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PAGE 2 I THE MEREDITH HERALD | NOVEMBER 12. 2008 liiiFi |h«ntd^ar9dith iiHd^ j'i i" j^^^dinneyl ; Mef^Wl|eeman' .1 Copy Editor Erin Huber ^ sciences Teciinology Editor Julia Hputchings Sports Editor Apiffany Gaither Ad tHanager- Danielle Beck; Staff Writers Courtney Ang^ Moipan Ericson^ Caitlin Griffin ' April Rumntage Melissa Santos;^ Kyra Young Contributing «Chel|sea;.Mtu^ i^y bartione: Graphic Designers April Rummage Kyra Young ' Literature Advisor Suzanne Britt Design Advisor Dana Gay The MersdiOi Herald is- ' ; published by the College UiroL^iKHit the academic year The paper is'iuncled'. by Ihe College and through independent advertising. . AH advertlMments'shaiki be^ The c^iora in th'«.^|t^,^:^u[^ do not'! tv) c*^ adnwueaHoo. the policy of tills paper . fBqu|rM.thatMbml»* Mom be mMU torty-eigtit houn before puMcatfon. : aRMri»9 Hn» for comuNi^ Mo'n'^t^Witaff and contrtMlort: (het arocle* not exceed 700 worde;. (hat lettore to the editor r ' not exceed 200 words; ' - ^ and that contributore •Ignai Mbmieelon* end^t' : provide neceeearycontMSt: bifiMnMitfOT. TTw editor^ andetaffweleemei PubH§h9d Ifjf Hhiton Pm» OBAMA, Continued from Page 1 wants to invest $2 billion internally in Iraq to help refugees and dis placed persons. Biden regrets having voted for military force in Iraq in 2002. He co-sponsored a bill in 2007 in which he opposed Bush’s advocacy of troop surge. Education Obama believes in rewarding ac complished teachers and reducing high school dropout rate. He wants to invest $10 billion annually to increase childcare, access to pre schools, and cooperation among all levels of govemment. He also wants to lower the interest of feder al student loans. He supports annual $4,000 tuition credit. Whether or not one agrees with Ba rack Obama’s stance on education, abortion and the environment, and regardless of one’s individual po litical vote for this year’s election, it is important to realize that lead ers from both ends of the spectrum recognize this election is more than a simple political movement. As Congressman John Lewis suggests, Obama has been tracked down by the spirit of history. Oprah has unashamedly ‘un leashed’ herself with post-election specials and screams of joy. And Peggy Noon, a conservative col umnist for the Wall Street Journal, although she voted for McCain, was impressed by Obama’s steady campaign movements in spite of the economic crisis and drama looming around him. According to many, America voted for change on November 4, 2008. Hopefully, the people and Obama’s leadership will be able to produce real results. Only time will tell. ■ VOTING MACHINES: FROM PAPER BALLOTS TO...THE INTERNET? Julia Houtchings Science & Technology Editor |J*TSW- Voting in the United States has come a long way since the found ing of the country, but as innovative as Americans have been, one of the most popular forms of voting, the paper ballot system, actually origi nated in the Australian state of Vic toria in 1856. In 1889, New York became the first state to adopt this system of voting in their statewide elections. Approximately 2% of registered voters in the US still used paper ballots by 1996, generally in rural areas and small communities, but also with absentee ballots. A second type of voting system, often referred to as the “Myers Au tomatic Booth,” was a lever-type machine that was first introduced in Lockport, New York in 1892. By the 1930 elections, nearly every Pholo coutteay Natkmal Museum olAmerican History major city in the United States had installed these machines for voters to use. Nearly half of Americans were voting on lever-type machines by elections during the 1960s. Votes are counted on lever machines simi larly to how a vehicle’s odometer measures mileage - each pull of the lever turns the counter wheel one- tenth of a full rotation. Punchcards are a third type of voting system that has been used within the United States. Fulton and De Kalb Counties in Georgia were the first voting districts to initiate punchcard systems, along with computerized tally machines, during the 1964 elections. The two common types of punchcards are re ferred to as “votomatic” and “data- vote.” For the votomatic cards, each hole where a voter can punch is as signed to a number. With datavote punchcards, each candidate’s name (or issue description - i.e. yes or no for a certain proposition) is printed next to the corresponding hole to be punched on the ballot. A fourth type of voting system used within the United States is the “chad” - as in the voting system used in Florida that spark contro versy across the nation in the 2000 election. “Hanging chad,” anyone? The following information about chads was gleaned from About, com: Inventors: a chad refers to the remaining piece of ballot after vot ers have marked their choices with pins on the punchcards. A “hang ing chad” is when one comer of the chad remains connected to the punchcard. A “swinging chad” re fers to two comers still attached to the ballot. A “tri-chad” means three comers of the chad are still connect ed to the ballot. A “pregnant chad” refers to a chad that is still con nected to all four sides, although the hole is punched through. And lastly, a “dimpled chad” simply means the chad is indented but no clean hole exists. Before you start to think that the four types of voting systems are as advanced as voting has become in the United States, think again. If you were registered to vote in this year’s Presidential Election, partic ularly in Wake County, you should remember the Marksense system of voting, also known as Optical Scan. A Marksense ballot requires voters to fill in an oval, rectangle, circle, or arrow to Indicate the vot er’s choice. After marking the bal lot, voters feed it through a machine that tallies the votes electronically. These machines employ what is known as the “dark mark logic,” where the darkest mark within each section of choices is counted as the voter’s choice for that section. The frequency of this type of voting is increasing dramatically. Last, but certainly not least of the different types of voting systems, is the Direct Recording Electronic. This type of voting systems is the electronic form of lever voting ma chines. There is no ballot; candidate choices are located on the front of the machine and the user selects his/ her choice using touch-screen tech nology or pushing buttons. In the 1996 elections, approximately 8% of voters in the United States used some variation of the Direct Re cording Electronic system. Perhaps the next voting system medium to be conquered is the the World Wide Web, provided that computer network develop ers discover how to keep out those pesky omnipresent hackers... All facts and data were taken from http://inventors.about.com/library/ weekly/aal11300b.htm ■
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