Grinning Cat's definitions
"Infernal Revenue Service", how many Americans feel about the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. federal tax collection agency.
Legend has it that IRS employees scrutinize handwritten envelopes containing tax returns, and any addressed to the "Infernal" Revenue Service are flagged for audits.
by Grinning Cat April 18, 2008
Get the IRS mug.A device that records the choices of voters in an election. It can take several forms:
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1. A mechanical device, where the voter flips small levers next to the candidates' names to indicate their choices, then pulls a big lever to record the votes. Considered very difficult to hack.
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2. A direct-recording electronic (DRE) machine. May print vote totals on paper, but there is no way for a voter to verify that his/her votes were accurately recorded. Unlike mechanical voting machines, DRE machines are extremely vulnerable to fraud and malware that can steal a percentage of votes, reassigning them to the rigged candidate.
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3. An electronic machine that lets the voter make choices, then PRINTS AN ACTUAL FILLED-OUT PAPER BALLOT, which the voter can review and either discard (and start over) or cast. THE PAPER BALLOT IS THE OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE VOTE.
Ballots can be quickly counted by optical scanning technology. (Voters could also choose to fill in a blank ballot by hand.) Importantly, ballots can be RECOUNTED, by hand if necessary.
Counts from the voting machines need not be trusted as anything more than quick estimates or "exit polls". This scheme makes it difficult to commit the large-scale fraud so easy to do invisibly with paperless DRE machines.
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1. A mechanical device, where the voter flips small levers next to the candidates' names to indicate their choices, then pulls a big lever to record the votes. Considered very difficult to hack.
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2. A direct-recording electronic (DRE) machine. May print vote totals on paper, but there is no way for a voter to verify that his/her votes were accurately recorded. Unlike mechanical voting machines, DRE machines are extremely vulnerable to fraud and malware that can steal a percentage of votes, reassigning them to the rigged candidate.
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3. An electronic machine that lets the voter make choices, then PRINTS AN ACTUAL FILLED-OUT PAPER BALLOT, which the voter can review and either discard (and start over) or cast. THE PAPER BALLOT IS THE OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE VOTE.
Ballots can be quickly counted by optical scanning technology. (Voters could also choose to fill in a blank ballot by hand.) Importantly, ballots can be RECOUNTED, by hand if necessary.
Counts from the voting machines need not be trusted as anything more than quick estimates or "exit polls". This scheme makes it difficult to commit the large-scale fraud so easy to do invisibly with paperless DRE machines.
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A number of Diebold electronic voting machines have been in the news, first for criminally incompetent software and database design, leaving vote records wide open to undetectable tampering, more recently for vulnerability to "computer virus" style malware that can spread from machine to machine through the data cards used to collect voting data.
Making such electronic voting machines widespread is the perfect way to lay the groundwork for large-scale, invisible voter fraud.
There's plenty of information on this on the Web. A good place to start: the Coalition for Voting Integrity, www.coalitionforvotingintegrity.org .
Making such electronic voting machines widespread is the perfect way to lay the groundwork for large-scale, invisible voter fraud.
There's plenty of information on this on the Web. A good place to start: the Coalition for Voting Integrity, www.coalitionforvotingintegrity.org .
by Grinning Cat April 18, 2008
Get the voting machine mug.Voting for fewer candidates than the number of open positions. Electronic voting machines usually highlight undervotes to remind the voter that they can choose to vote for more people.
There were ten people running for five City Council at-large seats, but I only cared about electing two. Because this was an undervote, the voting machine kept flashing a red light in that section of the ballot, but I didn't choose any more names.
by Grinning Cat April 18, 2008
Get the undervote mug.Someone who cluelessly increases the noise-to-signal ratio on Urban Dictionary with hundreds of useless entries.
"1. Figga
A fake ass Nigga
All this Figgaz wanna fuck with a real Nigga like me."
What the fuck is this shit, and who's the fuckwit that wrote it?
(Definition adapted from, and example by, SonOfSamus)
A fake ass Nigga
All this Figgaz wanna fuck with a real Nigga like me."
What the fuck is this shit, and who's the fuckwit that wrote it?
(Definition adapted from, and example by, SonOfSamus)
by Grinning Cat January 31, 2017
Get the fuckwit mug.How you might feel when you want to use a word in conversation that you're familiar with in reading and writing, you know perfectly well what it means, but you've never heard it spoken, and have no idea how to pronounce it.
"It doesn't matter how many times you click on Font Color. Changing red text to red again won't make a difference. It's eye-dem-... id-em-..." (thinking, "How the *$%^& do you pronounce 'idempotent'??? Guess that makes me eye-literate.")
by Grinning Cat November 4, 2016
Get the eye-literate mug.A congresswoman or congressman: an elected official who serves in the House of Representatives, the lower house of the United States Congress. "Congresscritters" can also, loosely, include U.S. Senators. The term is gender-neutral, and also attempts to remove these elected representatives from their pedestals.
"Writing to your congresscritters about an issue may seem pointless, but when enough people -- you and your friends and their friends and THEIR friends -- make their voices heard, the congresscritters will realize that their chances of reelection ARE affected by doing the right thing."
by Grinning Cat January 5, 2009
Get the congresscritter mug."I believe... that all things on this earth were created... by GOD!
And I don't mean Jesus. And I don't mean Buddha. And I don't mean Allah.
And I don't mean some general god that we can all rally around and believe in.
I mean my god, my town, and my church.
My god is a fire-breathing lobster who lives behind the rings of Saturn.
And his name is Jibbers Crabst."
(Matt Inman, keynote speaker at BAHFest West 2014)
And I don't mean Jesus. And I don't mean Buddha. And I don't mean Allah.
And I don't mean some general god that we can all rally around and believe in.
I mean my god, my town, and my church.
My god is a fire-breathing lobster who lives behind the rings of Saturn.
And his name is Jibbers Crabst."
(Matt Inman, keynote speaker at BAHFest West 2014)
by Grinning Cat April 7, 2015
Get the Jibbers Crabst mug.