JakartaDean writes "Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, famed Internet regulator, has lost his Senate seat. The AP is reporting that ' Stevens was declared the loser in Alaska on Tuesday night after a two-week-long process of counting nearly 90,000 absentee and early votes from across Alaska. With this victory, Democrat Mark Begich (the mayor of Anchorage) has defeated one of the giants in the US Senate by a 3,724-vote margin, a stunning end to a 40-year Senate career marred by Stevens' conviction on corruption charges a week before the election.' It's probably too early to tell what this means for Internet regulation, but at least there's a gt; 0 chance that the next committee chair will understand something about the Net."pa href="http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/19/0351224amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/19/0351224"/a/ppa href="http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/19/0351224amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/KuFWk2IDOoNZN7aF0LKKJeSi_3E/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/KuFWk2IDOoNZN7aF0LKKJeSi_3E/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/hTdCHKPwauI" height="1" width="1"/

eldavojohn writes "From delaying Project Constellation to an additional $2 billion in funding, Space.com looks at some immediate decisions the President Elect will have to make once he takes office in January. The biggest one will be the shuttle plan: do we retire the shuttle fleet or keep it on for more missions? If it is retired, we would have to rely on another country to bring our astronauts into space between 2010 and 2015 as a new fleet is built. Will Obama hold true on his $2 billion pledge to NASA?"pa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/14/153249amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/14/153249"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/14/153249amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/KD4XQh5sP1TwChltcpTuoQVz6aY/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/KD4XQh5sP1TwChltcpTuoQVz6aY/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/2D9UjzxdtJw" height="1" width="1"/

An anonymous reader points out a story on the Irish Times that says "the Irish government is looking for ways to combat 'cyber-bullying' after data indicated that a significant percentage of young children are subjected to this kind of abuse via their mobile phone and popular social network accounts. The industry has been asked to come up with solutions for this problem and a government office is due to publish a guide on the issue in the near future. Surely this is a problem faced by children in all developed countries these days." Add "for the children" to the list of reasons to track the Web-site habits of mobile web users in Ireland.pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/14/0230256amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/14/0230256"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/14/0230256amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/w4scMSwsvCrRwdaeqAm9NUWINig/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/w4scMSwsvCrRwdaeqAm9NUWINig/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/0qX9RPiJxh4" height="1" width="1"/

gyrogeerloose writes "In a column in Saturday's San Diego Union Tribune, Peter Rowe makes a connection between the popularity of horror movie genres and the political party in the White House. A Republican administration presides over a period of zombie movies while a Democrat in the Oval Office brings on a cycle of vampire movies. Why? Possibly because the two genres 'are really competing parables about class warfare.' Hmmmm, maybe. On the other hand, it might just be a coincidence." Socialists are best represented by lycanthropes, and the Libertarians are most closely tied to any sort of horror from space.pa href="http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/10/1813234amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/10/1813234"/a/ppa href="http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/10/1813234amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/mpruAY5DZhTWkbxTqhM3OyMYkqk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/mpruAY5DZhTWkbxTqhM3OyMYkqk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/kTzcRoTCI24" height="1" width="1"/

narcberry writes "After complaints of one-sided reporting, the Washington Post checked their own articles and agreed. Obama was clearly favored, throughout his campaign, in terms of more favorable articles, less criticism, better page real-estate, more pictures, and total disregard for problems such as his drug use. 'Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Reporters, photographers and editors found the candidacy of Obama, the first African American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic. Journalists love the new; McCain, 25 years older than Obama, was already well known and had more scars from his longer career in politics. The number of Obama stories since Nov. 11 was 946, compared with McCain's 786. Both had hard-fought primary campaigns, but Obama's battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton was longer, and the numbers reflect that. McCain clinched the GOP nomination on March 4, three months before Obama won his. From June 4 to Election Day, the tally was Obama, 626 stories, and McCain, 584. Obama was on the front page 176 times, McCain, 144 times; 41 stories featured both.'"pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/10/1243222amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/10/1243222"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/10/1243222amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/LMUugs9-rwrhDvrIRCI3lYC5Nxo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/LMUugs9-rwrhDvrIRCI3lYC5Nxo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/ItecJLch3Qc" height="1" width="1"/

