A simple, but difficult, way to regain our electoral process

[BillyDoc]

The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) mandates several features that are required of voting equipment that are difficult to implement without the help of electronic logic. For example, that the voter be warned if he “overvotes” (selects two candidates for a single post), all of which are trivial to implement with a computer or the like. These requirements thus becomes the driving force behind the implementation of electronic voting machines, and because HAVA is now the law of the land this requirement will not be easily circumvented.

There is nothing in HAVA, however, that specifically outlaws the use of paper ballots. In fact, Section 301(a)(2) of HAVA makes specific reference to a paper record. Below is the text of this section:

(2) Audit capacity.--

(A) In general.--The voting system shall produce a record with an audit capacity for such system.

(B) Manual audit capacity.--

(i) The voting system shall produce a permanent paper record with a manual audit capacity for such system.

(ii) The voting system shall provide the voter with an opportunity to change the ballot or correct any error before the permanent paper record is produced.

(iii) The paper record produced under subparagraph (A) shall be available as an official record for any recount conducted with respect to any election in which the system is used.

Please note carefully, however, that the language of this section is highly misleading and actually provides the legal foundation upon which fraud can and has been built. This language has been interpreted to mean "In the case where a manual audit capacity is designed into the system, use the rules in subsection (B), otherwise, only the words in subsection (A) apply, and 'produce a record' can be taken to mean 'a record in any form.'" And therein lies the problem with Direct Recording Electronic voting machines . . . the record they produce for an audit is machine-readable only and merely comprises a duplicate of the otherwise recorded vote, NOT a separate audit trail traceable to the voter.

We all know these problems well by now, and any student of human behavior must also realize that these problems WILL NOT be fixed by our government. To do so would be their equivalent of suicide. They are well aware of the fact that they cannot be elected in any way but by fraud.

So, what to do.

Most citizens are not aware of the cost of the voting machines promulgated by Diebold, and others, but they tend to be $3,500 and up . . . so we pay for them twice, once with our democracy and once with our treasure. This fact, however, can be to our advantage. There is an abundance of outdated PCs available at no cost that are quite capable of acting as electronic voting machines and implementing all HAVA requirements. They can be programmed to print a paper ballot according to the voter’s wishes, and that ballot can then be counted by humans. It is also quite conceivable that a human-readable bar code be printed on the ballot with the same information to facilitate counting, and that every interested party involved have their own bar-code reader (they give them away at Radio Shack) to verify the count with. If every precinct then publishes their counts individually on the internet, in the paper, and nailed to the precinct polling place door, then any concerned individual can add these data up him or herself to verify it. This sort of system is transparent in all respects and would be very difficult to “hack” as long as the voter is able to verify his own ballot and humans do the actual counting, with or without the aid of a plurality of tools such as a hand bar-code reader.

Two very important things are needed to implement such a plan.

First: The necessary programs must be written. One program that a Supervisor of Elections can use to create the database listing the candidates and issues for the ballot. This part is trivial. A second program that would be run on a PC to arbitrate the voter’s wishes and print out his ballot. This is more difficult, but using Open Source software (Linux) would be free and easily disseminated. A third bar-code reader program would be useful as well.

Once the appropriate software is available, Supervisor’s of Elections can be approached and asked why they are wasting our money on Diebold’s machines when there is this free and transparent system that could be used instead. They will not want to answer honestly, which is to say “so their sponsors get fraudulently elected and they keep their jobs,” and will in the main stonewall, lie, and otherwise obfuscate any such effort . . . guaranteed.

Which brings me to the second important thing that must be implemented: a means of holding an election WITHOUT the aid of the various 3,067 Supervisors of Elections and then enforcing the results.

This is not a simple requirement, but it IS a do-able thing . . . if enough people are willing to take the trouble. And if they are generally not willing (as unfortunately I strongly suspect) well, then . . . we continue to live as Fascists.

Citizen’s polling stations can be set up in every precinct and a dual election held, the official one and the “citizen’s.” Great care can be taken to keep the citizen’s election open, transparent, and verifiable. When the results are in, and discrepant with the “official” version, as they certainly have been with our presidential elections lately (assuming the exit polls to reflect the actual will of the people), the courts can be used to ask those same Supervisor’s of Elections to explain exactly why this is so and a few other pertinent questions about “verification” before locking them away for a long, free, State-funded vacation in a local prison for their treason.

There is one thing I am quite certain of, and that is that we are NOT going to ever again have actual elections in the United States if the people of this country do not insist on it absolutely, AND if they are not willing to “take to the streets” to back that demand.

Which brings me to the reason for this post. Surely there are people reading this who are concerned enough to act, and also have experience programing in a Linux environment. If these patriotic individuals would form an Open Source project to get the necessary programming done we would all be in a much better position to address the second requirement above. I am begging these talented individuals to please reply and identify yourselves! And if you are like me and lack this particular talent, would you please just give this post a kick to keep it alive long enough so that the people who do have the programming ability get to see it?

I actually tried to push this idea after the 2002 election, but had no luck. If you would like to see an essay about this written at that time go to: http://electionfraudbounty.org/Two%20simple%20election%20plans.php

Thanks for your help!

Bill Cushman

[skids]

1. At what point do we see some planning action?

At the very minimum, people should be planning to audit the tapes posted on their precinct doors. Plus there are tons of anti-suppression activities to be done -- like checking the voter roles weekly and making sure people know it when they have been knocked off.

When does planning start for 2006? This summer? This fall? Next Winter? Before the primary? After the primary?

If we don't get our crap together on these activities, they won't actually happen, and in November 2006, we'll all be sitting around saying "you know it would have been nice if someone had..."

Don't let that happen. Start organizing locally. There are numerous voter protection organizations with community forums (ballotintegrity is one.) Start organizing locally now.

[loudsue]

2. Hi, Billy Doc!! GREAT POST!!

:hi::toast::beer: AND WELCOME TO DU!! :party::bounce::hi:

These are some good suggestions, and I hope that talented computer wizkids will come forward and help!

There are several threads in the 2004 Election Forum that will refer you to the web sites of ORGANIZED groups who are working on things such as this. There is even a movement afoot to bring all the organizations under one umbrella organization for maximum impact.

I am SOOO glad that new posters are interested in this issue, because in reality, it is the ONLY issue that ALL AMERICANS SHOULD be focusing on right now.

EVERY other problem this country is facing can be corrected if the damn MACHINES that count our votes could be destroyed, and if severe legal penalties could be enforced for any Bd. of Elections official who tried in ANY WAY to mishandle the votes.

I WILL NOT GIVE UP MY VOTE BECAUSE SOME ELECTION OFFICIAL IS TOO LAZY TO MAKE SURE THAT EVERY VOTE IS COUNTED ACCURATELY!!! And, according to the meeting with elections officials that was held recently, most of them just didn't want to be bothered with "ballots" and/or hand-counting.

The problem is so terribly serious, and many people have just gone about their lives like it's business as usual. We need to have major riots in the streets to take back the right to have our votes counted honestly!

Thanks again for bringing up this important issue! I just can't believe EVERY DUer isn't ALL OVER this issue! It's the MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE to save our country.

:kick::kick::kick: