WEBVTT - The Future of Voting 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.280 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:15.000 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:17.840 podcast that looks at the future and says we're clearly 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:21.920 soldiers and petticoats and dauntless crusaders for women's votes. I'm 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:26.239 Jovin Strickland and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:31.720 to be probing the future of democracy. Yeah, we're specifically 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.240 looking at this, I would say, from the perspective of 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:39.760 being in the United States, just which because that's where 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.280 we we are from. So a lot of this conversation 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.599 is really kind of gravitating towards that because that's that's 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.960 that's our lives, right, especially in an election year, you've 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.920 got that kind of a spotlight on that. So as 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.560 we record this, just remember that's where we're coming from. 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:58.160 But a lot of the stuff we're gonna talk about 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:03.200 applies to pretty much any place where there's a democratic processes. 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:08.479 The question of what is the technology around voting, how 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.840 does that shape voting, What are some potential changes in 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:14.880 the future, what are some of the risks or benefits 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.680 of that technology? How do people cheat? Yeah, that's gonna 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.319 be a big one. Specifically, Yeah, we are talking about voting, 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:23.880 So maybe what I said was not strictly correct, and 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.160 that we wouldn't have to be talking about democracy. We 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.800 could be talking about an oligarchy ruled over by a 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.560 small elite of people who vote on what happens to 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.440 everybody else. Again, as long as long as the voting 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.440 procedure is somewhere in there, right, Yeah, But but I 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.760 don't think you can use the movie announcer voice to say, 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:43.280 like today, we're talking about the future of oligarchy. Yeah, 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:46.640 the same ring as democracy. We're also not going to 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:49.160 dive into some of the related topics that we could 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.880 have explored, but it would have made this episode even longer, 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.800 things like what about the future of the electoral college? 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:56.480 Will that always be a thing? We're not going to 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.520 go into that. We're specifically focusing in on the voting 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:03.640 ASP act, Yeah, because there's there's way too much to 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:05.920 go into. Otherwise, we could do a whole podcast, like, 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:08.680 not an episode, but a series about this if we 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.720 wanted to. Yeah, well, I wanna take you listeners out 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.560 there to a place you might not usually go with 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:19.119 your brains. Okay, so you might participate in some kind 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.640 of no, no, no, some kind of electoral process. And 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.320 you take the voting process for granted, maybe you vote, 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.000 maybe you don't vote, but you know, you know, voting 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:31.440 goes on you. Basically, voting is something that happens. You 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.480 basically assumed that the elections are fair. I mean hopefully 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:39.359 they are. But think about trying to organize a massive 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.920 democratic election yourself. I mean especially, I mean, like, have 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.560 you ever tried to order a pizza for like ten people? Yeah? Yeah, 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:52.360 like picture that, but with presidents and how many millions 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:57.320 of people of the pizza I would like taff So 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.120 if you have never yeah, so, so imagine you no 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.160 infrastructure in place, you've never done this before. You've just 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:05.799 got say, well, we'll shrink the number to a very 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.160 manageable size. You've got ten thousand people and you're trying 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.840 to get them to vote on something to find out 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.080 what they've voted for. How would you do it? If 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:17.400 I'm going to sit there and have ten people vote 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:19.560 on things, I want to make sure I have a 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:25.280 way of distributing uh, ballots of some sort that's fair 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.360 so that everyone has access to it, that does not 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.760 appear to have a bias to it, so it doesn't 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:35.400 seem to wait one option over another or over several 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.800 others to share the type of vote that is easy 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:42.960 to complete, so that the barrier to actually participating in 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.840 the voting process is low, and that is easy to tally, 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:50.200 so that I can make certain that I can get 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.200 the results back at a reasonable amount of time, and 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.960 is difficult to game the system. It is not a 0:03:57.360 --> 0:03:59.640 that's not a that's a lot of stuffs and a 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:03.000 jug several balls, and just for ten tho people. It 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.400 would be really really hard, Like I mean, I wouldn't 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:10.920 want to start starting from scratch. Yeah, it's a daunting prospect. 