1. Dude, Where’s my Ballot? Problems – and maybe Solutions? – with the American election system and voting process

2. 1 Paperless Electronic Voting Machines

3. Concerns about Electronic Voting Machines are subject to programming error, equipment malfunction and malicious tampering. Programs are proprietary information and are not open to inspection. There is no paper trail and thus no ability to conduct a recount.

4. On national television, Bev Harris, Executive Director of Black Box Voting, quickly hacked into a computer used for electronic voting to show how easily the results can be changed. Electronic Machines Can Be Hacked

5. “This [electronic] voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards…We conclude that this voting system is unsuitable for use in a general election.” - Avi Rubin, Information Security Institute, JHU February 27, 2004

7. In 1996 Chuck Hagel became the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska. He won virtually every demo- graphic group, including many largely African-American communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel previously headed the company that installed, programmed, and ran the voting machines used in the election. Chuck Hagel’s Surprise Victory

8. And Max Cleland’s Surprise Loss In November 2002, popular Georgia Democratic Senator Max Cleland led by 5 percentage points prior to the election – the first ever conducted entirely on touch-screen voting machines. But then a mysterious swing of 12 percent on election day led to his defeat.

9. 2 Experts on International Standards for Fair Elections

10. “Some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida. The most significant of these requirements are: A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official. Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens…have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy.” Carter’s Concerns about Florida

11. “We cannot accept this result as legitimate because it does not meet international standards. We call for a full review of the conduct of the election and the tallying.” - Colin Powell Powell Comments on the Election… Back in the U.S. / Back in the U.S. …

12. Where the final counts didn’t match the exit polls. …in Ukraine “These polls don't work. We will win by between 3 to 5 percent. And remember, if Americans believed exit polls, and not the actual count, John Kerry would be president.” - Gennady Korzh, Yanukovych spokesman …Back in the U.S.S.R! (former)

13. 3 Sociological Factors that affect Voter Turnout in Elections

14. Factors that affect voter turnout: Age Education Income Gender Race

15. Age Older Americans are more likely to vote than are younger Americans Higher degree of political efficacy (my vote really matters and counts…makes a difference) More knowledge of political issues and history Generally more free time as compared to the youth Higher sense of patriotic duty to your country

16. Education Level People with a higher level of education are more likely to vote than people with little or no education More knowledge and understanding of complex political issues and laws More knowledge of what the major parties stand for (political ideology = liberal and conservative) College

17. Income People with more income are more likely to vote as compared to people with little or no income Historically, higher income voters tend to vote for Republican candidates, lower income tend to vote for Democrats Voting

18. Gender Gender Gap: in modern elections, women have a higher voter turnout than men Historically women have favored the Democratic party

19. Race White voters have a higher voter turnout than Black, Hispanic, and Asian voters The majority race in the United States is white History of discrimination against minority voters

20. 1.Voter Registration Laws 2.Burden of Registration 3.Voter Apathy 4.Frequent Elections, Long Ballot 5.Election Days 6.State Laws 7.Long Lines 8.Satisfaction Factors that Decrease Voter Turnout Why Vote…it really doesn’t matter!

21. Voter Apathy A decline in political efficacy (the belief that voting makes a difference and matters) Not caring about voting, my vote will not make a difference (lack of political efficacy) A rising level of cynicism and a decline in the trust of government has led to increased voter apathy Politics as usual “nothing will change”

22. Frequent Elections, Long Ballot America’s federal system produces more elections than any other democracy (federal, state, local) The large number of elections reduces voter turnout by making it difficult for voters to keep up with all the candidates running for office Federal Elections: President and VP US Senate US House State Elections: Governor LT Governor Executive Departments State Senate State House Ballot Measures Local Elections: Mayor County Council Sheriff City Council School Board Ballot Measures

23. 4 The Exit Polls

24. Because there is no potential of conducting a true recount with electronic voting machines, exit polls are one of the few ways to independently verify the validity of an election. Electronic Voting Prohibits Recounts

25. Exit Polls are Reliable Thom Hartmann of CommonDreams.org relates that in his native Germany: “…people fill in hand-marked ballots, which are hand-counted by civil servants, watched over by volunteer representatives of the political parties. … even though it takes a week or more to count the vote … the German people know the election results the night the polls close because the news media’s exit polls, for two generations, have never been more than a tenth of a percent off.”

