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Edited on Thu Aug-10-06 01:47 PM by Pacifist Patriot
I had to back up a bit and explain the concepts of precincts, Supervisors of Elections, voter turnout and a variety of technologies to the 9 year old but he was a wonderfully quick study. The child is just moving into fractions and has a fair to decent idea of percents.
I can't remember what our conversation was about that spawned the discussion about election integrity, but there is nothing like a 9 year old to push you into a verbal corner. Whatever we were talking about resulted in his asking, "So mom, does that mean it's possible George Bush shouldn't really be the president?"
*deep breath*
And thus brings about a differentiation between vote suppression, vote manipulation and election fraud. He grasped the idea of voter to polling booth ratio startlingly quick. Let's look at some snippets of the conversation.
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Me: So if Precinct A has 100 registered voters and the computer reports a 250% turnout, what does that mean?
Son: Whoa, wait a minute. That's not possible. That means everyone would have voted 2.5 times.
Me: What does that tell you about the computer programs?
Son: For starters they suck. Fire the programmers.
Me: Okay fine. But what does it tell you about the results?
Son: You sure as heck can't use 'em. You've gotta do it all over again. There's no reason to think the split between the 250 votes is the same as the split between the people who really did vote.
Me: <grinning like an idiot> That's my boy!
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Me: So you see, not everyone votes. You have a voice only if you are eligible to register to vote. You actually do register to vote. And you show up to vote.
Son: Who decides who is eligible to vote?
Me: There are laws that spell out exactly who can and who cannot vote. For example, you have to be 18 years old. And in our state you can't have been convicted of a felony.
Son: People in jail can't vote?
Me: Not if they are convicted of a felony, no.
Son: Why not? Just because they f***...oops, sorry mom, just because they screwed up doesn't mean they aren't affected by what the government does.
Me: Well, lawmakers decided that was an appropriate part of their punishment.
Son: But they vote when they get out, right?
Me: Um, no. They have to apply to the governor to get their voting rights back.
Son: Whoa!!!
Me: What?
Son: He's a Republican.
Me: So?
Son: If some guy was once a Democrat, ended up in jail and wants to vote now, there's no way the Republican is going to give him his vote back.
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This kid grasped the difference in turnout between precincts with 1 polling machine for every 20 voters and 1 polling machine for every 200 voters. He screamed "hacker" before I could blink when I talked about touchscreen paperless voting. When I explained the role of the Supervisors of Elections he was stunned when I told him that such positions were partisan races. Our election system floored a 9 year old. A 9 year old! And I'd put him in the average intelligence category. I'm not signing this kid up for Mensa any time soon. This kid was connecting dots before I could finish my explanations.
I have not discussed this in front of him before so I know he's not parroting me. This was all new material to him. And he got it. He got it.
I will never believe that grown adults don't understand. They just don't want to give a shit.
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