Skip to contentMenu and widgetsWhat happens after global warming?Better ways to do democracyA win-win end to the Mideast struggleSeed dispersal and animal evolutionContactDownload full versions hereTsunami film & other filmsSearch for:Better ways to do democracyBallot box tamperingWhy are ballot boxes normally put on the back of a truck and driven off?  Ballot boxes should remain at the polling place, out in the open, under continuous community monitoring.  Ballot boxes should remain untouched from the start of voting until they are opened and counted by a long line of people in succession — from that precinct.  Then all the monitors/ballot-counters sign the score card for that poling site.  Then the scores gets posted on the county website. Thus we have “1-hour” election results that are much harder to tamper-with. They are also harder to call off as happened in Venezuela and Thailand recentlyVoting machinesOf course the electronic black boxes will get hacked, or changed-out, or otherwise corrupted.  How can we be so dumb as to allow witness-less black boxes in our elections?Freedom of speech is for real peopleOur one-share, one-vote corporate citizens are openly corrupt in how they sell votes by the share on stock exchanges. The directors of these immense entities should not have the right to divert their company’s immense cash flows to dilute and drown-out the organic voice of the people.  Non-human entities should not have the full right of free speech like real flesh and blood citizens. They should not be allowed to advertise about political matters, or make campaign donations, or lobby government. If their shareholders wish to do this as individuals, they can. It is just the non-human entities that should not be allowed to participate in our democracy.If  lawmakers voted in secret, like the people do at the polls then: a) They could vote as they like, and ignore their donors — because their donors will not know how they voted.  Thus our democracy will be less influenced by money. b) Donors won’t know if their gifts worked — and they won’t expect much because of secret voting.  So less money will be spent on trying to influence our democracy.c) Vote swapping stops, because nobody can tell if the other side voted as promised.  Then, without vote swapping, the corrupting power of coalitions and political parties is reduced. d) People won’t know how their lawmakers voted. So lawmaking will be less about bringing home pork barrel spending, and more about what is good for the nation. This reduces pork barrel spending, and makes government more efficient financially. e) All of the above. Democracy improved in 4-ways. The downside of secret votingIt is that electorates will not be able to vote their lawmakers out for voting wrongly — because they won’t know how they voted. This is however a weak reason because it seldom occurs.  So secret lawmaker voting is 5 steps forward and 1 step backwards.Our demo