Geek Satire writes "Politics breeds cynicism; politicians seem to pander to contradictory focus groups to get elected, then break their promises to everyone. Mass mailings and faxings overwhelm their staffs, and who knows if you can tell your representatives what you really think? Experienced techie and political consultant Silona Bonewald (creator of the Transparent Federal Budget) believes that simple software solutions can fix these problems and more. O'Reilly News recently discussed with her how social software can improve democracy and leadership."pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/09/1247236amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/09/1247236"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/09/1247236amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/lAGir1iwDZcPYVKJQyhiVrm16N4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/lAGir1iwDZcPYVKJQyhiVrm16N4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/MzbddTMipzg" height="1" width="1"/

jbpisio writes with a link to this blog-post summary that the Canadian government has commissioned a pair of unmanned subs to explore the geology of two underwater Arctic mountain ranges; the subs' mission will be to provide evidence supporting Canada's claim to huge swaths of potentially petroleum-rich seabed areas. According to the linked article, "The submersibles, scheduled to be launched in 2010, would be sent on a series of 400-kilometer missions north and west of Ellesmere Island, Canada's northernmost land mass and the country's gateway to the open Arctic Ocean mdash; the scene of an international power struggle over undersea territory and petroleum resources believed to be worth trillions of dollars." At least five countries (besides Canada, these are the US, Russia, Denmark and Norway) would like a slice of those trillions.pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/09/0827205amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/09/0827205"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/09/0827205amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/HeqHqWVsxPXSqPQlkNgEdQrug_I/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/HeqHqWVsxPXSqPQlkNgEdQrug_I/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/2Fz8OkY0OI8" height="1" width="1"/

CurtMonash writes "Barack Obama promised to appoint the United States' first Chief Technology Officer. Naturally, the blogosphere is full of discussion as to who that should be. I favor American Management Systems founder and former IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti. Richard Koman thinks it should be one of the better state CTOs. John Doerr, going in a different direction, thinks it should be his partner Bill Joy. We can bandy names back and forth all month, but first a more fundamental question needs to be answered: What do we need most mdash; a get-things-done CIO (Chief Information Officer), or a more visionary true CTO? I think it's a CIO, and based on his campaign statements it appears Obama agrees. Management of government IT is a huge, generally unsolved problem, and we need somebody deeply experienced to have a fighting chance. Of course, that doesn't preclude recruiting a visionary CTO in addition, but the highest priority is a CIO. What do you think?"pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/08/078245amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/08/078245"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/08/078245amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/BDpOrC0c1q4dhi790oORKfCmG1A/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/BDpOrC0c1q4dhi790oORKfCmG1A/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/GpicWAAt_zs" height="1" width="1"/

Geek Satire writes "Voting works only if you believe your vote gets counted accurately. The 2008 US elections have avoided many well-known problems of the 2004 and 2000 elections, but many problems remain. O'Reilly News interviewed Dr. Barbara Simons, advisor to the Federal Election Assistance Commission, to review electronic voting in the 2008 US elections, discussing the physical security of storing and maintaining election machines, the move from electronic back to paper ballots, and why open source voting machines don't necessarily solve problems of bugs, backdoors, and audits."pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/07/2347244amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/07/2347244"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/07/2347244amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/42ls13PIgxA7apJqVJQ3l0F1fCI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/42ls13PIgxA7apJqVJQ3l0F1fCI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/i-y3tkmiuEo" height="1" width="1"/

mallumax writes "Obama has launched Change.gov. According to the site 'Change.gov provides resources to better understand the transition process and the decisions being made as part of it. It also offers an opportunity to be heard about the challenges our country faces and your ideas for tackling them. The Obama Administration will reflect an essential lesson from the success of the Obama campaign: that people united around a common purpose can achieve great things.' The site is extensive and contains Obama's agenda for economy and education among many others. They first define the problem and then lay out the plan. Everything is in simple English without a trace of Washington-speak. The site also has details about the transition. According to many sources, Obama's transition efforts started months ago. The copyright for the content is held by 'Obama-Biden Transition Project, a 501c(4) organization'."pa href="http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/07/1554236amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/07/1554236"/a/ppa href="http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/07/1554236amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/wL1bOoO2QQHtm2FvkmQe6keb53g/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/wL1bOoO2QQHtm2FvkmQe6keb53g/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/aowAXqaUwyU" height="1" width="1"/

