Voting In America

Voting in America

Meagen Hawkins

Axia College of University of Phoenix

COM 125 Utilizing Information in College Writing

Michelle Koles, M.Ed

April 1, 2007

In every election votes are lost or miscounted because of voting errors, machine errors, voting devices stop working, the voting machines calculate a wrong number for a specific candidate, and poll workers misplace cartridges that have tallied up the numbers from the voting machines. We the people hold the right to vote, but with today's voting system; America does not always get the actual winner in office due to flaws in the system.

In our country The United States of America, the people have the power of deciding who is voted into office. When making these decisions, the people carefully listen to all testimonies that the person running has to offer. After making a final decision as to whom they will vote for, they wait for Election Day and chose the candidate that best represents what they believe in.

The Voting System

In the United States we have a voting system that consists of a specific day of the year which always is the first Tuesday flowing after the first Monday in November, between the second and the eighth day. On this particular day (Election day) there are specific places usually ones open to the public ( Schools, city hall, churches, fire stations, and post offices) that hold specific times in which they are allowed to vote. When voting they will use anything from electronic voting machines, paper ballots, optical scan, punch cards, mechanical lever and direct recording electronic device known as the DRE. After everyone has voted poll workers count the votes. Places that use paper ballots each ballot has to be manually read and tallied up. With the mechanical lever, poll workers check each machine and read out the number of votes cast for each candidate. For the computerized systems such as the optical scan, the DRE, and punch card the number are read from disks. After everything is tallied up the votes are reported to a central counting place like the court house or state office.

In a presidential election, after the peoples vote is reported, the Electoral College then places their vote. How the Electoral College works is that when the people place their vote they are voting for electors who have promised to vote for a certain Presidential candidate. The electors vote, and more than half of them must vote for a specific person for that person to become president. Because of the Electoral College it is possible for the people's popular vote to be voided and another person is elected President. Usually the people popular vote goes along with the popular vote of the Electoral College.

Flaws that have Occurred in Our System

The flaws in our system have happened in our country probably since the beginning of voting history, but have gone unnoticed or unannounced. The very first time that a mistake was mentioned and documented in voting history was when President John F. Kennedy was elected into office. In this election it was mentioned that there was a vote miscount, and that the numbers were in favor of J.F.K. The supposed miscount was said to be on purpose, but the government never reported if this accusation was true, or it was just a rumor.

The most recent Voting flaws include the 2000 and 2004 Presidential Elections. There were many rumors and accusations that were brought to America's attention after both of these elections. It has been reported that during the 2000 election, the electronic voting machines had an increased number of 5% added to these machines. This has not been verified as the truth but is one of the many loop holes that is said to have occurred in that election.

In the 2000 election, there was such an outrage that there could have been a possibility that machines had been tampered with that the U.S. Supreme court had ruled to re-count the ballots, but the Supreme Court then ruled to stop going with the re-count and to go by what the numbers already said.

After the 2000 election the government spent 650 million dollars of the tax payer's money to fix these machines and the supposed problems and loop holes. This was to ensure that the machines would not be able to be tampered with, or that the machines would not have the flaws that occurred in the last election. After spending this money the machines were inspected by a group of inspectors and the machines failed the inspection. But, instead of not allowing these machines to be able to be used in the next election the government allowed them and the same flaws still occurred.

When voting with the electronic devices in the 2004 election, people have reported many errors that occurred along with not enough experienced or knowledgeable poll workers to help fix the problems that occurred. What seemed to happen a lot is when some of these glitches occurred with these machines a person would go and get help and another machine would have a problem, and so on and it seemed there just were not enough workers to help fix the machines and so the problems were not getting addressed like they should have. Some people said that when they would go to vote for a specific person the machines would pop up and say that he or she had chose someone else. So was that vote counted even though it was not an actual vote?

With any piece of electronics they are taking a risk. Electronics were created by man, which a man can make mistakes. With an electronic device they usually program it to do certain things or create a program that enables it to do certain things. With anything else this can have loop holes and not be flaw free. The machines can have electrical problems, program overload or just not work correctly. Even with typing on the computer and trying to get a document to look a certain way, sometimes their computer can already have defaults or just be acting funny. People can overlook things when building or just not see what someone else might point out. So the real question for the government if they want to keep using these electronic devices is how can they make an electronic flaw free?

In the 2004 election there were many voting irregularities that occurred. These voting irregularities are said to have something to do with the Republican Party paying poll workers off or altering machines. In Florida people were not allowed to vote in the 2004 presidential election if they were black voters that had been convicted of a felony or black voters that were mistakenly put on the list for being a convicted felon. But the laws