Edit my letter to the editor

[alfredo]

This is the first draft.

There's a quote attributed to Joseph Stalin, that goes, "It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes." Whether he said it or not, it is still true. In many states, including Kentucky, computer voting machines are used to gather and count our votes. Do we know exactly what the machine does with our vote? Is there a verifiable paper trail? Are we allowed to audit the machine to make sure there is no malicious code that could change our vote? Are the machines secure or open to hackers? Can we follow the data from the button pushed to the output?

Our vote enters a black box of sorts. We have no idea if our vote is counted as cast. Because the code in those machines is a trade secret, we are barred from inspecting it. We have to accept on faith that our vote has not been manipulated.

What if the people who own and control the voting machines are very partisan and have made pronouncements that they will do what they can to deliver the vote to a particular candidate? Would you be concerned? What if the heads of the voting machine companies are part of the inner circle of the candidate? Would you be concerned? What if the companies that certify the voting machines are financially and politically connected to the voting machine companies? Would you be concerned? What if the voting machine companies refused to do anything to allow outside verification of our vote? Would you be concerned.

When you go to vote this November, will your vote go to your candidate, or to the candidate of those who control the voting machines?

[MrBenchley]

1. Be sure to ANSWER the questions

posed in your next to last paragraph. We have a situation where one voting machine company is owned by a REPUBLICAN senator (Chuck Hegel), and another company is owned by someone who pledged publicly to do everything he could to deliver votes to the Republican candidate..

[Padraig18]

2. Exactly!

Aside from that, it's an EXCELLENT letter! :bounce:

[alfredo]

6. I want to plant the doubt and let the reader

answer the question.

[Padraig18]

7. No

They probably don't know, and won't bother to find out. Tell them yourself. :)

[alfredo]

9. I am trying not to make it partisan. We need people from both

parties helping.

[Padraig18]

10. I understand, but...

Those people who read the letter will likely vote, but I have no degree of confidence that many of them will inquire into the questions you pose. The political affiliation of Sen. Hagel will 'connect the dots', and make them understand WHY they should care. See my point? :)

[alfredo]

11. I don't want to turn off half my audience off by making

a partisan statement. I want to keep the high ground. I want to plant a seed. Even if only one sprouts, it would be a victory.

I have decided to put Blackbox voting as the title of the letter, giving them a keyword for further research.

The newspaper knows me well, and have printed nearly everything I have sent. One they didn't because they couldn't verify the source of my statement. It was about the American Nazi Party donating to Reagan's 1980 campaign. I got it from their paper, but I couldn't remember the date, or then headline of the article.

[Padraig18]

12. Ummm

You would rather sprout one by being non-partisan, than harvest a potential crop by naming names? *shrug*

[_Wayne_]

3. ok

Joseph Stalin once said, "It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes." In many states, including Kentucky, computer voting machines are used to gather and count our votes. Do we know exactly what the machine does with our vote? Is there a verifiable paper trail? Are we allowed to audit the machine to make sure there is no malicious code that could change our vote? Are the machines secure or open to hackers? Can we follow the data from the button pushed to the output?

When completed, our vote enters a black box. We have no idea if our vote is counted as cast. Because the code in those machines is a trade secret, we are barred from inspecting it. We have to accept on faith that our vote has not been manipulated.

What if the people who own and control the voting machines are partisan and have made pronouncements that they will do what they can to deliver the vote to a particular candidate? Would you be concerned? What if the heads of the voting machine companies are part of the inner circle of the candidate? Would you be concerned? What if the companies that certify the voting machines are financially and politically connected to the voting machine companies? Would you be concerned? What if the voting machine companies refused to do anything to allow outside verification of our vote? Would you be concerned?

When you go to vote this November, will your vote go to your candidate, or to the candidate of those who control the voting machines?

[alfredo]

5. Very good, but I am not sure

Stalin said that, so I have to speak to the spirit of the quote. How can I say that without the controversy over the authorship diluting the message?

Until I can verify the quote, I can't say with certainty that Stalin said it.

[ima_sinnic]

4. the actual Stalin quote:

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything." I have never had any reason to think he did not really say this but unfortunately can't provide any sources for verification. Perhaps it appears in the book Stalin: A Political Biography, by Isaac Deutscher (1949).

Question mark needed after last "Would you be concerned"

All in all an excellent letter!

[alfredo]

8. I will have to google to see if there is anything

to verify the quote.

found a great quote

Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex.

- Frank Zappa might make that my sig