by Gregory Allan
10/24/2016
Never in my lifetime has there been more pre-election talk about election fraud. After elections there is always such talk. Anyone who has lived through more than one or two elections knows it's not uncommon for a candidate to challenge the outcome by demanding a recount.
Recounts are costly and, more importantly, inaccurate. If fraud was employed in the first count, it's unlikely it can be unraveled in the recount. Electronic voting machines are easy to hack, and leave no paper trail. So what, exactly, is being re-counted?
Whether you like him or hate him, it's thanks to Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for President of the United States, that we are having this discussion before the election. Election fraud and voter fraud are rampant, and are two sides of the same coin.
Election fraud is tampering with the outcome of elections at the administrative level. The fraud is done by the people who have been trusted to collect, handle, and count the ballots. This is the type of fraud the government and government-controlled mass media prefers we never talk (or even think) about.
Voter fraud is done by individual voters. Anyone who is ineligible to vote but votes anyway, is guilty of voter fraud. Other examples are voting more than once, voting with a phoney name, stuffing phoney ballots into the box, or tampering with absentee ballots. One might think there are as many ways to cheat as there are voters.
Using your favorite search engine, a search for "election fraud" brings up millions of hits (17,400,000 on Google just now). Voter fraud, ditto (6,460,000). Youtube displays videos showing real voting machines being hacked, and interviews with ex-employees of Diebold testifying before Congress that elections were stolen.
Millions of names are on voter registration rolls who are known to have been dead for years, and yet votes are routinely cast in their names. Many millions more vote in multiple jurisdictions, with no cross-referencing.
Every election, it seems someone is arrested and prosecuted for election or voter fraud. Such arrests are high-profile and widely reported, but they are few in number. Only the dumbest and most obvious are prosecuted, and then only if they are not politically connected. Such arrests are sacrificial lambs to public confidence in the system. The majority of offenders are rarely punished.
Could this be because the winning candidates are the beneficiaries of fraud? Probably, I think. So how did we end up with a system so rife with fraud?
The Secret Ballot
Having examined this issue at length, it's my opinion that election and voter fraud begins and ends with the secret ballot.
Here in the United States, all general elections are done by secret ballot, also known as the Australian Ballot. Each voter casts his ballot in secret so that no one may know how he voted (in the case of the dead voters, not even they know).
Looking back on my gradeschool (government school) days, I remember my teachers talking about the secret ballot as something to be revered, or even worshipped. I was taught the secret ballot is a hard-won freedom which guarantees no one can pressure or compel us to vote a certain way. Heck, the way they talked, the secret ballot was more important than any of the rights mentioned in the Bill of Rights. It was drilled into me from an early age that the secret ballot was a Sacred Truth, never to be questioned.
I believe it is long past time we ask questions. Are there other ways to vote? Why is the secret ballot also called the Australian Ballot, and how did we come to use this system?
There are many different ways of deciding elections, and at least several of them have been used in America. These are easy for you to research yourself if you have a mind to, so I won't belabor them here.
Originally, the most common way to vote in America was to show up on election day at your local town hall. At the appointed time a voice vote was called. Everyone in attendance could look around and see for themselves how everyone voted. If the count was not obvious, someone would move for a count of raised hands.
The townships reported their winners to the counties, who reported their winners to the states who, in the case of national offices, finally reported to the federal government.
Fraud within such a system was next to impossible.
However, as you will read if you begin studying the issue, there were many cases of intimidation and violence. Employers pressured employees to vote a certain way, with bonuses sometimes promised for "doing the right thing". Some employees might have even been fired for voting against their employer's wishes. If you were late on your mortgage payments, your banker might give you grace if you voted his way, or foreclose if you didn't. Strongarm tactics were sometimes used at voting places, to discourage people with unpopular opinions from casting their votes.
It was in 1856 that Australia implemented secret ballots in their elections. Actually I believe it more correct to say that in 1856 the British government imposed the secret ballot upon Australians. It's important to remember that between 1788 and 1868, Australia was a British prison colony. So the British implemented secret ballots, administered the elections, and thereby placed into office the candidates of their choosing. The whole thing could not be a more obvious fraud.
When the powers that be in America saw how easily Australian elections could be manipulated, they pushed and lobbied to bring the system to America. The rest is history.
The Price of Peace
Do you suppose it's possible that certain special interests may have intentionally incited violence at voting places, knowing that would influence public opinion and make a case for the secret ballot?