26. Material for this chart comes from Jonathan Simon, a former exit poll analyst, who collected and tabulated data from the CNN web-site before the data was changed during the morning of 11/3/04. StateExit Poll Data 11/2 Final Vote TallyPercentage Shift Toward Bush 1. IowaKerry by 1.3%Bush by.9%+2.2% 2. OhioKerry by 4.2%Bush by 2.5%+6.7% 3. PennsylvaniaKerry by 8.7%Kerry by 2.2%+6.5% 4. FloridaBush by.1%Bush by 5%+4.9% 5. MinnesotaKerry by 9%Kerry by 3.5%+5.5% 6. NevadaKerry by 1.3%Bush by 2.6%+3.9% 7. New HampshireKerry by 10.8%Kerry by 1.3%+9.5% 8. New MexicoKerry by 2.6%Bush by 1.1%+3.7% 9. ColoradoBush by 1.8%Bush by 5.2%+3.7% Exit Polls Showed Kerry Leading

27. Dick Morris The Political Life “Exit polls are almost never wrong…So reliable are the surveys that actually tap voters as they leave polling places that they are used as guides to the relative honesty of elections in Third World countries.” November 4, 2004 Those Faulty Exit Polls Were Sabotage Note: Dick Morris is a Republican consultant

28. “The likelihood of any two of these statistical anomalies occurring together is on the order of one-in-a-million. The odds against all three occurring together are 250 million to one.” -Steven F. Freeman BushKerryBushKerryTallied vs. StatePredictedPredictedTalliedTalliedPredicted FL49.8%49.7%52.1%47.1%Bush 4.9% OH47.9%52.1%51.0%48.5%Bush 6.7% PA45.4%54.1%48.6%50.8%Bush 6.5% Predicted vs. Actual Percentages in the Three Critical Battleground States

29. Paper Ballot Voting Matched Exit Polls Paper Ballots Electronic Machines

30. Electoral College Map if Official Tallies Were Correct Bush = 286Kerry = 252

31. Electoral College Map if Exit Polls Were Correct Kerry = 289Bush = 249

32. “Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” -- Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, aka Josef Stalin

33. 5 Still a few bugs in the system…

34. Electronic Voting Problems in 2004 Errors were almost always in Bush’s favor In Gahanna, Ohio, where only 638 ballots were cast, Bush received 4,258 votes to Kerry's 260. On a referendum in Broward County, Florida, software subtracted votes rather than added them. In North Carolina, a Craven County district logged 11,283 more votes than voters and actually overturned the results of a regional race. Some people reported machines switching their votes from one candidate to another.

35. 6 Voter Disenfranchisement / Suppression

36. Voter Disenfranchisement More than 57,000 irregularities were reported to the GAO. Fewer voting machines were available in low-income precincts, creating long lines. Some people never received their absentee ballots. Some polling places were moved at the last minute, and voters were sent to the wrong polling places. Many people had been removed from voter lists and had to fill out provisional ballots.

37. According to the Free Press, a group of 25 men calling themselves the “Texas Strike Force” made intimidating phone calls to likely Democratic voters from a hotel across the street from the Republican Party headquarters in Franklin County, Ohio. A hotel worker heard one caller threaten a likely voter with being reported to the FBI and returned to jail if he voted. Voter Intimidation The Texans’ hotel rooms were reportedly paid for by the Ohio Republican Party.

38. In Columbus, Ohio – where voters waited 2-7 hours to vote – turnout was 52.7%. In Cincinnati, Ohio – where more voting machines were available and lines were shorter – 66.3% of registered voters went to the polls. Fewer Voting Machines Were Available in Low-Income Precincts Voting machines were strategically moved from Democratic to Republican precincts.

39. Officials in Warren County, Ohio excluded members of the press from observing vote counting on election night, claiming an FBI agent had warned of a terrorist threat. County employees had been warned about the lockdown a week earlier. The FBI denied issuing such a warning.

40. 7 One Person, One Vote? You are smart, well versed on issues. The idiot with an IQ of 40 on your right really has no idea what is going on. The blow-hard on your left is caught up in some single-issue thing. Should your vote really count the same as either of theirs?

41. 8 Ways to Improve Voter Turnout

42. Ways to Improve Voter Turnout  Make registration and voting easier. - Make registration automatic - Offer more options to vote absentee, mail-in ballots, electronic voting, online voting  Make Election Day a holiday or hold it on a weekend.  Strengthen political parties.  Make voting compulsory.

43. A Comparative Perspective

44. Why People Don’t Vote How Serious is Nonvoting? Concerns about “class bias” Negative effect on Democratic candidates May indicate approval of the status quo

45. An institutional barrier that blocks people from voting is a.distant voting booths b.registration c.unattractive candidates d.lack of party competition

46. 9 Ways to Improve Voter Turnout

47. 9 Money in Politics

48. Pointing Out the Disease Campaign spending is out of control. Nearly 530 million dollars were spent in the last presidential election Politicians spend more time talking to donors than to voters. It is reported that most politicians spend nearly 50 percent of their time fundraising. Sources: opensecrets.org, democracymatters.org

49. Because donors are more important to a politicians success they are prone to be more accountable to a donor’s interests than to their constituents Good people can’t run for office without relying on big money contributions or personal wealth. Campaigns are almost always determined by who is the wealthiest. In every presidential election since 1984, the Republican and Democratic candidate with the most money a year before an election has won his party’s nomination. Sources: www.democracymatters.org,www.democracymatters.org www.yaleherald.com/article-p.php?Article=2757

50. A Step by Step Description