Your Vote Doesn't Count Have We All Wasted 2 Years With This Movement Or Can We Find A Solution???

1) Most states have laws which require that the procedure for counting votes be made public.

Since voting machines use proprietary software, this means use of those machines is in violation of these laws. We aren't allowed to see how the machine counts the votes. A lawsuit arguing for open source software as a remedy should be successful.

2) To solve the "problem" of vanishing ballot receipts:

Use dot matrix rather than thermal printers. (these are the ones that "rub off" or "burn" in the sun - no ink is actually used here, the printer "burns" a wax coating on the paper in the shape of the characters to be printed) A dot matrix printer will actually imprint the paper as well as apply ink. Even if the ink is somehow bleached out, the imprint is still there and can be recovered with forensic equipment if necessary.

3) as an additional check, not one but 3 copies of the ballot receipt should print. A standard 3-part printout would suffice. None of the copies should print anything which might identify the voter, thus preserving the secret ballot. Upon voting, the voter should stuff the white and yellow copies (1st and 2nd layers) into separate boxes and retain the pink copy (3rd layer).

The white (top) copy should be counted at the close of the polls in full public view and with the candidates' poll watchers present.

The yellow (2nd) copy should then also be counted to verify the results of the first count.

Both copies should be sealed independently and transferred by armored carrier to whatever state agency has jurisdiction to maintain public document archives.

If a recount is required, either from dispute, or statutory requirements (like a slim margin) then all ballots should be returned, again under armed guard to the precincts where they were cast, and voters should be asked to turn in their pink (3rd layer) copies as verification. The recount should then proceed again in full public view with poll watchers present as well, with only those votes that are matched on all three piles of ballots being actually certified. All three sets are then resealed and returned to the archives by armored carrier.

Under this system, the machines can be used for a quick tally to report to news organizations and candidates.

The physical counting is used as an initial part of the certification process and as a redundancy check against the machines.

State archivists or election officials responsible for certification would unseal the ballots on receipt and re-verify the machine totals. Any discrepancy would trigger the recount procedure outlined above.

All discrepancies must be reported plainly and obviously to the news media to be reported to the general public with all available details. Such reports should also be filed with the State Legislature and used as evidence against continued use of the software and/or machines unless and until the problem is resolved.

Additionally, since most universities have computer science departments, design and testing and maintenance of the software can be handled by graduate and PHD candidates as part of the projects the university engages in as a condition of state funding. Thus removing incentives for corruption when dealing with contracts to private run software companies.

waisted 2 years?? you have only been here for 2 years.. I go back to voting for Ron Paul in 88' . and supporting his congressional runs all through the 90's..

Thomas said, "I want to hear how WE CAN GET THIS DONE."

Get yourself elected as the clerk & recorder for your county. After you get elected as clerk & recorder, set up paper ballots with hand count.

The election for your new office may be soon, so let us know if you have your petition turned in to be on the ballot and what kind of help you need for mailings, fliers, etc.

Try to read what i write next time, and i dont appreciate a personalized attack.

IT IS IGNORANT TO GO BACK IN TIME TECHNOLOGICALLY INSTEAD OF FINDING A SOLUTION THAT WOUD WORK WITH THE CURRENT TECHNOLOGY.

i mean come in it's like saying "hey people get head injuries from motorcycles, so lets all go back to bicycles" instead of coming up with the idea to wear helmets.

thanks for trying to skew my opinion though.
edit: this is in response to ShineTheLight
edit 2: after i got passed the ignorant talk flying around, which i will admit that i started, and im sorry for. YOu do bring up some good points shine.

but Can we at least agree on the points i was trying to make?
this will not work unless all the people of this country want and make it work.
ANY SYSTEM will work if the people of this country want it and make it work.

In 2007, WTP instigated a federal lawsuit in New York seeking to hold election officials in all fifty states accountable for their deprivation of the People’s fundamental Right to Vote because of the use of non-verifiable electronic and mechanical machine-based vote counting.

