The fevered brows of voters everywhere have begun to once again turn expectantly towards that glorious land of dimpled chad, in the hopes that we might be able to determine who actually has won the election on Nov. 2 sometime before the 2008 election. Meanwhile, election officials everywhere look to Florida in hopes that their prestigious careers won’t be once again defaced by those who have apparently failed remedial middle-school math.
In Orange County, in, you guessed it, Florida, touch-screen voting booths setup for early-voters crashed, keeping many from casting their votes. Some voters were allegedly waiting in line for two and a half hours, indicating that Florida election officials were right alongside members of the airline transportation security authority at their required efficiency and time management trainings at “Billy-Bob’s school o’ customer un-service.”
“We are having a repeat of 2000, and it’s only in Florida that this could happen,” said Sally Zwanger, a poll-watcher for the Kerry side of the race.
That’s not particularly surprising. Instead of using complicated two-page ballots and instructions along the lines “put pencil in hand, push through page, get a lobotomy,” Florida has eased voter’s woes and gone with the simplicity and security of electronic voting systems running Microsoft Windows.
For those of you who don’t find something inherently wrong with that statement, I’ll spell it out with no room for misconception: God himself, armed with a team of Microsoft engineers would have trouble figuring out how to make Windows stable, secure, and easy-to-use.
Apparently, shortly after the machines were switched on, they crashed, losing votes and causing voters to have to wait hours just to cast their ballots. Imagine that, something running a Microsoft product crashing? When we heard stories years ago of a Navy submarine running Microsoft Windows in a few of its key systems crashing and keeping the sub surfaced for over a month, that was probably a sign to never trust a Microsoft product in a mission-critical application ever again. The only exception to this rule is if the application is “Minesweeper,” which oddly enough, is what Bush and his team of investigators are using to try and find the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
So, in a desire to prevent problems on November 2nd, I believe we must all stand-up together and attempt to help the Florida State Election Board. I even have a non-partisan suggestion to prevent the collective hysteria and insane idiocy that occurred in 2000. I suggest we take an immediate collection, in the spirit of a Christmas toy drive, of stone tablets and chisels. Actually, we might be able to upgrade them with a few used Etch-A-Sketches.
Originally printed with permission in The Daily O’Collegian, October 21st, 2004
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