stop
bitching...
Pat
Denino is a fiber artist from Ohio who detests coloring inside the lines. Her
journey of discovery is based on the reality that not only does the emperor
not
wear any clothes but, in fact, there was never an emperor in the first place!
Link to other Articles byPat Denino
I chose to jump into the ocean. I didn't choose the wave that appeared. That's realistic, I suppose. The ocean I jumped into is political action. Election
reform is the wave that hit me. Election reform is also terminally boring, or so I used to think. Civil rights, nonviolence, protecting the environment,
with their marches and camaraderie, those kinds of movements seem glamorous in comparison, but election reform? You walk in, you punch a hole, pencil in
a circle, or touch a screen, you walk out. How can you reform pure simplicity? Snort. I'm about to tell you all about it, friends, so have a seat.
A group of people decide on a course of action. The question is formed after discussion, folks raise their hands, a count is taken, a decision is made.
We do it all the time, don't we? We first voted, maybe in school, at home, with our team, and with special interest clubs. So what do we do when the group
is too big? I've marked my choice on a postcard and mailed it in with some groups, and it never occurred to me that perhaps my vote wouldn't be counted
the way I intended. I trusted the integrity of the vote counters, because it never would have occurred to me to alter the vote count myself. Well, I may
have been the last naive middle aged person on the face of this earth, but I'm not naive any more. Who knew!
Now let's walk through this and just hit the high points. In some countries people vote with paper ballots. We see it all the time on television, don't
we, people voting for the first time. Hey! Iraq! When the voting day is over, the box is opened, someone looks at your marks and puts the ballots in basket
A or basket B, counts them, and whoever gets the highest number is elected. Like I suggested before, why do we need to reform something so simple?
Counting paper ballots by hand is tedious, though it is in fact still done in civilized countries. But we Americans have a short attention span, so tedium
is intolerable. Now we have voting machines and most of them are computer driven. Wow! Computers don't count wrong! Hey! Look! They run our cars, they
keep track of our investments, they do all kinds of things we don't want to do, and they do them faster and more accurately. What a wonderful invention.
We don't even have to worry about scoundrels stuffing the ballot box.
Yep, you're right. We don't have to worry about that. There's something that never occurred to me, though, and maybe it hasn't occurred to a lot of people.
Computers count accurately because the program tells the computer to do that. So think about it. Have you ever played a computer game, or been fooled at
a humorous website? You write one thing and something else shows up on the screen? It isn't so funny now, is it? Computers do what the programmers tell
them to do. If a programmer wants a voting machine to add a vote to candidate A at a particular sequence, or to add your vote to a candidate you didn't
choose, it will happen. Are you a little bit concerned yet? No? Because you don't think anybody would be able to get away with it? Why not? What would
stop a programmer from putting a little code in the program to shift the vote for the preferred candidate? Government oversight? Come closer. I want to
whisper something in your ear.
((((((THERE IS NONE!))))))
But, but, but.....there HAS to be government oversight, you splutter. I hope you splutter. I hope you splutter and cough and gag and puke. The state governments
have contracts with the private companies that make the machines. These companies consider the computer code, the program by which the votes are counted,
to be proprietary. That means it belongs to them and they don't have to share it. And they don't. Why would they not share that information with the government?
And maybe more to the point, why is that acceptable to the government anyway?
Think about this. The government does not require that the voting machine manufacturers make the code available to the people who actually cast their votes
on those machines. It's a damned counting program, for pete's sake. It's not your mama's secret fruitcake recipe! What are your first thoughts when someone
refuses to reveal information? Who's being secretive? And why? Just asking questions, that's all.
Ok. I need to settle down. I'm hyperventilating. I'll back up. If you vote on a machine that has no paper trail, you have no idea how your vote was counted.
None. You are at the mercy of the machine, and the machine only does what the programmer tells it to do. Don't forget, the programmer only does what she's
paid to do,and her boss is delivering the machines to his customer according to the customer's specs. Oh but look here! This machine produces a paper trail!
See? Look for yourself! You can see the votes. Oh really? I see a roll of paper that has marks on it that tell me how the machine "says" it counted the
votes. But think about this. The programmer can tell the machine where to put the votes, and the programmer can also tell the voting machine where to make
the marks on the paper.
I'm not going to address the possibility of the machines being hacked while in use. I'm not going to list the times company technicians have gone in and
tinkered with the machines while a recount was being done. I'm not going to delve into the money trail. I am not saying these things happened. But I am
saying they CAN happen, and the same government that we are supposed to trust is preventing us from checking the machines at a meaningful level. If your
government assures you of its pristine honesty and dedicated concern for the common welfare, do you accept that? If your teenager says he isn't drinking,
do you accept that? Or do you smell his breath?
Are you worried yet? Are you at all curious about the policies that are determining our future? The future of Iraq? Our relationship with Iran? The future
of our planet and its biodiversity? Our children? Our elders? Your job and health care? Are you resigned to the idea that a majority of people must agree
with these policies, because the vote count apparently confirms that majority? What if.....?
I have one last image to leave with you. Have you ever had a nightmare where a monster was chasing you and you opened your mouth to scream for help but
you couldn't form the words? How did it feel to know your voice was gone?