He's correct...ALL voters really need to be better informed. This is a problem on every level; city, county, state, federal. Great reporting! Thank you Jennifer!
Thank you, Jennifer. It's good to know someone is concerned about the ridiculous excessive charge Alabama inflicts on election integrity advocates when they would like to check on how well their government has been keeping clean voter rolls. Our current Secretary of State doesn't even acknowledge it as a problem. But Sorrell is still not engaged sufficiently to start making plans for election reform in Alabama. His notion that coding absentee ballots differently has solved a problem, proves the point. The design of the original paper ballot was not the problem that was revealed. So changing it to add coding to it will not solve the problem. The tabulator that accepted a standard-weight, office-supply, paper copy of a ballot and counted the votes on it, can be programmed to accept/reject any coding that is applied to an absentee ballot. The tabulator and the secretive coding it uses are the problem, not the paper. This is the problem with allowing the government we elect to run our elections. Our elections need MAJOR reform. They are not secure because we use computer-driven tabulators manufactured with components made in foreign countries and electronic poll books that are admittedly online. And there is no incentive for our government to get rid of them now that there is plenty of money flow due to their usage. They are not transparent, in part because they are not simple enough for the average voter to be able to understand, but also because no one knows who's counting the votes or how they're being counted. They are centrally controlled making them more vulnerable to massive manipulation. They are not auditable because we don't have good chain-of-custody procedures, and because our laws prevent any real audit, and always will, as long as our government can prevent it. There is no accountability because the same government that runs our elections, write the laws that might hold them accountable. MAJOR reform is needed that will put elections back where they always belonged, back under local control. People that let the government they elect control the elections they use to choose representation, get the representation they deserve.
He's correct...ALL voters really need to be better informed. This is a problem on every level; city, county, state, federal. Great reporting! Thank you Jennifer!
Thank you, Jennifer. It's good to know someone is concerned about the ridiculous excessive charge Alabama inflicts on election integrity advocates when they would like to check on how well their government has been keeping clean voter rolls. Our current Secretary of State doesn't even acknowledge it as a problem. But Sorrell is still not engaged sufficiently to start making plans for election reform in Alabama. His notion that coding absentee ballots differently has solved a problem, proves the point. The design of the original paper ballot was not the problem that was revealed. So changing it to add coding to it will not solve the problem. The tabulator that accepted a standard-weight, office-supply, paper copy of a ballot and counted the votes on it, can be programmed to accept/reject any coding that is applied to an absentee ballot. The tabulator and the secretive coding it uses are the problem, not the paper. This is the problem with allowing the government we elect to run our elections. Our elections need MAJOR reform. They are not secure because we use computer-driven tabulators manufactured with components made in foreign countries and electronic poll books that are admittedly online. And there is no incentive for our government to get rid of them now that there is plenty of money flow due to their usage. They are not transparent, in part because they are not simple enough for the average voter to be able to understand, but also because no one knows who's counting the votes or how they're being counted. They are centrally controlled making them more vulnerable to massive manipulation. They are not auditable because we don't have good chain-of-custody procedures, and because our laws prevent any real audit, and always will, as long as our government can prevent it. There is no accountability because the same government that runs our elections, write the laws that might hold them accountable. MAJOR reform is needed that will put elections back where they always belonged, back under local control. People that let the government they elect control the elections they use to choose representation, get the representation they deserve.