This same brand of alliance exists in other states also. ES&S sells to 40 percent of the market, in almost every state. It is no coincidence that since 2013 the vendor has donated $300,000 to the Republican Party.
Bennie Smith made an epochal discovery in 2010, the existence of fractionalization ("fraction magic"), or decimalization, in GEMS vote tabulators, which are used by 25 percent of all voters in this country. Via this process, prior to the actual election, the desired candidates are charted for victory and machines programmed accordingly, so that each vote for the undesired candidate will be tabulated at a value less than one, and each desired candidate's vote will count for more than one. Any decimals that appear in vote totals are promptly eliminated before being publicized.
This system of corruption constitutes a further argument for the use of optical scanners, said Smith.
"Security is the most important issue today in voting."
Virginia Martin believes that the 100 percent hand-counting method she and her Republican counterpart, Jason Nastke, use in their New York County, can be used in municipal units of any size in this country, from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire to Los Angeles County. This method assures voters in Columbia County that their votes have been counted accurately and fairly.
She recalled that one race there was won by one vote and another by three. Such hand-counting has been done successfully for 10 years, Martin said.
Stephanie Singer spent her allotted time recommending risk-limiting audits (RLAs). In this system, real people look at a meticulously selected random sample of votes. The chances of accuracy are 95 percent., she said. She'd like to see RLAs implemented throughout the country.
"Go work at the polls!" she exhorted us. "Advocate with local officials!" Lobby!" "Run for office!
SMARTelections, a nonpartisan project dedicated to improving every dimension of our electoral system, of which Friesdat is a co-director, wrote to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), that more technological specialists are needed at their organization, and that alliances between vendors and government officials should be outlawed. EAC wrote back that they would.
What we really need is an audit of our entire electoral system.
Maryland audits 100 percent of its votes, and Wisconsin allows ballot images generated by specialized optical scanners (a new spinoff from the original) to be posted online and thus be recountable by the public, even printed up as spreadsheets.
The panel lasted long after its allotted time limit. There was so much to discuss. And the issues are so numerous and hard to resolve. Netroots Nation featured several other election-related panels this year and I hope to see at least as many at future annual conferences.
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