Ban Electronic Voting Systems

Is Election Just Another Computer Game?

Machine-free elections! Ban all electronic and mechanical voting systems of any kind in the United States of America. Of course, that would put four sinister megacorporations out of the election business, namely Diebold, Election Systems and Software (ES & S), Hart, and Sequoia. (Diebold has earned itself such a bad name that it’s in the middle of a name change at last report.)

On election day, November 2008, every voter in the nation with the exception of those in about 137 small towns in New Hampshire (which comprise a mere 19% of the New Hampshire vote), and perhaps very few and very small isolated venues in other states, will vote on computerized systems which hide the ballots from the voters on election day, usually forever thereafter. (In the minority of elections where a recount is required or requested, it usually takes about three weeks for the election officials to produce the physical ballots.) Only in New Hampshire do the election officials in each town have the option to pull the ballots out of the machines on election night, and recount them by hand on the spot.

“About 61 million of the votes in November, more than half the total, will be counted in the computers of one company, the privately held Election Systems and Software (ES&S) of Omaha, Nebraska,” this last sentence from an article that appeared in the Nation magazine on August 16, 2004. The author was the venerable and veteran reporter, Ronnie Dugger, who became one of the pioneers in exposing the dangers of computerized voting systems way back in 1988 with his groundbreaking cover article in that year’s November 7th issue of The New Yorker magazine.

In the 2004 Nation article, Dugger also provided us with this gem from Dr. David Dill, professor of computer science at Stanford University: “Why am I always being asked to prove these systems aren’t secure? The burden of proof ought to be on the vendor. You ask about the hardware. ‘Secret.’ The software? ‘Secret.’ What’s the cryptography? ‘Can’t tell you because that’ll compromise the secrecy of the machines.’ . . . Federal testing procedures? ‘Secret’! Results of the tests? ‘Secret’! Basically we are required to have blind faith.”

In the opening chapter to their book, Votescam: The Stealing of America, James and Kenneth Collier begin by quoting the first words spoken by President-elect, George Bush in his November 8, 1988 victory speech in Houston, Texas. Bush said: “We can now speak the most majestic words a democracy can offer: “The people have spoken . . .”

To that, the Colliers wrote these brilliant words, which encapsulate the problem we face:

“It was not ‘the People’ of the United States who did ‘the speaking’ on that election day, although most of them believed it was, and still believe it. In fact, the People did not speak at all. The voices most of us really heard that day were the voices of computers strong, loud, authoritative, unquestioned in their electronic finality . . .“The computers that spoke in November 1988 held in their inner workings small
boxes thatcontained secret codes that only the sellers of the computers could read…

“It only makes common sense that every gear, every mechanism, every nook and cranny of every part of the voting process ought to be in the sunlight, wide open to public view. How else can the public be reasonably assured that they are participating in an unrigged election where their vote actually means something? Yet one of the most mysterious, low-profile, covert, shadowy, questionable mechanisms of American democracy is the American vote count . . .

“Computers in voting machines are effectively immune from checking and rechecking. If they are fixed, you cannot know it, and you cannot be sure at all of an honest tally.”

The practical consequences of the above quotes is that one computer company counts (?) over
50% of the votes in Presidential elections on secret software that no candidate, no voter, and no reporter is allowed to see. When we add in the other computer software companies, 99% of the US vote is being counted on completely secret software programs.

How Our Votes Should Be Counted Each Election Day
• At every election, we need to mandate easily read paper ballots that can be marked clearly and unmistakably by the voter with pen or pencil.
• Each voter must then deposit his or her ballot in a ballot box; before the election day begins, election officials at each polling place would verify that the ballot box had neither a false bottom nor any hidden compartments. (Votescam author Jim Collier urged that the ballot box should be made of clear plastic.)
• The ballot box must be kept in clear public view all day, so that the election workers, the voters, and any poll watchers can see the box at all times.
• At closing time, the ballots should be dumped out in front of everyone, then immediately
assembled and counted in full public view. Teams of two people would have been selected in advance to handle 50 to 75 ballots each. (This would mean about 4 or 5 teams of two counters, at each polling place, on average, in the USA.) One person calls out the vote, and the other person records it on a tally sheet. Citizens of all factions would be authorized to watch the counting.
• Members of the public from all parties and factions should be allowed to watch, at close range, without disrupting the process. (With current technology, an overhead camera could project each ballot on a large screen or wall, so that all in the room could follow the counting. Cameras could also stream the count of each ballot online so that people could watch from their home computers.)
• Results would then be posted for all to see at each neighborhood precinct – before the physical ballots leave the precinct. This procedure makes centralized rigging of the election impossible, as long as citizen groups and candidates check what is posted at each precinct against the results published by election central. This last step prevents those at election central – whether it be in a city, a county, or a state – from falsifying the results.
• The late Collier brothers suggested that one counting position at each neighborhood polling place be reserved for a high school Senior or a college student; that way the next generation would be trained for how elections should be conducted.
• It might also be a good idea to make Election Day and the day after, national holidays. Then circumstances would favor everybody getting involved, witnessing the count in their neighborhood precinct on election night, with the option of sleeping the next morning until they are rested. Excitement and fun would fill the air again, and everyone would be as sure as is humanly possible that the election results reflected the will of the people, instead of the will of a few faceless power brokers running the secret election software.

