Checking on your vote (USA centric)

Patch Lady Susan here with a bit of an off-topic post.  Being in a country that lets all individual states run their own elections means that there’s no set rules across the country to check if your vote has been counted.  Where I live (smoky and a bit orange) Central California, I can use a web site called Ballottrax.com to track that my vote has been counted.  Specifically in the state of California I can go to this web site on the Secretary of State site and sign up to be alerted when my ballot is sent to me and when they receive my ballot back.

After listening to the Blackhat presentations on election security I am convinced that electronic voting is NOT the way to go.  You want to make sure there is a paper trail and the ability to audit the vote, but with something more direct and confirmable than hanging chads 😉

Here are some resources to know more information about voting in the upcoming elections:

Turbovote has a site to help you get to your State’s resources.  From there you can check to see if your state allows you to check to see if you are registered, and if available, you can sign up to get email alerts about the acceptance of your ballot.  Vote411.org is put out by the League of Women Voters so you can check when and where to sign up to vote and the issues on the ballot.

The bad guys are REALLY trying to get into accounts having to do with the UK and USA elections.  And they are really using social media to sway and influence.  One of the suggestions I’ve heard of recently to get a different view regarding the issues is to go outside of your own country and read the media from another country and see what they say about the elections in your country.  I’m personally a fan of reviewing the actual language of the bills and propositions on the ballots and ignore any radio or television commercial regarding an issue.

Regardless of your views, I urge you to step away from the dollars being thrown at this election and go back to deciding the issues the old fashioned way:  Read the ballot.  Read the propositions you have to vote on.  Read the words of the candidates rather than listening to them.  Often reading the plain boring words allows you to see through the ….uh…. fluff on both sides and get a clearer picture of the issues and what you need to vote on.  Use resources like the League of Women Voters or other non partisan sites that you trust to give you an unbiased viewpoint.  Get ready to turn off the television and the social media in the next few weeks and do your own research.  A LOT of money is going to be spent in the next few months to sway you.  I challenge all of us to make sure that all of this money is a waste of funds and that you will make up your mind with good old fashioned minds made up with good old fashioned research on the issues.

To anyone in the way of the fires or dealing with the smoke, stay safe and take care.