The Only Way To Verify Your Vote:One Precinct At A Time

Having yet another Claude Rains Moment* here...




I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you, to discover that the exit polling in 2000, 2002, and 2004 turned out to be so different from the actual votes counted in those election years!

I'm also shocked that the only 3 times in our country's history that such shocking disparity occurred were years when GHW Bush's sons were on ballots, and Republicans controlled congress!

Don't you find it interesting that we never had any problems with exit polling before the era of the Bush Boys?

News Groups Will Delay Future Exit Polls

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer

NEW YORK - The consortium of news organizations that runs the election exit polls has voted to delay distribution of data for several hours on future election days.

Exit poll data won't be distributed until after 4 p.m. EST to the organizations that have paid for it: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and The Associated Press, NBC's elections director Sheldon Gawiser said Thursday.

On Nov. 2, the companies conducting the polls, Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, distributed the first wave of exit poll data at 1 p.m. _ and the numbers were immediately leaked on the Internet and to the campaigns.

--snip--

It's the third straight major election in which problems have cropped up with exit poll data. Edison/Mitofsky was hired for this election after a previous organization failed to deliver usable exit poll information on Election Day 2002 and provided information that resulted in the television networks blowing calls on the election in 2000. LINK

We all know how that computerized voting idea turned out: all 4 voting machine companies belong to major Republican donors, and the data inside those machines can be accessed and manipulated remotely by untraceable cell phones (I'm visualizing well-paid hackers with the ethics of Tony Soprano here).

So that didn't work.

Some people are calling for mail-in voting (like Oregon), but I don't trust Republicans as far as I could throw them, and we've seen how capable they are at voiding millions of so-called spoiled absentee and overseas ballots. If the entire country tries to vote by mail, you can bet the ranch that BushCo will find yet another way to cheat us out of our votes.

So...

I propose

The Great American Precinct-By-Precinct
Vote Verification Project

Let's set up booths (à là Lucy Van Pelt's 5¢ Neighborhood Psychiatry Practice) in view of, but slightly beyond the designated legal distance from each polling entrance and offer each voter a receipt for each vote.

Disgruntled future voter,
Lucy Van Pelt

Sounds daunting, but all it takes is a little organization and a few dedicated human volunteers on election day:

After casting their official ballots, voters can visit our booths and fill out a postcard size replica and get a receipt for their effort.

The completed postcards will be sealed inside locked containers and counted in plain sight after the polls close in each precinct. Results of major races will then be faxed that night to all local news media outlets. Down ticket results will take more time, but should be verified the following day.

Those voters not choosing to take advantage of this service will be counted as they exit the polling place, and their number will also be reported.

Why will this work?

Exit polling worked beautifully before the Bush Boys and the Republicans took over our government. In fact, exit polling results have never been been outside a 2% margin of error.

Of course, there are many problems to work through, but I firmly believe that this is our only Obiwan-level hope.

Humans, indelible markers, some paper, a few well-placed video cameras, and some organization could return our voting process to its traditional American greatness, which is, of course, based on the Australian secret ballot method of voting.

Hey! It worked for 108 years, didn't it? Thanks, Vermont! LINK

But for the Bush Boys and their hostile takeover of America, Inc., we wouldn't have to rage against the machine.

* Use the site search (top left on this page) to see my previous Claude Rains Moment entries.