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April 8th
Good morning,
I hope your first two days back went well. Thank you to all of you who emailed me back the past two days. As I stated in my email on Monday I am going to use my class website to communicate and hold our virtual classes. So each day of class there will be a class link that you can click on to enter the class discussion. There I will be able to explain some new concepts, ask questions and will allow you to participate with feed back and ask questions you might have about the topic we are discussing.
On Monday and Tuesday classes of each week new material will be posted that you can watch, read or take the self assesments to see how you are doing. Wednesday and Thursday classes we will have online disucssion to talk about what you learned. These live discussion will also give you a chance to ask questions or get clearification on something you are not clear on.
To join the class discussion you just need to click on your classes link below. In order to participate in the discussions you will need to be logged into your class account. If you do not remember the account login or password, you can email me and I will send them to you.
Today’s topic will centered around Campaign Ads. We will be looking at some political ads of the past elections. We were just starting this before we left school.
If you have questions you would like to ask me, but do not want to ask it in the class discussion, please email me and I will answer your questions.
Mr. Montano
Click on your class to enter the group discussion.
| Mon/Wed | Thu/Fri |
| 2A – AP US Government | 1B – US Governmnet |
| 3A – US Governmnet | 2B – US Governmnet |
| 4A – US Governmnet |
Source: US Government Class
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2A – AP Government – 04-08
Welcome to our online class today. If you are joining the discussion please let the group know who is your favorite music group/artist.
Source: US Government Class
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It’s Time for Online Voting
Given what is going on and the fact that we are in the middle of a presidential election, there are questions about how the current situation might impact the upcoming presidential election. There has been questions if the next primary in Wisconsoin will still take place. Beyond that, everything is up in the air. The million dollar question is: Could the presidential election be postponed in November? Keep in mind that the Congress gets to determine the day/date of the presidential elections. Here is a link to read more about this.
So what do you think? Should we consider online voting for the next presidential election?
New York Times (Opinion)
Using blockchain technology, online voting could boost voter participation and help restore the public’s trust in the electoral process and democracy.
The key weakness of early online voting systems was the inability to solve what cryptographers called the “double spend problem.” When we send a file on the internet, we’re actually sending a copy of that file; the original remains in our possession. This is acceptable for sharing information but unacceptable for recording votes in elections. The possibility that individuals could cast their ballots multiple times for a candidate made these systems useless — just as vulnerable as paper ballot systems. Points of failure included susceptibility to hackers, coding bugs, and human error. With enough resources, any rogue could “stuff” a digital ballot box with illegitimate votes.
The good news is that building a workable, scalable, and inclusive online voting system is now possible, thanks to blockchain technologies. A blockchain is a peer-to-peer network for exchanging anything of value, from stocks, money, intellectual property, and, yes, votes. In a blockchain-based system, public trust in the voting process is achieved not by faith in one single institution, but through cryptography, code, and collaboration among citizens, government agencies, and other stakeholders.
Traditionally in elections, trust is concentrated in the hands of state and federal agencies and other civic institutions, which are prone to hacking, fraud, or human error (think the Democratic National Committee, the Election Assistance Commission, or the California Department of Motor Vehicles). On a blockchain, a distributed network of computers works to verify transactions, with batches of them ordered and recorded in blocks. Each block is linked cryptographically to the preceding block, forming a secure chain or ledger that anyone in the network can see but no single entity can hack or manipulate.
An attacker who wanted to spend the same dollar twice or cast the same vote twice would need to take command of 51% of the computers in the network simultaneously and rewrite the entire history of each dollar or vote on the blockchain in a short time frame, which is exceedingly difficult. Since the network is widely distributed, it could survive a natural disaster or an attack on critical infrastructure. Thus, blockchain prevents double-spending, enabling us to run secure, trustworthy online transactions including voting.
In elections run on blockchains, citizens use digital voter IDs to prove who they are. Each digital ID is unique to each person, cryptographically secured with a private key (a unique password) on the person’s device, and made up of multiple data points, or factors: proofs of residence and citizenship, biometric data, and voter registration, to name a few. Citizens open their app with their thumbprints or retinal scans and then cast their vote with their private key. The more data points used to create the digital ID, the harder the identity is to replicate and hack. Though voter registration is still required in most states, a robust multi-factor voter ID could eventually replace the registration altogether, as the combination of many data points would make it highly reliable.
As citizens, we can trust the outcome of such a voting system: voters can check the blockchain to verify that their vote was counted correctly, candidates can trust the vote count and election officials can verify and audit the results. Because the system is decentralized, no government or hacker can change the results without immediate detection.
Hackers could still attempt to steal votes — but they’d have to do so one voter at a time, since there is no centralized database to hack — and they couldn’t recast those votes without the corresponding secure voter ID. And, because of the clear chain of custody, citizens could prove that their voting tokens had been stolen. The downside of voting over a blockchain is limited to a delay in the process; to address this, governments could grant each citizen a backup voting token as an added precaution.
Blockchain voting achieves privacy for the individual and improves transparency for the system as a whole. Voting systems will be less costly, more efficient, and more accessible while eliminating most, if not all, opportunities for suppression, fraud, or sham charges of fraud. To be fully inclusive and ensure that citizens who lack internet access can still vote, paper ballots can remain an alternative.
