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Election Reform:
"Even if they receive money from the federal government,
most states won't be able to implement new voting systems before
the 2002 election ... there's just not enough time."
That is a deliberate lie which I notice while reading a nonsense
article about election reform. The article, entitled "Counting
on Reform?" appeared in the July-August issue of the ARRP/NRTA
newsletter. In fairness to the article writer, it was simply a
bureaucrat's quote which he reprinted. He probably did not know
it was a political lie.
Since the bureaucracy has been sitting on it lazy butt for almost a year that lie has become somewhat true. I'm convinced that they will continue to delay until it becomes undeniably true. Of course, that will allow them to say, "See, I told you so!"
At the heart of the whole debate is the dishonest notion that election reform is prohibitively expensive for the states. To get a reliable voting system in place will require federal funding. I am here to tell you, it is a deliberate living lie that the cost of election reform is prohibitive. I live in Groveland Township of Michigan which has in place a very reliable, very accountable voting system. I can honestly assure you, if Groveland Township can afford it, it is not too expensive.
Let me briefly describe the Groveland Township system. This is a semi-rural community with a population of a few thousand people. To accommodate the voters, we have two polling places in our township. The heart of each polling place is a simple electronic scanner which reads paper ballots and tallies the results automatically. The results of the local election are known a few minutes after the polls close.
Typically, a voter enters the polling place and has his right to vote verified. Then he receives a paper ballot which he can mark, in the privacy of a booth, to indicate his choices. If he does not understand the ballot, someone is there to explain it to him. For this to happen, he would have to be quite dumb for there are diagrams on all of the polling place walls and tables explaining the ballot. the ballot itself is quite simple and straightforward. There is no reason for it to be otherwise.
With his marked ballot, the voter goes to the scanner and puts it into the input slot of the scanner. The scanner grabs it and reads it before the voter can turn away. If the ballot is invalid, an alarm sounds and the voter is informed of the error. He then gets another ballot and tries again. The voter is simply not allowed to cast an invalid ballot. He must either fix it or decide that he does not want to vote. I have never seen a person leave that place without casting a valid ballot. I have seen very few case of people having to try more than once.
So, how much does this remarkable system cost? That depends on who you listen to. I will say that the idea that these machines should cost a lot of money is dishonest. If the people who are selling them are charging a lot of money, they are crooks. If the politicians and bureaucrats buy into it, they are fools.
Let's look at the whole system. Since I was in the computer electronics business for most of my adult life, I really do understand this. The basic machine is a scanner. In design and purpose it is much simple than the scanner which you have attached to your PC. For that, you can buy a very good scanner for about $100.00. You can even buy a professional class scanner for just over a grand. Believe me, for scanning ballots, the hundred buck model is overkill.
What else do we need? We need paper ballots. So what? That is not an additional cost. We will always need some kind of a ballot. The Groveland Township ballots are simple, idiot proof, and eminently storable. They can be easily printed by any hole-in-the-wall print shop. The pen used to mark these ballots can be bought for a few bucks a hundred from any office supply store.
There you have it. I do not know what Groveland Township paid for its system. Since the decision was political, and the voting system marketers knew that, I would guess that they paid upwards of half a million. What should it have cost? Even with the software, it should not have cost more that twenty grand for both machines.
Now, what if Michigan wanted to implement this system statewide? What else would we need? For sure we would want to put these scanner systems into every polling place. We would also want to tie the entire system into Lansing. For that we must add a simple computer and an internet connection. Most of you have probably noticed that PCs are cheap. The simplest of PCs available would be very adequate for this task. In quantity then, $500.00 each.
Since Lansing is being run by Fat John, we cannot be sure of much. Let's assume that there is no computer in Lansing. Being generous, we can allow about half a million for the servers and computers to collect and correlate the election results. This would make it possible to know the election results a few minutes after all polls are closed in the state.
Now, we can get to the part which often makes computer systems so very expensive. I speak of the stuff called software. Software can be very expensive. The reason is that most people who call themselves programmers are really incompetent. This is a classic example of the old saw that ninety percent of the work in the world is done by ten percent of the people. As I said, I worked in this area for most of my life. I can tell you from experience that nine out of ten people who are paid to write programs do not know how to do it.
When I worked, I was one of the ten percent who actually did work. I was forced to associate with many people who did not do work. I'm not complaining. I'm one of those fools who enjoys working. I only point this out because the whole situation is unnecessary. It exists only because managers are inept. Most are unable to discern who among their employees is doing the work.
The point is, to avoid having the cost of an effective voting system balloon beyond all reason, it is necessary to put together a reasonably competent software team. This means the state must have enough moxie to hire one reliable software person and have him or her build the team. The team then designs and implements the software which ties the voting systems together. Where do you find the team leader? I am out of the business, but, when I was in it, I knew several folks who would qualify. None of them were managers and none of them were recognized by their managers.
To finish, here is the beauty of this system. Once it is implemented
and proven in one state, it need only be replicated in the other
states. To do this, the software team must be compelled to make
all of the variable functions table driven rather than hard coded.
They should do that anyway. We don't want another zip code fiasco.
Here is the thing. The government is talking billions. That's
the only way bureaucrats can think. With a logical system such
as I've defined I'm talking millions. The states can afford it.
What's needed is legislation to cause it to happen. Get off of
your butts, George and John!
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