the bottom of the pecking order. Only in Cobourg can we claim change when the nothing changes - the two new faces may have topped the polls but they are powerless.

The other shoe will drop when it becomes apparent just how entrenched the cronyism is when the council responsibilities are doled out. My prediction - the newcomers will get low level assignments.

As you can see by the tone of these comments I am not impressed. Nor dare I say are 45% of the voters. The perspective is simple Mayor Delanty only won by 500 votes over his combined opposition. To claim a resounding victory when he is only supported by a slim margin is disingenuous. For this Council to assume that it is business as usual is dangerously arrogant. They should be chastened but listening to the deaf person speak - Mr MacCaughey - they haven't learnt that just under half of the folks voted against this team.

More to come

Zero Vote Tally Off - by 1

This is the only story I could find about the voting machines and their ability to mess up here

Howard Dean is going to be a busy boy

Howard Dean was reported in todays papers to headed to the Liberal convention to give them tips on how to beat the other side, now this

More thoughts on my election strategy

Having been challenged by an e-mailer who thought that my picks were more hypothetical than strategic let's look at the choices of strategy. One would be to use all the votes allowed and make choices based on rationale, the other would be to "Plump" - only vote for your essential choices.

"Plumping" works on the theory that as you only vote for a fewer number of candidates their chances become stronger because you are denying the others your vote. As an aside I have heard that some people will not be voting for the position of Deputy Mayor as not only do they not want Mr Brocanier to win they don't think much of Mr Schumann. The idea that by only voting for one person in a five person race is that the vote cast is five times stronger because of the missing four votes.

However in my case where I have voted for five people and none for the people who I wish to see deposed, what's the difference. In fact I have made five peoples votes stronger because I have denied the others my vote.

Plumping will only work when you do not have enough of your selections to fill out the allowed ballot.