Will We Really Know Who "Won"?

Trey Smith

“He who casts a vote decides nothing. He who counts the vote decides everything.”
- Joseph Stalin

Whether or not he said it, Stalin’s quote has entered into folklore. For a vote to mean anything, those counting the ballots must have a greater respect for the integrity of democracy than they have lust for power.

Since Stalin’s time, the technology has changed. With electronic voting machines, which leave no paper trail and are programmed with proprietary software, the count can be decided before the vote. Those who control the electronics can simply program voting machines to elect the candidate they want to win. Electronic voting is not transparent. When you vote electronically, you do not know for whom you are voting. Only the machine knows.

According to most polls, the race for the White House is too-close-to-call. History has shown that when an election is close and there’s no expectation for a clear winner, these are the easiest ones to steal. Even more important, the divergence between exit polls, perhaps indicating the real winner, and the stolen result, if not overdone, can be very small. Those who stole the election can easily put on TV enough experts to explain that the divergence between the exit polls and the vote count is not statistically significant or is because women or racial minorities or members of one party were disproportionately questioned in exit polls.

There have been recent reports that, because of costs, exit polls in the 2012 presidential election will no longer be conducted on the usual comprehensive basis in order to save money. If the reports are correct, no check remains on election theft.
~ from U.S. Elections: Will the Dead Vote and Voting Machines be Hacked? by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts ~

On the various progressive news websites I frequent, there has been a lot of discussion in recent years about the connection between the Republican Party and the makers of the various electronic voting machines. If Mitt Romney is declared the winner of the presidential race, a lot of progressive-minded folks will suspect that the vote was rigged.

On the other side of the aisle, if Barack Obama wins reelection, many Tea Party supporters and conservative Republicans will say the secretive Obama administration has done the very same thing: stolen the election.

The truth of the matter is that either side is capable of doing this. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me at all if both corporate parties are trying to steal the election. Maybe all we will learn when the results are released is which team tried harder!

This is the chief problem with a voting system that offers no checks-and-balances. With no paper trail or receipts handed out, no one can be sure that the votes are tabulated accurately or as a reflection of each voter's will. Basically, we have to take government's and the corporate party's words on it.

Does that make you feel confident that they will get it right?