In the wake of the unexpectedly massive Republican sweep of the 2004 elections, many credible sources are asking serious questions about whether that sweep was the result of electronic voting machine fraud.

    Many people I've spoken to confirm that their suspicions were aroused after virtually all exit polls showed John Kerry was leading in many states, only to discover a few hours later, after polls had closed, that George Bush had overwhelmingly won even sharply-contested states. These suspicions are well justified in light of growing revelations about the ease with which electronic voting machines can be fixed by the powerful and connected.

     Thus on November 4th, election observers with the internationally-renowned Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Verified Voting Foundation (VVF) reported that "Voters from at least half a dozen states reported that touch-screen voting machines had incorrectly recorded their choices, including that for president."

     "Voters discovered the problems when checking the review screen at the end of the voting process. They found, to their surprise, that the machines indicated that they voted for one candidate when they had voted for another. When voters tried to correct the problem, the machine often made the same error several times." (Source: Technocrat.net, 11-4-04.)

     One huge problem with many electronic voting machines is that they leave no paper trail which can be audited. If the machines were programmed to, for instance, add 5% to Bush's vote and deduct 5% from Kerry's, there would be no way of discovering that, short of having checked the programming for each machine before and after the election, and continuously monitoring them during the election, if they had modems or other communications devices. Of course, no one did that, nor is it practical to do so.

     Another web site - Voxfux, 11-3-04 - also reports that "Republicans throughout the country" won over Democrats by precisely 18,181 votes, including Danny Scheel of Texas, Carter Casteel, Jeff Wenworth; Candice Miller of Michigan; and Michael Smigiel of Maryland. The statistical odds of this happening without fixed voting machines or other manipulation are infinitesimal.

    The most telling analysis of all comes from LewRockwell.com (11-8-04), which reports:

"When comparing exit polls to the actual 'official' final results, it appears that EVERY state that had electronic voting without paper trails had an 'unexplained' advantage for Bush of about 5%.

     "And it appears that in EVERY STATE that had paper trails on their Electronic Voting, the exit poll results matched the actual results reported – within the margin of error."

     Fixed electronic voting machines are not a new concern. Back in 1996, Relevance Magazine warned that "two-way hidden modems are built into the ever-growing number of computerized optical scanner/direct recording voting machines in use all across the country from New England to California." NewsWithViews (10-22-04) argues that "these hidden modems are accessible by remote cell phone technology. In other words, these voting machines can be accessed and manipulated from a central super computer without a phone line connected to the wall, and without the local precinct workers knowing that anything is happening at all."

     "According to a Dr. O'Halloran, 'Of course, when the same company that writes the source code, also designs the internal modem, the possibilities are endless for accessing the computer either before, during or after the election, to alter, or at least interrogate the computer's vote count. It raises the specter of a remote, high-speed, vote rigging computer automatically and surreptitiously contacting, querying and rapidly adjusting the votes inside many precincts and/or central counting machines nationwide."

     At least one libertarian appears to have been the victim of exactly such electronic voting machine fraud. In 1992, Libertarian Tamara Clark was a favorite for winning her State Senate race in Nevada. Pre-election polls showed her with almost 60% of the vote. On the day of the election, she was winning by 56% to 44%, when the state election computers "had to be shut down" for an hour. When they came back up, she was suddenly losing by 56% to 44%.

     Were the 2004 elections stolen by electronic voting machine fraud? We may never know for sure. I doubt if anyone in the country has sufficient political pull to carry off an in-depth investigation of the accuracy and independence of electronic voting machines; which of course means, much more of the same in the future.

     What we do know is that there are tens of thousands of teenage hackers who could fix electronic voting machines with a few hours work, given access to the source codes and machines – which the machine manufacturers and state election officials (many fervent Republicans), of course, had.

     Whether the 2004 election was fixed or not, the ease with which electronic voting machines can be fixed means that a very dark cloud now hangs over American democracy and our future as a free society. If fact, we may already be living in a banana-republic-style police state, and just don't know it yet.

     The only way to be certain that future U.S. elections are fair, is to conduct an immediate, full and complete independent investigation of electronic voting machines, particularly in the swing states which Bush so unexpected "won," contrary to every credible exit poll I've seen. Barring that, electronic voting machines need to be sent to scrap heap immediately.

Editors Note: The 1994 South African elections suffered from computer-voting shenanegans. At the 11th hour the computers went down – and when they came back on everything was "different". Minority parties candidates and independents who normally would have won seats under South Africa's system of proportional representation, were sidelined – indefinitely. The two main parties cut a deal on dividing power. There were also accusations of electronic voter fraud in Venezuela's recent elections in which dictator Chavez was returned to office. That country used touch screen voting.

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