Did the Russians hack the 2016 U.S. presidential election? Who knows? Ask a card-carrying member of the left-leaning citizenry and they will assure you in no uncertain terms that yes, indeed, the Russkies stole the election from Her Hillaryness and put that (any unprintable adjective or adverb) deplorable Donald Trump in the White House. Ask a card-carrying member of the right-leaning citizenry and they’ll tell you in equally colorful phrases why the far left claims are so much hooey. (That’s a technical term meaning, essentially, “You are certifiably crazy and should go live in North Korea,” or something like that.)

While Putin and his mainframe minions might have tried their hand at manipulations, it’s apparently a practice that seems to have started under the previous U.S. administration. Nobody from that contingent seems to be talking much about it, but someone somewhere did make the point that it would be nigh near impossible to tap into the roughly 175,000 voting precincts in the country. Not even voting officials in Chicago are that good.

The trickle down effect of election day shenanigans is state bureaucrats and local polling professionals charged with protecting the proletariat’s right to freedom of choice are looking for ways to make certain voting booths and machines used therein are tamper proof.

In Georgia, we’ve had touchscreen voting for many years now. When selecting candidates in the Peach State, it’s a simple matter to find your choice, press a finger next to the name (preferably your index digit, not the longer one next to it), and send your selection to an electronic holding bin. At the end of the day, the bins are emptied and digitally transmitted upstream to wherever the final count is being amassed.

As government is want to do, a commission was formed to study options for Georgia voters. SAFE (Secure, Accessible, and Fair Elections) was supposed to look things over, make recommendations, and help the state become election vulnerable free. Sounds like a plan, right?

Turns out there have been some problems with misinformation regarding past abuses of the touchscreen machines. I know. I’m shocked too. But the good news is, chances are it doesn’t appear that the machinations were orchestrated by Moscow.

Some in the know have suggested that Georgia return to the days of strictly paper ballots. That would require people to actually use a pen or pencil and make a mark. That system would probably give an unfair edge to older voters who took penmanship in school vs. some millennials who have thumb muscles well-developed by continuous texting, but struggle with the dexterity of using an actual writing device. The “Hanging Chad” debacle of the 2000 presidential election is also ever present in the minds of election officials. And coloring inside the lines is apparently much more difficult for many than previously thought. Sometimes it’s just not clear for whom a ballot is marked. (There’s also an issue with counting paper ballots by hand. Arithmetic seems to be going the way of penmanship in school too.)

Georgia does have paper ballot scanners. Those would help with the counting, but not necessarily the “maybe this one or maybe that one” markings on the paper. Cyber-security experts say it’s pretty darn difficult to hack a paper ballot.

I’m wondering if we could harken back to the days of elementary school. As I remember it, anytime the class voted on some significant office, say, Hall Pass Monitor, what we did was all put our heads down on our arms atop our desks and close our eyes. The teacher would then ask for a show of hands for Candidate A and another show of hands for Candidate B. That way, it remained secret . . . unless you peeked.

Granted, you had to trust your teacher to accurately count the votes and announce the winner. I’m pretty sure Mrs. Miller in sixth grade played by the rules. Not so sure about the Hall woman in fourth grade or Mrs. Sutton in second. I still shudder at the thought of having to sit in their classes all year. Seems to me they wouldn’t be above hacking a hand count.

To ensure fairness today, maybe everybody from each precinct could gather in a local high school gym at a prescribed hour, put their heads down, and raise their hands at the mention of their choices. Let the Homecoming Queen and Senior Class President do the counting. They can’t vote, so they have no dog in the hunt, and the exercise will help their mathematical skills.

Take that, Vladimir. American democracy at its finest.

 

©MMXVIII. William J. Lewis, III – Freelance Writer