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President Obama Speaks on Voting Problems in Election Night Speech
"We Need to Fix That!"November 7, 2012 -- As millions watched live, newly-reelected President Barack Obama acknowledged problems with America's voting process during his election night victory speech last evening.
Mr. Obama thanked everyone who voted in this great election whether they were new to the voting process or spent hours and hours waiting in line to make their voice heard, as many voters did this year.
"Oh and by the way, we need to fix that," he said of the long waits and other election problems.
The President's remarks were incredibly important to Election Integrity as this was the first time in recent memory (if at all) that a sitting President acknowledged election problems publicly in a nationally-televised speech.
One of the biggest reasons for long polling place lines and problems can be malfunctioning voting equipment, especially in areas that still choose to use Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines. Unlike paper ballots, a fully functioning DRE must be provided to each and every voter who ties that machine up the entire time he or she is voting. If a ballot is lengthy or complicated, as some were in Florida and other states this year, DRE-caused delays can be severe. And of course when DREs break down, voting cannot continue until the machines are fixed or replaced, unless emergency paper ballots are provided. While PA law requires emergency paper ballots to be in all polling places, many areas fail to provide enough, especially for large Presidential elections.
The fact that our current, sitting President has made even a brief public committment to improving elections opens the door wide for VotePA and other groups to hold his feet to the fire and demand voter hand-marked and verified paper ballots, meaningful audits of all elections, and other improvements!
In other news, election night server issues and other weird goings-on were again reported yesterday. For example, in Ohio the state election results website (posted by the Ohio Secretary of State's office) went down almost within the minute of the time it went down in 2004. This year, however, the results did not flip when the site came back up, as occured eight years ago.
About VotePA: We are a statewide alliance dedicated to voting rights and election integrity. As a grassroots citizen group we count registered voters of five different political parties and non-partisan voters among our membership, united by belief in the right of every eligible citizen to vote for candidates of his or her choice and to have every vote counted accurately. We are a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization, as such donations to support our work are not tax-deductible but are very much needed and much appreciated. DONATE