Posted on 01/12/2004 4:54:35 PM PST by GregD
There would then be a hard copy available for verification or for the actual vote count if the electronic system fails
That is a proposal I could easily stand behind, if we could gain concensus from the citizen activists and legislators to embrace it.
I'll counter your suggestion by asking that you come to our site, engage in direct volunteerism, and help us form a combination of thoughts that can be passed into law.
I figure we have until late February to get these bills passed. If they are passed later, it is unlikely that the effective dates will be before Nov 2004. HR2239 and S1980 need to get passed, and when they go to conference, there will be changes negotiated. Interested and informed parties need to band together and submit proposed improvements that get rolled into the bills before their final passage (assuming we can influence this.)
Regardless of who wins in November, remember what Florida 2000 did in terms of how it strained the Nation. These paperless systems could result in such disasters nationwide. I don't look forward to that, and I doubt anyone else does. Please help us get these laws passed early in the new session.
If this issue is important to you, please join us.
At the same time a scantron quality receipt is submitted in triplicate. One for the voter, one for a mutually selected independent master to verify on classic scantron equipment, and the third to be kept by the vote tally folks.
This still doesn't verify that what's printed on the receipt is what was stored on the hard drive or other data base. Anything without a verifiable audit trail, preferably a paper trail, is out as far as I'm concerned.
My wife and I will vote absentee from now on. At least those ballots are on paper.
The reason they were not counted was because these 134 voters didn't push the Vote button when they were done.
Our vote is more valuable than any of those things, and do the machines print anything that allows verification of our votes? Nope, sorry – don’t think so… What? And with no audit trail, be that paper or whatever other technology might be is verifiable in the future, there is no means of verifying the results of an election. If the computer malfunctions, we can’t prove it. If a bug creeps in, we won’t know. Can we do a recount? Absolutely not – all we can do is re-print the same totals that were questioned in the first place.
Q: Who's government is it?
A: It is our government.
Q: Who's responsibility if our "leaders" fail to observe the laws of our land, if other "leaders" fail to force those offenders to uphold the law, or if legislation is created that is not for our common benefit?
A: Personally, I feel that if we wish to live in a country that respects the laws of civil behaviour (including election law), then we need to personally step forward and help "convince" those leaders that only ethical behaviour is acceptible, regardless of party affiliation. If there is a breakdown on either side, it simply motivates others to see that as clearance to act in kind. And by my own efforts, I am making a stand and saying "I DEMAND FAIRLY COUNTED ELECTIONS!"
I seek those of you who agree to join me in passion and mutual determination.
Helping to lead this effort means I spend a lot of time on the phone with volunteers, managing the web site, and other activities (like occasionally sleeping). It also means that I do not spend a lot of time reading and posting to sites, and it is unlikely that you will see me spend a lot of time here (assuming I don't get zotted as you mentioned), and that I remain welcome to post. (If you seek my input, I am easily reached through the web site.)
With that said, I really need people to take a leadership role in this community, with regard to the electronic voting issue. I put in a bit of time in DU trying to lead activism, and make a sincere effort to not apply any partisan slant over there. I use the same screen name if you need to find me. But there are far fewer hours available than are necessary to do this work.
I need help from you who frequent this board, and who care about this issue. We are up against HUGE corporations with way more financial resources than we do, and from past experience they seem uninclined to add the paper trail - we all need to work together to force that change. And to date, the media is doing a mediocre job of covering the issue. CBS covered the breakdown in Virginia (link on my site), but we need more coverage. And until that happens, it means we have to work harder to get the word out. Please, if this is important to you, keep this issue active here in Free Republic. Tell everyone you know, and help us get the bills passed.
If you are in California, there is a critical meeting on Thursday Jan 15 where the next phase of the audit results will be revealed. Sacramento, Sec. of State office, 10AM. I would like to meet you there.
Are you talking about the link from the DHTML flyout menu? That is supposed to open a new browser to the Thomas web site. I keep having trouble with that link for some reason. Thanks for pointing it out.
Another link to that page is here:
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/fair_elections.asp
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In my opinion, the internet and these anonymous message boards (Yahoo for example) has allowed for a fundamental breakdown in social conduct to become the norm. That has been further decayed by the bitter partisan politics that exist in the US today.
If we were sitting in a restaurant, a theater, or a camp site - how would we conduct ourselves? Would be explode into bitter accusations? I know I do not!
We have too much at stake to permit impolite behaviour to impact this issue. We are talking about the core of our democracy - the right to really believe that voting matters. Each American has the right to express their political viewpoints, to elect those who (we perceive to) reflect our personal values, and then we expect those leaders to conduct themselves in our best interests. I need YOUR help to assure that our confidence in those RIGHTS are maintained.
As for zombies, cadavers voting in one district or another, Democrat or Republican - it all has to be cleaned up. As I mentioned in another post above, this whole system is a mess. When we get this problem solved, the next thing to do is to get corporate financing out of our elections. Who the hell invited anyone to corrupt the system, and drive the legislative process based on special interest multi-million dollar donations to campaigns? We need to work together to fix all this stuff. I'm in my 50's, been voting for horrible candidates all my life, and it is time we citizens take back our elections and run things cleanly. You with me?
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One more point. I have (had) a successful web development business before this issue came to my attention. Ellen, another member on our team, earned her living as a self-employed technical writer. Neither of us market our business services any longer, and turn down work regularly. We are each working for free, and living off of our savings. If someone (new or current client) calls about web work, I talk to them about electronic voting. I do that at the risk that I may lose the business.
I am not going to take that level of risk, or make that type of commitment, then come here in any other manner than pure sincerity. I need your help. America needs OUR help!
Please join us today in this important work.
www.verifiedvoting.org
Frankly, I didn't really follow politics that closely before the past few years, and that is unfortunate. We should all have held the respective parties and candidates at a higher level of ethics.
Want to talk about how to get the paper trail on the voting machines, or proceed with "business as usual and getting worse all the time"?
If you want to talk about military votes, then the next problem to solve is SERVE. That is an experiment regarding Internet voting which will be used for the military. Hell, they can't keep the most secure sites from being hacked, and www.votehere.com (who was hacked in October) is trying to get that business.
My goof. I was on http://www.verifiedvoting.org/fair_elections.asp and hit the link to the text. The next link I wanted was just off-screen. :)
Ya know, there are a lot of folks on the "left" that see many things in a similar manner to the "right". I don't want "big government" - I want "ethical government" that "spends wisely" and "conducts wise investment and planning for the future". I doubt that is hard to disagree with.
The problem, IMO, is that these turds that get elected and are then corrupted by campaign contributors proceed to make decisions that NONE of us would endorse if we had the ability to influence those decisions.
(laughing) Imagine if WE had a line-item veto which WE would vote on and take the crap out of the bills they pass... That would certainly straighten a few things out.
Go look and see what happened already in VA and FL, in the absence of a paper trail. I have those stories linked from the front page of www.verifiedvoting.org - Do we want this happening all over the country, for either side, in November
Help us get those bills passed into law so we don't have another meltdown in November.
Assuming they bother to count them...which often they don't.
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