Something to
think about -
D. Flint
It’s clear that with the onslaught of the high tech gadgets and the
internet there is an overwhelming push to jump into digital voting. After all
some places are still using paper ballots and hand counting each one. What’s up
with that? In this age of the internet and online banking, investment
management, I hear people say,”why can’t we have internet voting”. We could just
logon to AOL and cast our vote. Maybe just use my new wiz kid voice activated
cell phone and speak my candidates name and wa-la! Instant voting American
style! The fact is that in this country, the selecting of voting machines is
left to the states, which in turn often leave it to the counties. Yet the budget
in most counties couldn’t buy two cups and a ball of string if not for
additional federal moneys. Not only don’t they have enough choices to begin
with, but this lack of funds cuts the list even shorter. The voting machine
manufactures know how much money each group has to spend. They build only what
they can afford. It’s no wonder why the black box voting systems offered today
are rousing such opposition. There is no paper trail! That would add at least
another $1000.00 to each machine, plus maintenance and the cost of paper and
toner supplies.
John Fund wrote in his book Stealing Elections, “America’s election
problems go beyond the strapped budgets of many local election offices. More
insidious are flawed voter rolls, voter ignorance, lackadaisical law enforcement
and a shortage of trained volunteers. All this adds up to an open invitation for
errors, miscounts and fraud……..Some of the sloppiness that makes fraud and
foul-ups in election counts possible seem to be built into the system by
design.” But still, if we want a fancy new high tech voting system, who’s going
to pay for it?
Now, because the local election office in reality has the final
responsibility for running the actual election, there is an extreme variance in
the capability and integrity of the election as you move from precinct to
precinct across the country. It is in the local jurisdictions where the greatest
opportunity is and historically has been, for systematic corruption and fraud.
But since the 2000
vote, even a perfectly run election would be overshadowed with the prospect of
multiple recounts, lawsuits and never ending controversy over “voter
intent”(under voted and over voted ballots), if the winner fails to clear “the
margin of litigation”. We need a national system with national standards that
will re-establish the integrity of the vote.
In many states in this country, we refuse to ask voters for
even so much as ID. There is still a calculated % of ballots cast each election
by the dearly departed. Now I am not saying of course that photo ID is really
much of a hindrance to fraudulent voters; as you may know, at least eight of the
nineteen hijackers who attacked us were actually duly register voter in either
Virginia or Florida. They had 65 driver licenses between them. It makes me
wonder who they voted for in 2000.
We have higher standards for countries we help to become
democracies like Afghanistan and Iraq than we have for our own. Yet we have
multiple times more non citizens within our boarders than they do and elect far
more people to office. We are telling other countries to do as we say, not as we
do. Did that ever work with our 8 year olds? No it didn’t. So what are we going
to do about it? Talk is cheep.
I am proud of my country and it’s true we are the example
for the world in many, many, many areas, but this is not one of them. I know we
have gone through a lot in the past few years. A presidential impeachment, the
internet bubble burst, a rocky election in 2000, a recession, corporate
scandals, the attacks of 9/11, two wars, a building national debt, natural
disasters and now another election. No other country in the world could have
gone through what we did and come out so good. There is no doubt there is more
we will have to endure and endure it we will. But maybe, just maybe it’s time to
get things right as it pertains to our voting system in this country. To get it
fixed and to get it fixed right. The last thing we need is uncertainty about how
our leaders got elected. The world is changing and there are many hard choices
coming. We need to at least agree and be confident as to who the people choose
to be our leaders. Is that asking too much? Do we need these distractions? Can
we really afford them?
This is not a solution that will be solved county by county or
state by state. We need a total solution. Your right to vote is based on your
U.S. citizenship. We need a national solution that make voting convenient for
all while maintaining it integrity. This is why I support the Americans for
Voter Reform initiative for a nation wide voting system, even if it takes a
constitutional amendment to get it. I want to see it fixed at the source. I want
it fixed right once and for all.
