 |
Add to My Group
Election 2008: Who Decides? -- The People or the Programmers?
By Ernest Partridge (about the author) Page 1 of 4 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Ernest Partridge - Writer
Or so most of those citizens believe, along with all of the corporate media and, of course, the candidates.
But might it be possible that the decision next Tuesday lies, not with those 100-plus million voters, but instead with a few dozen programmers who write the secret software for the voting machines that will record some 30 percent of the votes, and also for the computers that compile (i.e., collect and report) 80 percent of the "official" election returns?
The very idea is too horrible to contemplate, and so it is not contemplated; not by the media, not by most of the public, and not by the Democratic party.
A presidential selection by anonymous programmers is not contemplated, much less discussed and publicized, in the face of compelling evidence that the 2004 Presidential election, along with numerous congressional elections during the past decade, were in fact stolen.
A stolen election? Impossible! Unthinkable! Yeah, sure! "The Titanic is unsinkable." "We have achieved peace in our time" (Neville Chamberlain, Munich, 1938). "We will be greeted as liberators in Iraq." "There is no doubt Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and is planning to use them against us" (Dick Cheney)
So let's cut past the speculation and (alleged) "paranoid fantasies," and focus instead on four simple, undisputed facts:
1. Next Tuesday, 30% of the votes will be cast on paperless "direct electronic recording" (DRE) voting machines, and 80% of those votes will be compiled on computers.
2. These voting machines and compiling computers are manufactured, and their software is written, by private corporations with close ties to the Republican party.
3. These voting machines and compiling computers use "proprietary" (i.e., secret) software.
4. Accordingly, there is no independent means of validating the accuracy of the voting machines or the compiling computers.
Am I mistaken? I have, during the past eight years, read hundreds of pages of reassurances that our elections are "fair and accurate." In those pages, I have found not one iota of evidence challenging any of the above four assertions. I read of "paranoid fantasies," "sore losers," "they wouldn't dare" etc. aplenty, but never, no never!, any denial of any of the above facts.
So, assuming the above, it comes to this: if the election returns next Tuesday are fair and accurate, it will be because those anonymous programmers have chosen, for whatever reason, not to finagle the election, and not because they face exposure and prosecution not, that is, because there is any compelling reason for them not to steal the election.
In short, they might allow the American people to choose their next president, not because they have to, but because they choose to.
And then again, they might not. And why should the anonymous programmers let "the people speak"? After all, they did not do so in Georgia in 2002, or in Ohio in 2004, or in numerous other elections.
http://www.crisispapers.org
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
 Contact Author |
Contact Editor |
 View Authors' Articles |
by Haynes Johnson
$29.95
Lowest New Price $16.98
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Viking Adult
by James W. Ceaser
$24.95
Lowest New Price $14.99
Number of pages: 234
Publisher: Rowman
by Michael Nelson
$29.95
Lowest New Price $18.00
Number of pages: 204
Publisher: CQ Press
by John A Clark
$15.95
Lowest New Price $11.49
Number of pages: 28
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing
| 6 comments |
Want to post your own comment on this Article? 
|
||||
|
||||||||||||||
Must Read (0) 
Well Said (0) 
News (0) 
Touching (0) 
Funny (0) 
Supported (0) 
Interesting (0) 
Inspiring (0) 
Valuable (0) Tell a Friend:
|
Copyright © 2002-2009, OpEdNews |
