This sampling of my recent personal experience, which I’m sure could be corroborated by your own tales of woe, demonstrates that computers are just plain prone to malfunctioning and crashing. Add to the mix the fact that the security systems supplied by these voting machine vendors are as porous as Swiss cheese, and you certainly do not have a reliable recipe for secure elections. Even if these voting systems were as impregnable as Fort Knox, which most computer experts deem impossible, it would still be foolish to outsource and privatize something as fundamental to our democracy as elections. The bottom line is that when citizens cannot observe their votes being counted, they cannot be sure that those votes are being counted accurately, or at all.
Ken Karan wrote a powerful op-ed piece this week for the North County Times (CA) entitled “Paper ballots necessary to preserve democracy”. http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=40163
I highly recommend this piece, which is short and to the point. For years, various interests have pointed to two chief reasons for computerized voting: accessibility for the disabled and convenience. We now know that the machines failed miserably in terms of accessibility, thereby pulling the rug out from under the chief rationale for their use. But, the convenience factor is a tougher one. Study after study has shown that the machines break down, lose votes, count them incorrectly and are extremely susceptible to hacking.
It may be more ‘convenient’ to push a few buttons on a touch-screen but if you have no way of knowing where your vote went and how, or if, it was counted once it enters the innards of that black box, then you have traded your ticket to democracy for false promises. It’s definitely easier to outsource our elections to private corporations and let them worry about the headaches that ensue. But who ultimately pays the price? And, look at what is lost when citizens are distanced from the election process and feel jilted in favor of technology ‘experts’ who tinker with their machines, run the elections and tell the people what the results are, even when it is impossible to determine or confirm what those results are. Democracy is hard work; it is definitely inconvenient. But for whom?
I have repeatedly cited a Zogby poll conducted last year which states that 92% of those polled want our votes counted in a more transparent manner. http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1163 So, it’s not the voters who are sold on these machines. Are our elections being run for the vendors or the convenience of the registrars of voters? Or are they ultimately for the citizens and the exercise of our right to elect our officials and be confident that those in power were the people’s choice?
Secret vote-counting concentrates power in the hands of those who own the counting process. Removing citizens from the process of verifying elections undermines the very underpinnings of a democracy, which require that power must be dispersed to citizens. The alternative is tyranny…
The right to self-government is unalienable, but the act itself must be practiced. One habit required for self-government is being mindful of the importance of elections as an experience, a celebration, and not a chore. Being an adult demands taking responsibility. Responsibility for some things cannot be delegated. We cannot delegate responsibility for making choices like whom to marry and whether to have children. We cannot delegate responsibility for the crimes we commit. We cannot delegate responsibility for practicing our religion. And, we cannot, in a democracy, delegate responsibility for choosing the government we are empowered by our Creator to create.
To ensure democracy, the people must take responsibility for the one institution that renders all other institutions subservient, our elections. It's a burden, but it's a burden unlike any other because it makes us free. Secretary Bowen's decision to listen to reason and not special interests is our invitation to reclaim our place in government as the nation's founders intended by taking responsibility for our freedom.
Expanded New Edition of Mark Crispin Miller’s Fooled Again
Miller is a tenured professor at NYU. His other books won him numerous talk and news show appearances, yet this book – Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them) – turned a Big Man on Campus into a wallflower. When it first came out in 2005, no one would touch Miller’s book and it received nary a review. (At the time, I hadn’t begun to write reviews, a fact I much regret; I wasn’t even a part of OpEdNews yet, and my first review didn’t come out until July 2006.) Miller was forced to rely solely on book tours to get the word out.
The virtual silence that greeted the book’s release may have been because it comes down very hard on everyone – the Republicans, the Bush Administration, the press, and the religious right and the extreme lengths it will go to achieve electoral “victory.” Democrats in denial come in for their fair share of much deserved criticism as well. No one comes out looking very good. Miller couldn’t even get pay to get coverage – Terry Gross’s Fresh Air refused an ad for the book without even explaining why. On the back flap, instead of praise from admiring celebs, it reads “the story the media is afraid to touch.” That pretty much sums it up.
My Multi-Part Series
In the coming months, I would like to look at current events on the election front through the lens of Miller’s and insightful book, now expanded and updated. Since so much is covered in this dense volume, I will break up my writings into a multi-part series. Topics will include the purpose of elections in a democracy, the role of the press, present legislative proposals and how politicization of our elections has threatened the entire fabric of our democracy. Along the way, I also plan to include interviews with various experts on these subjects. Already agreeing to take part are Mark Crispin Miller, Stephen Heller (the Diebold whistleblower), Nancy Tobi, Brad “BradBlog” Friedman, and Bruce O’Dell. I’m excited and, frankly, a bit nervous about pulling all of this together. It’s a big and ambitious plan that will begin to unfold, hopefully, quite soon.
Stay tuned!
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