as long as tabulation is done by a "magic box" that can't be checked or verified. This is issue number one to me, from which all else flows. Other things are more important, you say? Iraq?

How did we get there and why are we there now? Two stolen elections, that's how and why. If we don't save our Democracy now, it WILL be too late.

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If Americans wanted honest national elections with maximum participation, they would demand that Congress require a paper trail with the balloting taking place over two days, Saturday and Sunday. But then, if bumblebees had bigger wings, they wouldn’t bump their butts so hard on landing.

For the TRUTH about Iraq, Bush 43 and his treasonous neocon cabal, visit the following patriotic websites:

CommonDreams.org
FreedomCentralUSA.com
PhonyFighterPilot.com
VoteVets.org

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I live in Scotland and voted in the recent election. The problems here had absolutely nothing to do with electronic ballots. There are NO electronic ballots here. Yes, there are electronic counting machines, and they were implemented for the first time. There were hiccups with them, but nothing more. The basic, paper ballots were still there and countable.

The problem had to do with voter confusion over how to vote. This problem was the direct result of the Labour party's chief of elections, who didn't bother to read the report that documented that a significant number of voters would have a problem with the layout of the ballots. Nothing more than that.

Although the local Council elections were done in a new, representational manner, the problems in the vote count had nothing to do with that. The problems with the spoiled ballots were the result of people not understanding the ballots for Scottish Parliament, in which there were two columns where the voter was supposed to vote for one candidate in each column. Many voters did not understand that they could not choose two in one column. Those were the ballots that were spoiled. And this is precisely the problem that the Labour elections supervisor ignored.

As a dual citizen of the UK and US, I am quite familiar with the voting problems in the US and am horrified by them. But the author did nothing to forward the cause of eliminating electronic voting by citing the Scottish problem in the latest election. Please, get your facts straight.

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The truth is elections have ALWAYS been phony -- computers, the Internet and other electronic communications have just given the general public the ability to detect the massive fraud that has always been going on. THAT is why you are being fed the red herring that "get rid of the computers and all will be well".

The government WANTS to get rid of the computers because they know they are a threat to their phony scam. They deliberately made the computer vote fraud easy to detect and in-your-face obvious; so that the public would demand the old ways that they have long ago learned to compromise without detection. How they must laugh themselves silly at their little meetings watching you build your own jails.

The truth is elections are a scam to get the politically ignorant and hopelessly illogical to believe that they or their neighbors of the "other political party" have somehow chosen all the horrors and injustices foisted upon them by government.

Elections keep the public feeling guilty; divided and blaming each other; and wasting their time and energy fighting each other instead of tackling the REAL problem, which is the government itself. The government is not benevolent parent; or your friend; rather it is a massive bureaucratic system dominated by the self-interests of hundreds of thousands of government employees.

These career criminals will do anything -- lie, cheat, steal, and KILL to protect their parasitical jobs and way of life. They have NO intention of giving up their gravy train; and why should they; when they have been getting away with their scam for generations.

People need to grow up and realize that government is the problem; NOT the solution to their problems. Government is like drugs or alcohol -- may make you feel better in the short term; but will kill you in the long run. AND the cure is NEVER more of the same. .

IF you REALLY want to fix things; the first step is to recognize you are a GOVERNMENTAHOLIC; look at yourself in the mirror and take the pledge to cut back government just like you cut back weeds growing in your garden. STOP BELIEVING anything you are told; just like you would not believe any other career criminals no matter what they promised.

Here is a link to someone who has said it far better than I ever can...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer31.html

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1 — OPEN (OR DISCLOSED) SOURCE SOFTWARE: All electronic voting machines and tabulation devices must use open (or disclosed) source software.

2 — PAPER BALLOT: All election technology must allow a voter to
(a) mark (by hand or machine) an optically-scannable paper ballot,
(b) inspect their ballot to confirm their vote, and
(c) physically place their ballot in a ballot box which undergoes secure, rigorous chain-of-custody safeguards.

3 — 10% RANDOM HAND COUNT IN EACH PRECINCT:
All electronic tallies (from machines which have printed or otherwise provided ballots AND/OR independently-programmed tabulation devices which have optically scanned said ballots) in an election MUST be verified by publicly hand counting a randomly selected 10% of the ballots cast in each precinct.

For links and more details: www.verifygra.com

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I never could understand when it appeared that the "machines" were not working correctly. Why did they not ask for a refund. Do they not come with a guarrentee? If not, then the people who picked them out, are part of the whole mess. Can they say long prison term. This is no small item America. This is how the "New World Order" is taking over the Planet by storm.

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Down here in Australia its compulsiry to vote in Federal elections. We have overcome the urge to use electronic voting because of the huge possibilty of voter fraude. We use a far more simple method, paper.

All Australian ballots are cast using paper votes with the various parties and individuals up for election. The idea of voting machines is a vary scary thought as the potentiol for misconduct or break down is huge. Its rather strange for us to understand why a country that totes itself as the greates democracy in the world uses such a strange option for voting, one that is fraught with danger.

Sometimes the simple things work best.

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Sounds like you have been conned hook. line, and sinker -- the old mythology that "democracy" means "we" are the governors is laughable in the extreme! I did not know there was ANYONE left on planet earth that still believed that tripe. No wonder we have to look for intelligent life in outer space -- there certainly is little evidence of it here.

You have a nearly 3,800 times the probability of influencing the design of next year's Chevrolet by owning one share of voting stock in General Motors than you have of influencing government policy with your vote in the USA government corporation.

Since you seem to be math challenged, I will give you a clue, you have nearly a ZERO chance of influencing the design of next year's Chevrolet -- so what does THAT say about your chances with voting in the USA???!

AND, that assumes the votes are counted honestly and that politicians are honest and will keep their word. If you beieve ANY of that, please call me right away -- I still have some Brooklyn Bridge stock I can let you have at a good price... :)

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