Michael Moore & Hack-proof Voting

Our Jan 14 meeting was fun and productive. We began by watching Michael Moore's appearances on TV last week; the Today Show, the Tonight Show, and the People's Choice Awards Show. Fahrenheit 911 won the People's Choice Award for Best Movie of the Year, and it will be entered in the Oscars race. Michael said, "I will take that as a suggestion to make more Fahrenheit 911's." He commented on the Democratic party's choice of undynamic candidates, and feels they need to find someone well-loved by the American people, like Tom Hanks, or Oprah, or at least someone who can emotionally connect to people like Clinton did.

We brainstormed on phrases to use concerning "Vote Verification". I'll link to them later, when ready. These phrases can be used in speech or on printed flyers or stickers to spread around. Essentially a soundbite with a website address, such as whatreallyhappened.com, chuckherrin.com, and/or www.airamericaradio.com. If you haven't seen these sites, take a peek.
Chuck Herrin's site is the best to recommend to Republicans, since he is one, and he is a computer expert who is actively working for a switch to all hand-counted paper ballots, nationwide. That's right--
NO MACHINES!
Apparently that's how Canada does it, and it would be the safest way to limit fraud and tampering. At first, this seemed like a pipe dream to me, but as I learned more, I am coming to think it is an issue which could rise to America's attention with a lot more grassroots publicity.

Here is a Missouri bill calling for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots, submitted last May by Mo. State Representative, Edward W. Spannaus. I don't know if this bill got killed or not, but I repeat this excerpt from his presentation, because it gives me hope to see legislation in favor of of a totally manual method. And he gives such a clear argument, which can be your talking points for why we need this manual system.

"House Bill 1744 would require 100% use of paper ballots, and would prohibit all electronic counting or tabulation of votes. Additionally, every voter would be provided with a receipt—a copy of his or her vote—to be used in the event of a challenge or contest.
I would point out at the outset, that a comprehensive study of lost votes for the past four Presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, and 2000) found that paper ballots had the lowest rate of error of any voting system.
This study, known as the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Report(Mar 2001), studied five general types of voting technologies: hand-counted paper ballots, lever machines, punch cards, optically scanned paper ballots, and touch-screen (DRE) machines. The study reported:

"The central finding of this investigation is that manually-counted paper ballots have the lowest average incidence of spoiled, uncounted, and unmarked ballots, followed closely by lever machines and optically scanned ballots. Punchcard methods and systems using direct recording electronic (DRE) devices had significantly higher average rates of spoiled, uncounted, and unmarked ballots than of the other systems."
...
Why Use Only Paper Ballots?
A system of paper ballots only, as envisioned by House Bill 1744, best meets the Constitutional requirements for fair elections, and provides the soundest basis for voter confidence in the electoral process.

The U.S. Supreme Court has declared that the right to vote includes the right of qualified voters within a state not simply to cast a vote, but to have their votes counted properly.

Impediments to vote fraud: Any use of computers opens the door to fraud. The speed and complexity of computers creates an inherently dangerous and fraud-prone situation, because, as we have noted, only a handful of people know how votes are being counted. Citizens can never have full confidence in any such system of vote counting.

By going back to a universal paper ballot, which is hand counted, we are creating additional impediments to fraud and tampering with results. If this requires more people to count the votes than is needed when using computers, all the better. The more people involved, the more obstacles we have created to carrying out vote fraud.

Transparency and voter confidence. The objection has been raised, that a total paper-ballot system would be a slow, inefficient system for counting votes. In our view, this is a great advantage. A slow, ponderous vote-counting system, where citizens can watch their votes being counted with complete transparency, is the best way not only to prevent vote fraud and election-rigging, but to establish public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process.

There is no requirement, Constitutional or otherwise, that vote totals must be made available instantaneously for the benefit of the news media or anyone else. There is, however, a Constitutional mandate that votes be counted fairly, and that all votes be treated equally.
A 100% paper-ballot system is the best means to ensure such an outcome."

- Edward W. Spannaus