kathydopp1Kathy Dopp
M.S. Mathematics, Executive Director, National Election Data Archive, UT 

 

The Problem:
Currently U.S. ballots are counted in secret by the software of private companies and yet in 49 states are not subjected to any routine, independent post-election accuracy checks.  In the case of electronic ballots, votes are cast in secret, not by voters, but by invisible software, in a way that makes it impossible to detect tampering. Given that the winners of elections control budgets in the millions at the county level to the trillions at the federal level, the lack of public scrutiny of elections is unacceptable. 

During the last administration, the Justice Department did not fully enforce violations of the National Voter Registration and The Voting Rights Acts, and even fired federal attorneys who refused to participate in voter intimidation and disenfranchisement schemes. Currently, no federal statutes require election officials to provide public access the election records that are necessary to check election results accuracy, and no federal statutes requiring election results to be subjected to independent scrutiny.

The Solution:
Green party candidates like Cynthia McKinney and David Cobb have led efforts to obtain publicly verifiable election integrity and accuracy.  Here are some steps that could ensure election integrity:

  • Scrap all e-ballot voting machines because they cannot be secured from vote fraud.
  • Use voter-marked paper ballots and ballot printers for voters with disabilities
  • Allow timely public access to all election records necessary to judge the integrity and accuracy of the electoral process
  • Obey federal election statutes or be prosecuted by the Justice Department
  • Provide timely public access to election data necessary to judge voter service levels and the integrity of the process
  • Have public oversight of and public participation in procedures for securing ballots and election records
  • Conduct routine independent post-election manual counts of ballots sufficiently to assure that the winners of elections are correct, increasing manual audit sample sizes as margins get closer
  • Count all votes cast for federal election by eligible voters, even if the ballot is cast in the wrong precinct, as long as it is cast in the correct county or other election jurisdiction
  • Have Election Day voter registration and make un-voted ballots available to overseas, military, and mail-in voters via email or the Internet to give them plenty of time to mail back ballots
  • Require all voting machine source code to be open for public inspection and verification.


The Green Party works to protect and defend the rights of all eligible voters to cast a ballot, and to have their votes counted accurately. 

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