Reply #18: Great subject line! I totally agree! Here's my read on the situation...

[Peace Patriot]

First of all, what IS the situation?

Right now, one, private, far rightwing-connected corporation--ES&S, which bought out Diebold--controls 80% of the voting machines in the U.S., using 'TRADE SECRET' programming code--code that you and I are forbidden to review--with virtually no audit/recount controls.

So, basically we are dependent on ONE corporation--a corporation with rightwing connections that would make your hair stand on end--to tell us who 'won' our elections. These results are either not verifiable, or they are not being verified.

Half the states in the U.S. do no audit at all--that is, comparison of paper ballot to machine totals--because there is NO paper trail to audit. In the other half of the states, they have a paper ballot but they do only a miserably inadequate 1% audit, meaning that 99% of the ballots are not counted in public view. (And rare, difficult-to-get recounts most often involved a check of only 3%).

For those, in Oregon, for instance, who think the only peril to their ballot is the Postal Service, think again. What do election officials DO with your mail-in ballot once they get it? They run it through a scanner into a system run on 'TRADE SECRET' code that produces the results! States with optiscans, mail in systems, etc.--the half of the states that have a paper trail--DON'T USE IT (no audit even with a ballot, or they use it only minimally at levels (1%) that cannot detect machine fraud).

This is an OUTRAGEOUS situation.

There is no other word for it. The BOTTOM LINE of our democracy--transparent vote counting--has been removed!

How this happened is that Big Money (or "organized money," as FDR put it) bought themselves a foolproof election fraud system--capable of massive, undetectable flipping of votes at lightning speed, out of public view, with virtually no recourse for the defrauded voters and citizens of this country.

When did they do it? October 2002. That's when the Anthrax Congress voted for the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" (aka, the "Help America Vote Act"--HAVA), in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution (and not unrelated to it, in my opinion), by appropriating $3.9 billion (of OUR money) to spread these election theft machines all over the country, while NOT requiring ANY--let alone adequate--audit/recount requirements.

They also--interestingly--did NOT mandate that the states must use these election theft systems. The whole thing was accomplished with filthy lobbying and corruption.

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"How do we change this?" Part I

And that gives us our one hope for getting rid of these machines peacefully. The decisions over voting systems remain at the state/local level--county supervisors, county election officials, state legislators, etc.--over whom ordinary citizens have more potential influence.

In this respect, I want to address one specific item in your post, your question, "is there not a way, on a federal level, that we can outlaw them?"

We need to understand that Congress did this to us--and a Democratic Congress at that. Granted that Washington DC was an armed fortress at that point, wreaking of fear--and not just of Osama bin Laden. Paul Wellstone's plane had fallen out of the sky that month, Congress critters were getting "anthrax letters" and the Bush Junta was in full bore. Fear may well have been a factor in some Democrats votes on this and other matters, but I think, more commonly, most of our Democratic representatives thought it was a good idea to let corporations (multiple at that point, now basically down to one, with a big monopoly) 'count' all our votes with 'TRADE SECRET' code. That explains what happened in the rest of the decade--the most outrageous thing of all--that our DLC-controlled, pro-corporate, pro-war Democratic leaders DID NOTHING to repair the lethal damage to our voting system. Wherever there were sufficient activists and public pressure, they supported optiscans--an illusion of transparency in vote counting (1%!)--while letting half the states remain totally non-transparent. Optiscans--providing a ballot but not counting 99% of them--was COVER for this corporate takeover of the very counting of our votes.

This pro-corporate, pro-war mentality among our most bought-and-paid-for Democratic leaders bleeds down into the county/state level, for sure. But county/state officials are, well, more local. Your county registrar may live right down the street from you. And that's where the decision is STILL made on how to count the votes in that place. He or she may be as corrupt as hell--or as obdurate, secretive, or dimwitted as hell--but local people, if aroused and organized, DO have a much better chance of influencing or removing local/state election officials than we have in Washington DC. You can write Washington DC off, in my opinion. They will NEVER change this.

And, looking at this ES&S-created Congress of scumbags and fascists, they will not only NEVER change this, they could well make it worse, for instance, by amending HAVA to mandate corporate-controlled, 'TRADE SECRET' voting counting, i.e., making it a federal crime to actually count our ballots.

To those who look at this issue, and say, "Forget it! Filthy campaign money is the problem," I say, filthy campaign money is the SECOND problem. And we can't even begin to solve the second problem--or any other problem--without the BOTTOM LINE of democracy: transparent vote counting. Vote counting that everyone can see and understand. This has been taken away from us. And we MUST get it back.

Yes, there can be all kinds of election fraud with paper ballots. But if you can't SEE it, you have no chance of catching and stopping it. And with electronic tabulation, the fraud can be very, very FAST, and very, very BIG, as well as virtually undetectable. It is guaranteed election fraud, as opposed to possible election fraud that ordinary citizens have a chance against.

Guaranteed election fraud. There is no other reason to lard $3.9 billion on a handful of private corporations, to render our vote counting non-transparent, than election fraud.

I repeat, it is OUTRAGEOUS.

