PAPERLESS COMPUTER VOTING COULD THREATEN DEMOCRACY

Hammel, Theresa (2004) “Don’t hand democracy over to computers” UU WORLD. 11-12/ p. 13-15

Nearly 30% of America will vote on paperless computers. That means that after a person has voted that there is not a record or a ballot to recount. Computers make errors and they also can crash. Thus, there is not a way to catch these mistakes and one can only do a re-vote rather than a recount.

This new technology may also be vulnerable to hackers. The author gave a presentation to a US senate committee using “Fraudo” It is a program to undermine computer counts. In one session the author invited one of the senate members to vote twice. He was able to do so with a great deal of ease.

Multiply this activity millions of times on Election Day and you have a national chaos. Elected leaders become suspect. This does not mean that elections have not been “fixed” in the past by both parties. This is not a Republican and Democratic Party plot. Both are equal sinners.

“Fraudo” can be found on the internet at www. wheresthe paper.org