The New York Times reports that Craigslist has reached an agreement with 40 state attorneys general to tame its notoriously unruly "erotic services" listings. Clever diplomacy: according to the article, Craigslist "said that it will charge erotic services vendors a small fee for each ad mdash; about $10, Mr. Buckmaster said mdash; and require that they use a credit card for the payment. It will donate the money to charities that combat child exploitation and human trafficking. This, theoretically, will let the company confirm not just a phone number but also an identity." I hope they work on cleaning the weird spammers from the ordinary personal ads, too.pa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/06/230254amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/06/230254"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/06/230254amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/JcFidgS72aWNWxgeWukgCdWWFNE/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/JcFidgS72aWNWxgeWukgCdWWFNE/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/L9xcLrV7KAs" height="1" width="1"/

jddeluxe writes "In an article in today's NY Times, John Doerr of Kleiner-Perkins proffered up Bill Joy's name when queried by Barack Obama for a recommendation for the position of Chief Technology Officer of the Unites States which Obama has promised to create and that the country is overdue to have. I think that's a brilliant idea, and while you're at it, have the FCC report to him as well, why don't you?" If Bill is unavailable, I'll throw my hat in the ring, although I'm holding out for Secretary of Tubes.pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/06/1323256amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/06/1323256"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/06/1323256amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/7JBjzpdjjM7C_ttx1vmGoXy4dFc/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/7JBjzpdjjM7C_ttx1vmGoXy4dFc/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/uoZQ2iuwb_w" height="1" width="1"/

dunezone writes "As the election ends, news is coming out from both campaigns on what happened behind closed doors. During the summer, the Obama campaign had their systems hacked, but so did McCain mdash; and not by each other, but by a third party. '... both the FBI and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand," an agent told Obama's team. "You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system." The following day, Obama campaign chief David Plouffe heard from White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, to the same effect: "You have a real problem ... and you have to deal with it." The Feds told Obama's aides in late August that the McCain campaign's computer system had been similarly compromised.'" Also from the article: "Officials at the FBI and the White House told the Obama campaign that they believed a foreign entity or organization sought to gather information on the evolution of both camps' policy positions mdash; information that might be useful in negotiations with a future administration."pa href="http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/05/221222amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/05/221222"/a/ppa href="http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/05/221222amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/BYLOPjCZKeXIbODnn-b2Nqe4S0I/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/BYLOPjCZKeXIbODnn-b2Nqe4S0I/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/Vw1SVxCN2sM" height="1" width="1"/

Last night, around 11pm, all the major networks announced that Senator Barack Obama had won the election. Soon after, Senator McCain conceded. There were no crazy partisan court hearings, just a simple election. This is your chance to talk about it and what it means for the future of our nation.pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/05/134208amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/05/134208"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/05/134208amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/sEBDvFtveA2oUlMW4QcGiQ5iGiQ/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/sEBDvFtveA2oUlMW4QcGiQ5iGiQ/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/U-rWCf2mm7Y" height="1" width="1"/

