The Survey Says: The Machines Winning (News Article)

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4651

Early survey numbers from the 2004 National Wheel of VOTER Challenge now stand:

Paper-Trail Voting: 98.6%
No Paper-Trail Voting: 0.0%
Other: 1.4%

On December 2nd, 2004, Americans were extended a $1,000 challenge to write an email that justifies "No Paper Trail Voting." Chief Panel Judge, Robin Baneth, Information Technology Consultant based in Raleigh, North Carolina granted an exclusive to trumpet preliminary results finding that early respondents overwhelmingly support Paper-Trail Voting by a 98.6% margin.

The most formidable argument came from Sher Zieve, conservative political commentator for Men’s News Daily: "Hmmmm. It’s very interesting, to me, that it was the Democrats who (after the 2000 election) demanded the change to electronic voting machines in Florida...very interesting."

However, when pointed out that the three voting machine companies are Republican-Owned, the Chief Panel Judge ruled this to be an UNDER VOTE and put the submission in the Provisional pile. Her vote was fiesty and it should be noted that when the result was uploaded to the Central Tabulator in Wake County, her UNDER VOTE was somehow converted into an OVER VOTE cancelling itself out. More on this exclusve later.

While the number of respondents is a closely guarded secret, Paper-Trail advocates quickly parlayed the strong result in their favor to push for "Printers in the Precincts" by 2006, saying: "hey, isn’t that margin equivalent to normal body temperature?" The 2004 National Wheel of VOTER Challenge Research Team has since determined that the margin of victory does find a parallel in nature suggesting it is, indeed, "normal."

In breaking news: Gary Bartlett, Director of North Carolina’s State Board of Elections has suggested that: "North Carolina will become the third state — following Nevada and California — to put printers in precincts." Mr. Bartlett is also receptive to open source coding and wants more state authority in machine selection along with standards and training.

Mr. Baneth, IT expert, portends that "Printers are machines too. Self-verifying machines, no less. This appears to be a solid victory for the workhorse of all machines, the oft-overlooked printer, shine on you crazy diamond."

Robin Baneth will discuss Canadian voting in his next article. This article will be a somber nuts and bolts portrayal of a very solid and uneventful voting system. One that the people do not riot in the streets or internet over. He apologizes beforehand for the impending boring news piece.

Robin Baneth
2004 National Wheel of VOTER Challenge Chair
Raleigh, North Carolina
rbaneth(at)mindspring.com

To take the challenge:
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4651

Other Articles:

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4653
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4652