The issue of verified voting is a critical one for our wonderful democracy. It is imperative that every voter know that their vote is counted, that it is counted as they wished it to be, and that this result is verifiable.
Great efforts on this issue are being made by the California Voter Foundation and the Verified Voting Foundation.
Congressman Rush Holt's (D, NJ) statement in the joint session of Congress that verified the electoral college results are worth reading. The entire session's transcript is available in The Congressional Record for January 6, 2005.
Mr. Speaker, this debate is not frivolous. This is not about sour grapes. This is not about conspiracy theories. This is about the central act of democracy.
Here in the House of Representatives all members have been elected. Some of us have been elected in recounts.
What are recounts? They are independent checks of the tally.
Reliable knowledge is verifiable knowledge. As my colleagues know, I am a scientist. It is a principle of scientific thinking that one person's claim must be subject to independent confirmation or correction.
I agree with Senator John Kerry. We should today award Ohio's electoral votes to President Bush. I believe President Bush got more votes in Ohio then did Senator Kerry. I believe it. I cannot confirm it. No one can confirm it.
Consider electronic voting machines. If there was an error between the voter casting the vote on the touch screen and the recording of an electronic signal in a memory bank, no one will ever know. It might be a software error; it would not necessarily be a malicious conspiracy. But if the vote is recorded incorrectly, no one will ever know.
I ask my colleagues, can anyone say he or she knows that the actual vote is what has been presented to us? The answer is no. None of us can say this knowledge has been independently verified. It is not reliable knowledge unless it is verified knowledge. This is not a philosophical fine point. Americans don't want to and should not have to take the results simply on faith. The electronic machines used in Ohio and most other States are not designed to be verifiable. Recounts are meaningless.
Self-government works only if we believe it does. A loss of confidence in our system is fatal to a democratic republic such as ours. That confidence has been eroded over the years and has taken some body blows in recent years.
We need a major effort to shore up our democracy.
Americans are a trusting people, but we demand evidence. We demand verification.
We are also a pragmatic people, and so we in the House will not upset the apple cart today. Without doubt we will endorse the electoral votes presented to us today. But we should not be satisfied. Republicans should not be satisfied. Democrats should not be satisfied. The reason is not that President Bush got more votes. The reason is that the knowledge of President Bush's majority is unreliable knowledge.
Anything of value should be auditable. Votes are valuable. Each voter should have the knowledge that the vote is recorded as intended. We are talking today about the heart of our democratic republic.
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