Stop Election Fraud

August 2nd, 2004

“It’s election night, and early returns suggest trouble for the incumbent. Then, mysteriously, the vote count stops and observers from the challenger’s campaign see employees of a voting-machine company, one wearing a badge that identifies him as a county official, typing instructions at computers with access to the vote-tabulating software.

“When the count resumes, the incumbent pulls ahead. The challenger demands an investigation. But there are no ballots to recount, and election officials allied with the incumbent refuse to release data that could shed light on whether there was tampering with the electronic records.”

That’s the beginning of Paul Krugman’s most recent article in the New York Times, describing his view of the perils of voting machines. This article in The Nation has even more disturbing information on how your vote could be changed, erased, or outnumbered by false votes with frightening ease.

Ironically, the vote fraud in the 2000 election–particularly in Florida–was supposed to bring about reform, but instead has thrown open the doors far wider to fraud under the “cure” of electronic voting. Pitched to the public as a way to make voting easier to understand so that the “butterfly ballot” fiasco in Florida would not happen again, the machines being set up as we speak do indeed solve that problem–but they open an even more dangerous threat to accurate counts: no means of verification. At least the votes in Florida could have been recounted had the Supreme Court not shut down the definitive count. But with computer ballots, it’ll only be the malleable, easily-tampered-with electronic number, and if anyone doubts its veracity, there will be no recount. Because it won’t be possible.

Here’s how it might work. You go to vote. You and so many others in your area leave your votes on the voting machine, which shows you verification only on a monitor; when you leave the booth, the monitor is wiped. You get recorded as having voted–but there’s no physical record of the vote. It’s all ones and zeroes on the machine. It might be that a bit later, a representative of the company that makes the machines (a company whose owner is a Bush campaign manager, no less) comes up to that machine, and as Krugman described, starts fiddling with it–and presto, votes are changed. Fraud you call–but can you prove it? Not a chance. Another form of fraud might be even harder to spot. The software which runs the machines could be tampered with beforehand, completely out of your site. It could be set to do anything, such as to count votes for one candidate double and for the other candidate half–or just completely make up numbers based on whatever scheme the programmer wishes. If the computer is programmed the right way, all evidence of fraudulent programming could erase itself afterwards.

And those committing the fraud can just deny it, as it will be near impossible to prove, and if they are caught, they can just call it an honest error. Think they could never do that? Just look at Florida. In not one, but two presidential elections, a list of voters to be removed from the voter rolls was fraudulently compiled by the Republican administration in that state, both times flagrant, both times proven as dishonest–and both times called an “honest mistake” and no one was prosecuted. That’s a case where something a lot more blatant than electronic voter fraud was committed, and not only did they get away scot free, they tried it twice and still no one is being prosecuted! Why not? Because the party in power is the one doing the fraud, and the party in power has the attorney general who gets to decide what crimes will be prosecuted.

This coming November, if nothing is done to stop them, up to 2 million votes will be counted on these machines and will automatically be suspect. What happens if the e-votes suspiciously tilt towards Bush, who wins by a small margin? Will there be proof? Nope. No paper trail. Even if fraud is proven beyond any doubt whatsoever, will the results be thrown out and a new election held? Of course not. The constitution did not provide for this, and mandates a decision within a certain time frame. So even if we know Bush did not win and there was massive fraud, once again we will likely throw up our hands and in the name of stability and avoiding a constitutional crisis, we will again agree to let a man who was not elected take office and power for another four years.

But you can stop that. Call your local election official. Ask if electronic voting machines will be used. And if they say “yes,” then get off your ass and find out how the votes will be verified. The only system that can work is that with independent paper verification. In other words, when the voter casts his or her vote, not only does the vote register in the machine, but a slip of paper prints out with the voter’s choices on it, and that vote is both checked by the voter for accuracy, and is given to the official in charge and kept in case a recount is called for.

Anything less, and you should immediately take action to remove ALL electronic voting in your district. You have to act, though–just reading about it or talking about it will not accomplish anything; if there is fraud, the other side will simply say that you did not object in any official manner, and you’ll be screwed. So do it, and contact people you know in other areas and have them do it.

Do it NOW.

I’m not kidding.

  1. Anonymous
    November 12th, 2004 at 11:10 | #1

    you hit the nail inthe head

Comments are closed.