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:15.960 But imagine a country of three something million, of whom 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:21.360 you know a good percentage are of eligible voting age. Yeah, yeah, 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:26.039 that's it's really tough, really tough. And beyond that, in 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.359 the United States, at least, we don't have a single 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:35.239 like approach to this. It's not like there's one methodology 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:39.320 that is used throughout the entire country and everyone follows 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.640 it and therefore it's all exactly the same and you 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:45.679 can be certain that if it's if it's not fair, 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:49.039 it's at least consistent. That's not the case. You know, 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.000 fun fact, they vote in Iowa by taking a bite 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:54.880 out of a piece of cheese that represents who gets 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:59.520 their vote. Good times. What kind of cheese is? One 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:04.120 is a moonster cheese and the other is plot twist 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:09.400 head cheese. Oh oh man twist. You've got to really 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:13.880 be dedicated to voting, especially if you're lactose intolerant. I 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.800 don't know, it depends on how hungry you are, but 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.480 at any rate, yeah, no, there are there are a 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:22.360 lot of things that you have to kind of sess 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.160 out in creating this sort of system. But history has 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:27.440 provided us with really quite a lot of examples to 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:32.480 work from. Yes, yes, So going back democracy itself, if 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:35.760 you're looking at the representational democracy that we have here 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.560 in the United States, Uh, there have been some examples 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:40.640 that you could argue from from history. So how how 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:44.599 would we look at voting from a historical perspective. Let's 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.599 say that we're going back I don't know, Renaissance time period. 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.599 What would be the methodology for voting back then? The 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.040 method the methodology for voting in the Renaissance was actually 0:05:56.080 --> 0:06:00.200 taken from the methodology for voting in ancient Greece. So 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.240 so so this system is is you know a few 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.360 thousand years old to give a take here and joined 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:08.640 you joined the thunderbirds, right, and you do musical numbers. Lauren, 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:15.080 please proceed as if he said nothing. Uh. The ancient 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.680 Greek system was was was tokens. You you take a 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.680 token representing your your choice of electorate. No, that's the 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:26.440 wrong word of of elected official or stuff, and and 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.719 you put it in the appropriate box. Um. And and 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:33.400 that is where eventually we got the word ballots from, 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:37.080 because it derives from the Italian bete, which is a 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:43.640 diminutive form of the word ball, so ballot, ball, ballot. Yes, 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.159 the word ballot was first used in Venice circa the 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:51.760 fifteen forties, where indeed small balls were used to cast votes. 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.040 So you would just place this like you've got your 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.040 boxes there, you got maybe Candida Day or candidate B. 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.000 And you think, well, Canada Day is a real stand 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:01.839 that person. I'm going to vote for Canada Day and 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.839 Canada B. I can go take a long walk off 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.040 a short pier. I'm gonna put this ball into Canada 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.640 as box. And then presumably you would just count up 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:12.880 all the balls in both boxes, and whoever had the 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.080 most winds. Alternately, you might have like a like a 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.360 like a light colored token and a dark colored token 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.040 given to you, and you can you can put you know, 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.280 whichever one you want exactly into a box. So I've 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.560 got a question who invented that type of voting that 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:30.920 looks like it's a bunch of bull to me? Where 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:33.120 somebody stands at the front of a room and says, 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.200 all who agree, say I, and some people say I 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.000 and then other people say nay, and it's like you 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:41.960 didn't actually count you just sound you know, that sounds 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:46.680 like more That was their screaming matic yes of the 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:52.080 of the longstanding scream a matic claim. Yes, uh no, no. 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:54.400 But but voice voting is another form of voting that 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.680 goes back quite a long time, especially in American history. Um, 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:00.600 it was part of our history up until the eighteen 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.040 sixties at the very least, which kind of is surprising 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.040 to me that ballots didn't catch on everywhere earlier than that. 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.320 But uh yeah. The voice voting is the practice of 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:13.360 going to your polling location and calling out your name 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.440 and your vote to the recording clerk and that's your vote. 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:20.040 That sounds cheaper than buying a bunch of balls and boxes. 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.760 It also seems to me that it means that everyone 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:28.000 knows who you voted for. Yeah, that is extremely true, 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.120 and it also led to a lot of dishonesty in 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.480 terms of of pressure from outside sources. Like if you 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:36.240 if you knew that your boss was going to be 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:38.719 in the polling location and your boss really wanted you 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.800 to vote for Canada Day, then there's not a good 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.160 way to get around being like, I'm voting for candidate 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:47.719 be like that, it's you know, you're it's shouting. This 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.760 is the democracy of shouting. It's the Internet, right, which 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.440 which could then mean I mean the reason why we 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:56.240 one of the reasons why we value privacy when it 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:58.640 comes to casting a vote is that it helps you 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.600 get around being intimid aided into voting for something you 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:04.800 don't truly believe in. Right, you aren't you aren't feeling 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.720 an intense sense of communal pressure to vote a specific 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:12.880 way if your vote is anonymous. But at the same time, 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.760 if your vote is anonymous in private, that's where you 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.040 start to introduce the question of is it a legitimate 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.719 vote or has someone been putting in fake votes? On 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.200 behalf sure and it was pretty pretty safe in that 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:28.640 sense because it was you know, in general, if you 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.840 have a if you have a person come up and 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:33.840 get sworn in by a judge say hey, this is 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.080 my name, I am allowed to vote and I have 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.559 not voted yet. Then the judge goes cool, everyone else 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:41.800 in the room goes cool, and then you shout your vote. 