Several start-ups such as Follow My Vote and Voatz are developing blockchain-based solutions for online voting. At the Blockchain Research Institute, we studied the Cleveland-based Votem. Its clients, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the National Radio Hall of Fame, deployed Votem’s mobile voting applications successfully in selecting inductees. Votem authenticated each voter’s identity, provided a chain of custody, and proved itself fast, secure, auditable, and convenient.
Absentee ballots offer a perfect test for blockchain-based mobile voting in government. This is no small matter: Hundreds of thousands of eligible voters live or serve overseas every election, and they face high hurdles to democratic participation. They must remember to vote early, because tens of thousands of absentee ballots arrive too late to be counted. Concerns over security and anonymity decrease online submissions, even when they’re available.
Online voting is not without challenges: Technical standards must be consistent across jurisdictions, and software and hardware would need to be audited regularly. The early days of blockchain-based voting would have growing pains, and election boards would need to test solutions at local and state levels before a national rollout.
West Virginia has built a mobile voting app for absentee voters in the midterm elections. West Virginians serving in the military and their families have already begun casting their ballots through a blockchain-based app on their phone. This makes voting much easier, boosts the trust voters have in the security of the process, and reduces the number of rejected ballots.
There is no shortage of politicians in power who benefit from the inaccessibility, insecurity, or lack of public faith in the electoral process. They have every reason to cast doubt upon, or outright oppose, an improvement in the way elections are run. But with the benefits of blockchain-based online voting so clear, citizens should insist that voters’ interests come first.
Alex Tapscott is Co-Founder of the Blockchain Research Institute and a former member of the Elections Canada Advisory Board.
Source: US Government Class
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April 6, 2020
04-06-20
Good morning! Today is the first day of a school experience that you can say with certainty that you parents, grandparents or anyone else you can think of has ever experienced.
By now you should have received an email from Mr. Payne about the plans for the high school as we move forward. If you have not received an email I am going to include a link below to the email Mr. Payne sent last week.
The biggest question for most is how will grades be determined. Your semester grade will determined by the following:
Grades
- All grades for this semester (S2) will appear on your transcript as a Pass (P) or No Credit (NC).
A-F grades and percentages will not appear on your transcript. P/NC grades do not affect your GPA, but credits with a P count toward graduation. - Your Quarter 3 (Q3) grade will determine your P/NC grade for the semester.
If you were passing at the end of Q3, you will earn a P for S2. If you were failing, you will earn a NC. Teachers will not be entering grades in Q4. [Dual credit classes are an exception – see below] - If you received an “F” for Q3, you have a chance (and are expected to) do make up work (credit recovery) to pass.
Teachers will have options for students to make up work from Q3. The only graded work entered into PowerSchool will be on assignments students are redoing to recover credit in Q3.
The first thing each student needs to do is to login to PowerSchool and check your Q3 grade. If you had a grade below 60% you need to contact me by email (please use your school email address), so that I can confirm that you are able to receive all group emails sent to the class. If you were passing Q3, I would also ask that you email me to let me know how you are doing and ask any questions that you might want answered.
MOVING FORWARD
So what does the rest of the school look like? What is the schedule? What are the expectations?
The school has set up a schedule for classes to meet virtually. The schedule is the following:
Mon & Weds (A days & 4th) 30 min each
1A: 10:00a – 10:30a
2A: 10:45a – 11:15a
3A: 11:30a – 12:00p
Mid-day break: 12:00p – 12:30p
4A/B: 12:30p – 1:00p
Tue & Thurs (B days)
1B: 10:00a – 10:30a
2B: 10:45a – 11:15a
3B: 11:30a – 12:00p
Fridays (Academic Time / “Office Hours”)
As scheduled by individual teachers between 11:00am and 1:00pm.
As we move forward there will be a few different things going on. First if you were not passing Q3 we will work together and discuss a plan to raise your grade to a passing grade. If your grade was passing at Q3 there will be opportunities to keep you engaged in learning. I hope you will take advantage of these opportunities.
As you know current events have been a big part of the class and a great way to see how the things we are learning are actually present in our day-to-day lives. I will be posting news articles each week, but I am gong to try to post stories that are not centered on COVID-19. This doesn’t mean there wont’ be any articles about what is going on, I just think that we could all use a break from the daily news, updates, and projections for a while. I will try to continue to post articles about government in action and relevant to what we have and will be covering in the next few weeks.
The plan moving forward is to communicate through emails sent to the class and the use of the class website. I will be posting updates on the class website, current event articles to read and respond to as well as extended distance learning opportunities. Some of the distance learning opportunities will be, articles, games, videos, online quizzes and other activities.
If you are in my AP US Government class I will be emailing you more information about what we will be doing as we move forward as well as any new information I get from College Board in regards to this years AP tests.
Please email me and let me know how you are doing and to confirm that you did receive this email.
I look forward to hearing from you in the next couple of days.
Stay safe and engaged in your learning.
Mr. Montaño
Click Here to Read: Mr. Payne’s email about moving forward.
Source: US Government Class
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Campaign Ad Styles
If you would like to spend some time watching some old political ads, take a few minutes and complete this assignment. The due date for this assignment will be two days after we return back to school.
ALL WORK COMPLETED during the time we are out of school will count as extra credit or can be substitued for and upcoming assignment or a past assignment that was not turned in.
Source: US Government Class