Computerized Vote Rigging Is Still the Unseen Threat to US Democracy

[99th_Monkey]

Whether Dems keep or loose the US Senate, either way we need Federal legislation to REQUIRE paper ballots and hand counting that is verifiable. This needs to get done between now and the 2016 General Election. Vote by Mail has become the norm in Oregon where I live, which completely sidesteps GOP's favored cheating practices such as requiring Voter ID, long lines on election day, and voter intimidation at the polls. For this reason, I think Vote by Mail should be required as well.

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Computerized Vote Rigging Is Still the Unseen Threat to US Democracy: It's Time to Change the System
By Victoria Collier * Truthout | News Analysis * Monday, 03 November 2014 13:43

Our article in Truthout last week, Top Ten Epic Reasons Why You Should Give a Sh*t About Voting, elicited quite a few comments from readers voicing concern that ballots may not be correctly or honestly counted by our "black box" computer voting systems - and we would never know.

The Internet is already roaring with stories of visible attacks on democracy so far in the 2014 elections: 40,000 mostly minority voters purged from Georgia's voter roles and thousands more in 26 other states, up to 600,000 Texas voters disenfranchised due to new Voter ID laws, and the attempts to override the electoral college in gerrymandered blue states like Michigan.

We can fight this fraud because we can see it, like the part of the iceberg that is above the water. But yes, there is more below.

Exactly two years ago Harper's Magazine published a cover story "How to Rig an Election," (written by this author) detailing the hidden threat to democracy posed by our electronic vote counting systems. Easily rigged and hacked, these computers are controlled by a handful of shady corporations, some with criminal records, who fight to keep their vote-counting software a "trade secret."

Computerized Voting Today Ensures That Americans Cannot Oversee or Verify Their Own Elections.

Elections are held in a vast patchwork of electoral fiefdoms where laws, procedures and private-vendor technology change from state to state; even from county to county. It's difficult for one hand to know what the other is doing, particularly when legal public record requests on electronic voting systems are routinely denied.

Little-known grassroots Election Integrity (EI) organizations have been fighting an unrecognized war to reclaim and secure our vote count; groups like Election Defense Alliance, Michigan Election Reform Alliance, Voter PA, Voter GA, Wisconsin Citizens for Election Protection, California Election Protection Network, and many others, including social media sites like Occupy Rigged Elections.

These activists have been holding the line in the democracy trenches for years now, even decades. Almost always underfunded or totally unpaid, they are our friends and neighbors, working people - they need increased support now, as we head toward the pivotal 2016 elections.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/27204-computerized-vote-rigging-is-still-the-unseen-threat-to-american-democracy-it-s-time-to-change-the-system

[randys1]

1. Rove and Company have a two part agenda, unconstitutional voter ID laws

and make it so we arent arguing about their constitutionality but what kind of ID - well done by America hating, democracy hating republicans, job accomplished (i.e. make it so we arent discussing their crimes, but what kind of ID, etc)

then own and control who counts the votes.

They are working on that as we speak, by 2016 it will require that the Dem candidate have AT LEAST a 5 point margin of victory in order to win as the vote stealing and unconstitutional voter id laws will eliminate about 5% of our votes.

[randome]

2. 'Rove'. That's funny.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[randys1]

6. So Rove and company are out of the picture and nobody on the right is trying to own

voting machines or stop us from voting?

[randome]

7. See KelvinMace's thread on vote-rigging. He's been on the front lines.

He knows what he's talking about. Rove is nonsense, a ratfucker of the worst kind. To think of him as some sort of evil genius is giving him more credit than he's due.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[99th_Monkey]

11. I also read Kelvin Mace's OP. That does NOT mean GOP election fraud is not happening.

I'm happy that Kelvin's experience has apparently not been plagued by having to deal with
election fraud by the GOP. But Kelvin is just ONE person, one experience.

Try telling that someone who's vote was just switched right before their unbelieving eyes,
or to one of the 600.000 voters NOW being disenfranchised in Texas as we speak.

Also from the article in OP is a list of half a dozen organizations that have sprung up over the
past several years in response to blatant GOP election buggery:

"Little-known grassroots Election Integrity (EI) organizations have been fighting an unrecognized war to reclaim and secure our vote count; groups like Election Defense Alliance, Michigan Election Reform Alliance, Voter PA, Voter GA, Wisconsin Citizens for Election Protection, California Election Protection Network, and many others, including social media sites like Occupy Rigged Elections."

Your choosing to ignore all these OTHER people's experience and hard work is a bit puzzling to me.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. See, I think it is unwise to state the nefarious intentions of bad people as if they were already

accomplished. It's great to raise awareness of chicanery, not so great to announce that anything some fuck like Rove sets out to do is as good as done, we're fucked because they never fail. They fail almost always. They have no superpowers. Being willing to cheat is not genius. It's criminality.
The OP and myself are not required to show ID or even to get dressed to vote. Others can elect to do the same.

[randys1]

5. Agreed

[99th_Monkey]

10. Plenty election GOP fraud has already occurred, for decades.

As the article ^ABOVE^ clearly points out.
So I'm not sure how your comment makes any sense.

I'm not trying to be snarky, but am curious as to what you mean to say.

Do you think Republicans don't ever engage in election fraud?

If you agree they DO commit election fraud, do you feel that no-one should
point it out or complain about it until AFTER each election? isn't that giving
away the win?

Help me out

[randome]

3. Hand counting is just as prone to error as computerized counting.

Wide-scale vote-rigging is hard to do. The occasional machine malfunction? Sure.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[99th_Monkey]

12. Not so. Paper ballots don't have to be counted electronically

they can be hand counted after the fact as needed if chicanery is suspected, unlike e-votes, who's
security codes are kept secret by private corporations.

Why do you seem to be covering the asses of the GOP election fraudsters?

[rafeh1]

8. vote counting validation

see my suggestion for process to verify voting and vote counting

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025753955

[99th_Monkey]

13. Why not just go to vote-by-mail?

I applaud your ingenuity and thoughtfulness with your suggested voting methodology,
however vote-by-mail is already in place in Washington, Oregon and Colorado and is
working swimmingly

It would be relatively easy to use this tried and true" method of voting, compared to
changing to a completely new, untried and unfamiliar method of voting.

[renate]

15. it's baffling. it really is.

You vote at your leisure at home, without taking a minute off from work or your lunch hour, and can spend as much time you want reading carefully about measures and candidates and everything, and you spend 30 seconds dropping your ballot in the mail instead of waiting 8 hours in Democratic precincts and 5 minutes in Republican ones.

I honestly don't understand why this isn't the norm. Except for the 8 hours/5 minutes thing, maybe....

[Puzzledtraveller]

9. I agree.

[2naSalit]

14. Kick!!!