Until recently any election audit might have raised more questions than it answered. But now, a new and powerful election audit system has been developed, one that was intended to audit and verify U.S. elections. It is called Vva,(2) an acronym for Voter verified audit, an audit in which voters themselves verify their own vote. Vva's power stems from its affirmative response to the one big question no vote security system in use today can satisfactorily answer: "Who can best be trusted to incorruptibly verify the vote?" Vva's resounding answer is; "voters themselves".
In this particular case, it must be assumed that if a voter wanted to somehow alter (tamper with) their own vote, they would simply choose their "alteration" in the voting booth rather than later. If in the process of tampering they make a "different" choice for whatever reason, they aren't tampering, they're voting. That is, in the voting booth all a voter can do is either vote or not vote, both of which are acceptable, no matter who they vote for. This makes the voter themselves a virtually incorruptible verifier of their own vote.
Further, Vva can be exclusively citizen operated and completely independent of government. An important point, since government exclusively checking its own vote count, the very instrument that decides whether it stays or goes, constitutes an obvious conflict of interest. Vva can simply, innocuously and irrefutably detect virtually any kind of election fraud down to levels of less than 1%, depending on sample size, which could easily reach 100%. It is the "canary" of elections. If an election has been tampered with, Vva will detect it.
"If Ya' Want It Done Right, Do It Yourself
Winston Churchill once remarked, "The best argument against democracy, is a five minute conversation with the average voter . In retort: "The best argument for democracy, is an end of war . Still, Mr. Churchill's remark was well taken and points up an obvious problem with PeeCE-ful democracy; is the average citizen ready for it?
Well, most people can read and write. Most importantly, virtually all of us can "read the writing on the wall . We have a good idea of what we want and don't want, and "war is certainly at the top of the "don't want list. There are however many things of which the average person is ignorant or doesn't have the sophistication to understand. Both problems could be solved through enlightened "truth . But what is truth and how will we know it when we see it? Philosophers and the intelligentsia have grappled with that question since Aristotle. We don't have thousands of years more to answer that question. What is being proposed here requires that we answer the question, now.
The American Truth Project " Tool #2
Over the last few years there has been a concept that has been trying to get started but hasn't quite made it yet. It is called The American Truth Project(3) and its lofty purpose has been, to generate an accurate understanding of the world around us. Doing that requires that the truth of things be known, as closely as can be determined. To that end, TATP attempts to determine precise truth on a grand scale, using a special "truth engine" developed especially for the job. It is called "Descartes .(4)
Descartes "plugs" all candidates for truth into its engine, whose active element is for now common sense, something that will probably morph in the future into some type of open-source, algorithm based Expert-System. It uses a process for deconstructing one sentence statements of proposed truth, or "hypothesis statements", into their fundamental parts or "premises", then tests each premise using rigorous analysis for quality and truthfulness. That process will ultimately output a "figure of merit" of 1-99% as to the probability of truth of important issues. Understand, Descartes will only do the heavy lifting here. The actual decision of what is and is not the truth will and must always remain in the hands of the citizen. Though only in its infancy, Descartes is already quite formidable.
Truth-systems modeled on TATP could be used to bridge the gap between where, intellectually, a nation is now and where it needs to be in the future, to collectively make the important decisions it, an only it can make.
The New Media " Tool #3
All of this could of course easily get bogged down, if not conveyed with integrity, in an easy to understand and even entertaining fashion. PeeCE dictates that media will have to accommodate the new needs of the citizenry, its audience. This comes at a time when media in many countries is losing enormous share to newer media forms, share moving "from rather than "toward an old media that cannot satisfy its need for "certainty of delivered content. The audience is becoming increasingly discontented with media's omissions, distortions, lies and mindless drivel.
Some directions new-media might take. Old formats could be used and reworked such as; news shows modified to use two anchors, each taking a different position in the delivery of the news. Game shows, historical dramas and the "60 minutes news format could be expanded on and enhanced. Ideally, new formats could be developed that would precisely match this new audience, such as formal debate and especially this new and powerful technique of idea presentation called "mind mapping .
There is a market for truth. Truth could become the next commodity and save present media from the garbage can of history. Indeed, if done correctly it might even elevate media back to its supreme pedestal of unimpeachable truth, but it's going to have to work hard for that one.
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