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This morning I decided that I should write my Senators. Why? Electronic voting. The picture that accompanies this post is an electronic voting machine. You probably saw one (maybe you used one) in the last election. After the mess that was the 2000 election Congress passed the HAVA¹. One requirement of HAVA was that all local governments must provide for individuals with special needs. Electronic voting machines were an easy route since not only could they support the blind they could also support non-english speakers. Since some local governments were buying new machines to comply with the act anyway whole precincts were replaced with these voting machines².

What’s the problem with this? Well besides the fact that the machine’s are easily hacked³; that the CEO of one voting machine company has personally endorsed and said he would “deliver” the election to Bush in 2004; the fact that the voting machine manufactures refuse to release the source code⁴; that there is no voter verified paper trail for most of these machines; or maybe that some of these voting machines can be opened with the same key that opens a minibar⁵? Well besides those small details they’re pretty great!

Some of these problems can be resolved in a fairly simple manner, a voter verified paper trail. If the voting machine immediately prints exactly what it’s storing into it’s memory to paper so there is a paper receipt of the vote that the voter can verify and if needed can be used in a manual recount it doesn’t matter how the machine tallies the votes. Currently there is no law requiring voting machines to have such a paper trail, and almost none do. This is changing and there is currently a bill working it’s way through the Senate to change this (S. 3212). However, the bill makes an exception for voting machines purchased before January that were bought to comply to HAVA. This is completely unacceptable. If the exception stands these insecure voting machines will undoubtedly remain in use for years.

When I found out I decided that I needed to write to my Senators. Most of these machines in Iowa are only used to meet the requirements of HAVA in order to accommodate disabled voters. One Iowa Senator, Tom Harkin, has a long history of supporting disabled voters. The other Iowa Senator, Chuck Grassley, I really don’t know how he’ll stand on this. Either way, I thought that it was important enough that I let both of my Senators know my feelings on this issue. S. 3212 appears to be a good bill with many measures needed to fix the electronic voting mess and I hope it passes, even with this exception.

One last thing. There is a really easy way to avoid all of this. Use paper ballots. There are braile ballots and ballots printed in other languages. It’s not that hard, and doesn’t need any fancy, and expensive, toys to fix.

For those of you who wish to contact their senators I’ve included my letter as a sample. Most senators and representatives have online forms that are respected just as much as a paper letter. It doesn’t take much time. Just fill in the lines I’ve left for your information and google “contact ” generally the first hit will be the page you want.

Dear Senator ______, It has come to my attention that a highly necessary bill to improve the accountability of America’s electronic voting machines is making it’s way through the Senate (S. 3212). I support this change no matter the expense as very little is more important then the accountability and security of our elections.

However, there is an exception placed in this bill for voting machines purchased before January 1, 2009 to meet HAVA’s requirements. Such an exception would lead to Americans that use these machines because they must (the disabled and non-English speakers) to use these sub-par, unverifiable voting machines for years.

I understand an exception may be needed to allow local governments to meet the law for this coming election cycle however I think the exception should have a termination point. Give local governments a grace period, but don’t give them the chance to marginalize these voters forever. Thank you for your time.

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I am so amazingly pumped. I get my kitty tomorrow! I’ve picked a name. I’m naming her “Dimmit” which is Amharic for “cat.” However I’m planning on calling her “Dimmie” most of the time because that sounds less like an expletive, and it’s cuter. Many photos will be taken an posted.

UPDATE: The Picture of the Week is now a picture of me and Dimmie. I’ve also uploaded pictures to flickr here. There have been additions to that flickr set since the potw for those of you who already saw those.

This post is a bit of a rant, you’ve been warned.

Today is the two hundred and twenty third anniversary of the adoption¹ of the Declaration of Independence. Two hundred and twenty three years ago the United States officially declared themselves separate and independent of the tyranny of the King of England. It’s a day to be remembered, and it is. People everywhere will be going to see fireworks and grilling and celebrating with friends and family. One thing as of late has bugged me about the celebration of Independence Day, the way people acknowledge the day. It has become more and more common to wish someone a “happy 4th” rather than a “happy Independence Day.” It’s a little silly, but this really really bugs me. If we have a holiday in remembrance of something, remember it and say it out loud. You don’t wish people a “Merry 25th” for Christmas, so why wish people a “happy 4th?”

On that note. Have a Happy Independence Day everyone. Celebrate your freedoms, remember those who have fought for it², and go see some fireworks.

While digging through Wikipedia for the previous post I did some reading in the article on Isaac Asimov. None of it was particularly new to me however I did find something very enlightening¹ in this section. Specifically:

For many years, Asimov called himself an atheist; however, he considered the term somewhat inadequate, as it described what he did not believe rather than what he did.

Now I don’t identify as an athiest but an agnostic. I think the people claiming to know that god doesn’t exist have just as little to stand on as those who do. However as this section states this describes very little of what I believe. Humanism² has always been something that I’ve felt described my beliefs well and is a movement that I wholeheartedly agree with. Which begs the question, why don’t I identify myself as a Humanist rather than an agnostic? There is no good answer for it and there is very good reason to identify as a Humanist, and so from here forward I will.

So partially to make progress on goal 4, and partially because I absolutely love Pixar I saw WALL•E¹ tonight. What can I say, it was fantastic. While watching the movie a thought came to mind, why we² make movies. Without giving too much away, WALL•E isn’t just a movie about a super incredibly cute robot. The film starts out in the barren landscape of a post-apocalyptic Earth. We find WALL•E working away at his primary mission, clean things up. Now WALL•E’s idea of cleaning things up is pretty similar to a child, or the typical college student, take your crap and make it into piles. Things really are really only a little better then when he started. Instead of junk scattered everywhere, there is junk everywhere in really really neat piles. It’s cute, but quite frankly for a movie partially targeted at children it is really dark.

WALL•E however is science fiction at it’s finest and by the end of the movie thing’s aren’t all better with everything fixed, but they’re better. However this had me thinking about why I love science fiction, something I’ve always known. Science fiction is frequently about hope. This hasn’t always been the case however but thanks to the brilliant mind of Isaac Asimov and his rejection of the Frankenstein complex this is what science fiction has become.³ Star Trek is a perfect example of modern science fiction that takes this and runs with it. Above all other thins Star Trek was a rejection of the typical dystopian science fiction and an example of what can be.

Star Trek was made in the 60’s a time of social and political upheaval. Amongst many other things the airing of the original Star Trek coincided with the height of American involvement in Vietnam, the African-American Civil Rights Movement, some of the most heated moments of the Cold War, and the assassination of American leaders, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. For many Star Trek gave people hope that everything would turn out all right. This was no coincidence as Asimov was a friend and adviser to Gene Roddenberry the creator and produce of Star Trek.

But back to WALL•E. WALL•E represents the same things that Star Trek did, in a time not so dissimilar. People are searching for hope as much now as ever. If you were asked to define Barack Obama’s campaign for president in one word hope would be high on the list of responses.⁴ WALL•E doesn’t go as far as Star Trek and suggest that everything is going to work out perfectly but it does suggest that we can overcome. Hope has been in short supply lately and WALL•E does it’s very best to add some to the mix. Fortunately WALL•E’s very best the work of Pixar and their very worst is better then what some can ever hope for. Amongst other things, hope is why we make movies.