After reading the article about the potential problems with voting machines and some states requiring voter identification cards, describe your feelings about voting. Do you feel that your vote is safe and counts in the United States? Are there places across the country where people should feel threatened by electronic voting and photo id cards? What should we do to make sure we have free and fair elections in the United States?
Respond to this post twice. Your fist post will be due by the beginning of class on Monday.
Your second post will be due by the beginning of class on Friday. For the second post, read through your classmates response. What opinion do you agree with? What opinion do you disagree with? Discuss why in a professional manner.
Remember, when posting, leave your name so I can assign the points to your grade. Click on the comment button to leave your response. Look for the message in green at the top after submitting a post. Save a copy on Word or print out your post just in case it doesn't go through.
33 comments:
I think the electronic voting machines are more trouble than they are worth. In the article where the woman was going over the choices she was "cheated" by the machine in who she actually wanted to pick for office. The machines are a smart idea in a way but unless the can't be tampered with then it's just more wise to vote the old fashiond way.
After reading this article, it is easier to see how problems can come up. I was skeptical to begin with but with the examples within the article just strengthens my opinion.
I know that my computer at home is unpredictable. Why wouldn't these voting machines be any different. Yeah, I'm sure that there is more
care taken to make sure that they work correctly but we haven't mastered technology yet. Stuff still happens.
I also know that there are allot of people out there that just don't understand how a computer works. I'm not saying that I'm any where near computer savvy but my sister can't even work Microsoft Word. That is just how her brain is wired.
I guess the question is if we want to take the risk of the leadership of our nation for convenience or not. My stance is no. I think that the presidential authority is too important to just throw someone up there because a machine said so.
Sarah L.
I think that my vote is safe in certain places in the United States but not everywhere. In Shenandoah I think my vote is safe becasue there aren't a lot of people so fraud isn't as likely. There are places across the country that our votes might not count. In big cities like Chicago, voter fraud is a major thing. There are so many people that they can sneek in and nobody will know. The electronic machines will be a problem because of people not knowing how to work them. Older people that don't use computers a lot will have trouble and might be the major reason why there are problems. I think that election committies should work harder to make sure that every person only gets one vote. If we give out the chance to be able to hack the votes then that will make each vote not matter because it won't matter. We need to make the system that we are using now better and make it safer for people's votes.
Jon Sturm
After reading this article i think it would depend on where you live how safe your vote really is. In a smaller city or community i think your vote is fine because almost everyone knows each other. I think it would be harder for a city like NY to keep their votes safe. I think that in a small town it would not be as important to have a voter ID card compared to bigger cities where they have the problem all the time of voter fraud. I think that if the government is really concerned with voter fraud than they should set up places to get a vote ID.
-Brittney Augustine
When you are dealing with over a million people, there will always be problems in voting. Whether its on a computer or on a piece of paper, someone is going to mess up and blame it on the system.
-Nick
I dont think we should use electronic voting because it would be a lot easier to cheat. Also It can also mess up the votes on accident. I just dont think their was much of a point to change when what we were doing was fine
Gregg, k, max,,,
In our growing society of electronics, and making things easier, quicker, and more accurate; this would be a fool proof way to vote. However; to be successful they need to convince every citizen to register, and that may cause problems. i feel my vote would be safe, i think it would be hard for one political party to tamper with this system so that it works out in their favor. it would definetely be better than the old wat. yes there may still be some cheating, but it would be less than what their has been in the past and what is currently now.
adam
Voting machines are not the best choice because it is an entirely new system and people will have to relearn it. For some people it will not be as easy to learn how to use the voting machine.
We should stay with ballots but make them more secure and safer. Whether through voter ID cards or other means that we haven't thought of.
i feel that the electronic voting machines are a good thing in some ways. it will allow us to count the votes a lot quicker and it will make it more organized. i also feel that it could be a very bad thing. if someone was able to tamper with it, then there could be a president(s) that shouldnt be in office. they would be able to rig the election from now on. personally, I think that my vote is safe and i trust the electronic voting. i hope that the electronic voting becomes a good thing.
greg
Even after reading about the problems of voting machines and identification cards, I still agree that we should have both of them.
Yes, I do feel safe that my vote counts in the United States. I think that in bigger cities and more well known places in the U.S. that some people should be worried about their vote because people do try to make up names and use other peoples information. I think that there should be id cards and voting machines that only let you vote one time no matter what.
J.H.
I agree with Jon and with Sarah. Voting machines are not the answer. As Sarah said computers can be a bit unpredictable and they can be tampered with or break down.
Smaller cities have less problems with voter fraud because everyone knows everyone else. Like Jon said voter fraud is much much more common in big cities because its real easy for people to come in and say they are someone else and no one knows the difference.
I still feel that the idea of voter id cards and voting machines are a good thing. I feel that if machines would make a mistake that people will probably make the same mistakes. I dont feel that there are any specific places that people should feel threatened, but i do feel that the government should supply you with you id card.
Jake J.
I do agree with everyone saying that the machines could be good, but unless they can be made so they can't be messed with they still might not be the best idea. People today will always have trouble with new things so they will have to be taught how to use them or else the machines might not work they way that the government wants them to.
