New Election - Same Old Problem

A new election is fast approaching and here in Amarillo we have the same problem that plagues cities and counties across the nation -- a voting system that is accountable to no one (not even the people that run it).   We have an electronic voting system that has no paper trail.

As I see it, this type of voting system has three major flaws:

1. There is no way to know that your vote was correctly counted (or even counted at all).   The best that can be done is to determine that the same amount of votes were tabulated by the machine as the number of people who signed in to vote.   No one can be assured that their vote was tabulated as they wanted it to be.   We just have to trust the machine to do things correctly, and frankly, I've seen machines mess up far too much to ever have that kind of trust in any kind of machine -- especially a machine performing an important function like tabulating votes.

2. There is no way to do a recount if it is suspected that the votes were not properly counted.   With paper ballots it may have been a long and hard job of tabulating the results, but they had the advantage of being able to be recounted as many times as necessary to get an accurate count.   And that count and recount could be supervised by members of all interested parties to insure the count was fair and correct.   No so with the electronic machines.   You can ask the machine to recalculate, but you will just get the same answer whether it is correct or not.   And if by some odd chance you get a different answer, how would you know which answer was the correct count?

3. The electronic voting machines, like all machines, are vulnerable to tampering by humans. Now I know that the companies who sell and service these machines will be quick to tell everyone how secure and tamper-proof their machines are.   What would you expect them to say?   Their jobs and income depend on people trusting these machines.   But the fact is that electronic voting machines can be tampered with both in the warehouse and at the voting precinct -- by workers and by voters.   It would take someone with some pretty good knowledge of electronics, but how hard is that to find in this modern world?

I will admit that I am a left-wing voter who lives and votes in a county dominated by conservative Republicans, and I simply don't trust the people in charge.   They may be the most honest people in the world, or they may not be -- I have no idea.   But I ask my conservative friends (and yes, I do have some), what if the tables were turned and the county was controlled by left-wing Democrats?   Would you trust them to always be honest in counting votes?   

The sad fact is that there are both honest and dishonest people in all parties, and no one should be put in the position of having to trust in officials who cannot prove their tabulations are correct.   Votes are just too important.   They determine who will be elected to make the important decisions that affect all of our lives.

Although I may not like it, I can accept being on the losing end of a vote tabulation.   That is just part of living in a democracy.   What I hate is the thought that it might be due to a machine malfunction or official hanky-panky, and with the no paper trail electronic voting machines no one could ever know.

Isn't it more important to have a count that can be verified and trusted than a count that can be tabulated quickly?