“Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.”
– Joseph Stalin
Below are arguments against returning to paper ballots.
The indented text is argument in favor of returning to paper ballots.
A.) Public Support / Ignorance
The vast majority of those who do show up and who do vote have confidence in the reporting of electronic voting machines along with confidence in the government and the media that report these vote counts.
ARGUMENT FOR PAPER BALLOTS:
• The general public does not understand how their votes are being counted and stolen via electronic voting machines and the machines that count the bubbled-in paper ballots. (see links at the end of this article)
• The media and those responsible for counting the ballots must expose the evils of counting the votes in secret, through education and support for totally transparent paper ballots.
B.) Outdated, Old Fashioned Methods of Counting the Ballots
Most voters scoff at the idea of abandoning the utilization of advanced technology (refer to item “A.” above.)
ARGUMENT FOR PAPER BALLOTS:
• What are the costs of electronic voting machines to the town, county, and state? How often are upgrades necessary? How much is the cost to warehouse these machines? How secure are the warehouses that store these machines? How secure are the machines overnight at the dozens of early voting locations? The costs of electronic voting machines should be sought, revealed, and compared to the costs of a totally transparent paper ballot counted by local voters at the precinct polling location each evening before being transported to county election headquarters/boards. This daily process during early voting and on Election Day is the act of due diligence in order to;
a.) prevent avenues for vote-tampering;
b.) provide voter supported counts;
c.) and to preserve the integrity of the counts.
• Voter knowledge and confidence that one’s vote was counted properly is paramount to the right to vote. TX Election Code Title 6, Chapter 65 specifically addresses how to process and count paper ballots.
C.) Video Recording the Counting of Votes Has Been Shunned Through our Election Code
Texas Election Code Title 6 (chapters 33 & 61) addresses the use of recording devices within 100’ of the polling booth during polling hours, leaving an impression that recording any activity within 100’ of the polling booth is prohibited by state statute.
ARGUMENT FOR PAPER BALLOTS:
• Texas Election Code Title 6, Chapter 65 specifically addresses how to conduct a paper ballot count at the polling location prior to being transported to county election headquarters/boards. A violation of this process is a Class B misdemeanor.
• It should be allowed and encouraged that all interested parties (media included), may spectate and record the transparent counting of the votes each evening at the polling locations (limited to space restrictions).
D.) Who Would Show Up at 7pm Each Day to Count Paper Ballots before being transported to county elections/boards
Ashamedly, a jury summons is one of the duties that most registered voters have come to abhor when in fact it is the very defense of individual liberty that the jury system was founded on. The right to vote is taken for granted as well (low voter turnout) and even fewer voters would help count the votes each evening the polls are open.
ARGUMENT FOR PAPER BALLOTS:
• The county can/should use the same system used for jury pools. The commissioner courts can mail a summons to a registered voter with the date, time, and location of their ballot counting duty (the voting location assigned to their precinct).
• A minimal fee should be paid to each acting ballot counter (just like a juror).
• Counting the votes is just as important as serving as a juror, with less intelligence on the subject required AND less time required AND after most working hours of most voters (lending a larger source of ballot counters to pool from).
Transparent elections are totally dependent upon the education of the voter. If voters were aware of how their votes are being stolen, they would show up to insure their votes are counted correctly. The right to vote is the cornerstone of our republic. The individual right to know, and with the confidence, that each vote is counted correctly are paramount to this structure.
The information of vote fraud is out there. Acknowledging the facts is not “conspiracy theory”, it is now fact. (See links below)
If government refuses to follow the constitution, then the only other peaceful recourse left to the People is to vote the Violators out of office and replace them. The Right to VOTE is the cornerstone of our constitutional Republic.
“Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.”
– Joseph Stalin
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From Wikipedia:
“In 2009, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany found that when using voting machines the “verification of the result must be possible by the citizen reliably and without any specialist knowledge of the subject.”
