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boondoggle billions for electronic voting, that all our Democratic US Senators but two voted for, the introduction of private corporate TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code into our election system, and the introduction of other vast and obscure complications where no such complications existed before; the purchase of very expensive, and extremely insecure and insider hackable voting machines and central tabulators that no one but private company personnel understands, and no one else can repair and maintain, including repairs needed during elections when the machines break down, which they often do.
Could anything be stupider than this?
The stupidity then trickles down to the local level. Before electronic voting, we had perfectly competent people running elections, including many perfectly competent volunteer poll workers. People voted. They counted the votes in public view, and posted and reported the totals. Anyone could follow the simple rules needed to do this, and the type of people attracted to this job, whether salaried or volunteer, tended to be more than competent. They tended to be quite intelligent and committed to our democratic right to vote. They considered it their duty to serve the public. It wasn't all "Saturday Evening Post." We had a major breakdown of this civic system in southern states, where black citizens were barred from registering and voting by white bigots running the elections offices. We solved that problem for a couple of decades--after much grief and steadfast effort--with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (until Bushites began violating it with impunity--in the full knowledge that no Bushite A.G. would go after them--a nice, circular, criminal system.) But, on the whole, the system worked. It was community-based, community-run, and consisted of the simplest of all technologies--paper and pencil--something that everyone could understand, and, importantly, something that everyone could MONITOR.
Now we have a gaggle of idiots, from the secretary of state on down, who don't have a clue how our votes are "counted" in the slick new machines with their secret programming that they have spent so much of our money on (--poured into the pockets of openly partisan Bushite corporations!). It's no wonder that they foster a "culture of secrecy" just like the corporations they are now beholden to. They have much to hide--including their ignorance of this technology. Poll workers have to take classes just to run the damn voting machines--machines that it takes a lifetime of education--or particular individual brilliance--to really understand. (And those WITH a lifetime of education in computer technology have, time and again, warned us against the use of these machines in elections!)
Which brings me to the "voter authorization cards" that were missing in the 238 precincts when they opened--with voters having to leave and not vote because these cards were not delivered. In a sensible voting system--like the one we used to have--you sign in, in a book, you vote on a ballot, and you leave. The needs of this system are SIMPLE, and mess-ups were rare. If you are having to run around about "voter authorization cards," and "voter verified paper trails," and computer "memory" cards, and your power supply, and your printers, and your touchy machinery, and "certified" or "uncertified" computer upgrades and "patches," and the system is being changed from week to week, and month to month, according to the latest dictates from the local, state and federal bought-and-paid-for election officials, and the machines break down and YOU can't fix them, you have to call the corporate personnel who made them and who alone know how they work, and you have, in addition, to worry about security of the machinery, internal modems, unauthorized connections, tampering, machine tallies that, inexplicably, start running backwards and deleting votes, and on, and on, and on, you are liable to get just a bit flustered and forget something. If all you have to remember are the poll book, the ballots, the polling booth and the little stick-on "I Voted" decals, you can conduct this business of democracy with dignity, openly, efficiently, honestly and with a minimum of errors.
Don't blame the stupidity on the lowest rung on the ladder--like a haughty English lord who shoots his own foot and blames it on the gamekeeper. When major stupidity happens in government, look to the top--in this case, the truly stupid ones who sold our democracy right away.
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