Imagine a fictional kingdom. The king has died and the small band of noblemen at court have yet to announce a successor. One afternoon, two local merchants discuss the situation:
“So did you hear about the new king?”
“No, who is it?”
“The former king’s advisers couldn’t decide, so they’re asking the public to ‘elect’ a new king?”
“Elect? What does that mean?”
“It means we’re going to pick the new king.”“Huh. Well, that seems fair. You and I pay a ton in taxes to the kingdom, so we should get a say.”
“True. But it’s not just us who will decide…”
“Sure, everyone who pays taxes should get a say.”
“See, the thing is… they’re letting everyone have a say.”
“What, even the people who don’t pay taxes?”
“Yeah.”
“But that’s like half the population.”
“So?”
“If they don’t pay to support the king, why should they get a say in electing him?”
“Because they live in the kingdom too.”
“I dunno, it doesn’t seem fair.”
“Sure it is. Heck, the kingdom is even calling their new program, ‘one man, one vote’. It’s catchy.”
“So what about the merchants who travel here from the neighboring kingdoms?”
“What about them?”
“Well, some of these guys are here three or four days per week peddling their wares. They have to pay taxes to the king on those sales. Do they get a vote?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But what about ‘one man, one vote’?”
“That only applies to people who live in the kingdom.”
“Okay, what about my cousin Irv? He used to live in the neighboring kingdom, but he’s been crashing on my couch for a few weeks. Does he get to vote?”
“Does he have permission from the kingdom to crash on your couch?”
“Uh, no.”
“Then I’m pretty sure he can’t vote.”
“Wow, this whole thing sounds nutty. Okay, so when do we all have to get together and vote?”
“Get together?”
“If we’re going to pick a new king, don’t we need to get everyone in the kingdom together?”
“Not all at the same time.”
“So we’re going to elect the king in shifts?”
“Well, there will be polling stations open throughout the day.”
“And people will just vote when they feel like it?”
“Yeah, or they can vote on earlier day by mail if they don’t want to show up.”
“Huh. So all you have to do is show up and show some identification?”
“No, just show up.”
“So I could pretend I’m you and cast your ballot?”
“Sure, I guess, if you get to the polls before me.”
“Yeah, but when I sign the ballot, won’t they be able to tell it’s not your signature.”
“You aren’t going to sign the ballot. The ballot is ‘secret’.”
“If the ballots are completely anonymous, and there’s no way to tell who actually voted, how will we know if the person elected king really won?”
“The kingdom will tell us. They’re running the election, after all.”
“So there’s nothing stopping the kingdom from simply picking a winner and then making it look like the new king actually won this ‘election’?”
“I suppose not.”
“Well that’s pretty much the system we already had, except now we’re wasting time and money to make it look like the people in the kingdom actually support what the rulers wanted to do all along.”
“Huh. I never considered that.”
“I think I’ll stay home on this ‘election day’.”
“Does that mean you don’t want to hear about the kingdom’s new ‘campaign finance’ laws?”
{ 11 comments }
Totally correct. I am always amazed at the idea of recounts in close elections. How can the two counts be different if it is an “honest” election? Or to put it a different way, why is it assumed that the difference is counts is due to an “honest” mistake and not fraud? If the 2 counts are different there the system is prone to errors and there is no way to know if the error was an accident or intentional.
Some will say do 3 counts (and maybe that is what they do). But again how do we know there is no mistakes (or fraud) between the first and second counts. The most obvious is to just lose some ballets that are unfavorable.
The limited interest in open source voting systems that can be trusted seems to confirm this view.
I’m not sure how the Mises Institute feels about posts with links to other sites, but this seems like the proper place to post this.
Please check out http://www.blackboxvoting.org and I would also recommend watching the Showtime special “Hacking Democracy” (even though we’re not a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic).
But the voting fraud actually exists in the computers that count the vote. Some counties don’t even use paper-ballots, they simply have touch screens. Other counties actually use paper-ballots, but use computer readers to count the vote. Once the counter prints a ticket-tally, most of these paper-ballots are discarded. These machines have been proven to be easily tampered with and completely circumvent our representation in government. I honestly believe that Ron Paul was cheated out of many votes due to this completely electronic system of voting.
There’s nothing wrong with secret ballots, otherwise voters may be forcefully coerced into voting for a specific person, however I also feel there’s nothing wrong with open caucuses either. Secret ballots protects our right to privacy. But there needs to be a legitimate paper trail and public audits of the ballots and tallies. Otherwise, there is no way for the sovereign citizen to keep watch over his vote.
I think it was Stalin who said, “Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who COUNT the votes decide everything.”
Not that I wish to defend democracy, but my personal suggestion is to have a lower house elected by secret ballot and an upper house elected by a completely non-secret ballot in which voters choices were published after the election.
