* * *
Kristen Ulrich read through her report for the third time, changing the odd word, still concerned that it wasn’t perfect. At just under two thousand words, she felt it was detailed enough without being too unwieldy, and she had been careful to reference everything where possible. To get it right was important to Kristen, as with everything she did – only this time, there was far more than professional pride at stake.
America’s voting system had long been in crisis, the methods used differing from one state – even one community – to another. States had toyed with various alternatives, security and cost invariably restricting their choices, with some abandoned after just a year. Touchscreen, Optical Scanning or the standby of Hand Counted – there was no common consensus as to which was best, with numerous reports criticising the security of all three techniques. Every election there were problems with miscounted votes, the machines no better than the human option, some even swapping votes from Democrat to Republican and vice-versa, the all-encompassing ‘calibration error’ being the usual excuse. With signs advising voters to check the security seals in case they’d been tampered with, it was hardly surprising that people regularly disputed the accuracy of votes cast; even faith in America’s two-party system was close to an all-time low, it seen as a restrictive and unfair form of true democracy.
Many of the electronic voting machines were now twenty years old, spare parts difficult to get, money too short to make the change to newer technology. When President Cavanagh had turned up to vote in Boston, two of the machines at his polling station had already been taken out of service, and without the option of early voting, the system would have collapsed a decade ago.
Los Angeles County was a good case in point: their decrepit ink-based system for its five million voters used technology from the 1960’s and had been due to be replaced by a touchscreen alternative years ago, but with tens of millions spent, the new system was still only available in two-thirds of LA’s 5000 precincts, its reliability already in dispute. Despite the many security concerns, the county had also moved towards more online voting – a decision that was now under review following a recent study which indicated that at least 15% of such votes were fraudulent.
The first part of Kristen’s report was basic background information, the second section likely to be far more controversial. Containing a detailed analysis of reports from hundreds of election officials, it revealed the catastrophic nature of the voting crisis. Antiquated machines, inaccurate counts, bogus and illegal registrations, genuine voters barred. Overall, the report revealed fraud on a massive scale, with the Democratic Party missing out on thousands of votes in certain counties. Kristen was even able to show that almost a fifth of Congress’ Republicans would have most likely lost to their Democratic opponent.
Some of it was actually true; most of it was a clever fiction, although having a significant basis in fact. Every reference cited was genuine, every example easily verified. However, it would take time for the lies and exaggerations to emerge, the data and reports skilfully manipulated to illustrate McDowell’s very specific version of the truth.
Finally satisfied, Kristen cast a casual glance down the list of recipients: media, politicians, civil rights groups – even the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, its monitoring of America’s elections invariably provoking controversy and resentment in at least one U.S. state.
Similar reports had generally been ignored or belittled in the past. This time Kristen was confident that such an inadequate response simply wouldn’t happen – not when the report’s author was K. Ulrich, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, and your office in the United States Department of Justice was just a few hundred yards from the White House.
The Trust Of The People Page 26
