Reply #119

There are checks in place to prevent outright theft of the election such as poll watchers, election workers from both parties working the polls, secure ballot boxes, etc. It would take the cooperation (and continued silence) of a large number of people statewide for a theft to happen and not be found out.

However, the electronic voting machines are a new problem. Impulses go in, totals come out. Do they have any correlation to each other? (I do know a little about programming and how easily and invisibly counts can be altered) What validates the totals? How would one smoke out any malfeasance?

One method would be a carefully-designed random-selection opinion poll. In this case, it would have to be a statewide poll completed in a matter of a few days--five or less. The problem here is that Wisconsin is really a big village. Everybody knows or is related to everyone else. Word of a poll purporting to check accuracy of the result of the recent election would travel like the fire through Peshtigo. That word itself could skew the poll results.

Personally, I would like to see the follow-up survey done. Obtaining funding would be problematic due to the purely academic nature of the project. It could be viewed as an assault on the integrity of the machines themselves.

I have memory of the 1960 election in Illinois. Republicans were jumping up and down claiming the Mayor had robbed Nixon and a full recount needed to be done. In fact, a statewide random-sample recount was begun, and the vote totals did change. None of the changes (in the presidential race) were outside the margin of error. The RNC pulled the recount funding when it became apparent Illinois was not going to flip. And even if it had, the change in electoral vote total, 27 off Kennedy's >300 total and add to Nixon's total would not have brought Kennedy's total to < 269. Even without Illinois, Kennedy is still the winner.