Elections: More Hand Counts Necessary

In his campaign for Washington Secretary of State, Mark Greene, chairman of the Party of Commons and now, candidate for U.S. Senator, proposed the idea of counting close votes, within a margin of 2% of winning or qualifying, by hand. Given the likelihood of stolen elections and dubious machinery, and the secrecy of computer source codes linked to election machines, Mark believes he was not far-reaching enough in calling for hand counts of paper ballots. The chairman now says the 2% threshold is too low, and hand counts should be ubiquitous in elections, with at least a 15% threshold being narrow enough to call for one. In elections in which the total electorate is not particularly large, hand counts should be the norm.

Election thievery is common in America. There's no democracy if the vote is not counted correctly. Major steps toward making a fair and impartial count of the vote needs to be taken everywhere in America. For now, we live in an authoritarian country where the rule of law has become the edicts of misrule.

[This essay was revised on 10/27/08.]

Copyright 2008, Party of Commons TM