Hand Counting Good Then, Still Good Now

The open, hand counting process, once upon a time used all over the USA, has been followed in Richmond, New Hampshire right up until this minute. The wooden ballot box they use was made in 1854. In the recent Presidential Primary held on January 8, 2008, the elected Town Moderator, Douglas Bersaw, oversaw the vote counting procedures. In fact, hand counting of paper ballots in full public view still takes place in Switzerland, England, much of France, Canada, and in the world’s largest country which holds democratic elections: India.

The Onslaught of the Computers: How It Happened

By 1973, the rush to adopt computerized voting was on in a big way. I remember how the older folks running our elections in Cincinnati, Ohio seemed to revere computers as magical machines that could do no wrong. (Try to tell a young person of 2008 that a computer cannot be hacked, and you will be guffawed out of the room.)

By 1988, computers had been installed universally in 49 states, with about one-half of New Hampshire maintaining the paper ballot hand counts. How do you like the people we’ve elected (?) president since 1988? Let’s see, it’s been Bush I (1988-1992), Clinton I (1992-2000), and Bush II (2000-2008). Hmmm.

But Diebold, ES &S, Hart, and Sequoia didn’t just storm in and take over the vote counting in 50 states and almost all our counties. Somebody had to delegate that authority to them.

We have 50 states, divided in 3141 counties. For instance, Ohio has 88 counties; Iowa has 99. Each of those counties are run by the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and usually a combination therefore.

That strongly suggests a kind of shadow government that operates behind
and above the DNC and the RNC. It takes power and organization and a lot
of money to persuade all 50 of the Secretaries of State and almost every
county election board in the USA to delegate the vote-processing to one of
four mega-computer software companies.

Computerized Vote Processing Systems break the Chain of Evidence

In the OJ case or any murder case, if the blood samples disappear for five hours and nobody knows for sure who had custody that is called breaking the chain of evidence. When the paper ballots disappear for three weeks after Election Day before any recount takes place, THAT is also called breaking the chain of evidence – and it is totally unacceptable in the land of the free and home of the brave.

When the paper ballots are counted by the neighborhood citizens right as the polls close – then the chain of evidence remains in tact, and it’s impossible to rig the election from a central location. And that’s exactly WHY the computer election syndicate OPPOSES such straight forward vote tabulation.

The National Clean Election Lawsuit (NCEL)

In November, 2007, Bob Schulz of “We the People” organization and 147 plaintiffs (about three from each state) stepped up to the plate and filed the National Clean Elections Lawsuit.

This lawsuit presents the courts with a simple proposition: can the government hide the ballots from the voters on Election Day? If the courts ultimately say the government can so hide the ballots, the courts will be telling us categorically that we no longer live in a free country under the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Remember the quote attributed to Communist Tyrant Joseph Stalin: “Those who cast the votes decide nothing: those who COUNT the votes decide everything.”

America At the Crossroads – Where Now?

Millions of our fellow Americans have fought and bled and died to try and ensure our right to vote in open, honest, and transparent elections. We dare not let an increasingly arrogant Cabal, which is grasping for all the levers of power, continue to spit on their sacrifice.

For our children’s sake, let’s recapture the power to determine our future and to direct the United States of America towards its true destiny once again by restoring the public hand counting of paper ballots at each neighborhood precinct on Election Day—and by banning electronic and mechanical voting machines from US elections forever. Elections would be fun—and they would be REAL again.

Jim Condit, Jr. has been involved in fighting computerized, non-transparent elections
since 1979; he is the Director of Citizens for a Fair Vote Count and votefraud.
org. For important articles which fill in other aspects of the problems and
solutions regarding open and honest vote counting systems for the USA, please go
to votefraud.org – and especially click on the “Archive of ‘Must Read’ articles” link
on the home page, which also connects you to other very informative websites
dealing with this issue.