Recently two highly placed officials in Hillary Clinton's campaign were caught on hidden camera (thanks to Project Veritas) admitting to hiring thugs to incite violence at Donald Trump's rallies. The officials were fired, of course, but only because they were exposed. This incident would seem to answer the former question-- of course they would.
Intimidation and violence are crimes for which society has imposed criminal and civil penalties. Such offenses are open, obvious, and in-your-face. While it is not often easy to discover who hire the thugs who commit violent crimes (as in the case of Clinton's campaign staff), and prosecute them, the thugs themselves can easily be punished. These are crimes society can deal with.
Election and voter fraud are harder to catch. These crimes are largely invisible. In the case of the secret ballot, as the British knew way back in 1856, the victims usually don't even know they are victims.
When Americans traded honest elections for a secret ballot, they may not have known the degree to which they would ultimately be defrauded. But I'm sure they thought they were at least purchasing peace-- freedom from intimidation and violence.
What they didn't count on is that over time, the ability to swing elections in favor of the increasingly corrupt and criminal elements of our society can only lead to more intimidation, more violence, less security, and the loss not only of our peace, but our every freedom. Today we are reaping the results of this policy.
A Plan for Honest Elections
I've read many plans over the years for securing elections and stopping the fraud. All those plans are missing one crucial thing: transparency. The British knew it in 1856, just as the power-elite know it now: So long as American elections use a secret ballot, the elite will control the outcome of the elections. Secrecy equals fraud. Always has, and always will.
The only honest election system is one in which every voter openly claims his vote. My plan is cheap and easy to implement. It would reduce the costs of elections to less than ten-percent of current costs, while guaranteeing an honest result.
We can have honest elections, but only if we give up the secret ballot. Here are the fine points:
- Do away with secret ballots
- Require ID to register.
- Registrants must register at least 30 days prior to election.
- Post the registration database online and make it freely available to everyone. Name and address.
- Accept no votes before or after election day.
- Each voter can sort by address and easily see that Aunt Millie who died ten years ago should not be voting.
- Each voter can notice there should not be thirty-five voters using the address of that vacant house down the street, or cemetery down the block.
- Develop a process by which voters can challenge registrations believed fraudulent. Each county has 29 days to resolve its final list of voters before election day.
- All voting done using the Internet, on election day only. Each county provides computers at election sites, just as they provide the means to vote now. These can be generic computers, which will keep prices low.
- If you understand public/private key encryption and want to vote from your home computer, or cast an "absentee" ballot (meaning you're away from home, even out of the country on election day), you can cast your vote securely from anywhere. Otherwise come down to the voting sites as usual to cast your vote.
- Immediately after voting, the website generates a confirmation number, confirms the voter's identity and the votes that he cast. He gets a printed copy of this as his proof of what he did.
- Post the preliminary results online, immediately when the polls close.
- Make the whole national database available as a download. Anyone can put it into a spreadsheet and--
- Each voter can verify that his own vote was recorded correctly.
- Each voter can verify the count for himself.
- Voters have only one day after election day to verify their own votes. Provide means for him to correct the error. Votes will not be changed except as shown on the printed receipt the voter will be required to present.
- Final results are announced on the second day following election day.
This method will keep elections honest because it is 100% transparent. It accommodates an unlimited scale of population, while at the same time mimicking the Township Voice model in which everyone in a settlement or community can be seen and heard, openly casting his vote.
Will there be instances of intimidation and coercion? Almost certainly. Suck it up. There have always been people who try to rig the system and seize power unlawfully, and there always will be. The secret ballot did not change that, it was only driven underground. Let's dig up this stinking corpse and let the sunlight purify it as it does all things.
Incidentally, my method greatly reduces the effectiveness of strongarming at voting places, since it allows people to vote from home, or anywhere else they choose. I can envision restaurants, bars, and other places, setting up computers and staging "Voting Parties". I see competition, and that means discounts. This would encourage more people to get out and vote, since they could also get a night on the town with dinner and drinks. In any case, there would be far too many voting places to strongarm.
As to coercion from employers and banks, I have an answer for that as well.
Without corrupt elections, we will elect honest candidates. The economy will improve, and more jobs will become available. A good economy, along with information provided by the Internet, opens up competition that did not exist back in the 1800s. If your employer fires you for how you voted, get a different job, or start your own business. You'll thank him in the long run.
It's time we stood up and took back our country from the criminals who are running it. These will be the biggest stumbling block, as they were all elected by the current corrupt system. The only way to bring about change, is to change the way people think. Please share this article and help spread the word about secret ballots.
Gregory Allan is the editor of The Lawful Path, a website dedicated to helping people defend and learn about their rights.