Word: processing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...machines were the steam engines of democracy, weighty and expensive. It was at the peak of their popularity, in 1964, that nimble cardboard punch cards arrived, trailing instant prestige as descendants from the same tabulating process used by the computers of that day. They were also cheaper than the old machines, which meant localities could buy more of them to reduce long lines at polling places. By now the punch cards are the most common election device, used by 34% of voters, and the old machines have gone out of production...
...most comforting feeling when you had to do a recount with punch cards," says Gardner. "We often had to decide how much light going through a tear would be enough to rule that it was a vote for the candidate. Even some winning candidates just felt bad about the process...
...someone else decide is made on their behalf by mutual-fund and pension-fund managers. Obviously, huge blocks of votes are easier to count than individual ballots. Only the government would think to insist that every voter cast his or her own individual ballot, thereby making the process of counting them so needlessly onerous and prone to error...
...that reputation that has shaped how he is operating in the chaos of Israel's current political disequilibrium. In the blink of an eye, Israel has gone from a land pregnant with hope for peace to a place where proponents of the peace process have been all but discredited. Sharon maintains he is in favor of peace talks, but mildly says his version would continue "down a different line from all those leftists who never saw the horrors of real war like I did." In practice, that would mean pressing Arafat much harder--particularly on the issue of controlling extremists...
...weeks last month, Sharon and Barak haggled over the idea of an emergency coalition between left and right--something Israelis call a national-unity government. Barak wanted Sharon included to bolster his minority government. But Sharon set out to exact a high price, demanding a veto over peace-process issues. Barak's team wavered. Two weeks ago, Sharon's chief negotiator, Likud legislator Meir Sheetrit, demanded a decision. "Let's cut the bulls___," he remembers saying. "I want to do a deal on the veto item." Barak wasn't playing. The next day the Prime Minister moved...