It's time we take how we vote into our own hands

The only way to restore confidence in our elections is to end the insane way we do it now.

A recent audit of the 2020 general election in Windham turned up some evidence that appears to show that score marks on absentee ballots led to Republicans in state rep races losing votes and a Democrat who forced a recount gaining votes.

Without getting into the weeds, one of the theories floated by the auditors was that more Democrats voted using mail-in ballots, while Republicans voted in person on Election Day, which may have led to the skewed vote total.

But it's not the skewed vote totals that I'm concerned with.

It's the weeds, as in the techno-babble tripe the "auditors spewed forth during a recent Youtube video with conservative You-tuber Nick Moseder.

I challenge anyone to watch this tortuous video and tell me afterward that voting machines are the perfect solution to ensure secure elections.

In fact they are the perfect storm for doing just the opposite, eroding our trust that everything is on the up and up.

These voting machines are so complicated my eyes glazed over trying to keep up with the explanations submitted by auditors Phillip Stark and Harri Hursti, who, himself, famously hacked into a voting machine called the Hursti Hack, which became the subject of an HBO documentary titled, "Hacking Democracy."

Even as we spend millions of taxpayer dollars to buy, reconfigure and retrofit these machines in a losing effort to keep them from being hacked, we know that malevolent technology is always advancing its efficiencies as well.

The only answer? No machines. Paper ballots. Well-monitored hand counts at the precinct level.

We could do it. We have to do it.

The federal government has been twice-hacked by Russia this year alone.

I don't care if it takes a day or two to get a complete vote count.

I don't care if it costs a lot of money to complete the hand count.

The problem in Windham was tentatively blamed on a DMV machine used for folding car registration forms that was hastily pressed into service for the large influx of mail-in ballots, something it wasn't properly calibrated for.

We all know that when you're dealing with a machine, anything can go wrong and usually does.

Canada, England, France and many other industrialized countries hand count national offices at the very least.

We should, too.

To view the video referenced above click here.