We know the companies that produce the electronic voting machines that don't have audit trails are owned by Republican Party supporters so can we trust the results to be accurate? Of course the same question would apply if the owners were Democrats.
The machines should print out a card with the vote that was cast printed on it so that the voter can check it is correct and then that card would be dropped in a voting box on the way out.
After the election 10% of the polling stations boxes would be counted to see that they tally with the electronic vote. The polling stations to be checked would be selected at random after polling closed to make sure the checking was random.
2006-08-23 15:04:04 · 11 answers · asked by neil r 1 in Politics & Government ➔ Civic Participation
Suppose your bank announced to one day that they were no longer sending you statements - and that there was no longer any way for an independent audit of your account to be done - that you had to simply trust them - and if you disagreed with what they said was in your account, too bad.
How long would you stay with that bank?
Why put up with voting machines that are doing this to our elections?
Computers are only servants, they have no intrinsic reliablility or trustworthiness. Has your computer ever had a virus or spyware infection? It is trivial for a hacker to exploit these simple servants, and make them loyal to a new master.
Does anyone doubt that this is possible, or that a hundred special interests and foreign governments are not now, at this very moment plotting how to exploit this new weakness in our election system?
To imagine that this is simple partisan sour grapes is short-sighted, as the machines, if not extremely well-designed (and they are not), can be made to serve anyone.
How could anyone be against transparent, accurate, and verifiable elections? What are the motives of those that do not want this?
2006-08-26 05:42:36 · answer #1 · answered by apeweek 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The point of the paper trail is to provide a written receipt to people, so that if a major discrepency came up the people who cared could produce those receipts to verify that the electronic count was accurate.
Absent the paper trail, there is no way (except blind faith) to tell whether the results spit out by the machine actually reflect the selections made by the individuals.
I don't think there's much value in the version you suggest, however, where the machine just spits out the printed card to be counted later. Unless that card is secondary to the receipt, and used only as a quick-check for statistical sampling.
2006-08-24 01:47:35 · answer #2 · answered by coragryph 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No. If your area has an electronic voting machine system with no audit trail, it is almost certainly fraudulent. It is extremely easy to provide an audit trail. The machines are manufactured by the same companies that manufacture ATM machines. Imagine an ATM machine with no audit trail!!.
There is only one reason for there to be no audit trail, and that is because the machine owners and purchasers do not want an honest vote count, which can be double checked.
2006-08-25 10:17:25 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
there are many different kinds of electronic voting machines. the kind we use in my county in missouri are extremely accurate, and are checked out and tested my teams of representatives from each party. since they are not computers, they cannot be hacked into.at the end of the day, the number of votes registered on the machine must match the numbers in the voters book. when everything checks out, the totally enclosed tamper-proof cassette with all the votes recorded is returned to the county clerks office , where a special machine reads the cassettes from each precinct and tallies the votes. at each step a rep of each party must be present. it is virtually impossible to screw things up with a system like this. the problem with your suggestion is that if the cards being dropped into a box were not able to be counted by computer, you would have to count them manually, where there is a much bigger chance of error and more opportunities to "fix"things
2006-08-23 22:19:02 · answer #4 · answered by thekla o 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
You don't trust the machines unless there is a paper trail. Why would you believe a print out will be truthful? No election is perfect, but eletronic voting is much more honest than paper ballots.
2006-08-24 00:30:06 · answer #5 · answered by Richard B 4 · 1⤊ 2⤋
So you KNOW that all voting machines are manufactured by Republicans. How do you KNOW this? It the democrats already making excuses for losing in November. Poor democrats they are running out of ideas and excuses.
2006-08-24 07:27:09 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
The answer is no, they cannot be trusted. A paper trail is necessary to do this. In order to restore validity to our elections they need to be fair and honest. Not like the last two presidential ones.
2006-08-23 22:08:20 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 2⤋
some body would have to be pardon-===on republican or Democrat' --cheat- lie -Steal or mess lead the people of this counter thay all are jest loving caring people.-and why would any one cheat four aether
one of then
2006-08-24 00:26:00 · answer #8 · answered by the B, kid @sbcglobal.net 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Who is paying for this? Votes are private not meant to have paper trail you can trace. Are Democrats already covering their bases in case they do not win?
2006-08-23 23:24:11 · answer #9 · answered by Wolfpacker 6 · 1⤊ 2⤋
HELL NO ! ! !
I vote Republican, but my answer is still "hell no!"
Can we trust them to print only the amount of money they have gold to back it up? PROVEN UNTRUSTWORTHY
Can we trust them to diligently protect our 4th amendment right against search and seizure? PROVEN UNTRUSTWORTHY
Can we trust them to protect our 2nd amendment rights to own firearms? PROVEN UNTRUSTWORTHY
Can we trust them to protect our 1st amendment rights to never Never NEVER make any law prohibiting the free exercise of religion? PROVEN UNTRUSTWORTHY
Can we trust them to abide by the rules when legislation is defeated that they want really Really REALLY bad? (The 16th Amendment comes to mind) PROVEN UNTRUSTWORTHY
Rule of thumb: Never trust the government to handle money.
2006-08-23 22:27:21 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