Reply #73: This is exactly why

[Bill Bored]

I (another non-lawyer) think that the citizens should sue every state and DC to force them to prove that every vote counts as cast.

Before you laugh me out of the court, please consider that if the machine code is proprietary and there is no paper trail and the auditing procedures to use it, there can be no reasonable certainty that every vote is counted as cast. The state is therefore negligent and is violating the right to vote, or by extension the right to have the vote counted.

The process of discovery will either lead to the release and expert inspection of the machines, the software and the security precautions taken against hacking, and/or to laws that will preclude the possibility of vote tampering by mandating:
1) the voter-verified paper trail and
2) enough randomly selected mandatory manual recounts (audits) to use such a trail to prove that the tabulated results are correct with a reasonable degree of certainty.
This is not the case in many states today and it is the whole basis for the election fraud argument. (Voter suppression and registration fraud, are of course real but separate issues.)

Since there are so many learned lawyers reading this thread, will someone tell me why this can't be done, or better yet that it can be done?

Please assume that the premise is true i.e., that presently there can be no reasonable certainly that the votes are being counted correctly as cast. If this can be shown, why can't the burden of proof be put on the states to come up with a remedy for future elections -- not in terms of election contests, etc., but in terms of fixing the system and proving that every vote counts, thus ensuring the right to vote for every popularly elected office or ballot initiative, including the electors for President.