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Abbe Waldman DeLozier and Vickie Karp
19 Dec, 2008

 

Adding printers is not the answer!

 

Unfortunately to date, every bill that has been proposed in Congress to "solve" this problem has been influenced by the vendors of electronic voting machines and/or lobbyists from Microsoft. Every single bill has called for continued use of some form of electronic voting equipment, predominantly calling for adding printers (which can be "hacked around" inside the machine and give the voter a false sense of confidence because their "paper trail" reads the way the voted, while the software in the machine can be recording their vote differently). After studying the issue of accountable elections, here is what we, and many other election integrity activists around the country propose...

 

Our Solution

 

Compare these convoluted, privatized and computerized election processes to our proposed solution: Hand-counted paper ballot elections with citizens executing, monitoring, and counting the ballots at the precinct level. Then, add enhanced security such as video cameras on the ballot box all day including local TV news cameras; the ballot box never leaving the table until its seal is broken after 7 pm by citizen counters; teams of counters representing all parties with a vested interest in the election; counting until all counters agree on the totals; then posting the totals at the precinct level. TOTALLY TRANSPARENT. No ballot boxes can get stuffed, left in the trunk of a car, or thrown in the river with this type of citizen-run, monitored, and counted election.

 

We won't give up til we get there!

 

Vickie Karp can be reached at vickievoter@gmail.com and Abbe Waldman DeLozier, abbe@austin.rr.com.