Part 2: "...anonymous voter-marked ballots"

Access by Average Citizens

 

Voter-marked ballots also provide the access needed for observable counts because they require physical ballots that can actually be marked. Only with such ballots can average citizens, operating as election judges, see and verify that the counts in the machine are actually adding up to the numbers on the ballots—in other words, the counting machine can be verified by average people acting as election judges without special technical knowledge. This is a requirement. The American people must not and cannot place all the confidence for the operation of our elections in technicians and software engineers. It is, after all, the sovereignty of the people which is at stake. It is we, all the people, who vest power in our elected representative, and so it is and should be we, all the people, who have access to the system, the count, and the administration. Without this, it is we the people ourselves who are losing sovereignty. “We the people” becomes “We the technicians…” and “We the software engineers…” Beyond a mere erosion of power, it is the usurpation of the very sovereignty of the people on which the American Revolution, and all our government and liberty, was based.

 

The current debate over electronic voting machines pits one expert against another, but the bulk of the American people are the ones disenfranchised by the inability to verify their own votes. This must stop. By enshrining the right to mark our own ballot in the Constitution, we can make sure that any system we adopt will provide these safeguards.

 

The text of the Free and Fair Elections Amendment is proposed as follows:

 

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Transparent and well-regulated elections, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to anonymous voter-marked ballots, visual observation of the vote count, public inspection of registration records, legal US Citizenship of all voters, and an audited, certifiable electoral process, shall not be infringed.

 

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