Rigged USA Elections Exposed -Clinton Curtis testifies before a congressional hearing (YouTube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs
Princeton University Exposes Diebold Flaws.mp4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-Qcvqxuy5o&feature=plcp
Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections (Full Length Video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pisBdNLmo-A
Hacking Democracy (video)
How real democracy runs in America. How Bush wins the election. See the reality.
http://vimeo.com/2058220
Invisible Ballots (video)
A Temptation for Electronic Vote Fraud Governments are installing computerized voting systems with no paper record to verify accuracy. Elections will be controlled by companies that do not allow voters to inspect their software. If vote counting becomes privatized, there may be no way to get it back. Hightech vote fraud is already a reality. If you value your vote, you must get this information to your friends – and fast!
(2 ½ hours)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZNJxZsMHV4
Black Box Voting (website)
http://blackboxvoting.org/ … Bev Harris’ organization
NCEL (National Clean Elections Lawsuit – website)
http://www.nationalcleanelections.com/
Vote Rescue – A great organization in Austin. Vickie Karp and Karen Renick were responsible for conducting the October 2009 elections across America, for election of citizen delegates to the Continental Congress 2009 – all of which was done on totally transparent paper ballots.
http://www.voterescue.org/
Coalition for Visible Ballots
http://coalition4visibleballots.homestead.com/
“Man-in-the-Middle” Remote Attack on Diebold Touch-screen Voting Machine
by Argonne National Lab (14:43 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMw2dn6K1oI&feature=player_embedded
Why You Can’t Vote Them Out
By: Mac Sperry
http://www.howtorescueamerica.org/trilogy.html
Election Integrity, Past, Present, and Future
(Kurt Hyde appears at 31 minutes)
This is an election integrity symposium hosted by and at MIT.
…Kurt Hyde lives in North Texas, and very knowledgeable on the history of counting the votes.
http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/vtp/videos/14804-eippf-2011-1-introduction-and-the-past
Murder, Spies, and Voting Lies
http://archive.org/details/scm-10430-murderspiesandvotinglies
The Clint Curtis Story is an incredible documentary which tells the story of a computer programmer who was contacted by a private company’ with ties to convicted Chinese spies, to write a program that could be used to rig elections…what follows is the breaking of a massive conspiracy in which there would be hard evidence of vote manipulation via electronic voting machines-whether using Curtis’s program or the twenty year old boot loader hack which, as shown by students at Princeton University, could be loaded onto any of these machines in less than a minute; the sketchy firing of two employees-one being Curtis himself- from the Florida Dept of Transportation; corrupt ties to leading members of Diebold-one of two companies responsible for vote counting in the US; and a dead Florida DOT investigator- Raymond Lemme RIP- who was privately investigating the claims made by Curtis…who conveniently committed suicide in Georgia, where autopsies are not done on suicide victims, as opposed to Florida where an autopsy would have been automatic. What really happened in 2000 to Al Gore and Ohio & Florida, and again in 2004…..now you can finally know the truth, and it isn’t pretty!
Reclaiming Our Public Elections (9 page handout on returning to a transparent system of counting the votes, by Nancy Tobi – Oct 22, 2011)
http://wearygrace.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/ptc-nh-reclaimelectionsworkshop1.pdf
Nancy Tobi (website)
http://nancytobi.com/#
It is believed by many that voter fraud has existed in the United States for an extremely long time and the evidence is certainly bountiful. The good news is that electronic voting machines have been made that may be audited. It has now become our job to get our elected officials to mandate their usage. Today Representative Sam Johnson asked what they cost, the answer was simple – the election.
Barbara, thank you for this very useful article. It was done well! Now let;s see what we can do with it.
I suggest that we help a Texas legislator draft a bill to propose in the 84th session, that will encourage transparent counting of votes. It’s not too early, as was mentioned at the Aug 27th McKinney Town Hall by one of the House Representatives.