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Old 23-Jul-2004, 07:28 PM
trogg
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Default Re: a question about voting

Quote:
Originally Posted by Penny
How are our votes counted?? I was asking someone else here too, and they don't know either.
I think kiwi votes are counted manually at major polling booths as there is only a million or so of them (two million max) given the usual voter turnout.
The official site isn't 100% clear on how the counting is done.
http://www.elections.org.nz/esyst/elect_night.html

The point to note with Kiwi elections is that the counting is open to scrutiny because of the way the voter's names are checked off the electoral rolls and the votes are effectively numbered and that (MOST IMPORTANTLY) the paper votes are able to be recounted.

Quote:
Originally Posted by edshuck
The current voting machine is refed to as the "shreader" by the poll workers.
Is that because of the way there is no audit trail that will allow for a manual recount?

As I understand with the help of the kiwi website that broke the story & Bev Harris' research http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm & http://scoop.co.nz/mason/features/?s=usacoup
the Diebold voting machines are basically personal computers running the ultra secure Micro$oft Windows (NOT!) and some 'special' counting software.
The vote is then written into an online internet file which can be edited (if you crack the password using something like www.lostpassword.com) by anybody who knows where the file is kept and the vote count altered.

And the one that amuses me the most and scares me because they got away with it is this; http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00064.htm
Quote:
November 2002, Comal County, Texas - A Texas-sized lack of curiosity about discrepancies: The uncanny coincidence of three winning Republican candidates in a row tallying up exactly 18,181 votes each was called weird, but apparently no one thought it was weird enough to audit. Conversion to alphabet: 18181 18181 18181 ahaha ahaha ahaha
Sometimes I think we are lucky to live in this backwater country at the end of the earth and away from MOST of the corruption and dodgy dealings that run the economy of this planet behind the scenes.
Although another day I will share my experiences with NZ Military & Government cover ups that even saw a high court judge issue an "interesting" verdict which was against the evidence presented.

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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, champagne in one hand, strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO-HOO What a ride!"
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