November 3, 2008

Did You Hear?

I don’t know if you have heard the news or not, but tomorrow there is a big election in the United States. There may have been something mentioned on the news. Not only are we voting in a new administration, but several key decisions are being made tomorrow as well.

I overheard someone say that they were still undecided and that they would like to hear what the candidates have to say tonight. Um, o.k. I think that if you haven’t decided your choice yet then you’re probably completely clueless or really dense, but by god it’s your right to vote and you should exercise that right.

Though the polls are currently showing this all going to Obama’s favor, I have to admit that I don’t put a lot of faith in polls. I know it’s all scientific and all that but I don’t completely buy into it. The only way we’ll know who is going to win is when the other guy concedes or the Supreme Court hands down another decision.

As a technology geek I have to say that I do not trust these electronic voting machines that do not print out a receipt for the voter. We’ve all seen the videos of the “vote jumping” on the touchscreen systems. I truly believe that’s just bad software decision and screen calibration; a malicious programmer would never make the vote jumping or false tallying so obvious. I would have no problem with electronic voting machines if the code (the program) was open source and available for all the world to review. Personal agendas would be irrelevant in that case; proprietary equipment and programming allows for personal agendas to become commonplace.

My vote tomorrow will be for the Obama/Biden ticket. I don’t agree with his 100% of his policies but I sure as hell know that he’s a better choice than McCain/Palin. The latter two worry me.