A known unknown.

COMMENT, USA — Voting machines have been a plague on both Republican & Democrat houses for some time now.

OK, perhaps more on Democrat houses in the last 8 years. Bush won in part due to voting issues. And look how that turned out.

The current election has had problems: Voting machine problems reported on East Coast, in Midwest or Voting machine problems or Washington Post reports

This is a historical issue with electronic machines.

Below is a brief slide-show of the variety of voting machines in the USA, with thanks to HaveAWord on SlideShare.

Trends, declining technology.

Using these machines is too complex. The reason is a long-standing slow trend that has produced a USA trailing other countries in infrastructure.

The USA used to be ahead.

Airports. The Federal Reserve. Banking Regulation. Mobile phones. Rail. Inner-city transport. Laws.

European Union, UK, and some sectors of Asia, are ahead of USA.

It damages America’s standing in technology & ideas when it’s own infrastructure fails. This diminishes opportunities for US companies.

The 2thinknow View.

Voting is back to basics. Electronic or mechanical voting machines are too complex. And in America too diverse.

Australia has paper voting ballets. Completed & monitored by an independent Australian Electoral Commission.

Australians still use school voting halls, town halls & local community centres.

Many other Western democracies have better systems, including EU states.

The know-how is out there. But the key is to remove partisan & local actions from the process.

Australia also leads the USA in banking regulation & other current US issues.

Leadership.

The USA is capable of leadership again.

It’s part of a broader rebuilding of America, 2thinknow believes can be done, to reverse the long-term decline.

What do you think? What will it take? Any problems with voting machines?

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