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Unethical Voting Practices Alert


By David - Posted on 13 October 2008

Unethical Voting Practices Alerts 
  • There is a FALSE rumor going around by e-mail telling people that if they vote Straight Democratic Party, they must also cast a vote specifically for Barack Obama in order to have an Obama vote registered. THIS IS FALSE INFORMATION. The truth is that if you cast a Straight Democratic Party vote, you will be voting for Barack Obama and your Straight Democratic vote will count as a vote for Obama. But if you then go down select Obama, you may actually be cancelling your Obama vote. Don't be fooled: Just cast a Straight Democratic Party vote and that will get Obama and all the Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.

Find more alerts on Unethical Voting Practices at the Texas Democrats website.

There have been reports of "vote flipping" on direct vote recording (touch screen, E-Slate) type voting machines. Vote flipping is when you think you voted for one candidate but the machine indicates someone else. This has been most commonly reported when voting a straight party ticket -- one or more candidates from another party somehow get selected.

I am not suggesting that this is some sort of nefarious action on the part of the ruling party who runs the elections, but for my part, I would go through and verify that the votes as displayed match what I want them to.

So yes, if you vote the straight ticket, you had better make double darn sure that the candidates ARE selected correctly. Better yet, forget the straight party vote and do it all yourself.

I agree and can verify that vote flipping occurs. It happened to me on an off year election. It took me several iterations before the ballot looked like my selections. That being said, the most important time you take at the poll booth is when you carefully check your votes at the summary screen(s) - there were two of them on my ballot this year, and verify that there is a Democratic candidate selected for each race. When everything is right, then cast your ballot.

 By the way, I early voted yesterday and the straight ticket option came off without a hitch.

If the Republicans didn't play dirty, they would not play at all.

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