What a refreshing place

I have only briefly visited the Election Reform Forum in the past - usually when things have heated up over the issue, such as right after the 2004 election. As with many DU'ers who can't spend a ton of time on the boards, I often just pop in for the news, see what's happening on the Greatest Threads page, and perhaps briefly browse the General Discussion board.

Due to the recent events in New Hampshire, I felt obliged to post my opinions regarding the situation, and ended up posting these in General Discussion. Seemed like the logical place at the time, because the issue was top-of-the-pile stuff. Amazingly, two of these posts actually made it to the Greatest Threads page, probably due to the heated nature of the debate over the subject, and not so much due to the original posts.

Both of these threads (and some other, less recommended posts I made) were moved from GD into the Election Reform forum, where they more rightfully belong, I guess. So I started frequenting this forum to keep up on the comments in the threads.

I was amazed at the civility of the forum. People are respectful of each other, and avoid personal attacks. Yes, there are some nasty comments in the forum, but many of these were dragged in from other forums when threads were relocated. There seems to be an unwritten rule (or maybe it IS written) to try to stick with the facts (the best one knows them) and stay away from personal insults.

My hat is off to the people and the mods of the Election Reform forum. Keep up the good work!

In general, perhaps in the other forums, if we try to stick with the facts (the best we know them) things might get more civil. As Joe Friday on Dragnet used to say, "Just the facts, Ma'am". Now I'm not the best at refusing to take the bait on personal insults and lashing back, but perhaps if we choose to ignore them, or perhaps just comment that they are not relevant to the discussion at hand, then things might calm down a bit. Who knows?

:)

I appreciate the ER forum because it reminds me of all the times I sat with smarter people and learned something.

lol

As compared to the primary battles of GD and GDP, you are correct. It can be fairly civil 'round here.

That said, we are no strangers to dusts ups, be it over the idea of exit polls as proof of anything, the Holt bill, HCPB (Hand Counted Paper Ballots), or Bev Harris.

Still I'm glad you've found the forum appealing.

You also point out correctly, we're at our best when we stick to facts.

Well, welcome to ER. Stick around and get to know the place; learn a thing or two. Get involved in election integrity; most of the regulars here are/were/or want to be.

But for the civility part, everyone's on their good behavior because we're not used to having company, and we're getting a little news exposure of electronic voting system issues and problems. If you stick around though, be prepared to either don your ninja warrior outfit, put your popcorn at the ready or flee for your life NOW!

Don't quite believe me? Conduct a few searches of the ER archive with the following keywords:

WARNING: USE OF THE FOLLOWING WORDS IN ER POSTS MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR SENSE OF SELF WORTH.

"Bev Harris"
HCPB, audits
"the Holt Bill"
Mitofski, 2004, "exit polls"


From those searches, in addition to buttery fingers, you'll get a good education of the problems we face trying to regain a semblance of democracy and the urgent need for election integrity. As for the facts, we do argue the facts here a lot.

Again, welcome! :hi:

Oh, BTW, ER is a smilicon safe zone.