Wasn’t it Al Capone who said, “Vote early, and often”? That’s the Chicago way! And we’ve all heard reports of people voting
from their graves in Colorado and California.
Then there’s the famous quote ascribed to Communist leader Joseph Stalin
that goes something like this; “Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide
everything.” It’s enough to make a soul
cynical on the whole idea of democracy.
To echo that age-old sentiment, “Does my vote really count?”
The answer to that question may very well rest with how the
votes are counted. In days of old people
marked their choice on a piece of paper and stuffed it in a ballet box (perhaps
early and often). And we stayed up into
the wee hours of the morning to learn the results.
However, in the Information Age that is the 21st
century we have optical scan devices and direct recording electronic (DRE)
systems with touch screens. These
methods were designed to count the ever growing number of voters in a quick and
organized fashion. Thank goodness for
technology!
But then Princeton professor Andrew Appel showed us how he
can hack an electronic voting machine in 7 minutes, skewing the results at his
whim. His message was simple – the
machines we use to vote are less secure than the smartphones we carry in our
pockets. And our angst grew deeper. So now we swallow hard and head to the polls,
trusting the powers that be to count the votes as closely as possible, and
perhaps with the help of divine providence get the candidate we actually
chose. At least that’s what I’m doing.
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