Top 10 Reasons Elections Are in Trouble

10. The power elites--the big corporations and their media subsidiaries--are controlling what messages you hear about problems with our election system.

9. Democrats and Republicans have both repeatedly demonstrated that neither have the interests of democracy and its voters at heart when it comes to the electoral process.

8. HAVA, the Help America Vote Act of 2002, was promoted as the solution to the “hanging chad” problems in Florida as well as an aid to the disabled and those citizens not fluent in English. In fact, it became a “feeding frenzy” for vendors of electronic computerized election equipment who saw it as an opportunity to gain money and favor from big government contracts—and to take a direct, if covert, hand in determining who governs America.

7. Beginning in 2004, many independent studies (e.g., Princeton and Johns Hopkins Universities, NYU’s Brennan Center, Congress’ Government Accountability Office, and several Secretaries of State) have proven that all software-driven equipment used in our elections is highly susceptible to malfunction and manipulation.

6. Many people believe that a mandatory “paper trail” and a spot audit of the trail, will make electronic voting secure. But there are simply too many ways around these provisions.

5. Audits, and even recounts, now have a history of being subverted, as much as the elections they are intended to validate.

4. There is NO REASON to assume that the vote the voter thought he or she cast on a touchscreen was what was recorded inside the machine and what was printed on the paper trail. There is NO REASON to assume that the vote on a paper ballot fed into an Optical Scanner is counted as the voter intended.

3. Using the rationale that disabled people need touchscreen machines for independent and private voting ignores the fact that totally mechanical paper-based systems have been developed as alternatives to computerized equipment and are being used in some jurisdictions with equal effectiveness.

2. Corporate take-over of our democracy is occurring right under our noses. Elections are now being owned, operated, and often decided by corporations – not voters.

1. An honest election system means that the citizens can actually SEE THE VOTES BEING COUNTED, and participate in the process. Without that, the rest is just a show.