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by G F Sutton
We all seem to dance around the obvious sometimes,
as if the solutions to some difficult problems are not even in sight.
But sometimes solutions are already so in our face.
Take the electronic voting machines for example.
They leave no paper trail,
no verifiable record of the nation's vote.
All the nation's decisions are being entrusted to processing
by the mysterious inner workings of computer chips.
The citizens of this nation are denied access to this process.
Now consider two technologies we all use regularly,
technologies which have already proven successful and reliable,
and which offer an easy and absolutely trustworthy electronic voting method:
Cash Registers and Online Banking.
When you buy a 29 cent pack of gum from Kmart,
the cash register does all the processing electronically,
but keeps an internal paper tape record. Why can't the Evoting machines do the same?
Is not our vote worth 29 cents?
If I transfer 30 cents from my savings account to my checking account,
I get a reference number which can be used later if I need to confirm
the transaction with the bank.
Why can't Evoting machines give each voter a reference number which they
can use later to search a public database after an election,
to verify that their vote was counted and is correct?
The reference number in the public database would not in anyway reveal
anyone's secret ballot since each voter's
reference number would be known only to the individual voter.
Contact your representatives and demand Evoting Receipts with Reference Numbers. |