http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/27/opinion/27mon1.html
Setting Standards for Fair Elections
Published: December 27, 2004
The much-delayed work of setting federal standards for electronic voting machines is speeding up, and there is reason for concern. Voting machine companies and their supporters have been given a large say in the process, while advocates for voters, including those who insist on the use of voter-verified paper receipts, have been pushed to the margins. Election officials and machine makers may be betting that after the presidential election, ordinary Americans have lost interest in the mechanics of the ballot. But Americans do care, and it is unlikely that they will be satisfied by a process in which special interests dominate, or by a result that does not ensure vote totals that can be trusted.
The No. 1 goal of the new standards should be ensuring that the machines will not, by accident or design, produce false vote totals. It is increasingly clear that voters want electronic, A.T.M.-type voting machines that produce verifiable paper records, or other systems like optical scan machines, where votes are cast on paper as a check on the reliability of machines. California, Ohio and other states require paper trails by law, and New York appears poised to join them.
The Election Assistance Commission, a federal body set up after the 2000 election mess, has created a group called the Technical Guidelines Development Committee to propose federal electronic voting standards to Congress this spring. This committee includes outspoken supporters of electronic voting without paper trails, including Britain Williams, a retired Kennesaw State University professor who has worked closely with Georgia on its controversial adoption of Diebold voting machines. But disappointingly, the commission did not include any of the many respected computer scientists - such as Prof. Aviel Rubin of Johns Hopkins, Prof. David Dill of Stanford or Dr. Rebecca Mercuri - who have been warning about the unreliability of electronic voting in its current form.
The election commission is expected to rely heavily on standards being developed by a nonprofit association of engineers, computer scientists and other professionals with the unfortunate acronym of I.E.E.E., which develops technical standards for such things as wireless communications. But the voting machine industry plays a disconcertingly large role in this organization. The chairman of the working group preparing the standards for voting machines is a top executive of Election Systems and Software, a large and controversial voting machine maker. The head of the committee that oversees the working group has a seat on the election commission's voting machines standards committee. He is a consultant who has been hired in the past by companies in the elections field. Because of the insular nature of the engineering panel's meetings, ordinary voters - who have an important stake - have had little chance to participate. Over the objections of some members of the working group, the current draft of the election-machine standards merely makes voter-verified paper trails optional. The draft's scope is also too narrow: it fails to address many ways in which vote totals could be rigged.
The Election Assistance Commission has a chance to lead the nation to a new generation of technology that voters can trust. But if it fails, there are other routes. California has developed its own state standards for machines with paper trails, and other states could do likewise. And some of the nation's leading election reform advocates, election officials and voting machine makers are forming a new group, called Voting System Performance Rating, that hopes to develop standards in a more inclusive way. Whoever sets the standards, the process and the result need to give voters complete confidence that their votes will be accurately counted.
Full Version: NYT: Setting Standards for Fair Elections
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QUOTE(rox63 @ Dec 27 2004, 12:34 PM)
The Election Assistance Commission, a federal body set up after the 2000 election mess, has created a group called the Technical Guidelines Development Committee to propose federal electronic voting standards to Congress this spring. 
...and immediately after the 2000 elections, a consortium of the best minds from MIT and the JPL put their heads together and advised on the machines we see today.
I'm glad the NY Times has had this story and the editorial from 2-3 days ago, but...
The NYT is trying to have it both ways. How could they follow an article pointing to a flawed election with a BS story about the word flip-flop.
To punctuate this point, the MSM continues to run the story about Kerry's vote (from almost two years ago---early 2003) on the $87 billion defense package, which is BS in light of what we now know about the armor situation and Rumsfeld.
There are plenty of other election fraud stories they continue to ignore.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/weekinre...5nnQZKzs+5V+l1g
To punctuate this point, the MSM continues to run the story about Kerry's vote (from almost two years ago---early 2003) on the $87 billion defense package, which is BS in light of what we now know about the armor situation and Rumsfeld.
There are plenty of other election fraud stories they continue to ignore.
QUOTE(searchingforsanity @ Dec 24 2004, 04:40 AM)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/weekinre...5nnQZKzs+5V+l1g
QUOTE
December 26, 2004
2004: IN A WORD
Flip-Flopper
By DAMIEN CAVE
ever, perhaps, has such a silly word had such an impact on a presidential campaign.
"It was the home run of the election," said John Zogby, an independent pollster. "Flip-flop came to mean the antithesis of leadership."
