ELECTION INTEGRITY

Ever heard of the Battle of Athens?  It was a citizens rebellion in Athens and Etowah, Tennessee in 1946.  Locals and WW2 returning vets were protesting a "good ole boy" system of political corruption and voter fraud.

There is a YouTube circulating about the incident.  When I watched it, I immediately called a friend who hails from Etowah.  She agreed that the incident happened, but said the video had "Hollywoodized" it because there really were no casualties.

Still, we see in the Battle of Athens a citizenry committed to self-determination and concerned for the integrity of the ballot box.

And isn't self-determination a gift that has been given Americans?

Accountability has always gone hand-in-hand with our election process.  As the Election Day 2012 gets closer, there are several concerns about the integrity of our process.


VOTER ID

Some states require a picture ID while others do not.  There are several videos circulating which purport to show people in "no ID" states signing up to vote under fictitious names.  Or, the poser asks for a handful of ballots to take to a nursing home.  That's troubling.

Tell me again why polls report minorities support voter ID, but elected officials call it discrimination?

Why would it be normal procedure to show my ID to access any number of places, but discriminating to prove who I was in the voting booth?

VOTER INTIMIDATION
Who would have believed this Black Panther intimidation from 2008 in Philadelphia?

Who could conceive of the lack of prosecution for such an offense?  click

VOTER FRAUD

Everyone laughs about the dead people who vote in Chicago.  Now there's a new potential for fraud with exponential possibilities.  

The system in place in some states allows the election box results to be funneled into a software system run by a company named SOE, which is based in Tampa, FL.  An SOE server takes the information from the precinct voting machines and compiles a total for a more streamlined, timely result.  Faster IS better...but how safe is this?

As the information leaves the local precinct, the numbers posted at the precinct can still be checked against what SOE publishes.  That affords some accountability and accountability is our friend.

That has changed.

A company called SCYTL has bought SOE and they offer a ballotless system of internet voting (both poll touch screens and remote internet voting, which has been used for soldiers overseas).

Unfortunately, we lose the ability to audit SCYTL's numbers against the precinct numbers.  Once SCYTL has the numbers, there will be no physical evidence or chain of custody for comparison.  There is no way for the public to authenticate who cast the votes...or keep up with the chain of custody...or the count.

So who is SCYTL and when did we give all our cookies over to them? 

SCYTL is a company based in Spain which either has run/will run elections in the UK, France, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India, and Australia.  They are funded through international venture capital funds.  In the United States, there are 14 states which now use this new paperless voting system. click

A few questions immediately come to mind...

1.  Hacking.  Sites say that just before the November 2010 election, Washington DC's new electronic voting system was hacked.  How would we know our voting was accurate?

2.  Sovereignty.  An American election is run by a Spanish conglomerate?  

3.  International Venture Capitalist Investors.  Who are they? 

4.  Since when has "no accountability" EVER worked in anything?  Trust and verify is a good policy.

"The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter."  

Dwight D. Eisenhower

President Eisenhower, you have no idea how much we hope that is so.