An anonymous reader writes "Diebold Inc. and its subsidiary, Premier Election Solutions, is using Ghostscript in its electronic election systems even though Diebold and PES 'have not been granted a license to modify, copy, or distribute any of Artifex's copyrighted works,' Artifex claims in court papers filed late last month in US District Court for Northern California. The gs-devel list first brought up the possible GPL violation a year ago."pa href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/04/205236amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/04/205236"/a/ppa href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/04/205236amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/MTMeRXROA5TYWivgcG1Sj_BiKZQ/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/MTMeRXROA5TYWivgcG1Sj_BiKZQ/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/7PvCPCA6_UE" height="1" width="1"/

miller60 writes "News sites and political blogs are expecting extraordinary traffic tonight as Americans track results of the Presidential election, and are scaling their infrastructure to meet the challenge. Yahoo anticipates its Election Night traffic may be three times the volume seen in 2004, when it had 80 million page views on Election Day and 142 million more visits the following day. Hosting companies say customers have been ordering extra servers and load balancing services, while content delivery networks are also expecting a busy night. Will traffic approach record levels? Akamai's Net Usage Index, which tracks traffic to its customer news sites, is one metric to watch."pa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/04/1548228amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/04/1548228"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/04/1548228amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/7xP8QNLQ3MedVYe2XdHKkQcWuuE/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/7xP8QNLQ3MedVYe2XdHKkQcWuuE/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/4aFxT9yl1vI" height="1" width="1"/

We made it. It's election day. Tomorrow we'll know. So for today's election discussion story, I'm throwing it wide open: let's discuss the election itself. Who are your picks and why. And also what about your actual experience voting today? Did Diebold eat your vote or did everything go off without flaw?pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/04/1339253amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/04/1339253"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/04/1339253amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/Mp5ChxEWwA1UW7vPGXdjZIJQ3yo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/Mp5ChxEWwA1UW7vPGXdjZIJQ3yo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/nRsA7tEtbUI" height="1" width="1"/

In 24 hours, many of you will be able to vote. So as we come down to the wire, this is really our last chance to talk about the issues. We've already discussed Health Care, the War, and the Economy. Today I'm opening up the floor to discuss education. Perhaps no other issue will matter more in 50 years. Which candidate will make the next generation smarter?pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/03/1312242amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/03/1312242"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/03/1312242amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/7oEJUHR4EU-ebCicKwmzwX7cccQ/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/7oEJUHR4EU-ebCicKwmzwX7cccQ/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/4rUhavS8rHY" height="1" width="1"/

An anonymous reader tips a piece from the UK's Daily Mail that recounts another sad tale of the careless loss of massive amounts of private user data. "Ministers have been forced to order an emergency shutdown of a key Government computer system to protect millions of people's private details. The action was taken after a memory stick was found in a pub car park containing confidential passcodes to the online Government Gateway system, which covers everything from tax returns to parking tickets. An urgent investigation is now under way into how the stick, belonging to the company which runs the flagship system, came to be lost."pa href="http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/03/0256203amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/03/0256203"/a/ppa href="http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/03/0256203amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/Ef3RXrojCvMjrN2zqblp3mJ15Es/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/Ef3RXrojCvMjrN2zqblp3mJ15Es/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/QAkE3CWgWr4" height="1" width="1"/

Mr. Slippery writes "Think hanging chads, illegal purges of the voter rolls, and insecure voting machines are bad? The New Yorker looks back at how we used to vote back in the good old days: 'A man carrying a musket rushed at him. Another threw a brick, knocking him off his feet. George Kyle picked himself up and ran. He never did cast his vote. Nor did his brother, who died of his wounds. The Democratic candidate for Congress, William Harrison, lost to the American Party's Henry Winter Davis. Three months later, when the House of Representatives convened hearings into the election, whose result Harrison contested, Davis's victory was upheld on the ground that any "man of ordinary courage" could have made his way to the polls.' Now I feel like a wuss for complaining about the lack of a voter-verified paper trail." The article notes the American penchant for trying to fix voting problems with technology mdash; starting just after the Revolution. This country didn't use secret ballots, an idea imported from Australia, until quite late in the 19th century.pa href="http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/02/204204amp;from=rss"img src="http://politics.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/11/02/204204"/a/ppa href="http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/02/204204amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/f1nuFoyv1QjKRPcSaxG7SAgKTIM/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/f1nuFoyv1QjKRPcSaxG7SAgKTIM/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics/~4/S2vRZM6Gfwk" height="1" width="1"/