News from the Votemaster
Today's harvest is 39 polls in 18 states. In most states the winner didn't change, but we have motion in two key states. The most recent poll in Ohio, Zogby's tracking poll, puts Kerry a tad ahead there, 46% to 45%, well within the margin of error. Other Ohio polls are mixed. Rasmussen's tracking poll puts Bush 4% ahead but the LA Times poll puts Kerry 4% ahead. Let's call Ohio a tie. Which way it goes will almost assuredly depend on the turnout Tuesday, especially among younger voters. Could OSU elect the next president? It is not out of the question.
The other state where we have a change is Michigan. According to the latest poll there (Zogby's tracking poll) Bush and Kerry are tied at 47% each. However, two other polls (Rasmussen and Mitchell Research put Kerry ahead by 6% and 1%, respectively). All in all, by gaining Ohio and having Michigan be tied, Kerry makes a net gain and now leads in the electoral college, but neither candidate has the required 270 electoral votes it takes to win.
Ellis Henican had a very insightful column yesterday that is relevant to the Rasmussen poll I cited yesterday in which 1/3 of the voters weren't sure the election would be fair. Henican said the banks execute millions of ATM transactions every day, giving the customer a printed receipt if requested, and get them all right all the time. Not a margin of 1%, no recounts, but 100% right all the time. Why can't we make a voting system that is 100% right all the time? It would seem to me that the right way to do this would be a touch screen machine that asks the voter to make choices for the various offices in a language chosen by the voter (with audio output if desired), and when all done prints a paper ballot the voter can personally verify and deposit in the ballot box. The computer total would be available instantly after the polls close but in the event of a challenge, these paper ballots could be optically scanned or even hand counted. I can't believe a system like this is infeasible and it would certainly help restore faith in the electoral process.
But the problems aren't only technological. There may be deeper forces at work. Today's New York Times reports that tens of thousands of absentee ballots in Florida's heavily Democratic Broward County have mysteriously vanished. The county says it mailed them but the post office says it never got them.
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