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Both Parties Must Protect Integrity Of Vote
excerpts from a column by Leonard M. Salle. September 22,2005
During the Florida recounts in 2000, voter disenfranchisement and voting improprieties occurred on a large scale. These "irregularities" included such things as throwing away ballot boxes, voter intimidation of many sorts and illegal identification requirements. Shortly after the 2002 election, questions were raised about the reliability of touch-screen voting. Indeed, there were strong indications of touch-screen computer fraud in the 2002 election.
Coming up to the 2004 election, there was not only well-documented disenfranchisement of voters, but even stronger indications of lack of trustworthiness of touch-screen voting. The results of other voting systems, including paper ballots, could be subject to miscounts through manipulation of the central tabulating equipment used at the county level to tally votes from the precincts. Although this problem could be overcome, putting solutions in place nationwide cannot realistically be achieved under the current system, in which individual states and even counties have jurisdiction over voting procedures.
Those who believe there is no way widespread voting fraud could occur in America might well consider the following. There are currently four bills before Congress designed to address one or more well-identified problems that interfere with having honest elections. These bills all have one thing in common: significant support from Democrats but little or no support from Republican members of Congress. The one exception is HR 278, a bill that can be characterized as anti-voting reform. It has only Republican cosponsors.
It is ironic that America's leaders talk about the need to create democracies around the world and emphasize how important honest elections are to achieving that goal. The truth is that many of these same leaders don't believe in the democratic principle of honest elections, where every person who chooses to vote can, and every vote will be accurately and honestly counted.
You have been reading excerpts from "Both parties must protect integrity of vote" by Leonard M. Salle. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/crj8k. Thanks to insidebayarea.com.
excerpts from a column by Leonard M. Salle. September 22,2005
During the Florida recounts in 2000, voter disenfranchisement and voting improprieties occurred on a large scale. These "irregularities" included such things as throwing away ballot boxes, voter intimidation of many sorts and illegal identification requirements. Shortly after the 2002 election, questions were raised about the reliability of touch-screen voting. Indeed, there were strong indications of touch-screen computer fraud in the 2002 election.
Coming up to the 2004 election, there was not only well-documented disenfranchisement of voters, but even stronger indications of lack of trustworthiness of touch-screen voting. The results of other voting systems, including paper ballots, could be subject to miscounts through manipulation of the central tabulating equipment used at the county level to tally votes from the precincts. Although this problem could be overcome, putting solutions in place nationwide cannot realistically be achieved under the current system, in which individual states and even counties have jurisdiction over voting procedures.
Those who believe there is no way widespread voting fraud could occur in America might well consider the following. There are currently four bills before Congress designed to address one or more well-identified problems that interfere with having honest elections. These bills all have one thing in common: significant support from Democrats but little or no support from Republican members of Congress. The one exception is HR 278, a bill that can be characterized as anti-voting reform. It has only Republican cosponsors.
It is ironic that America's leaders talk about the need to create democracies around the world and emphasize how important honest elections are to achieving that goal. The truth is that many of these same leaders don't believe in the democratic principle of honest elections, where every person who chooses to vote can, and every vote will be accurately and honestly counted.
You have been reading excerpts from "Both parties must protect integrity of vote" by Leonard M. Salle. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/crj8k. Thanks to insidebayarea.com.
