We the people of the United States live in a representative democracy. Or so we like to think. Recent elections cast doubt upon the accuracy of such a statement.
The 2000 Presidential Election was controversial. The race was very tight, particularly in Florida. Democratic candidate Al Gore was initially announced as the winner of Florida, and thus the Presidential election, by the news media. However, the announcement was recalled when the decision was handed to Republican candidate George W. Bush.
Following the Florida results, officials in Florida received many complaints about the election; votes cast by black citizens were, compared to those cast by whites, disproportionately rejected in the election (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights). Problems with different types of ballots, such as the butterfly ballot and punch card ballots, arose. Bush won by a very small margin, prompting a manual recount of the ballots. The deadline for counting the votes expired before the counters could finish, and Bush ended up with the higher number of votes (Turque).
Controversy also surrounds the 2004 election. John Kerry may have been cheated out of his opportunity to serve in the White House. Clinton Eugene Curtis programmed an electronic voting machine computer program to flip the Ohio vote to the Republicans favor in the 2004 Presidential election, according to his testimony in front of U.S. House Judiciary Members (Derkacz). He stated that voting officials would be unaware of the manipulation of the votes. The result was that George W. Bush won by default, whether he had received more votes than John Kerry or not. A recount that was supposed to occur was curtailed (Kennedy).
Furthermore, nearly 3 million overseas absentee ballots were not counted, voting machines in New Mexico failed to count nearly 20,000 votes, and “Sproul and Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states, was discovered shredding Democratic registrations”. One county had an unusually high voter turnout while another had an unusually low turnout, in addition to a false terror threat fabricated by the Republicans to prevent the vote counting from being overseen (Kennedy).
The machines used in Ohio were not the only faulty voting machines. A Princeton study found that Diebold voting machines have their kinks (Paul). The machines, which have consequently been banned in California, can have vote tallies altered by malicious virus software that can enter the program from the removable memory cards. Diebold voting machines caused problems in an Alaskan election in 2006.
Election fraud is not exclusive to Presidential elections. A Pennsylvania Senatorial race was rigged when Republicans and Democrats forced Green Party candidate, and anti-war candidate, Carl Romanelli off the ticket (Green Party). In Pennsylvania, Green Party candidates are required to obtain 67,000 signatures to be on the ballot, which is grossly unfair compared to the mere 2,000 that a Republican or Democratic candidate is required to obtain. Nonetheless, Romanelli managed to acquire the massive number of 95,000 signatures. However, members of the two major parties protested the signatures, stating that enough of them were invalid to force Romanelli off the ballot; they were successful in doing so, thus rigging the election.
And, what, I ask, is all this talk about Russians meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election? Sounds a little. . . fraudulent, to me.
Votes from honest American citizens should count, but insincerity and new technologies have potentially corrupted the American election system. The foundation upon which this nation has been built are in jeopardy because of dishonesty in elections.
Sources:
Derkacz, Evan. “Programmer Finally Testifies”. Guerilla News. Retrieved Apr 22, 2008 from
http://www.guerrillanews.com/headlines/10754/Programmer_Finally_Testifies_U_ S_Elections_Rigged
“Disputed Presidential Election of 2000,” Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2007. http://encarta.msn.com
Green Party. “PA Court Upholds Rigged Election”. Retrieved 22 Apr 2008 from
http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2006_10_09.shtml
Kennedy, Robert F. “Was the 2004 Election Stolen?” Rolling Stone. Retrieved 22 Apr 2008 from http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen
Paul, Ryan. “Researchers Find (More) Severe Flaws in Diebold Voting Machines”. ARs Tehnica. Retrieved 22 Apr 2008 from http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060913-7735.html
U.S. Commission of Civil Rights. “Voting System Control and Failures”. Retrieved 22 Apr 2008 from http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch1.htm
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