Tuesday, August 31, 2004

 

The Luddite Detour On The Way To The Voting Booth: A Modest Proposal

The more I hear and read about touchscreen voting, the push among some swing states for e-voting by overseas troops, the apparent efforts to remove from office or bypass California's Secretary of State before November (given that he recently "decertified" touchscreen voting throughout the state, because it leaves no paper trail for accurate recounts), the more firmly I secure my tinfoil hat onto my noggin.

The fact is, there is a method readily available, inexpensive and low-tech, with a proven history of accuracy for casting and counting votes: Paper ballots. Hand-counted, in a perfectly "transparent" process. Canada -- a country with nearly as many citizens as we have California residents, still uses hand-counted paper ballots exclusively in their federal elections -- and they manage to complete the vote count in a matter of hours.

What's more, there's a bill prepared, but evidently not yet introduced in Congress -- the Federal Paper Ballot Act of 2004 -- that would immediately put these safeguards in place here in the U.S. for the upcoming election.

Last time around, the election hijackers wore black robes. This time, I'm thinking, they'll have ways to keep the count from even getting that close. Ask yourselves this: If we can't trust the vote count, this whole democracy thing really is a sham, isn't it?

posted by Michael 1:34 PM