Untitled Document
Please Guys, Flip a Coin!
Choosing a new president in the United States has become
a more difficult process than expected. When this Cursor went
to press, all the votes were still not counted. The result of
the foreign ballot is expected to be in by Saturday. We talked
to a few Americans at TU/e about the experience of voting from
the Netherlands. Many of the people we called were travelling,
some of them in the United States. This is what the people we
could reach said.
Lost Ballot
Dr. Dennis Ternet is a post-doc at Mechanical Engineering. A native
of California, his vote was to go to George W. Bush. However,
his ballot didn't arrive in time for him to take part in the elections.
"They lost my ballot in the mail, it arrived on the day of
the elections. At the time I didn't think much of it, I talked
to others who got their ballots in time. Now I think this is only
part of the whole mess we're seeing now in the States. People
in election offices are just volunteers, they're mostly old folks
with not much else to do. Now all these little mistakes turn out
to be quite serious. It's a big headache. What should they do
now? I say, please guys, just flip a coin. Let's not get into
any legal battles. That'll only make things worse."
Florida Count
Dr.ir. Kevin Caskey from Washington State has been teaching in
the Netherlands for the last five years at TU Enschede and TU
Eindhoven. At the moment he is in Florida with a group of Dutch
MBA students, visiting a number of American companies. During
the five years he has spent in the Netherlands, he has always
made a point of voting in the USA, both in federal, state and
city elections. A long-time democrat, he waved goodbye to his
Dutch wife Inge Hadema saying they would know who the next President
was by the time they next talked on the phone. After that, they
decided they'd know who he would be by the time he got home. Now,
they're not sure if they'll know by Christmas. "At home,
we were joking that he must have been asked to help count votes,"
says Inge Hadema.
"It's exciting to be here," Caskey comments from his
hotel in Florida. "Both the vote for the president and the
vote for the senate in my home state of Washington are still undecided.
Apparently the old tabulating machines make more mistakes than
people counting by hand."
"The elections are all people are talking about. Every time
I tune in to local or national TV news, it's the same thing. My
Dutch students said yesterday that people here are as enthusiastic
about politics as the Dutch would be for a big match between Ajax
and Feijenoord. To me it makes more sense to be enthusiastic about
politics than about sports. The people in the government are spending
your money, after all."
Since moving to the Netherlands professor Caskey has also become
a Dutch national. "I look forward to voting in the next elections.
To me it seems strange that there is no district system in the
Netherlands. The whole government could be from one neighbourhood
in Amsterdam and it would be perfectly legal."
Mechanical Failure
Prof. Graham Sharman, a part-time professor at TU/e teaching Supply
Chain Management, said he voted by post in the state of New Mexico.
He handed in his ballot for the presidential elections at the
consulate with no apparent mishaps. "The problem in the States
is one of technology. Every county picks their own equipment,
all of it's mechanical. Some of the tabulating machines are at
least twenty years old. Although most of the machines probably
still work, the equipment obviously needs to be replaced. So I'm
not condemning the whole system. This is just an accident really.
There are almost never two practically equal presidential candidates."/.