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.480 Uh that that that's a you know, communal effort at 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:47.880 keeping everybody honest and making sure that no one is 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:50.800 in their voting seventeen times right, But it does still 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.800 mean that if you feel like I really want Canada 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.480 Day to win, but if I say Canada Day, those 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:58.240 big people in the back of the room are going 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:00.760 to totally roll me as soon as I'll here. Okay, 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.480 we've got to address something before we proceed in this episode. 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:05.920 We can't keep saying candidate d A and candidate B. 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.480 So from now on we will say kang in kodos. Okay, 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:16.320 kang in kodos, don't blame. Moving on to paper ballots, 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:21.920 the amazing technology that is paper. Uh So, originally ballots 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.160 like this, we're just a slip of paper that you 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:26.880 would bring in yourself that you had written out your 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:31.000 your candidate choice onto all right, and so it's just 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:35.120 a little piece of paper, says Kodos yeah or Kang yeah. 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:41.560 I mean if you if you want to support a king. Eventually, 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:45.840 the interested parties, you know, the the National Convention for 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.840 for Kang, would would begin handing out little pre completed 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.960 tickets um, saying like like, hey, like like you probably 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:56.160 since you're voting for me, you probably want to vote 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:59.079 for all these other people. You definitely don't want to 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.400 vote for any of the Owes other people. So uh 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.280 and and so so here's Kang and here's all the 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.560 Kang approved down ballot names. Yes. And that's where we 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:10.400 came up with the word a ticket, like if you're 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:14.880 voting Democratic ticket or Republican ticket. That that was the 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.000 word for the single piece of paper that someone would 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:19.000 hand you and go like just drop it in the box. 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:23.760 It'll be great, we'll have some laughs. Um. And the 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:27.880 system was pretty private, but it did provide a whole 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:34.360 lot of opportunities for for ballot box stuffing so fraud cheating, um, 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:39.679 which led to changes like like the boxes being transparent um, 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:45.360 which made your vote less private again so hull, especially 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.040 because now the questioning look in your eye. Maybe what's 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.760 that dude with a camera outside of our recording studio 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.559 or it? Maybe why why would why would a transparent 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.880 box make a paper ballot less private? And the answer 0:11:57.920 --> 0:11:59.959 to that is is that a lot of these ticket 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.199 that parties were handing out were on these very distinctive 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:06.560 bits of paper, so that a party official standing in 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.160 the back of a voting precinct could kind of like 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:13.480 head tally who was voting for their representatives. So so 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.560 so when you made the boxes transparent, it made everything 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.600 less anonymous and you get back into that that that 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:21.839 that that group of group of goons out there is 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:23.200 going to roll me as soon as I get out 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:27.559 of the polling box. So this this led to the 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:32.240 idea of secret ballots. Secret ballots, Why haven't been We've 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.719 been using these all the time. The concept of a 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.840 government printing a ballot with all of the running parties 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.440 and providing that piece of paper to every voter who 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:45.319 comes in. Uh. It was instituted for the very first 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:49.920 time in Victoria, Australia in eight That's crazy. It's hard 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.840 to imagine, right, yeah, yeah, but but you know it 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:54.600 had to do with with like funding and just no 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:57.760 one had thought of it before, I guess, or or 0:12:57.920 --> 0:12:59.720 the very least thought of it hard enough to make 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.040 it so. Yeah, Hey, guys, I'm really tired of being 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.480 beaten up. What if we just made this stuff secret 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:09.560 so that you know, they stopped beating me up and 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.240 and and even even from eighty eight, Um, in the 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:16.199 United States, certainly the system was very slow to take hold. Um. 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.760 Some localities still allowed voters to bring in whatever a 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.959 little bit of paper they wanted through nineteen forty at 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:25.920 the very least, and I'm looking at you, delaware, you're 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.800 messing stuff up for all of us. Uh so so 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:34.280 so this this system, of course is very private. That's great. Um. 