Back on December 17, 2009, a 3-judge U.S. District Court ruled that Dallas County, Texas, cannot continue using eSlate vote-counting machines unless it gets permission from the Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department. The lawsuit had been filed by the Texas Democratic Party, which doesn’t like those machines because if a voter chooses to use the straight-ticket device, and then votes separately for one particular nominee of that same party, then the voter’s previous act of having used the straight-ticket device is rescinded. The Democratic Party feels that some voters then leave the voting booth, having voted for only one office instead of all partisan offices.
On December 3, 2010, Dallas asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the decision of the 3-judge U.S. District Court. The case in the U.S. Supreme Court is Dallas County v Texas Democratic Party, 10-755.
I thought the eSlate would only negate the single office position voted if a voter had previously selected a straight party option.
I.E. If I select Libertarian Party then select a Libertarian candidate for Tax Assessor Collector, then only the Tax Assessor position doesn’t have a vote by me. And all the other LIbertarian candidates do have a vote by me.
How would a paper ballot be counted if marked the same way?
What was the EVIL bribe to have such EVIL e-voting machines ???
How about putting them into a JUNK recycle factory NOW ???
#1, that is what I meant to say. Maybe I didn’t explain it clearly enough.
#2, there would be no problem with a paper ballot. The voter’s vote would count for all nominees of that voter’s party. Just voting separately for one candidate on that same party would have no effect.
The basic problem is that there is not a distinct way to cancel a vote. The way you do it is to vote for the candidate a second time. To someone who is familiar with a computer GUI, where you uncheck a check box by clicking on it a second time, this is obvious. You can also change a vote by voting for someone else. But if you want to skip an office after already having voted, you have to know how to un-vote.
Even this would work OK, but there is also an expectation that the E-slate indicate the effect of a straight ticket vote. A paper ballot is passive. There is no expectation that if you mark an X in the straight ticket box that a robotic arm will reach out and mark the party choice down the ballot, or that the ballot paper will rustle to indicate a race with no candidate of your party, or a nonpartisan race or ballot issue.
But with the E-slate, there is such an expectation. So when you get to a non-marked race, your party choice is pre-selected. When you click on the candidate, your vote is cancelled, just as if you had voted for him and then changed your mind.
Long time partisans know to go ahead and vote for every candidate on a ballot, even if you vote a straight ticket. Republicans would expect Democrat elections judges to mark a choice, and Democrats would know how they used to manipulate the result.
The simple solution would be eliminate the straight ticket option. It is not available in non-partisan races, or during the primary, nor does it apply to special elections, which are sometimes concurrent with a general election, which means that voting Democrat might not cast a vote for every Democrat on the ballot. It also compromises the secret ballot since it is so much quicker to vote a straight ticket.
Are there ANY *voter instuctions* using the MORON e-voting machines ???
— or does a voter have to guess how the piece of e-JUNK works ???
Did some U.S.A./ State / local morons actually certify such e-JUNK for use in elections ???
Did any such MORONS come from Florida after the 2000 election total disaster – Bush v. Gore ???
Inquiring minds want to know.
Is the TX regime thus even more evil corrupt than the NY regime ???