New Hampshire and South Carolina are just previews of February 5, "Super Tuesday" when primaries will be held in 24 states.
These states have voting and vote counting that is conducted in secret by machines made and serviced by private firms; and voting that cannot be easily and quickly verified. The citizens' right to know is casually surrendered to e-voting manufacturers by the officials sworn to serve those very citizens.
Almost all of the states have restrictive recount laws that require a very close election, a 1% or less difference in some cases. This effectively bars recounts unless "malfunctions" or vote stealing is marginal. Even if election fraud or "machine malfunction" is suspected for very good reasons, the right to recount is limited to only elections where mistakes or stealing produce a very thin margin.
These touch screen "ballots" are nothing more than a computerized record (not a ballot). After the election, citizens almost always lack the right to examine that computerized records and are typically barred from reviewing the paper forms they mark for optical scan voting machines.
How can those elected claim to rule when they're unable to prove the first and most fundamental requirement of an election - that they have the right to serve by having legitimately claimed a plurality or majority of the votes cast.
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