Bilingual Voting Machines

Bilingual Voting Machines have arrived--if you can believe what you see in political cartoons.  Locally you can vote for any party you want... provided that party is firmly committed to the initiation of force to get things done. Any party that isn't, ain't on the ballot machine. It's that simple.

Voting is mandatory, albeit not exactly at gunpoint. The idea was cooked up in the People's State of Australia back when populated largely by transportees. According to proponents, the idea was to keep those favoring a gold standard from intimidating (and occasionally shooting) those who wanted a currency backed by the promises of politicians (as in 1923 Germany and 1992 Brazil). Nowadays there is no gold standard currency, thanks in part to Ian Fleming's revelation that gold is easily made radioactive. In Australia and Brazil the League of Non-Voters consists entirely of Orwellian "unpersons." These worthies are not themselves vaporized--just their documents. This makes it impossible to open a bank account, rent anything, operate a vehicle, etc. until they kneel, confess, make penance--perhaps by reciting something akin to the Eisenhower Pledge of Allegiance--and rejoin the fold of the goodthinkful by paying a punitive tithe to The Political State.

With all this nonsense in place to force the sanction of the victim, would it be asking too much to let the victim verify that his or her vote was counted the way it was cast? Anyone with a smartphone can read barcodes or QR codes to look up all kinds of websites and information, just not whether their ballot was switched, trashed or altered. The switching, trashing and forging of ballots has been a constant feature of all elections for the past two centuries, according to newspapers. If this is such a bad thing, does it not make sense to let the voter verify the way his vote was counted? We check deposits using Automatic Teller Machines all the time suing a secret password. Asking for honest politicians is asking too much. So why not have verifiable voting?