Voting Machines
Devices to Rig Elections and to Destroy
What Little is Left of Democracy in the USA and Elsewhere
This page was first published in 2003.

In November 2002 the U.S. voters elected those politicians whom they thought would best represent their interests and returned the Republicans with a majority in both houses of Congress. Or so we're told. Since the Republicans represent big business, which has made a fortune from screwing the ordinary man and woman in America, one has to wonder about this election result. George W. Bush's political authority was enhanced, he was able to consolidate his tax cuts for the wealthy, was able to push through legislation openly (rather than covertly) turning America into a police state and got even greater spending on America's military, meaning far less has been available for spending on public health care, housing, education, etc.

Were the voters simply stupified by Bush's War on Terrorism lies? Or were they simply stupid? Or were the elections rigged? There have long been suspicions that the last is the case.

John Kaminski's suggestion of not voting would work (regain freedom for Americans) only if in fact no-one voted, if the citizens showed that they know the system is a fraud by completely boycotting it. The problem is that faith in "American democracy" is widespread in the U.S. (it is taught in schools as part of the civil religion) so even if there is widespread skepticism regarding the validity of the voting system many people (those who have faith, or less charitably, those who are too stupid to understand what is really going on) will still vote. And when pictures of people emerging from polling booths are broadcast on TV that will be enough for the election riggers (as if the mere sight of people "voting" was sufficient to validate the "election" in the minds of most people) — they can fix the vote using their voting machines and computers and who's to know how many people actually voted or for whom?

It seems very likely that the 2004 presidential election will be rigged so that the fascist powers-that-be behind the scenes will ensure that their man is elected President. This might or might not be George W. Bush. It might be Wesley Clark or Howard Dean. If the use of voting machines is widespread, or they are used in places where the vote is predicted to be close, then who can trust the election result? How are people to know that the person whom most people wanted to become President is the same as the person who was "elected" President according to the (partly electronic) vote tallies? Especially if the vote is close, as in Florida in 2000.

It's also worth remembering that the American public is increasingly becoming aware of George W. Bush's lies and his reckless (many would same immoral, criminal and even insane) war on Iraq and the placing in harm's way of many thousands of American soldiers, about two hundred of whom have now been killed. Bush is increasingly seen as deserving impeachment (recall that Clinton was impeached merely on grounds of sexual impropriety). But impeachment requires a majority in the House of Representatives, and currently the Republicans control both the House and the Senate. What if George W. Bush was (by some means) re-elected President in 2004 but in the elections for Congress the Democrats gained a majority in the House? Then the impeachment of George W. Bush would become very likely. Obviously the Bush clique and the Republicans would do anything to avoid this scenario. By controlling the way voting machines work (or can be made to work by those who know) they can do so.

Marc Cooper:  Speaking of elections, is George W. Bush going to be re-elected next year?

Gore Vidal:  No. At least if there is a fair election, an election that is not electronic. That would be dangerous. We don't want an election without a paper trail. The makers of the voting machines say no one can look inside of them, because they would reveal trade secrets. What secrets? Isn't their job to count votes? Or do they get secret messages from Mars? Is the cure for cancer inside the machines? I mean, come on. And all three owners of the companies who make these machines are donors to the Bush administration. Is this not corruption?

So Bush will probably win if the country is covered with these balloting machines. He can't lose.

— Uncensored Gore

Steps toward restoring political power to the people:

  1. Throw out the voting machines and use only paper ballots.
  2. On each ballot paper have the option of  None of the above,  or  Nobody, with the result of the vote being valid only if less than 50% of the voters select this option.  If more than 50% of the voters reject all the candidates then the office remains empty until the next election.
  3. All those convicted of, and imprisoned for, victimless crimes, including all political prisoners, to be released and be granted their constitutionally-recognized right of expression.
  4. Abrogation of the legal fiction that a corporation is a legally-responsible person; members of corporate boards of directors voting in favor of corporate actions to be held personally responsible for the effects of those actions.
  5. Abolition of fractional reserve banking and abolition of private central banks (especially the U.S. federal reserve banks).
  6. All legislation to expire automatically after six years (including legislation enacted in the past) unless renewed (after evaluation and debate about its effects).
  7. No legislation to be signed into law by the President which is inconsistent with libertarian principles (the foremost being that society has no right to interfere with the actions of any person except to prevent that person causing harm to others).
  8. Each woman to have one vote plus as many votes as she has children (of non-voting age); thus, a mother with three children will have four votes in any election.  (Thanks to Israel Shamir for this suggestion.)

