A) Canada hand-counts its paper ballots in only four hours with very few mistakes, according to Victoria Collier. If we have just as many citizens per area as Canada who can count votes, why can’t we do just as well/as fast? B) Slow and thorough is much preferable to fast and inaccurate where voting integrity is concerned: Whoever said that fast is better? Somebody wasn’t thinking and the masses have followed suit. Something to point out in letters to the editor.
C) Machines break down
D) DRE’s (election computers) communicate from one to the next, and all it takes is ONE machine to be rigged: Even if ALL other machines are squeaky clean and tested, certified, repaired, audited, etc then that ONE machine County-wide or State-wide can and does throw off the results, according to Victoria Collier.
E) Diebold is programmable by Satellite, says Victoria Collier and its DRE’s are the results of decades of election theft research.
F) All computer programmers on the think tank and many others on Moveon.org’s forum agree: It is “easy” to misalign the computer’s pushbuttons with the mechanism inside the computer. Thus, when punching the button for Candidate A, the paper trail gives you a receipt for the candidate you voted for, but the vote recorded inside the computer secretly goes to Candidate B. The machines can be rigged to do that on a regular basis, ie. 10% of the time or however it’s programmed. Thus, the paper receipt offers false confidence: It is by no means an accurate record of your vote!
G) Auditors only “randomly” audit 1% or 2% of the precincts: WOWEE! H) That they “randomly” audit the PRECINCTS is a very important distinction from auditing the VOTES ACROSS THE BOARD: Greg Palast writes that historically, it is (in this order) black precincts which are rigged (9x as likely to occur) Hispanic (4x as likely) and poor white Democratic areas (3x as likely). The reason has nothing to do with racism and has everything to do with votes for Democrats: Victoria Collier says that while she means no partisan jab in this statement, it is in fact historically true that Republicans have stolen elections, going as far back as the 60s and even earlier.
I) Recounts of paper trails are a nice idea except that they are prohibitively expensive, and will never happen. (Look at Florida for proof!) There is no law governing the cost of election recounts, and precincts may charge as much as $5, 000 and up: Multiply that by each town, then by County, and you have your answer. Lotsa luck! (Remember: $5K is usually a starting point and not the highest end of fees charged, which have been as much as $25K in some precincts, depending on the size). WE SHOULD BE RELYING ON ACCURATE VOTE COUNTS, NOT ON RECOUNTS, FOR SAFEGUARDING OUR ELECTIONS.
J) Bev Harris points out, in photos circulated by email to membership, that to rig the memory card of any DRE at the local precincts may be done by the turn of a screw, with the screw plainly accessible right on the front cover of the machine. You or I or anyone else can do this, easily.
K) I know less about scanners but remember Victoria Collier saying that they too are rigged and have read other computer programmers’ statements on Moveon.org’s forum saying the same thing.
HERE IS NOT A FACT, BUT JUST MY PERSONAL THEORY ABOUT HANGING CHADS:
The Constitution makes specific requirements for the thickness and type of paper to be used in elections. Were the Florida ballots deliberately drawn up on paper which did not conform, so as to be sure not to punch cleanly? Thus, were the hanging chads deliberate? AFTER ALL, HANGING CHADS HAVE NEVER HAPPENED IN AMERICAN HISTORY WITH THE KIND OF PREVALANCE AS IN THE FLORIDA ELECTION! ANYBODY WHO FEARS THE PHENOMENON OF HANGING CHADS MIGHT BE URGED TO THINK ABOUT THIS. It would be interesting to research it and find out what thickness, texture, etc the paper ballots consisted of in that fatal Florida election. Hmmmmm...
DOES THIS IDEA STAND A CHANCE OF BECOMING LAW? Here's my honest speculation:
Congresspeople will know that they don't stand a chance of cheating in order to keep their seats in office if this actually became law, with EVERY detail above uncompromised. So they will never stand behind it. HOWEVER, there still is hope:
Because Kucinich brought a similar idea to table, there's already some pressure on Congress because it is now a publicly known idea. Further, because every newspaper I submitted the idea to in short letter-to-the-editor form has published it, there is definitely hope for enough public pressure to rally behind it in order for it to pass. Because Congress doesn't want to lose their seats in office, and because they want to remain popular with their constituent base, they can't listen to the lone voice but must honor the voices of the masses. Therefore, if there is enough publicity and pressure on Congress to pass this into law, there is some hope for it to pass. PLEASE HELP TO GET WORD OUT! THANKS!
A prime example of how the media plays games to steal votes (and therefore probably also tweaks the polls as one way to divert votes) may be seen in Victoria Collier’s article on Truthout, titled “A Brief History of Election Fraud in America”.
Hello friends
I have decided to take a break from political writing for a while and have disconnected my email address correlated with Opednews. If any of you send me a message to my Opednews box and I do not respond, I am not ignoring you: The message simply is not getting through to me because of my disconnected email at home. Thank you and best wishes, Kathryn Smith
This quote summarizes the nature of my concerns and the content of personal experiences which stir my activism:
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement on human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves". --Paul Revere, House of Commons
We need more than election reform. We need reformation.
We need a reformation of both religion and government.
We need equality of religions, religious pluralism, freedom of religion, freedom FROM religious bigotry, and a wall of separation between church and state.
We also need true democracy. That is, we need to put an and to the divisive juvenile competition for the throne, an end to the presidential form of monarchy, and an end to rule by a partisan pretender to the throne.
In other words, we need government that is truly of, by and for the people. And to see how we can establish that, read this:
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