Privatization of Voting Machines Threatens Wisconsin Election Integrity

[midnight]

"Last week Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board, the state’s election authority, held two public meetings to demonstrate new electronic voting machines to be used in Wisconsin. Dozens of citizens concerned about election integrity attended the demonstrations and tried to raise their questions, but most were told that the meeting was simply for demonstrating the machines, not for discussing the larger political context in which they are being used. Here is the response of Attorney Jim Mueller, Director of Wisconsin Counts. -Editors"

"I would like to broaden this communication from one about a particular voting system to one about the decreased transparency and the privatization of our election system that have occurred.

In Wisconsin, as elsewhere in the nation, there has been a concerted push by corporate interests to eliminate the public counting of votes. This privatization of our election processes has been advanced by laws and rules that:

1) Require the use of electronic voting systems (the systems were lobbied for by the private organizations that manufacture, sell, program and maintain them),

2) Permit the programming to be kept secret,

3) Prevent sworn election inspectors from auditing the tabulated results.

4) Make it impossible for Citizen Audits to occur before results are finalized.

5) Prevent a manual counting of votes in a recount.

http://wcmcoop.com/2012/08/08/privatization-of-voting-machines-threatens-wisconsin-election-integrity/

[Scuba]

1. Big K&R, thanks for posting. Keep the light shining on this.