voted.
OK, I couldn't take it anymore - I went and voted today.
I'm not really a big fan of early voting. I know that it is possible to create programs to randomly change votes, especially in private electronic voting systems with proprietary code that have no public oversight. I feel that early voters are more enthusiastic voters, which in this case might be more Obama voters, and being a database analyst, I know that if you can identify an area where one candidate has an advantage, you can design a program to discard votes in that area and affect the total.
So if you know that a certain area is going to vote 90% Democratic, you could seriously affect the total state results by discarding or disqualifying 10% of the vote from that area, without changing percentages in that area (they will still match exit polls). And to a certain extent, I think early voting might create an artificial 'area' that could be targeted.
Also, theoretically, I could probably get on a plane right now and vote in California, where my old driver's license is not expired. I might even be able to do that in New York, where I might still be on the voter rolls after 16 years. Early voting makes it easier to do that. Not that too many people would bother, but still.
Anyway, I was going to wait for election day, but I couldn't wait because, yes, I was enthusiastic! Also, I was anxious. Who knows what might happen on election day? What if I got into an accident and I couldn't make it to the polls?
So I voted, and it felt good, as usual. But I'm still anxious.
I'm not really a big fan of early voting. I know that it is possible to create programs to randomly change votes, especially in private electronic voting systems with proprietary code that have no public oversight. I feel that early voters are more enthusiastic voters, which in this case might be more Obama voters, and being a database analyst, I know that if you can identify an area where one candidate has an advantage, you can design a program to discard votes in that area and affect the total.
So if you know that a certain area is going to vote 90% Democratic, you could seriously affect the total state results by discarding or disqualifying 10% of the vote from that area, without changing percentages in that area (they will still match exit polls). And to a certain extent, I think early voting might create an artificial 'area' that could be targeted.
Also, theoretically, I could probably get on a plane right now and vote in California, where my old driver's license is not expired. I might even be able to do that in New York, where I might still be on the voter rolls after 16 years. Early voting makes it easier to do that. Not that too many people would bother, but still.
Anyway, I was going to wait for election day, but I couldn't wait because, yes, I was enthusiastic! Also, I was anxious. Who knows what might happen on election day? What if I got into an accident and I couldn't make it to the polls?
So I voted, and it felt good, as usual. But I'm still anxious.