Electronic Voting Is A Disgrace

In an era filled with important, fascinating and shocking feature documentaries (Enron, Inconvenient Truth, Fog of War, Control Room), perhaps the most important of them aired on HBO tonight, entitled “Hacking Democracy," made by Seattle grandmother Bev Harris, founder of Black Box Voting.

This is a work of precise and illuminating investigative reporting. And after watching it, if you don’t think our electoral process is in grave jeopardy - and thus our democracy - you might be better suited living in a Communist dictatorship.

Electronic voting fraud is a far greater threat to our democracy than any terrorist, and our voting system is clearly in shambles. For the same reason that the music industry got Napsterized and the movie industry operates in a state of digital piracy terror, electronic voting creates enormous digital vulnerabilities and opportunities for fraud. It’s simple - digital data is extremely easy to manipulate and change, without leaving any trail at all.

Hacking Democracy sheds essential light on the suspicious results of the 2004 Presidential election, showing exactly how elections might have been stolen in the past, and certainly will be in the future. It also exposes the irregularities, conflicts of interest and outright lies of voting-machine makers like Diebold. To say the film is shocking, disturbing and disgusting would be an understatement...

This film is downright incendiary.

Few things are more sacred to America than the concept of “one person, one vote.” For that principle to be jeopardized should horrify us all, regardless of our political leanings. Hacking Democracy should be an urgent call to arms.

First of all, we need much greater transparency when it comes to the inner workings of voting technology. Second, every election should have a verifiable paper trail. This may not flatter our modern sensibilities, but there is no just or effective alternative.

Anyone who deems a paper trail unnecessary has a lot to answer for. And if you happen to live in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, your leaders have a lot to answer for, too. They spent twenty-two million dollars on a Diebold system after being alerted to its grave system faults. Shame on them.

If states don’t replace their paperless, electronic systems, people will eventually take public office who don't deserve to be there. Sadly, they may already have. What could be more un-American?

- JT Compton