I need a drink.
JB: I hear you! To sum up, what we have is a $300 million, essentially opaque system that cannot be verified and has set-up issues which can be particularly susceptible to "human error" or fraud. So where the heck does that leave us concerned citizens, wherever we may live?
RHP: We export democracy around the world. We send election monitors overseas to ensure free and fair elections. And we can't do it here?
JB: Well said!
RHP: We can only hope that nobody rigs our elections. In many jurisdictions, we won't be able to prove it if they do.
As I said to Alex Padilla, we need to reverse the trend toward centralized voting and go back to the old precinct system, thus restoring neighborhood control of elections. This will allow the use of the only fully verifiable voting system paper ballots, marked by voters, counted by hand, at the polling place, in full public view, on Election Night, no matter how long it takes. This is still done in many jurisdictions in eleven states (Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Vermont and Wisconsin), and nationwide in many democratic countries.
Those who say we "cannot go back" to hand counted paper ballots are wrong. I am a mountain man. And one thing learned early is this: When you are on the wrong path, a step backward is a step in the right direction.
JB: For many years, as long as I have been Election Integrity Editor at OpEdNews (2005), I have been a proponent of paper ballots, in the manner you stated so well: "marked by voters, counted by hand, at the polling place, in full public view, on Election Night, no matter how long it takes". The vast majority of computer scientists totally agree! Yet, we are spending many millions of dollars to create a vastly more complicated, unverifiable system, susceptible to fraud and malfunction, that distances the voters from their votes. Cui bono? Whom does that benefit?
But, beyond that partially rhetorical question, I ask, now, with Super Tuesday and its many primaries fast approaching, what can any of us do, watch for, to safeguard our elections while we wait for our nation to come to its senses and revert to the best, simplest, least expensive, and most democracy-promoting election system out there?
RHP: Turn out to vote in numbers of historic proportions. Overwhelm the system with unprecedented participation. Let them know that we, the people, will decide our own destiny. Make sure that they give you the correct ballot, for your party, for your precinct. Check your ballot carefully to make sure it is marked correctly, that it matches your choices on the computer screen. And if you want to go the extra mile, be an election observer -- at the polls, or online as the votes are reported.
In 2004, there was an online registry (www.voteprotect.org) where voters could file a report if they were not allowed to vote, or if their votes were not recorded as cast. For example, in Mahoning County, Ohio, some voters saw the touch screen flip from Kerry to Bush, and some voters never saw Kerry's name appear on the screen and so were unable to vote for president. These voters identified the precinct in their complaints. This is of critical importance. We were able to show that because there were no undervotes for president in these precincts -- that is, the computer recorded a choice for every voter -- the computer must have been programmed to default to candidate Bush, the one whose name sometimes appeared on screen against the will of the voters.
We need such an online registry now. Democracy thrives when all of us are watching.
JB: Thank you so much for talking with me again so soon, Richard. Looking forward to our next installment after Super Tuesday.
***
*Richard's years-long investigation led to his writing of Witness to a Crime: A Citizens' Audit of an American Election.
My most recent interview with Richard:
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
