Reply #41: Done! Thanks, Gary!!!!

[Peace Patriot]

Dear EAC:

America’s election system has been hijacked by partisan corporations who insist on “trade secret,” proprietary programming code in their contracts with states for electronic voting systems, and has been additionally compromised by lack of a real paper ballot for recounts and audits, and in many cases, no “paper trail” of any kind, by inadequate automatic recounts and audits, by lavish lobbying (such as occurred at the Beverly Hilton this August*), and by lack of controls on these extremely insecure and hackable electronic systems, including a lack of independent exit polls as used in many other countries to verify elections and check for fraud. The one set of exit polls we had in 2004 were doctored late on election day to fit the results of Diebold’s and ES&S’s “trade secret” vote tabulation, thus depriving the American public of evidence of election fraud (that John Kerry won the exit polls). This is a practice that other democracies would find intolerable, as they would secret, proprietary programming code and no paper ballot backup for recounts.

We need...

1. Paper ballots hand-counted at the precinct level (--Canada does it in one day, although speed should not even be a consideration, just accuracy and verifiability)

or, at the least...

2. Paper ballot (not "paper trail") backup of all electronic voting, a 10% automatic recount, very strict security, and NO SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code!

Our election system has become non-transparent, and our elections have become unverifiable, with the onset of the electronic voting boondoggle. These machines should be dumped into “Boston Harbor,” just like the English tea of old. Non-transparent, unverifiable elections are tyranny! They are its very definition. And transparent, verifiable elections are a no-brainer. Not difficult. If you, and Diebold, and ES&S, and the Bush regime, and the War Democrats, had wanted an honest election in 2004, we would have had one. Clearly, that is not what was intended.

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*Please see the following post at Democratic Underground for a description of the week of fun, sun and high-ending shopping that was provided for election officials from around the country, at the Beverly Hilton this August, with sponsors including Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia. The lavish lobbying and “revolving door” employment in the electronic voting industry is disgraceful:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

Yours sincerely,

xxxx