"The spyglass allowed him to see ... birds of indistinct hue,
who flung themselves from a taller tree, aiming at the ground
with the insanity of an Icarus eager to hasten his own destruction."
-Umberto Eco's The Island Of The Day Before, 1994.

Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D., Executive Director, American Center for International Law writes: The 2004 US Presidential election has raised the specter of so many electoral problems that citizens groan when yet another one looms before them. But if it's real, and it's going to be there on November 2, it certainly makes sense to address it now, rather than after the election!

So here it is in a nutshell.

For the past two years, a coalition of computer scientists, citizen activists, and state officials has steadfastly opposed the nationwide adoption of electronic-voting machines, because:

(A) they're already inside the gates of our democracy; but

(B) they're the postmodern equivalent of the ancient Greeks' parting gift of a giant wooden horse as a stealth-means to defeat the Trojans. [1]

One statistic will underscore how seriously the coalition's warnings about cybernetic election-fraud have been taken by the voters, even if not by a criminally-negligent Congress: fully 42% of America's voters say they distrust electronic-voting machines! [2]

Moreover, this voter distrust is widespread because it's based on three solid facts.

First, voters know that scientific tests have repeatedly demonstrated the inherent vulnerability of electronic-voting machines to: (1) malicious software codes; (2) bugs; (3) viruses; (4) hardware malfunctions; (5) hackers; and (6) other internal and external security breaches. These inherent flaws are virtually undetectable to all but the most sophisticated computer scientists.

• Therefore, the USA's impetuous adoption of e-voting violates democracy's most fundamental election rule: "Trust, but verify!"

Second, voters know that their electronically-cast votes cannot be verified, even if a recount is ordered in a legally-contested race.

Why?

America's manufacturers designed their electronic-voting machines without any paper-printer attachments, so they lack the constitutionally-required hardcopy documentation of each voter's intent!

Third and finally, voters know that the production of e-voting machines is a very lucrative business, and that the manufacturers who hold by far the largest market-shares are owned by highly-partisan loyalists from one political party. [3]

Stated differently, the nationwide implementation of e-voting is the neoconservatives' back-up insurance program, in that it guarantees Dubya's reelection, so they'll be able to invoke their pretextual "Bush Doctrine Of Preventive/Preemptive War," then implement Phase 2 of their Destroy-The-"Axis-Of-Evil" agenda: "On to Tehran and Damascus -- and then on to Pyongyang with our tactical-battlefield and bunker-busting mini-nukes!" [4]

Three Conclusions:

First, the pragmatic "can" need not necessarily imply the ethical "ought." We must distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate technologies! And by any objective standard, it's abundantly clear that e-voting machines are highly inappropriate for use in democratic elections; nevertheless, they'll be used nationwide by 35-50 million voters on November 2!

Second, Congress failed to complete a due-diligence inquiry before it legislated this inherently-unreliable technology as its replacement for punch-card ballots; unsurprisingly, their e-voting "cure" is even worse than the hanging-chad "disease"! [5]

Third, it's entirely foreseeable that the upcoming presidential race will be legally contested as a direct consequence, and that the 2004 election's final outcome will be delayed for weeks -- if not months -- by proceedings in federal court(s).

The Bottom Line: The technopolistic USA's unarticulated-but-implicit motto is "In technology we trust!"; however, just as the Trojans' naively accepted the Greeks' parting "gift" of a giant wooden horse, a heedless America's naive acceptance of the manufacturers' touch-screen voting "panacea" will prove to be the height of folly. [6]

Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D.
EvPeters8@aol.com
Executive Director
American Center for International Law (ACIL) 

ENDNOTES

[1] Generally speaking, Americans have either forgotten or never learned the lessons embedded in Greek mythology. Nonetheless, two legends readily apply to America's technology-worshipping culture: (A) how the craftsman Daedalus divised an aerial technology to escape from Crete, yet the inappropriate application of that technology doomed his impetuous son, Icarus; and (B) in Homer's Iliad, how the Greeks' nine-year long Trojan War came to an abrupt end when the naive Trojans accepted the stealthy tricksters' parting gift of a giant wooden horse, which soon proved to be Hell on wheels!

[2] Read The Institute For Public Accuracy's 9-22-04 CD article, "Hacking The Vote: A Real & Present Danger."Also read Laura Donnelly's excellent 10-7-04 TP essay, "Paper Or Touch Screen?"

[3] Read Mark Morford's 7-21-04 CD/SFC essay, "Rig My Election, Please!"

[4] To learn more about the dominant e-voting manufacturers and the serious nature of the security flaws that lurk within in their e-voting machines, see these websites:

http://www.BlackBoxVoting.com

http://www.BlackBoxVoting.org

http://www.VoteSecurity.com

[5] Sometimes even the best of intentions will lead to bad consequences. For example, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act of 2002 ("HAVA") in reaction to Florida's presidential-election fiasco of 2000. HAVA mandated the reform of every state's electoral processes. However, one major mistake was embedded among HAVA's otherwise-laudable requirements: before Congress had adequately vetted e-voting machines for security flaws, it swallowed the manufacturers' self-serving sales pitches hook, line, and sinker by mandating the addition of e-voting systems, ostensibly because they allow disabled persons to vote without assistance, toward the purchase of which it then allocated multimillions of dollars in federal funds to every state!

[6] It's always worth the effort to light a fire underneath political appointees, so use this e-mail address -- havainfo@eac.gov -- to insist that the do-nothing US Election Assistance Commission immediately notify electronic-voting counties in every state that paper-printer attachments must be added before Election Day! Then call or e-mail your incredibly-negligent Congresspersons today. Tell them: "Your decision to add paper-printers by 2006 is way too little, far too late!" Then insist that they immediately: (a) enact the nationwide mandatory addition of paper-printer attachments on every e-voting machine before the election on 2 November 2004; or (b) enact a nationwide ban on the use of paperless e-voting machines on Election Day, November 2, 2004!

Paraguana: Sea of Gold                                        Photography: Santiago Padilla