The first thing that goes out the window when a precinct or state adopts electronic voting, as it is currently structured, is control. No matter the oversight exercised, by definition manufacturers are in control of the software that runs the machines. The software is proprietary – manufacturers are free to insert subroutines to alter vote outcomes willy nilly. There’s nothing election supervisors can do about it except count paper ballots, and as we have seen coast to coast, they are wont to do that.
Here’s a letter from today’s Bozeman Chronicle that examines the problem here in Gallatin County:
Charlotte Mills, Gallatin County Recorder, assures us [in a previous Chronicle article] that election judges monitor the new electronic voting machines to make sure nobody tampers with them.
That is not reassuring when the company that makes the machines won’t allow state officials to know anything about their programming. How do we know they can’t be programmed remotely? What is the method for making an accurate recount when the election results don’t reflect the polls? (Witness yesterday’s primary results in New Hampshire.)
All across the country, states are abandoning these machines becuase they have been easily hacked.
Gallatin County’s refusal to dump these bogus, unverifiable, tamper-prone electronic voting machines tramples on Montanan’s constitutional right to vote. Why should we as citizens be subject to Montana laws and taxation when our government can’t guarantee that our elections are free of fraud? Or are we just being allowed to play with the dials?
Etc. The writer’s name is Janine Baker of Bozeman.
Of course, I’ve addressed this subject again and again, but I am at a loss to find the words that adequately express the absurdity of our situation or my contempt for the officials that allow fraud to go on right under their noses, never expressing doubt or curiosity! With the advent of machines, we have seen the art of polling go south – outcomes seldom agree with polls, and people, especially election officials and partisans, stumble over themselves to explain why the polls are wrong, the count correct. It’s weird – it may be turf protection, intimidation, or plain stupidity. Pick ’em.
It was never like this prior to 2002, the first national election after HAVA – the Help America Vote Act. That was the federal law that opened the door for the Trojan horses that today tamper with virtually every election outcome.
As I say, I don’t know the words. “Absurd” is too weak. “Confounding” is an attitude about behaviors that make no sense except that people bow to official power as the ultimate source of truth. I’m reduced to the one word I can think of that conveys the sense of disgust that these machines and the people who bring them to us: Stinks.
Piece of Mindful 