President Jimmy Carter --- Carter Center Statement on the Integrity of U.S. Elections

[kpete]

Recent claims about rigging of U.S. elections are unfounded and irresponsible. Based on our knowledge of the electoral system in the United States and of the many independent analyses of U.S. polling processes, The Carter Center has great confidence in the overall administrative integrity of U.S. elections. Checks and balances within our electoral system exist to protect it against manipulation. These include processes and checks before and after election day to ensure the integrity of the election process, such as pre-election testing of voting technology and postelection audits that take place in some states; the widespread presence of agents from both parties in polling stations; and the broad access to election results given to the media and the public, enabling transparent reviews of the election results. The American electoral process also benefits from the hard work and dedication of hundreds of thousands of poll workers and election officials, who represent both parties and ensure the integrity of the voting and counting process.

“The Carter Center has observed more than 100 elections around the world, some of them quite problematic,” said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. “However, allegations of potential rigging of U.S. elections, as well as of widespread voter fraud, are baseless, serving only to undermine confidence in our democratic processes and inflame tensions.”

The Carter Center notes that no election is perfect and that there will be isolated administrative incidents in U.S. elections as in every election conducted around the world. However, these incidents should not call into question the integrity of the entire election. While The Carter Center is not observing elections in the United States, a number of reputable nonpartisan organizations are observing and will issue public reports of their findings after the election.


https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/us-elections-101916.html

[Hortensis]

1. Well, one of a couple reasons to be glad President Carter's with us.

The other is that I want him to live to see that we passed through this very low point and moved on to a new era of general prosperity and confidence in our institutions.

[CentralMass]

2. Let's see how much voter suppression and irregularities that we encounter on November 9th.

[Stevepol]

3. I'm disappointed in Jimmy Carter on this one.

I agree that there's no conceivable way for "voter fraud" to shift an election, that is, where individuals pretend to be somebody else. This happens extremely rarely and would be almost impossible to do on a large scale. This is what Repubs pass all these ID requirements to prevent happening. It almost never happens

BUT THERE ARE A THOUSAND WAYS FOR THE VOTING MACHINES TO BE MANIPULATED TO TILT THE RESULTS OF ANY ELECTION IN THE COUNTRY. AND THERE IS OVERWHELMING STATISTICAL EVIDENCE THAT THIS SORT OF THINGS GOES ON NOW AND HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR A LONG TIME.

The article says that the Carter Center believes that there are many ways that make it impossible for elections to be subverted. Among the processes supposedly insuring the validity of an election are "processes and checks before and after election day to ensure the integrity of the election process, such as pre-election testing of voting technology and postelection audits that take place in some states."

The Carter Center should know that pre-election testing of the voting machines does not check the particular programs that are already in the machines from the factory (nowadays over a million lines of programming) or programs that can be easily added to the machines at many points in the election process, in particular, the point at which the results from a machine are downloaded onto "memory cards" before being transferred added to the central tabulators. The central tabulators themselves are open to all kinds of manipulations as well. The Carter Center claims that many states have means of "auditing" the vote. I'd like to know what states they are talking about, and how many times this option has been used to verify the vote.

This is why I doubt that the down ballot contests will help the Dems very much. I'll hope and pray that happens, but I don't have much faith in the American electoral system actually as long as the vote is counted in electronic voting machines, manufactured, programmed, and maintained by far-right wing owners.