The lower house would stand as protection against votes won by coercion. The upper house would stand as protection against votes won by fraud. The upper house would also represent those prepared to publicly take responsibility for their choice, which might concentrate minds a little.
LOL
This story has Bremner, Bird, & Fortune written all over it! I love those blokes.
I just read Fund’s Stealing Elections, some leftover reading from 2004.; ) According to him, the trend in recent years to make absentee voting easier has also made it easier to cast fake ballots or vote multiple times. Electronic voting isn’t much more promising. Fund assures readers that it’s more difficult to commit voter fraud with electronic voting machines then proceeds to give numerous examples of malfunctioning due to both equipment and human error – including counties where no vote was recorded and foreign language ballots where choosing one candidate automatically registered a vote for the other.
There will be voter fraud on a massive scale this election (as already evident in the antics of ACORN) and I’ve no doubt that it will largely be in Obama’s favor because dems are convinced the presidency was stolen from Al Gore in 2000.
I was already upset at how the primary process weeded out any candidate I could’ve supported with a good conscience so the current election crisis isn’t that traumatic for me. I’m more interested in election reform in general. Wouldn’t it be nice not just to have a 3rd party active in state and national elections but maybe even for multiple parties to represent us? Of course I only have a general idea how this works – France seems to run several candidates until someone is finally elected, Israel has multiple parties though I get the impression this causes political gridlock. One good result I think would be that people might be less inclined to cheat because it wouldn’t be so easy to determine how those extra votes might influence the outcome of an election.
Anyone already have a workable plan for a multi-party election system?
Like someone said, “Vote early and vote often!”
To Crosbie:
As I’m sure you already know, our constitutional republic was setup as a popular election of the lower house and an upper house appointed by the state legislatures. Returning to this model (by repealing the 17th amendment) would not only return more of the power to the states, but it would also be another likely vehicle of control for the people—they can let their representatives know who to appoint rather than trust the potentially fraudulent voter system.
Why does the Bush Administration want voter fraud? It would be so easy to eliminate – just have the TSA run the election booths. Make it as difficult to vote as it is to get on a plane.
Immediately after 2000, it would have been very easy for the justice department to investigate voter fraud. The fact that this was not done means that there is something very basic we are all overlooking.
The older I get the more irked I am at people who conflate a contradiction between democracy and A Republic. A republic is a form of government without a hereditary monarch. Democracy is a process for selecting which persons shall exercise government authority regardless of the form of government. Yes, that means one can have a ‘democratic’ monarchy in which people chose among those qualified by heredity (e.g.,between brothers) to exercise authority.
The only alternatives to democratic voting in any form of government is civil war or some form of lottery.
The real problem with democracy as practiced currently is that it does not allow one to vote with one’s feet or simply secede in place. Any group of people has a natural right of secession and to form any new government using any process for vesting authority (to the extent it is delegated at all) by heredity (which is rather stupid), by voting (which is prone to manipulation), or by lottery (which might be serendipitous). But a fool picked by lot to exercise very limited authority for a short term cannot do much damage.
The author makes an excellent point about democratic voting – if it can be rigged, it probably will be rigged when it really matters. The whole point of pseudo-democratic elections is to keep the vast majority of the population engaged in defending the authority of the rulers – not actually choosing those rulers.
The only thing voting does is offer the sanction of the victim/voters for the politicians’ past, present and future aggressions, so voting for the candidates of “either” of the “two” parties of the oligarchy ought to be out of the question for any thinking person…
No voting, which is what most people do, is discounted by the political system. Voting for any of what Dr. Paul calls the “principled third parties” would at least send a message to the oligarchy that we are not taking it any more.
Since only one or two percent of the voters (except in extraordinary circumstances) ever votes for non-oligarchy candidates, if five or ten percent started voting third party, American politics would have to take notice.
This past September Dr. Paul brought together the Principled Parties at the National Press Club and urged his supporters to vote third party.
At the same time, a Statement of Principles was issued, agreed to by Dr. Paul and the parties, that, had it been government policy would have avoided the current financial crisis. It’s Four Points were aimed at stopping the entire welfare/warfare nexus.
You can read the Four Party Statement at:
http://vitaminlawyerhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/2008/09/political-breakthrough-third-party.html
Don’t waste your vote… vote third party.
It’s ironic that massive voter fraud may be a good thing! The bigger it is the more visible it is. If enough Americans have their love of liberty sparked and see how fraudulent the elections are maybe they will revolt enough to mandate another election – one in 2009!
That’s the one that numerous times came up during the time when Ron Paul was forced to drop out!
Round two of the Presidential election will be taking place when everything is coming true that Ron Paul predicted and therefore will have to include Ron Paul! And the unConstitutional coup will be discredited enough to limit its ability to control the election process or to completely censor media coverage.
I predict a landslide!
I do not like the electronic voting machines. The slower method of paper votes is surer.
Also, international observation must be allowed in sufficient quantities. Otherwise results are not credible.
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