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:36.400 And it kind of it kind of shifted the way 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:40.240 that people cheat at voting. It shifted it from influencing 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:45.599 the voter or or having uh having voter fraud, to 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.720 having counting fraud. Now, if you want to influence an election, 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:51.959 you have to figure out how to influence the counting, 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:56.280 which people proceeded to do. Although well we will get 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:57.920 into that a little bit later. But um, but but 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:00.440 one more, one more technology that I want to talk 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.040 about in order to set up how voting works today 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.720 is the very first concept of a voting machine. UM, 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.400 which were which were lever devices? Um? And and some 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:12.560 of you guys out there may have actually used these 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:17.240 pretty recently. UM. Lever Lever voting machines are these geared 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.600 devices that first gained popularity in the eighteen nineties. And 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:22.480 the way that they work is is there will be 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:24.840 a bank of switches with all of the candidates names 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.840 in there, and you pull switches over your chosen candidate's name, 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:32.320 and uh then pull a main lever to cast those votes, 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:36.160 which turns all of the chosen gears and then resets 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.720 all of the switches. UM. The maker of one famous 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.840 brand of this one Jacob H. Myers of the Myers 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.040 Automatic Booth. So that said that the machines were designed 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:51.600 to end I quote protect mechanically the voter from rascaldom 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:55.840 and make the process of casting the ballot perfectly plain, 0:14:56.080 --> 0:15:03.800 simple and secret and loud. This is my favorite. I 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:07.000 remember these sorts of machines. Not they haven't been in 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:10.120 use in Georgia for quite some time, but I remember 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:15.720 you were used until ten Since then, since I'm looking 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.440 at you now, you know, i'd almost I think I 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.240 maybe rather use a machine like this than an electronic 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:23.280 voting machine. We'll get into those in a in a 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:25.560 little bit. But I I see where you're going with 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:29.280 that too. Uh yeah, I remember going into this when um, 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:31.560 I was with a relative who was voting and they 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.200 were showing me how the voting process works. And uh, 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:38.720 sadly Cleveland didn't take it. Harrison went back into Uh 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:43.320 he took over the president twenty third presidency. Uh, it was. 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:45.720 It was a good day though. Other than that, it 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:49.000 was really interesting to see how how the voting process works. 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.400 Moving on into this this idea, what about what about 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:56.640 more current forms of voting, because, like we just said, 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.720 the lever machines, those finally were phased out of the 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:04.800 United States in two we should look at some of 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:08.000 the things that we're using now. Sure, because okay, so 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.480 so as as we have been saying here, uh, there's 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:14.600 no one system there. There are many systems that are 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.840 in use throughout the United States. It it it depends deeply 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:20.880 on what jurisdiction you're in. Fun fact, did you know 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:25.120 that under the United States Constitution you do not have 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:30.760 an explicit right to vote? Kind of weird you'd think 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:32.720 that that would be up there. Yeah, So it's not 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:35.960 in the Constitution. There's nowhere it says explicitly that you 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.840 have a right to vote. Now, it's pretty clear throughout 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:42.320 the Constitution that voting is just sort of an assumed behavior. 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:47.640 It's the subtext right. It assumes elected officials. It prohibits 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.200 certain restrictions on the right to vote in the amendments. 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:53.920 The amendments say the right to vote based on race 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.520 or or sex will not be infringed, or something like that, 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.080 But there's nowhere in there it just says by the a, 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.480 you know, adult people in this country can vote. So 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.160 that's kind of strange. Some legislators have actually proposed constitutional 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.840 amendments to fix this, but it hasn't happened yet. So 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:14.600 still the US Constitution does not say anywhere that you 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.320 can vote. I have another fun fact that's a little 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:21.760 bit more actually fun. Ye okay, Yeah, Texas passed a 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:26.080 law that says that astronauts can and should vote electronically 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.840 from space if they are in space during an election. 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:33.639 That's it really hard to drop a ball from lower 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:37.080 thorbit into a box that's in Texas. They originally tried 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:40.400 to do voice voting. That wasn't very good either. There 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:46.400 were like mistakes were made, so as as astronauts from 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:50.880 Texas can definitely participate in Texas elections from space, good 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:54.000 job text. I wonder what that's got to be like, right, 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:57.680 Like can you just imagine, like, hey Bill, stop looking 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:03.320 over here, my my right to making a private vote here? 