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The futility of trying to solve other problems while a corporate-run, 'TRADE SECRET' code election system reverses all progress

Before I go on to "How do we change this?" Part II, I just want to emphasize that no other problem is solvable without transparent vote counting. Yes, we have a corporate/war profiteer lock on the TV/radio (and most of the print) media, which is now free to pound rightwing propaganda into our peoples' heads, 24/7, all channels. That is a problem.

Yes, we have filthy, out-of-control corporate billions buying up politicians as in a Fire Sale. That is a problem.

Yes, we have many gravely serious, democracy-killing problems.

But so does Latin America. They have wretched corporate media--even worse than ours. They also have billions of dollars--much of it our own tax money through entities like the USAID-NED and CIA--poured into their rightwing candidates and causes. But guess what? Latin Americans have been able to elect kickass, leftist, "New Deal"-type governments in numerous countries--including Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay (!), and Nicaragua (and less kickass but still leftist, in El Salvador and Guatemala).

What is the difference between them and us? They have created honest, transparent vote counting systems. It took them about a decade. They had help from international election monitoring groups like the Carter Center (which don't just monitor elections but help set up the system). Many people at all levels of society worked on this--professionals as well as grass roots groups. And the payoff has been REAL elections and truly representative government.

Transparent vote counting is the BOTTOM LINE of democracy. We really must start there.

Note: Venezuela uses electronic voting, but they do a whopping 55% audit--more than five times the minimum necessary to detect fraud in an electronic voting system--and they use OPEN SOURCE code--code that belongs to the public and that anyone may review.

So electronics CAN be used--but there needs to be a solid paper trail (a real paper ballot), a substantial audit (minimum 10%) and the best system would be OPEN SOURCE.

My preference: Return to old-fashioned, hand-counted paper ballots, with lots of citizen participation in the process, until the corporations are entirely cleaned out of our election system. THEN we can talk about OPEN SOURCE electronics. A LOT OF corruption has occurred, with corporate secrecy--like a lethal disease--infecting our election officials and the entire election process. Our system very much needs a Big Broom.

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"How do we change this?" Part II

I think our best chance is local. It will take a widespread citizen movement at the local level--harassing county election officials and other local/state decision-makers, with all manner of grass roots activities--noisy attendance at any relevant public meetings, picketing their offices and their homes, on the street protests--marches, flyer distribution, mocking signs and street theater--and internet education and organizing.

This issue crosses all ideological lines--except for the dishonest (those who prefer stolen elections). All people can understand it. It is the BOTTOM LINE of democracy.

This is THE issue on which to begin to dismantle the corporate state. ANYONE can understand that a private corporation should not be counting all our votes with 'TRADE SECRET' code. That they DO is the perfect symbol of the corporate state.

So anyone who is uselessly protesting any of the OTHER crimes of the corporate rulers--union busting, war, looting of our public coffers, credit card usury, bankster bailouts, pollution, deforestation, killing the planet, Frankenfoods, poverty, insurance-run health care, the rich paying no taxes, corporate outsourcing of jobs, etc., etc.--needs to pay attention to this: What use is your protest--other than public education (important, yes)--if, no matter how hard you work, you CAN'T get a decent representative of the public elected to public office. WHO is going to enact the laws and regulations that a decent society requires?

The bad guys have control of the VOTING SYSTEM. The very mechanism by which we, as a people, temporarily grant portions of OUR sovereignty to OUR public SERVANTS, to do OUR public business, is now beyond our control. It is a SECRET. A PRIVATE secret. A private CORPORATE secret!

I want to see corporations entirely removed from our election system--whether it is their "TRADE SECRET" code vote tabulation, or the printing of ballots, or any other way they have wormed themselves into the very mechanics of democracy. Compromises with this system--for instance, the optiscans--have so far sucked, as to any real reform. However, this is a big country with a huge variety in local political establishments and processes--and people. So here are some things that local groups could go for--as to immediate relief--if that's what they want to do:

In opstican counties and states (paper ballot but only 1% counted): Demand a MINIMUM 10% audit.

In touchscreen counties and states (no paper trail): Demand a paper trail (real ballot) AND a MINIMUM 10% audit.

Some citizen groups may want to say "VOTING MACHINES MUST DIE!!!!"--end of story. That's the best stance--although I would say "CORPORATE-run voting machines must die," because it IS possible to create an honest electronic system.

We need a widespread movement--in every state and county in the nation. It needs to be electronically savvy. It needs to be patient and persistent--as the Latin Americans have been. They had and have kickass grass roots organization. We don't have that yet. It's starting but it's not yet strong enough enough to protect union jobs in government and the public school system. And it needs to be refocused on the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines. That IS the problem. And it needs to look to itself--to the citizens of this country, in their local areas--for the solution, NOT to Washington, NOT to the Democratic Party leaders who have betrayed us, NOT to the corporate media. It needs to get personal with local/state election officials.

And, by God, if we can do this--get this 'TRADE SECRET' code out of our election system--we can do ANYTHING--as Latin American countries with leftist governments are proving every day.


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