Honest Voting

Okay, hadn’t heard this excuse before.

Randall Munroe made an unexpected but apt analogy regarding the rebranded Diebold’s approach to voting machine integrity in his webcomic XKCD. (Cartoon reprinted with permission.)

Will somebody please explain to Diebold (now known as Premier) that it’s not exactly reassuring when a company tells you that the reason their products don’t work is that they’re not compatible with name-brand Windows anti-virus software? I would have thought that, if you were foolish enough to use anything Windows-based for mission-critical computing, you’d want to ensure that you were compatible with the other standards in that arena.

Lynn Hulsey writes for the Middletown Journal that four Ohio county boards of elections — Montgomery, Greene, Miami and Butler counties — are parties to a breach-of-contract lawsuit counterclaim filed by Ohio’s Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner on Wednesday, Aug. 6, against Premier neé Diebold.

Secretary of State Brunner said 11 Ohio counties experienced voting machine equipment malfunctions, including failure to properly tabulate votes, in the March ‘08 primary elections. For legal reasons Montgomery, Greene, Miami and Butler counties are defendants along with Diebold (Premier) in the counterclaim filed by Brunner; however, damages are only sought against the touch-screen electronic voting machine manufacturer.

Ohio’s counterclaim is the state’s response to Diebold’s (Premier’s) June lawsuit against Cuyahoga County, which had scrapped the company’s machines because of problems.

I have to admit I didn’t understand how compulsory voting worked in countries like Australia and elsewhere. In the back of my mind I must have imagined people clocking in like characters in a Warner Brothers cartoon.

Compulsory voting has strengths and weaknesses. The primary goal is to maintain access to voting for groups that might otherwise find themselves disenfranchised — a laudable idea that doesn’t sound too bad at the moment here in the United States, where voters lose their right to vote for reasons fair and foul. The downside for people who don’t want to vote is that they may have sanctions levied against them, anything from difficulty finding child care to being unable to withdraw your salary from the bank.

The “compulsory” aspect can mean either that you have to register (or are automatically registered), or that you also have to show up at the polling place and cast your ballot in some manner.

It’s the “in some manner” that can get interesting. Until today I hadn’t thought about how people in a compulsory-voting nation would protest if they didn’t like the parties or candidates available.

In Australia the tendency is to scrawl illegibly across one’s ballot or to leave it blank (it’s a secret ballot, after all). In Canada, though, some citizens have decided the answer is to eat your ballot.

In Canada a determined voting protester with a taste for fine dining and psephophagy* should contact the Edible Ballot Society, where you can meet other connoisseurs of disgruntlement, or even pick up ballot recipes like “Rachel’s Ballot Smoothie.”

Unfortunately, psephophagy may be illegal in Canada, so unless you’re ready for the consequences of your protest, don’t bring your wok to the polls. But if that form of dissent is to your taste, then bon appetit.

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*I made this word up myself, from the Greek for “pebble,” as used in the word “psephology,” the study of election results.

The Internet is a very big place, as a friend reminds me every so often. Do we need to rely solely on dusty facts and outrage to force ourselves into the poll booth? We do not. Besides, frankly, I can use a laugh/smile/ironic raised eyebrow right about now, can’t you?

In the “I can’t believe I had to remind myself of this one” category, back in May 2007 the lingerie company Triumph International Japan announced a new concept bra called the “Voter Turnout Lift-UP! Bra.” The brassiere is made of silver vinyl, with the Japanese characters for “ballot box” written on the front.

In England, by contrast, it’s men’s underwear that seems to affect voting patterns, according to an article in the Daily Mail, “Boxers or briefs: Why a man’s underpants are the bloodstream of our country.” Let’s not look too closely at the headline — it conjures up far too many uncomfortable images. But the article’s author, Quentin Letts, says that the United Kingdom is “surely the only country in the world where the result of not one but two general elections may have been influenced by party leaders’ choice of drawers.”

The United States, on the third hand, assumes a candidate will wear underwear, enjoys speculating on the contents of a candidate’s underwear, but so far has not let an election hinge on anyone’s choice of undergarments. …Well, okay, bloggers and comedians often riffed on Romney’s religious garb, but it was his speeches and public appearances that did him in.

In Russia, far from undoing a politician’s career, underwear has been enlisted in the aid of the government. (”In Russia, underwear tries to convert *you*!”) Witness this pro-Putin underwear offered by a young Russian designer.

That’s all I can wrap my head around right now.  It’s only a few years until someone offers underpants with embedded electroluminescent wire that spells out a candidate’s name.  If the light’s too bright election officials might have to ban EL underwear from polling places on the grounds it would constitute electionneering.

It’s nice to have something to look forward to.