Paper ballots filled out in ink
by Publius November 20, 2020
Allegations of vote-counting machine hacking are nothing new in America. Election integrity activists have been hollering their lungs out about it for years. They have been saying that one of the most important tools that election-stealers have in their arsenals is the machine hack, as opposed to crude ballot box stuffing, tossing of legitimate ballots, voter suppression, and other tactics.
Illegitimate paper ballots are heavy and cumbersome. People can film you with them and wonder what you are doing. Machine hacking only requires a few keystrokes at a safe distance. Paper ballot stuffing is okay for padding the results, but to make sure you’ve really won the damn thing, machine hacks are the way to go.
In 2006 the HBO documentary Hacking Democracy made a splash among a small group of budding election integrity activists, who were concerned that all was not what it seems to be in America. But for the most part they were viewed as conspiracy theorists.
Hacking Democracy Film Promo
Now that the possibility of large-scale machine hacking is on the front burner, perhaps we are ready to hear what these activists have been proposing all along. Most of the rest of the advanced world has gone to 100% hand-counted paper ballots in all elections, even in cities as big as Berlin and Paris.
There is nothing impossible about hand counting ballots in big cities. It was done for years, and now we have video surveillance of counting and storage rooms to make it more secure. Other advanced democracies have had their tries with machine count technology, didn’t trust it, and have returned to hand counted paper ballots.
You don’t see the kind of endless disputes in Europe as you see here. You may not like the results, but people pretty much agree on who won.
Countries which now employ systems of 100% hand-counted paper ballots include Germany, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Finland, and 53 other countries.
It is time for America to do the same.