Jon Sturm
I think that electronic voting is fine. No matter what kind of voting we do, people are always going to find a way to cheat it. I think my vote will be safe in Shenandoah because not too many people are trying to cheat the system. I think photo id cards would be a big hassle. A lot of people wouldn't be able to get the id cards, so it wouldn't be a fair election. Thank you, Angela Haldane
I think that there will be many problems with the new voting machines. Look at the problem with the lady not even voting and it taking her browsing and submitting a vote. I think there are many votes that might get lost or there are extra votes casted here and there. I think that to stop voter fraud we should have the voter id cards but i don't know how we can use these machines and have a fair election. Especially in big cities such as chicago.
colton
I think that electronic voting is a good way to vote. it doesn't really matter what we do to try and improve the number of people that vote more than once, because they are always going to find a way to cheat their way through. i don't think that votes are safe in the United States but there isn't really anything that we could do about that. i feel safe with my vote in the area that i vote because i don't really think that there is that many people that are trying to cheat the system in the town of Shenandoah.
Jana
yes, i feel that my vote would count and be safe because of our technology in our society. there are places around the world that would be threaten by this technology because some would even know what it was, and some would not have an ID card to go vote. we should get a new technology for the voting and make everyone have there name on a peice of paper and have them hand it in when they are done voting. Nick lester
I don't think there's any problem with having electronic voting machines. They may have their problems, but other ways do too. The machines are not really creating more problems then any other way, just different ones. Our government should work harder instead on figuring out ways to solve the problems.
I don't think we should have voter I.D. cards though, especially if they're causing some eligible voters to be turned away. It would probably cause more fraud anyway, because people would still try and find a way around it.
~Thalia
I do agree that it depends on where you live as to whether or not your vote is safe. When you vote in a big city its not treated so personally as if you voted in a city like Shenandoah. When there's a smaller number of people voting there can be more one on one attention from the volunteers running the voting machines and there could potentially be less confusion. In big cities there's hundreds of people voting and they don't have enough help to make sure everyone knows exactly what they're doing.
I agree with a lot of the responses dealing with voting machines. I think that there is no problem with voting machines because no matter what type of voting we do, people are always going to find a way around it. As problems become bigger and they try to make the system smarter, people become smarter after awhile. I kinda disagree on the voter i.d cards. I think that we should have them because I think that it would help solve some of the voting fraud in the U.S. I think it would stop a lot of people from voting two times
J.H.
i agree with most people on the fact that the id cards will serve a viable role in keeping the elections fair. i disagree with the fact that they are unneccessary. this seems to be a good way to stop the fraudulant voting. so i believe its worth giving it a shot
adam
I think that everyone has reasons why electronic voting could be good, but i think it would still just be alot easier to keep it how it is. I think that we should have voter id cards to help the voting run smoother and faster. It would also help to keep voter fraud down.
-- Brittney
I agree with a lot of people. Electronic voting has it's good points and it's bad points. Like Nick said no matter what the government does to make voting safer, someone will cheat and blame it on the system. I still think that id cards are bad idea. They are too much work and probably not worth it. Angela
I agree with a lot of the responses dealing with voting machines. There are no problem with voting machines because no matter what type of voting we do, people are always going to find a way around it. As problems become bigger and they try to make the system smarter, people become smarter after also. I somewhat disagree on the voter ID cards. I think that we should have them because I think that it would help solve some of the voting fraud in the U.S.
Jake
I agree with most of the responses posted. I also agree that the voting machines are a big problem and that there is no solution tho that problem. I agree with the people who agreed to get voter id cards because then i feel that we would solve some of the fraud problems and people could only vote once.
colton
I agree with mostly everyone. voting machines could be a good thing but they could also be trouble. I guess will never find out if we never try it.
Gregg k. max
i agree with Jon Sturm.. he makes good points..
therellik
I think the votine machines are a bad idea. I think there is a bigger chance of fraud with the voting machines. A normal voting system seems much safer to me.
I agree with many response dealing with the voting machines. I have changed my opinion a little bit. It does not matter how you vote there is always a chance of voter fraud. You cannot help what a machine or what a person does.
THE SHOE
i agree with most of the opinions but one that i disagree with is kellyn. if they dont implement this new technology then we will never be able to learn how to use it. you always have to learn how to use things when they first come out.
greg
I'm pretty determined on my opinion. I want to think that the Id cards and the machines ould be great but I cant help but think that they would bring nothing but more problems.
Sam
I agree with many of the responses. any way we choose to change the voting system there will be people that find a way to cheat the system.
After reconsidering this whole voting with machine or not thing I've really come to an unconclusion. I don't think that I have all of the information to make an accurate opinion. I just had that one article to go on and it influenced my view the way it wanted. i think that we should evaluate what could be wrong with manual voting and then weigh the pros and cons.
If Mrs. Cole had given us and article that supported the machines, I'm sure that many of us would be leaning it's way. That makes this whole decision ungrounded.
Sarah L.
I still think the voting machines would be a good idea. I also think the Voter I.D. cards could be a good idea, maybe, if they could find a way to prevent it from turning possible voters away.
~Thalia
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