Comment on ars technica & the election

While refraining from putting thoughts public of the current elections, I'll gladly post when smarter people than myself write concisely about their technical aspects. Jon Stokes of ars technica is one such individual. Apparently in the state of New Hampshire clamor has ensued over Senator Clintons unexpected victory of their primaries. Mr. Stokes' critical commentary about the state of democracy exemplified by this controversy (could you sound more like a talking head? -ed.) is an important one for anybody who respects the concepts of government.

"In a truly democratic election, the burden of proof is on the state to provide evidence of the election's integrity. This sentiment is behind the idea that ballots should be counted under the watchful eyes of the public's representatives... Right now, in the absence of an audit of the New Hampshire results, the state has not met the requirement that it prove to the public that the election was fair... [the] state's ballots were effectively counted in secret by closed-source machine code. When ballots are counted in secret and it's up to the voters to prove that the election was rigged when they're surprised by the results, that's not the kind of democracy that the Founders had in mind for us." [emphasis my own]

That we've forgotten how the system should work, insinuating critics are crackpots or upset their "side" lost, is at least disconcerting and at most frightening. It could (theoretically) be fixed if our elected officials actually did the legwork necessary for transparency in all aspects of governing. It's cheaper for the government to keep things as closed as possible, that's how it's become.

link (Via ars techncia.)