[A]s long as it takes an expert to implement, or indeed to comprehend, a security protocol, every non-expert citizen is left on the outside looking in (through a soaped up window), never receiving knowledge, as opposed to mere reassurance, that the bedrock protocol of his or her democracy has not been corrupted. Only transparency, visible and observable counting by humans or non-programmable devices at every step--which is just as feasible today as it was a mere generation ago--can bestow that knowledge.
Computers can help us in many ways and will continue to play a major role in our lives--periodic glitches, hacks, and meltdowns notwithstanding. But to blindly and needlessly entrust our nation's elections--particularly its federal elections, which so directly determine our national direction--to private, corporate and, it must be said, partisan enterprises operating and calculating in secret beyond our capacity to observe and validate, is, to put it with the bluntness this emergency demands, collective insanity.
The term "collective insanity" says it all. And anything you'd like to add, Jonathan?
Well. I've gone on at great length and barely scratched the surface and therein lies much of the problem. This is not an easy or a sexy subject, involving as it does, numbers, statistics, devilish details, and so much that is hidden from sight. It's easy and understandable for the eyes to glaze over or for the would-be activist to feel stymied and overcome with despair.
The environment is such that real solutions, such as hand-counting the federal races, are dismissed with a knee-jerk sneer and scoff. It doesn't seem to matter that such hand-counting could be accomplished at far lower cost than the computers and their high-maintenance price tag. It doesn't seem to matter that hand-counting would require a civic obligation that works out to less than two hours per voter lifetime, far less onerous than, say, jury duty. It doesn't seem to matter that, for less than we spent every two weeks to bring "democracy" to Iraq, we could ditch the computers and revive a critical element of participatory democracy in America. No, we're told, the computers are just the way things are, a fait accompli.
I'd like to think this story will have a happy ending, that history will review in appreciative terms the struggle of a few activists--Cassandras really--to lead leaders and public over the towering wall of denial, to restore an absolutely essential element to our would-be democracy. Most truths eventually come out. All we can do is keep trying in every way possible to help this one find its way out of its mine shaft and into the light.
Thanks so much for having this timely conversation with me, Jonathan. I hope our readers out there are paying attention. There's a lot at stake here. If we're really, really lucky, it's not already too late.
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The first
half of my interview with Jonathan
Election Defense Alliance website
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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