The case was dubbed the “National Clean Elections Lawsuit,” or NCEL.

Although a 2008 Order from the U.S. District Court in Albany removed all the non-New York defendants, as of last week, the Court ordered the remaining parties to commence preparations for a jury trial.

Click here to read the U.S. District Court's Scheduling Order.
http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/PROJECTS/NCEL/PACER/Ord...

It must be noted that this is the first federal lawsuit ever to be approved for trial directly challenging the constitutional integrity of a state’s official election procedures which are totally dependent, almost without exception, upon machine-based vote counting.

In the complaint, WTP supporters from all fifty states participated as plaintiffs arguing that the People have a fundamental, natural Right to know their votes are being accurately counted, and that it is unconstitutional for the Government to count our votes in secret -- which is precisely what happens when the “hidden” mechanisms of a machine (whether electronic or mechanical) counts the votes and produces a total.

The complaint further asserts that machine-based vote counting provides abundant opportunities for criminal sabotage, election fraud and errors of all types to occur at almost every step of the election process, beginning with the manufacture and maintenance of vote counting machines, and extending well into election night when machine-contrived vote totals are allegedly passed to, and broadcast by, a (privately-owned) national corporate media consortium without any official, public certification of local vote totals.

The WTP complaint requests the Court impose not only a total ban all vote counting machines (mechanical and electronic) but to impose on state election officials a detailed manual vote counting and certification procedure based solely on the use of plain paper ballots, hand-marked, stored, counted and certified at each precinct level polling location, in full view of the public, at all times.

http://wethepeoplefoundation.org/UPDATE/Update2009-05-11.htm

http://digg.com/d1qxxW?OTC-em-sh2

Been talked about many times and no one seems to get much stirred up? Seems like we should have 25 threads running on this one issue. Can't wait to see what Jdayh has to "report." I have totally created and posted a way to watch the count. No matter how the count is physically done, why in the world do we allow the count to happen by the very people, Democrats and Republicans who are running the precinct??? That is insane. We have to have "any citizens who will" to be witnessing those counts.

Had the RP rEVOLution formed as a coalation of Independents, instead of this being a delegate to a party BS, the people who started a RP Meetup could have been the qualifications for becomming an electorial voter. RP could have passed out electorial voter statis to whom ever he wanted... or however a ballot committee/ elections committee might see fit. Delevoping a Independent coalation of voters is the solution.

IMHO, people should stop hating so much on the computer voting method.
COMPUTERS ARE NOT INHERENTLY EVIL OR INHERENTLY GOOD.
for that matter, technology could be our saving grace here. instead of fighting for paper ballots hand counted, which probably will not happen, (think of how much money that would cost) why not look for a feasible solution that wouldnt bring the costs up that much? You would think with our revolution taking advantage of the interent so well that some people would look to the internet to help on this issue. To me, it's just ignorant to try to move back to paper ballots(it really is). think of this, an electronic voting machine tracking the vote through a unique ticket ID. when your vote is cast, it will print out a receipt with your ticket ID on the receipt. They should have screens where you can check your vote and all the other votes for your precint for that matter right then and there. of course, you wont know who has voted for what thanks to the ticket id's. then when you arrive home, you would be able to log into a website and do the same to make sure nothing has changed later in the day.

dont thank me for this, thank Ray over from revolution broadcasting. he is where i first heard this from. why-go-back-to-paper-when-it-means-no-difference. it's like saying we dont wanna fix the problem, so we'll move back into the stone age. if they wanna fix paper ballots, they can. if they wanna fix electronic voting, they can. stop being ignorant. computers are in no way good or evil and they do NOTHING at all except what we programmers tell them to do.
So, if we want trsparent voting, and we DEMAND transparent voting, then we will get transparent voting. this WILL not depend on the media used to vote, but technology can be our friend, not our enemy in this fight.