Who Counts The Votes?

Last Thursday I thought I would get a jump on things and cast my early ballot to avoid any lines at my voting station.

This was after all a moot point because I live in a fairly well to do Republican stronghold called Naperville Illinois, and because we enjoy such stature, I have never had any complications on election day.

We always have plenty of voting facilities, and I never once had to wait on a line to cast my ballot. Unlike the more urban communities who don't have enough voting booths to accommodate the population.

But, that's okay, they are mostly lower income communities who always vote Democrat anyway, so as we know from past reports on past elections, most have to wait in line for hours to cast a vote, and if a number of them can't vote, well they're most likely Democrats anyway and we don't need their votes that favor liberal concepts like fair economics. Or so Grover Norquist likes to think.

When I arrived at the city center I was surprised that early voting meant I had to use a voting machine.

So I decide to wait until election day to cast a paper ballot.

Why would I decide such a thing?

I have been an Information Technology professional for about twenty two years now. Currently a systems analyst, but in the past I have been a programmer, project manager, account manager, and quality assurance manager.

The voting machines indeed have problems. This has been illuminated in news programs and documentaries. A few have explicitly displayed a person touching a Democratic candidate while the Republican candidate received the vote. Funny how it works out that way isn't it? I've never seen an incident of a person touching a Republican vote that turns Democrat.

Being an IT professional, I know that if I release a system into a production environment it better work. Yet, there are occasions where malfunctions occur and we call these malfunctions 'bugs'.

When a system is implemented and a bug is encountered, the first thing we do is gauge the risk ... severity. If risks are identified during the development process, when mitigation plans could be put in place to capture and correct any foreseen risks, then things are usually sound.

If a risk is big enough to generate a serious integrity issue, and there is no sound mitigation plan in place, then the system must be pulled from production. These are the parameters I must live within as a professional who is accountable for any compliance violations in a product I am responsible for.

Compliance with voting machines would be as simple as providing a paper printout of the transaction so the voter can view this transaction and approve. Those paper printouts can subsequently be used for any recount. Some recounts are mandated by state law within certain tolerance margins. Simple enough right? But, if a recount is mandated in a district that utilized these voting machines, then no recount is possible, therefore subverting the State constitutions that mandate such recounts.

To be fair, some machines have been equipped with such a function, yet these machines are by far the minority of voting machines out there.

Better yet; the source code of the programs can be audited by compliance enforcement before they are ever even issued. Such a precaution will still not guarantee a hack proof solution, but at least the processes of oversight may negate such indiscretion.

Yet, these companies like Diebold will not permit auditing of source code referring to intellectual property breaches. In this case the position of Diebold is not valid because our tax dollars pay for these machines so the 'intellectual property' belongs to the American people. We have every legal right to audit these machines. We, the American taxpayers own these machines. We, the American taxpayers own the software. Why then, are we stripped of the right to audit these artifacts?

This begs the question; why are these machines are being built by private corporations instead of the Federal Government?

Well, the unbridled free market loonies don't want government bureaucracy, and there are huge lobbyists, and that's just the way it goes. Just look at the global economic situation that we are dealing with right now and you might deduce why this philosophy is in essence a conflict of interest.

I state again, these machines are paid for by our tax dollars, we have every right to audit these machines, but the lobby laden lunatics running our government don't seem to allow this. The risks are indeed great, and there is no sound mitigation plan... why are these machines not being pulled from production right now? There is a lot at stake.

Because we own these machines, we should demand that they work in a pristine fashion. Wouldn't electronically stealing votes in an election be a considerable compliance violation?

Why are they allowed to get away with this?

Because Americans, for the most part, care more about their television viewing habits, than they do about the stability of our Democracy.

The power lies not within those who cast the votes, the power lies within those who control the votes.

Sleep well America, I hear the new fall season of television programs have fine production quality.