Alternative Vote or Automated Violation of the Electorate?: AV & The Electronic Voting Machine Elephant in the Room

 

By Neil Foster – The Sovereign Independent

There’s a lot of hype in the UK at the moment over a referendum to change the electoral system from a ‘once past the post’ system to a ‘proportional representation’ type system.

However, coupled with this is the push for electronic voting using the much maligned electronic voting machines since scrapped in Ireland before they were ever used.

The Irish government purchased 7,500 of these machines but then decided to scrap the idea when the machines were exposed as being completely insecure.

The machines cost Irish taxpayers €51 million before a single vote was cast

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0423/evoting.html

They were then scrapped and put in storage at a cost of €3 million in the 5 years to October 2010 and are still costing millions so much so that an investigation was launched into the contracts given for extended periods for machines that are now regarded as obsolete.

http://www.advertiser.ie/kilkenny/article/10550

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/1006/breaking26.html

In India a researcher exposed the vulnerability of these machines and was arrested for exposing it.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/23/indian_evoting_critic_jailed/

In the US elections of 2008 California scrapped the machines in 20 counties due to fears of the machines being infected by a ‘virus’.

Therefore, we know that these machines are susceptible to either hacking or computer viruses. They can also be tampered with to give any desired result the establishment desires. It has nothing to do with the ‘party’ system folks. The system simply perpetuates and protects the system and it’s that system which would love electronic voting machines. Even the manufacturers admit that these machines can be programmed to cheat the electorate.

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