The Bush campaign could have used another word to describe John Kerry. Waffler, maybe. Or waverer. Perhaps just indecisive. Why did flip-flop resonate?
Linguists and political scientists say that the term was always positioned for popularity. Flip-flop's memorable sound, its unpretentious, easily understood meaning, and wide use from the beach to campaign commercials essentially guaranteed that it would stick to Senator Kerry like gum on pavement. Since its earliest appearance - in the 16th century, with "they goe flip-flap in the winde" - the word denoted motion. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it has been used since 1902 to describe somersaults; since 1935 to refer to electrical circuits that transition from one position to another; and since 1970 for sandals.
The term packs particular force, in all its versions, because it sounds like the action it describes. It's what you hear from a fish recently caught; from a pancake overturned. The word's alliteration only makes it even more memorable.
"Flip-flop is linguistically compelling because it uses sound symbolism," said John McWhorter, a linguist at the University of California at Berkeley. "Words beginning with 'fl' tend to have a meaning related to ineffectual, abrupt movements. Fluttering, flickering, flailing, flopping - the very sound 'fl' is effective because it goes right to our senses."
Flip-flopper is also easily translated to visual form. Shawn Parry-Giles, director of the Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership at the University of Maryland, attributes flip-flop's rise to the images that complement it. They appeared throughout the campaign: along with the Bush supporters who dressed up like beach sandals, "there was that ad showing Kerry tacking from side to side on a windsurfer," she said. "There were also 527 groups that targeted the Midwest using a weathervane spinning around and changing directions. They assumed people would understand those images, and they did."
2004: IN A WORD
Flip-Flopper
By DAMIEN CAVE
ever, perhaps, has such a silly word had such an impact on a presidential campaign.
"It was the home run of the election," said John Zogby, an independent pollster. "Flip-flop came to mean the antithesis of leadership."
The Bush campaign could have used another word to describe John Kerry. Waffler, maybe. Or waverer. Perhaps just indecisive. Why did flip-flop resonate?
Linguists and political scientists say that the term was always positioned for popularity. Flip-flop's memorable sound, its unpretentious, easily understood meaning, and wide use from the beach to campaign commercials essentially guaranteed that it would stick to Senator Kerry like gum on pavement. Since its earliest appearance - in the 16th century, with "they goe flip-flap in the winde" - the word denoted motion. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it has been used since 1902 to describe somersaults; since 1935 to refer to electrical circuits that transition from one position to another; and since 1970 for sandals.
The term packs particular force, in all its versions, because it sounds like the action it describes. It's what you hear from a fish recently caught; from a pancake overturned. The word's alliteration only makes it even more memorable.
"Flip-flop is linguistically compelling because it uses sound symbolism," said John McWhorter, a linguist at the University of California at Berkeley. "Words beginning with 'fl' tend to have a meaning related to ineffectual, abrupt movements. Fluttering, flickering, flailing, flopping - the very sound 'fl' is effective because it goes right to our senses."
Flip-flopper is also easily translated to visual form. Shawn Parry-Giles, director of the Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership at the University of Maryland, attributes flip-flop's rise to the images that complement it. They appeared throughout the campaign: along with the Bush supporters who dressed up like beach sandals, "there was that ad showing Kerry tacking from side to side on a windsurfer," she said. "There were also 527 groups that targeted the Midwest using a weathervane spinning around and changing directions. They assumed people would understand those images, and they did."
QUOTE(searchingforsanity @ Dec 27 2004, 09:31 AM)
The NYT is trying to have it both ways. How could they follow an article pointing to a flawed election with a BS story about the word flip-flop.
To punctuate this point, the MSM continues to run the story about Kerry's vote (from almost two years ago---early 2003) on the $87 billion defense package, which is BS in light of what we now know about the armor situation and Rumsfeld.
There are plenty of other election fraud stories they continue to ignore.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/weekinre...5nnQZKzs+5V+l1g
To punctuate this point, the MSM continues to run the story about Kerry's vote (from almost two years ago---early 2003) on the $87 billion defense package, which is BS in light of what we now know about the armor situation and Rumsfeld.
There are plenty of other election fraud stories they continue to ignore.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/weekinre...5nnQZKzs+5V+l1g
Pardon my ignorance, but what is MSM?
QUOTE(beamer619 @ Dec 27 2004, 12:49 PM)
Pardon my ignorance, but what is MSM?
MSM=Mainstream Media
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