A Deafening Silence as Democracy Expires

"This is a brilliant strategy by Sequoia Voting Systems. All elections are now perfect by design. If you eliminate the ability to detect or prove fraud in an election, then you can claim that all elections are free of fraud."

I’ve always wondered what sound Democracy would make if it died.

On Tuesday night, I found out in Santa Clara, California. The sound it makes is a deafening silence, and it sent chills up and down my spine. This sound scared me more than anything I’ve ever heard in my life.

That night I experienced the illusion of casting my vote on a state of the art touch screen "DRE" (direct recording electronic) computer voting system. The poll workers were helpful and showed me how to vote. However, when I asked them a detailed question such as, who is the vendor that makes these voting machines, all I got was a blank stare. Do you have any information on these machines? No answer. I had to examine the machines myself to find out who made them. I didn’t know that my most basic question was going to be a rhetorical one.

The particular model I went through the motions of voting on was an "AVC Edge" with a software (firmware) version of 4.2.4 (according to the label on the back), manufactured by Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, California. However, the software version number displayed on the touch screen was 4.2, not 4.2.4. (Should I be concerned that the software running didn’t match the label on the back?) You can even view a demonstration of how the AVC Edge works on their quotes Winston Churchill’s remark he made in 1947 that "democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Democracy didn’t just die last night in Santa Clara, California. It was silently strangled. The noise was deafening. Was I the only one that heard it?

Brian D. Barry is an activist and computer scientist interested in democracy living in Silicon Valley, California. He can be reached at: bdbarry@aol.com