Utah Open Source Planet

I was listening to the Nightside Project on KSL when one of the radio hosts (I don’t know his name) said he hates it when he sees people wearing the “I voted” stickers. He listed a number of reasons, but the one I got a kick out of was basically that the people who don’t know it’s election day are the last ones you want to remind to show up at the polls. Funny, but true.

So anyway, I came up with these sometimes humorous “I voted” sticker parodies as pleasant way to guilt trip sheeple who show up at the polls without doing any homework:

In case it wasn’t blazingly obvious, my overall point is that voting is NOT your civic duty. Voting smart is your civic duty. Voting smart takes a lot of time, thought, and research. Voting just for the sake of voting is quick, effortless, and counter-productive; it skews the numbers away from dedicated citizens who really did do their homework.

Hopefully these tongue-in-cheek “I voted” stickers are fun way to remind people to do some serious research before hitting the polls. Feel free to forward them to friends and family, or anyone you feel may be just flying by the seat of their pants! :)

And no; watching Oprah, SNL, and Fox News does not count as research.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for Voting Smart!

UPDATE

Some others I have thought of:

I (unwittingly) voted for more of the same (change vote)
I voted for a socialist in mainstream clothing (major-party vote)
I voted because it was on my way (convenient vote)
I voted exactly how the MSM wanted me to vote (sheeple vote)
I voted and all I got was this lousy sticker (freebie vote)
I voted without ever having read the constitution (public ed vote)
I voted how the source code made me (Diebold vote)
I voted to reinforce the illusion of liberty (depressing vote)
I voted for the guy who worships like me (blind faith vote)
I voted because I’m better than you (ego vote)
I voted because it makes me feel good (insecure vote)
I voted because some people don’t have maps (hot chick vote)
I voted based on one issue only (one-dimensional vote)
I voted for all the candidates (Florida vote)
I voted despite being dead for 50 years (electoral shenanigans vote)

Please post your own funny or poignant “I Voted” stickers in the comments!

I dislike both major-party presidential candidates so profoundly that I would feel extremely uncomfortable giving my vote to either of them. Sure, I like Obama even less than McCain, but luckily I live in a “landslide” state where I don’t have to make the difficult decision of whether I’ll vote for the proverbial “lessor of two evils”. In Utah, I can vote my conscience with a pretty solid confidence that the direct outcome will be exactly the same; Utah will see a landslide win for McCain either way, so why marshal support for someone I don’t even like?

Instead, I’m voting for Chuck Baldwin.

“Why haven’t I heard of Chuck Baldwin”, you ask. Well, it’s either because the main stream media thinks you’re stupid, or because it wants you stupid. I’ll let you decide which.

Chuck Baldwin is the Constitution Party’s candidate for president. If he won (which he won’t) I would be comfortable that our nation would be in good hands.

“But why vote for someone who can’t even win?” Well, technically he could win, but he won’t. Either way voting for someone you like makes a heck of a lot more sense than voting for someone you don’t like –especially if you live in a state (like Utah) where your vote is mostly symbolic.

My vote is a protest: I’m sick of big government Republicans that are nothing more than socialists in sheep’s clothing. They’ve done our country harm, they’ve done my party harm, they’ve done my family harm, and I want them out.

I’ve got a lot to say about how the Republican party has lost its way, but I’ll forbear for now. Suffice it to say that I think it may very well cost us this election –and we deserve to lose. Not that the Democrats are any better (in fact, they’re much worse).

I’ve also got a lot to say about our current voting system, but I’ll forbear for now. (Watch for my upcoming rant.) Until then if you live in a relatively uncontested state, you really should look at your real options: Check out Chuck Baldwin!

In the recent bailout fiasco, while both major-party candidates were using scare tactics to push pork legislation through –chiding each other all the while for not being socialist enough– Chuck’s stance against the banking bailouts was constitutional and exemplary. No wonder they didn’t want to invite him to the debates.

Now that’s leadership.

Happy voting!

If you're interested in avoiding the lines at your polling place, consider early voting. Most states have provisions for early voting. Utah has information about early voting online, although sadly the actual list of locations is a PDF document. Early voting in Utah happens between October 21st and 31st. Most of the locations have limited hours, so be sure to check that. You'll need to bring a picture ID (whereas you don't for voting at your normal polling place).

I was a little disappointed in Utah's online voting information. When you go to the "Leave Your Print" site, there's no indication it's information from Utah. In a related idea, they are using the domain name leaveyourprint.com rather than vote.utah.gov, which would clearly indicate that this is an official site of the State of Utah. Nothing wrong with that kind of branding. It's catchy. But the site ought to be clear that it's an official site of the State.

Also, I love the "find your polling place" application. A few nits: The privacy policy is about voter registration records rather than the information I'm putting in the site (that's covered informally in the introductory text). Also, the polling place screen gives and address. Why not link out to a map?

Tags: utah egovernment voting

Britt Blaser sent me a link to Twitter Vote Report, a system for sharing stories and issue about voting across the country. Using it is simple, simply tweet with the hashtag #votereport and give:

• The time of day (9:20 am, 1:12 pm)
• The zip code you just voted in (e.g. 10591, 10012)
• The issue: Wait (e.g. a waiting time of over ½ hour) Reg. (e.g. a problem with your registration) Machine (e.g. voting machines are broken or jamming)

I love this idea. Simple applications of technology for making our democracy work better.

Twitter vote support still needs some help with making things work, so visit the site and see how you can contribute. But mostly--spread the word!

Tags: egovernment twitter voting

Colorado will decide to abandon electronic voting in the upcoming election. I believe that ten years hence no state will support electronic voting--specifically, I think that direct-record voting machines (DRE) will be gone. The opportunities for undetectable fraud (even with reasonably large audits) in small elections are too large and cannot be solved by applying technology.

Tags: egovernment voting security

I’m a big proponent of parents’ choice in education, so I was initially discouraged a few weeks ago when I saw a that a telephone survey showed a majority of Utahns opposed to Referendum 1.

Since then, however, I’ve become convinced that it can pass, partially because many of the people opposed to the legislation simply won’t vote. (Think about it –have you seen more signs FOR or AGAINST referendum 1? Those are voters.)

I was also encouraged to learned that normally standard questions like “Do you plan on voting this year?” and “Did you vote in municipal elections last year?” were not asked in the survey, possibly leading to a numbers bias as far as votes are concerned.

Lastly, I’ve also seen a TON of anti-voucher ads appearing in my mailbox. That’s a condition that would not occur if the opposition felt the cat was in the bag. Rather, they’ve done their research and know it’s dangerously close; and thus the deluge of expensive ads.

The question, therefor, is can we get out the vote? I think we can and will; but if we want to get the voters to the polls, you and I need to go a little outside of our comfort zone and talk to our friends, family, and neighbors. If we want to win (and win we must) we need to beat the ads by getting the word out on a very personal level.

So - I’m putting my mouth were my mouth is: from now until election day (just over a week from now) I will vary (as is my right) from my normal biz and tech format to blog exclusively about why I think Referendum 1 must pass –and what we can do to ensure that it does. I’ll outline its merits, debunk some common misconceptions, and hopefully I’ll win some of you over at the polls.

As a side note, I know that this is a hotly debated issue. It’s in my nature to avoid those, but to me (personally) this is just too important to ignore. I’ll try to keep a level head about it, and I hope you will too.

Please feel free to post your thoughts and comments –just know that I probably won’t be able to respond to them all. If you do comment, try not to be belligerent since I will be moderating every post, but do free to challenge my opinion as long as you’re nice about it. I welcome niceness regardless of its source! :)

And now, without further ado: let the posts begin!