Do you believe your presidential vote actually counts toward an accurate tally?

[netdog]

margin of error? when determining our next president? how hard is it to accurately tally something w/ the technology we have today,12345678910 shit that was hard

It is hard, there re more than 10 people in the country.

Try counting to 100 million without a typo or three, better yet try to get 100,000 people to count to 100 million each taking a piece of the count and make it all fit with no errors.

And that's not even a mole on the tush of the problem of error free counting of millions of votes, each taken and counted locally, each using a different method, under different laws....

That there's some kind of nationwide rigging of voting is about as far out in space as believing in the tooth fairy.

netdog Reviewed by netdog on 04-16-2008. Do you believe your presidential vote actually counts toward an accurate tally? Is the government really giving us an option or is this all pre-determined? Rating: 5

[Mississippi Steve]

I dunno... I had to watch "Man of the Year" again....OTOH, it might not be a bad idea to have Robin Williams for prez.:wtf:

[dragonrider]

I think the actual ballot counting is pretty accurate and not totally fraudulent. I don't believe in the Siebold machine-rigging conspiracy theory or other similar theories. Any kind of counting system will have some small amount of innaccuracy, and all systems are subject to some small amount of fraud too --- but I don't think it is enough to actually sway a presidential election in most cases. They should be as accurate and as open as possible, but I do not think it is a huge problem.

What I think is a problem is the system that actually selects the nominees and the president --- the delegate systems for the conventions and the electoral college.

This Superdelegate thing is one example. The idea is that if the race is truly deadlocked, then party insiders (who are supposed to be most familiar with the goals of the party and the qualities and electability of the candidates) could step in and cast the deciding votes for the nominee that is most electable or best represents the party. But now that we are having a situation like that play out, everyone is opposed to the Superdelegates actually doing that. So if their only purpose is for this kind of situation, but it turns out to be unacceptable for them to do their role, it seems like to me it is a useless system.

The 2000 elections was one of those Perfect Storm moments where all the problems came to a head at once. The electoral college system created a situation where all the electoral college deleagtes were alotted without a problem, except for Florida. Because there were not enough delegates for either to win without Florida, it came down to counting votes in a few contested counties in one state. And because of counting problems and also becasue of irregularities in the ballots, it turned into a nightmare scenario.

If we hadn't had the Electoral college system in 2000, it would have been clear that Gore had won, becasue he had more votes nationwide. At the very least, it would not have come down to recounting votes in a few counties.

The 2000 election also showed the problems involved with counting ballots and why it is not as simple as it sounds. The machines did a fine job with ballots that had been properly punched. But for those where the "chad" had not been fully punched through, the mahines did not count them. Then in the manual recount, it's left to human judgement. Should you try to determine what a voter meant to do with the ballot, or just count it in the condition in which it was cast in the first place? I think that becasue of the way the exit polling had inidcated the voters were voting, and how that did not match the actual count in Florida, while it matched pretty well everywhere else, probably those votes were not accurately counted, and probably Gore should have won.

And for thoise who are now about to flame me for trying to relive the 2000 election --- DON'T. I'm over it. I'm just trying to answer the thread's question using the most obvious example. In general I think the system works, but when it is a really close election, the Electoral College and the inevitable innacurracy and fraud do come into play --- doesn't happen very often though.

[texas grass]

on electric voting machines owned by foreign companys dont give up the receipts and were not allowed to see who we voted for. theres something fishy about that.
and actually a perfectly rigged election will be a very very close one maybe 1-2 point divide the opponents. and anything with a pc chip can be hacked

[40oz]

IF this was a rigged deal I think you would have saw Clinton whooping ass on Obama.

Really? I think if it was rigged this is exactly what it would be going like. Hillary is managing to keep up and slightly ahead of obama instead of obama crushing her, which is what I think is happening in reality. The facade can't be too obvious. Why would anyone want that lying, machine of a woman to be president? Clinton is in with the media so they can portray her as still having a chance, and supported by a lot of people.

I don't vote but of all the candidates I would like to see obama in office. I'm a bit cynical about his campaign and i want to see what all this talk about change and hope is, and if he will really do anything in the real world.


(he wont...unless he's one of those honest politicians. hah.)

[8182KSKUSH]

We have and have had, and will continue to have the best operating government on this planet.
From what I know, I don't know much that isn't spoon fed to me from fox news and rush limbaugh, but from what I know, when you vote on election day, you don't just vote for president. In fact you vote on many races that are local, that will in the end matter for the next election, those folks are the electors. Soooooooooo
When you actually participate in your civic duties and comprehend and understand how a constitutional or representative republic works then it becomes a silly question.

Yes it matters. Someone link a 6th grade social studies book to this thread!