|
by Carlos Pecciotto Jr., Unknown News
May 18, 2004
Come Election Day in November 2004, Diebold, maker of electronic polling machines -- reputed to have suspicious ties with the Bush Administration -- may have its day and its supporters may have their way in many localities by eliminating the paper ballot. (1) This has the potential for widespread electoral mischief in the form of electronic vote rigging.
Many fear yet another stolen election, this time without hanging or pregnant chads. Since voting is anonymous by design, one would not hope to be able to trace a vote to an individual. Thus electronic vote fraud can easily be perpetrated, right under the noses of polling place judges.
|
 |
Giving it some thought, in these places where e-voting is able to take hold, voters should then be encouraged to record their own votes on paper, as affidavits. These affidavits would then be given to trained volunteer election observers who could then determine a discrepancy with the electronic results. 
|
Unfortunately, this would take the anonymity out of voting but would provide an accountable trace to quickly expose such an irregularity. This would be an augmented kind of Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT), as it is commonly called by international election observers.
|
I would like to suggest that The Carter Center (yes, as in Jimmy Carter) monitor these upcoming elections, especially in areas that have fully switched to electronic voting.
The Carter Center has had line-of-fire experience observing elections in violence-torn places such as Sierra Leone and pre-independence East Timor.
It should be a snap to recruit poll-watchers for the state just south of Jimmy's beloved Georgia.
|
|
|
|
|
Speaking of which, I would like to suggest that The Carter Center (yes, as in Jimmy Carter) monitor these upcoming elections, especially in areas that have fully switched to electronic voting. The Carter Center has had line-of-fire experience observing elections in violence-torn places such as Sierra Leone and pre-independence East Timor. (2)
It should be a snap to recruit poll-watchers for the state just south of Jimmy's beloved Georgia. They won't be in danger of being hacked to death by machetes even in the counties of north Florida, where police were reported to have set up roadblocks (3), turning away predominantly African-American voters and requiring five forms of identification at the polls, only to find that their names were (more often than not mistakenly) on a list of felons.
|
[Incidentally, ChoicePoint -- a company owned by Bush (both Jeb and George W.) supporters -- provided those spurious lists, including felonies attributed to would-be voters in the year 2009, for example. (4)]
This modest proposal of mine may go largely unheeded. I sure hope someone with some measure of power implements a similar idea. Moreover, I hope there will always be a true paper trail in any election, and that if this election is stolen yet again, people will get mad enough and rise up. Heck, I wish they'd rise up right now ...
|
(1) Diebold, electronic voting and the vast right-wing conspiracy, The Free Press, Feb. 24, 2004
(2) Democracy Program, The Carter Center
(3) Some Florida ballots illegal, Dems say, Salon, Nov. 7, 2000
(4) Jello Biafra, "Machine Gun in the Clown's Hand" (Alternative Tentacles Records)
|
|
|
|
Carlos Pecciotto Jr. is an erstwhile Anarchist activist from Chicago, mostly retired from Anarchism and activism, now living in San Francisco in penury and anonymity.
© 2004, by the author.
What do you think?
|
|
|
