Yesterday I voted in a Die-Bold machine.
Interesting name, that. I wonder who thought of it? "Let's build dysfunctional voting machines that flip votes, be sure to tell people these machines don't work, and then convince them to establish their democracy on the faulty machines anyways." What a marketing coup! On top of it all, they're called "Die-Bold."
And that's what will happen, for another three years, as a predominantly right wing mayor and council take over Victoria. Hundreds more homeless people will die. Boldly? Perhaps. But die they will unless Sonya and Philippe, the only two candidates who have voiced any real concern about enabling homeless people an opportunity to help themselves, can persuade the rest of them that a Dignity Village is a good idea. The incumbents won't go for it .... they've been fighting against providing temporary housing for homeless people for many years. There's some hope that Lynn Hunter will follow up on her contacts with other levels of government, calling on her experience as an MP, and demand something real. John Luton's main concern is transportation so there's some hope that we save the world cyclists will emerge after three years with fewer deaths or road crashes. But there's no doubt more homeless people will die.
I don't like being so pessimistic about this, but there's really not much hope for the increasing numbers of poor people in Victoria, unfortunately. Another three years of mats on floors, empty promises, and a lot of taxpayer dollars spent fighting a supreme court decision that protects the rights of the poor - that's what we can look forward to.
I asked the guy at the polling station if they double check the votes and he assured me they do. They have to check the machine recorded vote against the actual votes that people put into the machine, he said, and make sure it all computes. There's no paper trail, though, so who knows what might go wrong. I also noticed that citizens of Victoria can vote at any of the many polling stations, and each polling station has a complete set of names. It's possible, isn't it, that people can go to more than one polling station to vote? Or do they check those books to ensure that sort of fraud doesn't occur?
In Cuba, candidates are chosen locally. If we were to do it their way, in an election we would vote for local representation in Fairfield, Fernwood, James Bay, etc. Each of the candidates would be provided with a stack of posters containing their photo and biography. Each candidate, in each region, would be provided the exact same number of posters and then the people in each region would select their candidate based on their personal knowledge of the person, their experiences working with them in the local CDR (Committee for Defense of the Revolution). It's tough to say what's more democratic. They don't count the votes by proportional representation, but then neither do we.
It's not that I'm bitter, though on behalf of all the dead homeless people I certainly am not thrilled with another three years of the same old shit, but mostly I'm concerned that Victorians voted primarily based on name recognition (some candidates throwing more $ at the election than others), in machines we know to be faulty, maybe more than once.
And, is it true, our new police chief's leaving his job as a bicycle salesperson to oversee Victoria's finest?
