At least I have the illusion of voting. Lat election we had optical scan pater ballots where you connected lines on a paper ballot and fed them into a machine that scanned the ballot and stored it securely. I'm in San Mateo county in California. Poll location is:
Bethany Presbyterian Church
Church Hall
2400 Rosewood Dr
San Bruno, CA
But this time it was different. There were paper ballots but no optical scan machine and a single electronic voting machine that was out in the open and had a person - an old lady - helping to work it for you. In front of the machine was an old lady voting who was totally confused and complaining that she didn't understand how to work it.
The paper ballot seemed simple enough but after voting I was supposed to drop it in a plastic unsecured box that anyone can open and replace the ballots with whatever they want.
I used to live in Missouri and they had punch paper ballots. After voting you dropped the ballot into a big steel box with a lock on it. That at least gives you the illusion that it was sealed until it made it to the county clerk's office where it would be opened. But today I have no idea who might remove my ballot and replace it with something else. Although the old ladies at the polls don't look like crooks I have no idea who will pick up the ballots and if they can be trusted.
I live in a Democrat area so I'm not that worried about republicans but there are several ballot measures that include massive spending and borrowing that would benefit local officials. I don't know that they might rig the election to pass those measures.
Is it too much to ask that a paper ballot be put into a locked box? I don't think so. An insecure election is an unfair election and voting on an insecure machine is not voting at all.
One of the reason we need to oust the Republicans is to get a ban on cluster bombs like the ones used in Lebanon. If you are tired of your tax dollars going to fund murdering children then vote Democrat.
Here's The Article
GENEVA - The international Red Cross demanded Monday that the world immediately stop using cluster bombs because the indiscriminate civilian deaths caused by the weapons far outweigh any possible military advantages.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was stepping up its campaign against the weapons because of Israel's unprecedented use of the scattershot bombs during its monthlong war with Lebanon, the first major organization to do so since the fighting this summer. Russia and the United States also have resisted moves to eliminate the weapons.
"The problems associated with cluster munitions are not new," said Philip Spoerri, director of international law for the ICRC, guardian of the Geneva Convention on the conduct of war. "In nearly every conflict in which they have been used, significant numbers of cluster munitions have failed to detonate as intended and have instead left a long-term and deadly legacy of contamination."
The U.N. Children's Fund has so far only called for "a freeze on the use, transfer and sale of the weapons," spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said.
Annan statement
However, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to issue a statement Tuesday to countries meeting in Geneva to discuss reducing conventional weapons stockpiles. Officials declined to say whether Annan would map out a new policy for the global body.
Cluster bomb projectiles — or submunitions about the size of an orange or a soft-drink can — are packed into artillery shells or bombs dropped from aircraft. A single cluster-bomb container fired to destroy airfields or tanks and soldiers typically scatters some 200 to 600 of the explosives over an area the size of a football field.
Human rights groups have estimated that Israel dropped cluster bombs containing as many as 4 million tiny bombs in Lebanon. Around 30 to 40 percent of the submunitions failed to explode on impact, U.N. officials have said.
Usually 10 to 15 percent — but in some cases up to 80 percent — of the devices fail to explode immediately. Those that do not explode right away may detonate later at the slightest disturbance, experts say. The impact on children is especially bad because the tiny bombs are usually an eye-catching yellow with little parachutes attached.
Lebanese casualties said to continue
Spoerri said the small bombs were continuing to kill innocent Lebanese civilians every week. Much of the suffering, he added, could have been avoided had more accurate weapons been chosen.
"It is simply unacceptable that (civilians) should return to homes and fields littered with explosive debris," he said. "The ICRC believes that the time has come for strong international action to end the predicable pattern of human tragedy associated with cluster munitions."
The neutral agency previously called for a ban on the weapons’ being used in cities and villages after gauging the effects of the 1999 NATO air war against Serbia over the separatist province of Kosovo. Its call in 2000 for a moratorium on their general use has since been ignored by the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Complicating the problem is the growing risk that militant groups pose. Human Rights Watch also has cited cluster bomb use by Hezbollah against targets in northern Israel, spurring fears that the weapons are becoming more easily accessible for rogue militias and terrorists.
The bombs, a descendant of the "butterfly bomb" dropped by Nazi Germany on Britain in World War II, were first used by the U.S. in Vietnam. Similar weapons were used by Soviet and Russian troops in Angola, Afghanistan and Chechnya, where leftover duds also continue to inflict casualties.
The use of such weapons is not explicitly banned under international law, but an increasing number of human rights groups think it should be.