Texas Secretary Of State Praises Electronic Voting

Texas Secretary of State, Roger Williams, is an idiot. Either that, or he believes the citizens of Texas are idiots. Williams proves this with his latest defense of electronic voting.

First, he touts the new electronic voting system as a reason to vote for young people. Williams says, "In the last election, only five percent of the voters were 18-23. We need to do a better job with them." Williams goes on to say that electronic voting will attract more young voters because they are familiar with the technology. Good grief! This does not even make sense. These young Texans have all the computer access they need. If they're going to vote, they will vote. If they're not going to vote, it won't make any difference how the voting is conducted. Just the fact that there is a fancy electronic voting machine will induce no one to vote, young or old.

But Williams doesn't stop there. Listen to what he says about the security of electronic machines. "I'm satisfied the equipment we have will be much more secure. If you look back at history, a lot of voter fraud and problems were generated by paper ballots. We've moved to the next level." He went on to say the machines were "easier, faster and more secure". Who does he think he's kidding?

Yes, there was fraud with paper ballots. But you always had the ballots, and they could be recounted time and time again. With the electronic systems, there is no paper ballot. This means there cannot be a recount, but only a re-tabulation by the machine, and if the machine screwed it up the first time, what makes us think it wouldn't just repeat the error when asked to re-tabulate. As for security, it is nonexistent. Any computer-literate teenager could hack the system and rig the election.

We've already had a taste of what the new system is like here in Tarrant County. During our primary election, these wonderful new computers threw in an extra 100,000 votes. I have no faith in this system, or the people who administer it. To me, it looks like the Republicans have instituted a system that will hide their attempts to cheat. I hope I'm wrong, but I expect the Republicans will steal this election by cheating with the new electronic system. Who can prevent it? In Texas, they control the voting system, including the machines.

I used to be naive enough to believe that both parties wanted fair elections, but after George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfield, Alberto Gonzalez, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, Bob Ney, Duke Cunningham, etc., I no longer believe that. These guys would steal their mother's last nickel.