Computerized voting is just a gateway to fraud

By: Ray Molzon - Staff Writer Michigan Tech. University Motherload

Date Posted: September 29, 2004
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." Words of wisdom from one of the 20th century's worst tyrants, Josef Stalin. With the climate being rife with political slogans, smear campaigns and a noted absence of any deep discussion about relevant national issues, it can only mean one thing: another election day is just around the corner.

Just like four years ago, it appears that the presidential race will be a photo finish. Unlike the 2000 election, however, this year will see a far greater number of citizens casting their votes on high-tech touch screen voting machines. The idea of it sounds wonderfulwho needs to bother going through all that manual counting when we have computers to do such a menial task for us? One could even envision an enlightened society where voters may state their preferences right over the Internet, providing next to instantaneous results.

Before we get too carried away with this e-voting craze, though perhaps we should consider some of the possible negative consequences of this technology. Call me a Luddite if you will (I see no stigma attached to such a label), but I really have to question the motives behind the many people and institutions pushing this newest fad upon us.

Even if there were no evidence of electronic voting machines aiding and abetting the crime of election fraud, there is always the question: How do we know the computers are behaving correctly? Anyone who has had experience writing code for some humongous project knows that no complex program can be guaranteed to be bug-free.

Of course, programmers can test their code rather thoroughly and gain some confidence in its ability to do the right thing. Perhaps the most rigorous test of all would be to print off paper ballots of each electronic vote, which could then be randomly counted and compared to the computer's count. Already several states have required the use of machines that keep a hard copy of every vote, for those very purposes.

But even with such safeguards, which many elections officials are actually fighting tooth and nail, this leads us back to Stalin's credo: What good do these manual counts do if the ones doing the counting are the ultimate arbiters of every election? Is there even any point in going to the ballots every other year if our votes aren't accurately counted? I suppose it works to keep the masses appeased by letting them believe they actually have some say in the way their "democracy" is run; but even then, how long will they remain content if the results of every election run contrary to commonly known demographics?

As much as it might sound like some Roswell, flat-Earth nut job conspiracy, there actually is ample evidence to conclude that our elections aren't entirely decided by the minority of Americans who decide to participate in the electoral process. You won't see this evidence on the evening news, of course, because the interests controlling the airwaves have much in common with those running the election counts.

Consider this story: In the Florida 2002 primary election, a total of 0 votes were counted for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Janet Reno, on voting machines in a heavily Democratic precinct. She lost in November when 103,000 votes were somehow misplaced by these same machines. And, what do you know, nearly all of the records from these machines in Florida's southern counties were lost after the machines conveniently decided to crash. No point in asking for a recount there, huh?

This is just one story. There are quite a few out there, however, wanting to be told to the American public but not being found "newsworthy" by the big media corporations. But time and time again, elections where straw polls give a Democratic candidate a sizable lead turn out with Republican victorsnot just eking out but winning by an even greater margin than their opponents had before the election.

There are countless stories of these machines resetting themselves, failing to record the proper vote, or even finding more votes than the number of people who cast a ballot. And more often than not, these stories come from counties where there is a strong Democratic presence.

Is it a coincidence that the three major corporations that make these machines are run by men who donate profusely to the Republican Party? I suppose we could wait six more weeks to find out.