Here is the fundamental problem with voting machines.
The fundamental issue with electronic voting machines versus paper ballots is not that fraud can happen, as some like to suggest. No, fraud has been around for a long time. As long as there has been elections, there has been election fraud.
The difference is the ease with which it can be done. And the scope of the effects.
I mean, you know how hard it is to keep things under wraps: two people can hardly keep a secret, no matter how insignificant. Imagine the army of people it would take to rig a paper ballot election. Now imagine all those people keeping that a secret. Something that big? No way. It’d be in the news in a week.
How many people does it take to rig an electronic election? I don’t know, but certainly not 100,000. Maybe two. Maybe three. Maybe ten. These people don’t have to run around registering dead people as voters and stuffing ballot boxes, either. They have to make some changes to the software the computer inside the box runs. That’s all. A few people making a few changes, and an entire election, potentially across an whole nation, is rigged.
Who would do such thing?
People with something to gain by it. Money, government grants, graft, power, whatever. These things happen all the time. In Canada, the Liberal party managed to squander something like a billion dollars by letting those with something to gain use it. And I don’t even have to talk about Watergate and a hundred other more minor scandals.
This is why I object to electronic voting. Unless something changes in their procurement, design, and use, I won’t ever use one myself. I don’t trust myself enough to handle that kind of power and influence without some kind of oversight, some kind of transparency. Why would I trust some faceless bureaucrat or executive with a power so awesome as the vote?
The question, then, is this: are you willing to put democracy in the hands of a few people, none of whom are elected by you, none of whom are responsible to you, and none of whose names you even know?
I know I’m not.
Tags: opinions, politics, technology
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You are EXACTLY correct that elections are always under pressure because of their stakes, which range all the way up to control of the world’s richest economy and sole military superpower when it comes to the presidency of the United States. If history teaches anything, democracy will have to be defended against power and ambition (the very main concern of the Founders) via checks and balances.
Problem is, our elections are now checkless and balanceless when it comes to preventing the government from tampering. Insiders are always a high risk with embezzlement because of the access they have. But Insiders in elections know, of course, that those elections govern the power, legitimacy, and ultimately the money the government itself has. Thus, it can’t count the votes by itself without public supervision.
But what e-voting allows is the complete denial of public supervision. Our #1 inalienable right to “toss the rascals out” which is what the Declaration of Independence was all about because we weren’t allowed a peaceful way to VOTE the rascals out. Well, today, we no longer have a peaceful way to vote the rascals out, if the rascals are willing to use the powers of secret vote counting on electronic voting machines to preserve its power or otherwise alter results. Governments are formed to SECURE us our rights, but this right to toss the rascals out is insecure to say the least.
Elections must be publicly controlled if we wish to believe that freedom is SECURE. In other words, e-voting is a revolution AGAINST the power of we the people and our right to change our government, ushered in without a debate or even vote, mostly contractual trade secrecy terms where the government agrees in a purchase contract for voting machines to gang up with the vendor to defeat the public’s right to know.
There is a profound crisis in democracy, since ultimately voting is the right that protects all other rights, and it has been made insecure. For a lawsuit that addresses some of these issues, see http://www.votersunite.org/info/lehtolawsuit.asp
Defend Democracy. It’s cool. The press should do it more, instead of ignoring or ridiculing those who act just like Thomas Jefferson would.
April 24th, 2007 at 6:51 pm