Later articles:

Note added November 6, 2012:

This web page was first published in September 2003. Despite many warnings nothing has been done to ensure that electoral fraud via rigged voting machines does not take place. In fact it looks as if the 2012 presidential election — despite all the apparent competition between the two candidates — is actually a competition to see which party can employ the cleverest programmers to rig the voting machines most effectively in favor of their candidate.

For the latest information on this scandal (unknown to your average naïve voter) see Evidence of Electronic Vote Fraud Pours In from Both Liberal and Conservative Sources, plus the comments, including these two:

From Richard William Posner:

There's a significant difference between voter fraud and election fraud or tampering. Voter fraud means just that; the voters are cheating by some means such as voting more than once or stuffing ballot boxes. This is obviously not the issue. Election fraud, tampering with and rigging the election process at the behest of one or both major political parties or the money masters who own them, is what has controlled american elections completely since 2000 and probably to an increasing extent since long before then.

From Blair T. Longley:

One of the manifestations of the militarization of America is voter fraud, in the sense that whomever cheats the best, and the most, will "win" the election. The basic principles of militarism, or the Art of War, are that success is based on deceits, and so, spies are the most important soldiers. The runaway fascist plutocracy juggernaut steamrollering over the USA is an expression of those basic methods of organized crime, whereby the "winner" of the elections is decided by whomever does the most voter fraud. These days, I wonder whether there were any episodes where hacking the voting machines actually became some sort of live duel between different hackers? However, of course, that kind of fancy voter fraud is probably only a small component of the overall frauds. THE BASIC PROBLEM IS THAT MILITARIZATION OF THE USA HAS MILITARIZED THE ELECTIONS, IN THE SENSE THAT "VICTORY" GOES TO THE BEST DECEITS, DONE BY THE BEST DECEIVERS.

Elections were supposed to be civilized ways to engage in conflicts, however, after those civilizing rules have been gradually broken down, through past victories of corruption going into positive feedback loops to cause more and more corruption, the final outcomes are that the conflicts can no longer be contained within civilizing sets of social rules. Each American election appeared to me to be more corrupt than the last one! Therefore, those who won that way did not attempt to fix any of those problems! Those who lost had no power to prevent the frauds from snowballing into an avalanche of more and more frauds. I believe we have reached the point where most of the other elections taking place in most of the rest of world are not as corrupt as the American elections now routinely are. Overall, this runaway "militarization" of American society, including "militarization" of the election processes, means that the civil society is being destroyed, and therefore, we head towards INSANE CIVIL WARS. Unfortunately, I suspect that those who were behind driving that long-term deterioration of the USA, to destroy it as a democratic republic, actually WANT and PLANNED for that. Therefore, we had a series of worse and worse puppet politicians, working for puppet masters, that have deliberately arranged for there to be a runaway militarization of the USA, especially including the electoral processes!

Most intelligent people surely breathed a sigh of relief upon the announcement that Obama had secured enough Electoral College votes to retain the presidency. Not because Obama is wonderful but because better the devil you know. The next four years will be a time of multiple crises — financial, economic, environmental and military. So it's a lot better to have an intelligent man in the Oval Office who can make decisions than someone like Romney who can only ask his advisors (or his God) what they think he should do. [Update, September 2014: Alas, Obama turned out to be even worse than George W. Bush, hitherto the worst President in U.S. history. And Obama is 'intelligent' only insofar as he is a skilled rhetorician — actually a silver-tongued devil. And in fact Obama does not make decisions — he is just a puppet who does and says whatever his controllers tell him to say and do, just as Romney would have done.]

The interesting question is whether the militarization of American society, which Blair Longley referred to above, will stop with America, or whether this is just the first step toward a militarization of the entire globe? [We now know that this is what is happening.] Is it the intent of "those ... driving that long-term deterioration of the USA" simply to destroy the USA, and thus allow the rest of the world to get on with the task of the long-term social, intellectual and moral development of the human species? [Fat chance, but if the USA is destroyed, or at least made into another Mexico, then the rest of the word can get on with that task, led by Russia and China.] Or is their intent to convert the whole world into a single military establishment, with everyone having their assigned place in the chain of command, perhaps with the ultimate intention of an aggressive expansion into, and military domination of, whatever regions beyond this planet can be brought under their control? [Their hubris is unlimited.]

Further reading:

Why vote? But if elections are rigged, why vote at all?

And if elections are rigged, why obey the dictates of the politicians (and their thug enforcers) who are thereby fraudulently elected?

Citizen! You are not permitted to view this video. It has been despatched to the memory hole.

Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine

A copy of the Serendipity website is available on CD-ROM and flash drive.  Details here.

U.S. Presidential Election — Stolen Again
The Central Issue in the U.S. Presidential Campaign
Liberty and Democracy Serendipity Home Page