I posted this in the GD:P forum, but thought might be better suited here.
If the mods would like to delete the thread in the GD:P forums feel free, its dying there anyways.
Was reading an interesting idea yesterday and have been talking with a few others on the idea. I think its a good one, but needs alot more funtional specifics.
Here is some outlines of the idea:
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The Parallel Election Project is an effort to return local control and meaningful oversight to elections in America. Our current voting system is completely untrustworthy. State election officials across the country have privatized and outsourced our elections to a handful of domestic and foreign corporations. It is an open door to massive vote fraud.
We want to change that. We have decided to run our own Parallel elections. We are organizing to place Parallel Election Pollworkers (PEPs) at as many polling stations as possible. On election day, they'll be there to ask citizens to vote in both the Parallel and the Official elections. We will have ballots and a ballot box. We will give voters literature on their way into the polls, and ask voters to mark and sign a PE ballot on their way out of the polls. We need their signature so that we can use the ballots to challenge election results, if needed.
Parallel Elections serve three purposes:
Introduces Americans to real voting
Provides evidence to challenge election results
Pressures election officials to ban voting by machine, absentee, or early
Two major concerns expressed about this project have been - participation and signing the ballot. First, it is not necessary to have 100% voter participation. If the Parallel Election (PE) vote tally indicates a candidate won over 50% of the votes at your precinct, but the official tally doesn't, then you can challenge the results. Or, if we count more votes for any candidate, than what the official results show, then we can challenge. This could be particularly helpful for third party candidates. Challenges can be made on the precinct, county, or state level.
Second, if voters don't want to sign their ballots, they could sign a register or leave their ballot unsigned. However, their ballot will not constitute direct evidence of how they voted, and therefore, will be less valuable to the project.
Anyone can organize a Parallel Election. A single person can conduct a Parallel Election at their own polling place on Election Day. Or, people can be more ambitious and organize their town, county, or state. With every election, more voters will get the idea. If Americans want every vote to count, then Americans must be at their polling place on Election Day to count every vote. Get Project Details
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Rest of the information and contact info can be found here. :
http://www.ecotalk.org/ParallelElections.htm Please take a look. I think with enough motivation and people working to make it happen this could actually work.
Have a read and please come back here to discuss what you think about it.