Computerized voting = Fraud, Paper Voting = Maintaining Democracy

[shance]

We can talk about the candidates, and that is important.

To sum things up, if we all get down to it, if we can ensure a fair election, George Bush will most probably not have a prayer.

This seems to be the reason why the FEC(?) is being pressured to ramrod through the Secretary of State's offices, installations of these computerized voting machines ultimately in every state.

The most immediate problem facing us:

George Bush has been targeting California since he's been in office. Seemingly he has a chip on his shoulder the size of well, California, because he is essentially not well-liked here. It is obvious how he treats individuals and states he does not like. He wants California, and apparently hes going to do everything he can to obtain it.

I am from Texas, and I lived there when he was governor, he was not good to Texas, and hell, HE LIKED THE STATE.

If Issa gets into California, it will be dire. Individuals think it will be hell solely on Californians, the whole nation will be effected by that result if it happens. His latest attempt to hijack California at this point seems to be through Issa and the Governor's recall. If Issa gets on board, you can BET along with so many other nightmares, computerized votings going in everywhere and for every election including dog catcher.

Back before 2002 election, there was an underlying concern from many of us about the "new" computers being installed in various states including Texas, Georgia, and other states. And I remember when VNS shut down, I remember immediately and almost physically feeling something was not good. And in essence it wasn't good. And of course I do what so many of us do, I chalked it up to paranoia. Was it paranoia? I dont think we'll ever know.

As we now know, VNS closed down 4(?) hours or so before elections polls were closed, and VNS never returned.

VNS closed shop, filed for bankruptcy, became a non-existent entity, and sealed any and all records from the 2002 Election.

I don't know what the results were of 2002 - none of us do, because many of the states held in question of course had computerized voting. At this point, from what I understand, is there is no computerized voting machine that is fraud-proof. If you are a computer expert,and you know the software, you can manipulate the results to look anyway you want them to basically. It is not simply a Diebold issue at all. That is the biggest manufacturer of the voting machines, along with ES&S.

What to do next -

What I have done is I have sent out one of the latest articles on Computerized Voting Fraud to my friends and some of my family members. When you get down to it, this is not a political issue - it is a Democratic issue.

And now that it has become more of a legitimate issue, its time to take it FULL SPEED AHEAD.


Make paper voting and eliminating computerized voting your MAIN objective, along with supporting your presidential candidate.

In truth, every issue comes back to this one.

One more thing, people don't seem to realize that with computerized voting, at this point there is no legal way, short of filing a lawsuit (guess how quickly the results can be tampered with?) to have full authority or access to the results. My question is twofold, how easily could the results be further manipulated and tampered with, and could the results then be jerry-rigged, or bribed into being changed since again its simply computer data, making a lawsuit a purposeless quest?

I realize there are those individuals who are uncomfortable when looking at the reality that there are actually individuals who are this corrupt and would go to such an extreme to win an election.

My response would be, people have done a HECK OF ALOT more than bribe an official in order to change some data in a computer to win a race. Blackmail, murder,and coups are three such "options" that immediately come to mind.

In essense, computerized voting could be the perfect "crime" to control elections and governments and be able to keep your hands clean at the same time.

Again, unlike a paper ballot, there is no way to track the results. And as we know from Florida, its hard enough to track paper, however, with computerized voting, DATA CAN CHANGE, DATA CAN DISAPPEAR, DATA CAN BE MANIPULATED. Paper wins on this issue. Although paper can disappear, and be manipulated, you cannot validly CHANGE it. As most of us know, Gore won Florida. If that election had been computerized, buh bye.

You can do anything you want with computer data - you just have to know how to do it, and have the access to it.

In other words there is huge room for even further fraud other than we saw in 2000. And if there was fraud in 2002, I dont think we'll ever have a prayer of knowing. I think we have had enough speculation on so many incidents these past three years.

Let's return to having more clarity, and a paper trail. Its now more than apparent that computerized voting is a tyrants best friend.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

1. "computerized voting is a tyrants best friend"

that sums it up quite nicely. Computerized voting is a sham.

[gristy]

2. Does anyone know what constitutional protection

we might have for verifiable voting? If the courts can be brought to democracy's advantage on this issue, certainly someone is already working on it, would they not?

[shance]

3. Great question - you would think so.

Any lawyers that might have some insight on this one?