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    <title>IdeaScale : Will you support Hand-Counted Paper Ballots at the polls?</title>
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      <title>Will you support Hand-Counted Paper Ballots at the polls?</title>
      <link>http://www.askthespeaker.org/akira/dtd/2200-885</link>
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&lt;div id="IdeaScale_Vote" align="center"&gt;&lt;div style="padding:5px;font-size:2em"&gt;196&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.askthespeaker.org/akira/dtd/2200-885"&gt;Vote&amp;nbsp;On&amp;nbsp;Idea&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;div&gt;There is no way to verify the results of election results when electronic equipment is used to count the votes.  Any computerized tabulation can easily be manipulated to influence the results of any race or issue.  Even paper vote scanning machines can be tampered to skew the true will of the people.  The arguement against hand counted paper ballots that it is too time consuming and too expensive just doesn't work if the ballots are counted by poll workers at the precincts.  Would you consider supporting a national requirement to have all federal races be tabulated as a paper ballot by poll workers at the precincts?
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div id="IdeaScale_IdeaFooter"&gt;&lt;span style="border-right: 1px solid silver; margin:0 10px 0 0; padding: 0 5px 0 0; color: #666;"&gt;&lt;a id="DiscussionTopic_2200" href="http://www.askthespeaker.org/akira/dtd/2200-885"&gt;Comments (1)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span id="DiscussionTopicTag_2200"&gt;Category/Tags : &lt;a href="/akira/ideafactory.do?discussionID=1937"&gt;Elections/Strategy (15)&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;hand counted paper ballots election integrity&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="border-left: 1px solid silver; margin:0 10px 0 0; padding: 0 5px 0 0; color: #666;" id="DiscussionTopicFlag_2200"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;  Mark as &lt;a href="javascript:ajaxLink('DiscussionTopicFlag_2200', '/akira/flagDiscussionTopic.do?mode=duplicate&amp;discussionID=1937&amp;ID=2200')"&gt;duplicate&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div style="margin-top:3px;" id="DiscussionTopicComment_2200"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;&lt;/table&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 PDT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.askthespeaker.org/akira/dtd/2200-885</guid>
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      <title>Comment by abbe</title>
      <link>http://www.askthespeaker.org/akira/dtd/2200-885</link>
      <description>It is critical that this issue be discussed at the Netroots Convention. We must hold Speaker Pelosi to the fire. Our election system is corrupt. We "vote" on machines owned by private corporations. The software and programming that "counts" the votes is secret and proprietary. We no longer have elections, we have selections. Any true computer expert will tell you that computers have no place in counting votes.&lt;br/&gt;Citizens should count our votes not machines. Right now our elections have been privatized to corporations with agendas. The current vendors of these voting machines have documented ties to defense contractors, Venezuela, Middle East interests etc etc.&lt;br/&gt;No true reform and progress can be made on any issue until citizens get back control of our own elections. We must hand-count paper ballots. Optical scam machines are easily rigged and manipulated. Recounts do not occur as the candidate has to pay for it and elections get certified before there is time to conduct a proper recount. Audits do not work period. They are insufficient and easily gamed.&lt;br/&gt;Ask Speaker Pelosi the tough questions and demand true election reform. Hand counted paper ballots with security enhancements such as a closed circuit TV monitoring the ballot box with strict chain of custody procedures. Make election day a holiday. Pay poll workers a decent wage. Reclaim our elections. Demand election reform so we can have true representation!</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:00:00 PDT</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.askthespeaker.org/akira/dtd/2200-885</guid>
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