Initiative to replace all e-voting with hand counted paper ballots in Missouri
George Caleb Bingham’s “The County Election,” Boone County, Missouri” 1851.
Citizens in Missouri took a major step in fighting back against “the machines” – political and electronic – that threaten to ruin the last remnants of democracy in the United States. Citing a litany of failed elections, questionable outcomes, and machine malfunction, a citizen’s coalition in Missouri announced a state ballot initiative to end electronic voting entirely in the state of Missouri.
E-voting machines touch screens, and the optical scanners would be tossed in the junk heap of bad inventions. They would be replaced by hand counted paper ballots and a voting process run by and freely observed by citizens. Canada conducts its Federal elections entirely on hand counted paper ballots in an efficient fashion. For well over a century years, the United States did so as well. Even California with its very large ballots handled its elections effectively on hand counted paper ballots.
Of late, some in the election integrity movement have introduced a faith-based e-voting lite featuring optical scanners.. For some, optical scanners are now the good voting machine, presumably form the good division of the formerly bad e-voting machine companies - Diebold, ESS, and Sequoia. This seems to contradict a two year drive by many of these activists to discredit the entire e-voting structure and those who sell those machines.
Phil Lindsey, a Missouri activist, announced the state wide initiative effort to a packed house at the University of Missouri, Kansas City on February 26th. The proposal was very well received. A combination of that announcement and initial press on the subject has resulted in a significant number of committed volunteers.
Lindsay said, “This will be an entirely grass roots movement. We will take no foundation money and donations will come with no strings attached. We will do this alone. We’re telling people your bucks’ stops here.” When asked who the initiative would target as signatories for a petition requiring approximately 140,000 signatures, Lindsey said, “We will seek out those who are most disenfranchised by the current system: minorities, the elderly, the voters who were targeted in the Voter Photo ID legislation, and other groups who are routinely shoved out of the elections.”
The effort has 13 months to gather the required signatures. The exact wording of the ballot proposal will be released after a mandatory review process by the state government for form.
See “Scoop” Independent News Article on this subject
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Florida Voting Politics Heats Up
Another hand counted paper ballot initiative.
Long time voting rights activist, William Faulkner, offered a major proposal to advance the reform of Florida voting. In an OpEdNews.Com article, Faulkner took the reality of Florida’s conversion to all optical scan machines a step further. The essence of his proposal was summarized in the article:
(Governor) Crist called for more citizen involvement and input, an abrupt change from the previous eight years of dictates issued form Tallahassee.
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