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:08.160 Like it's crazy. I mean, it obviously makes sense, but 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:10.280 it's one of those things where I just didn't occur 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.560 to me until until we started doing this episode. So 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:15.399 talking about some of the other ways that here in 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.160 the United States people vote, uh, A lot of states 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.119 still use paper ballots in some way, shape or form, 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:26.320 particularly the upper Midwestern states and New England. Um. They 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:30.399 paper ballots can take different forms themselves. It's not like 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.320 they're all uh, you know, produced by one company and 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:37.760 then shipped off to each state. You've got the optical 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.440 scan approach, which is kind of similar to standardized tests 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:41.800 like the S A T. Where you know, you fill 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:45.520 in the circle completely so that a scantron type machine 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:47.320 can tell you the votes later, so that a human 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:48.840 person doesn't have to sit there and go through all 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:52.480 of them, right, although sometimes a human person does, but 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.760 that's not the intent. It is to make that automation possibility, 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:01.240 and then their punch cards, which if you were paying 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.119 attention to the elections back in two thousand, you heard 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:08.280 a lot about hanging Chad's, especially in Florida. Yep, yep, 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:10.960 you this is where you would you use Usually you 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:14.320 typically use a little punch hole kind of device thing 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.840 to push. It depends on it depends on whether you're 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:21.520 in a precinct with a machine where sometimes there will 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:23.320 be like a like a button thing that you use, 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:25.320 or um, if you're doing a mail in thing, which 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:27.680 is what I did in Florida for that election, where 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.400 they like send you a paper clip with your mail 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:35.000 in ballot, and they and the instructions are like unfold 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.120 this paper clip and punch with it. Yeah, the idea 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.000 being that you So wait a minute, Lauren, you voted 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.800 in two thousand in Florida. Do you know if your 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:48.800 vote for Kang was counted? You know, to this day, 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:52.960 I'm not sure. It was very confusing the little punch card, Like, 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:57.520 I mean, I consider myself like a relatively uh observant 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.840 human person, and I and I definitely was not positive 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.359 whether I was voting for Kang or Cronus to be 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.600 to be fair. I I consider myself a fairly capable 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.480 at at at simulating a human being, and I have 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:16.880 also I have also found numerous voting devices to be 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:21.679 unnecessarily obtuse, like to the point where I'm thinking, like 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:23.920 I understand what first of all, when you read a 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:26.280 sentence and you think, I understand what each individual word 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:28.119 in the sentence means, but when you put them together 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.560 and together quite like that? Yeah, oh yeah, Like sometimes 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.080 in Georgia will have we'll have state referendums on an 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:39.600 issue and standing there trying to read this and it 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:44.280 has like fourteen negatives in it, the right to not 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:49.040 do X when unprivileged with X, you know, will not 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:53.680 be infringe And you're like, I'm not I just did 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.119 a visual gag out of there was a lot of 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.600 there were a lot of faces being pulled at that moment. 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.480 But so the punch cards, you know, obviously, the way 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:05.840 you vote is that you punch a hole next to 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:08.959 whatever your choice is, right either it's usually a pre 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:12.919 perforated type of of ballots, so that you're actually just 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:15.240 punching out something that's meant to be punched, as opposed 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:19.560 to having to make a hole in that piece of paper. Um. 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:22.159 And of course the idea of that is that again 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:24.760 you could have an automatic tally machine. You could feed 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:28.080 it through and uh the machine would very quickly be 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:31.600 able to determine who you voted for based upon where 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.280 the holes are. Yeah. And an interesting story about these. 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:36.600 They came about in the nineteen sixties when a couple 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:41.399 of Berkeley professors adapted IBM s like pre cut punch 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:46.120 cards for computers, and they're they're portable punching machine for 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:49.520 those cards, um, in order to to make and and 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:54.439 cast ballots. And IBM briefly owned the company um uh 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:59.359 the votomatic or the or. Yeah, that's that's the great 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.800 terminology of the day, right, that's the sixties ist term 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.600 that I've heard all day and I love it. Um 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:07.280 and And actually one of the first tests of this 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:10.679 technology was conducted right here in Fulton and Decab counties 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:13.919 in Georgia. Those are interesting to the three of us 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:16.120 and maybe not to anybody else counties in the metro 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:20.439 Atlanta area if you were not aware, if you're not 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:23.600 from Georgia, there's no reason you would be. But but yeah, 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:26.800 these these uh, the photo of the photomatic and other 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:30.760 similar punch card devices have generally fallen out of fashion, 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:34.600 um in a widespread kind of way because of these 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:37.560 these issues with with jamming and with less than clean punches, 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:41.679 and with the dangling chads chads, Yeah, the chad by 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:43.400 the way, that refers to the little piece of paper 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:48.320 that you've punched out, Yeah, perforated. Yeah, they they And 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:53.760 you could imagine that these problems with UH processing these 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:58.000 punched out pieces of paper, they increase as the age 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.119 of the machines that tally increase, things just start to 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:03.520