INVISIBLE BALLOTS

INVISIBLE BALLOTS  

An Overview Of William Gazecki's 

Film Documentary Of The Same Name

By Alfred Lehmberg

  

I am going to make a rather shameful disclosure to you, reader.  For years I'd been casually disrespecting the foundations of a Federal Republic I'd presumed (a result of ceaseless but duplicitous inculcation) was in better shape than it was.  And it is decidedly not in good shape I have very fearfully discovered.  It is much, much more troubled than I would have dared think!

The shameful disclosure?  I had never VOTED, sir or madam, not at the State, Local, or Federal level.  My last vote was for a rally chairman in high school circa 1966.

Up until just recently, a fiercely independent and ardent individualist, I was rather of proud of that.  I even thought I could justify it... 

No more.

Retired military, I'd too conveniently rationalized that I served my country in other ways, mostly overseas. Flatly, I never served in one stateside spot long enough to feel responsible, and never got excited about the choices I was offered, anyway!  It had always seemed to me that our two party system only presented alternate heads of the same beast.  

That may still be true... only... one head touts affordable child care, school lunches, and pre-K where the other head requires that you keep your rapist's baby to term and guarantee visitation rights.  I still believe the latter, different approaches of the true government, to a considered degree but realizing that they are not the same. One head is flawed.  The other is psychotic.  I digress.

What's changed?  In a nutshell, it seems the electoral ballots we cast in our elections—Local, State, and Federal—begin to fade to an awful and seeming inexorable "invisibility", as we speak.  That's not a metaphor, folks.  A result of suppression, senseless gerrymandering, deliberate obstruction—outright cheating—our individual vote is dissolving to an insubstantial nothingness... a valueless nothingness.  An insidious and suffocating nothingness.

The ballots we cast in our elections, our exercise of rights in what could be a glorious Republic... have quietly—so without appropriate fanfare!—begun to discorporate from a physical reality that can be checked and verified... into an electronic virtual reality that cannot be checked and verified...  Electronic TouchScreen Voting.  It should stand the hair on the back of your neck, reader! 

I had always thought that the vote, as it was supposed to be practiced in the United States of America, actually meant something!  I felt well served with that.  Insulated.

In the fashion that one's vote was presumed recorded, tallied, and otherwise counted (_recounted_ if necessary!)..., it was an action taken by an individual in this country that actually moved a counting tumbler... somewhere... in the direction that a "voter" had indicated that it should go... given the choices available to make. That was the presumption.  This electoral 'count', as ultimately meaningless as it may have been (given the prescribed choices), was affected by an action the 'individual' took... or did not take.  I felt safe ...not... voting, given an egalitarian system of some ethics in the process, a process where an individual had a snowball's chance of being heard, to have an impact, however small.

A person, an individual..., I'd always presumed, could participate in the process of how they were governed, even if it was only an illusion of participation.  A vote DID count for something... an either/or of limited choices... but a choice none the less!  ...So I thought!

This, very likely, may no longer be, remotely, the case, reader!  It may be that an effort taken to indicate a vote might be as meaningless as a puff of flatulent air!  Your individually consequential vote may be in danger of being rendered—by canted neo-cons one discovers, apart from the focus of the film reviewed—into a complete illusion... even if it was only a virtual illusion before. 

Be that as it may... the always tenuous "popular" vote has likely already been hijacked and is in the egregiously stealthy process of being rendered meaningless... your will and choice negated to a worthless exercise in pathetic futility!

Oscar-Nominated Filmmaker William Gazecki has completed another compelling documentary giving every indication that it is as bad as all that! What Mr. Gazecki outlines (in a compelling montage of vetted experts...) is an outrage of pointed disrespect that is bereft of _all_ hyperbole! 

Gazecki outlines a clear and active threat to any SEMBLANCE of continuing to live in a free society for any one of us! Additionally, he alludes to an unwarranted, unwelcome, and unnecessary 'partisan' holding arbitrary sway... a monstrously conflicted and nonconstructive 'intrusion' on that free society (...with regard to the biased and otherwise documented 'spiritual convictions' of the, too few, 'owners')! 

Who 'owns' democracy?  Does not an 'owned' democracy cease to be?

  

Gazecki does not go into the neo-conic proprietary ownership (near monopoly!) of our national voting mechanism in his film, but it is well known.  His contention, instead and even more significant, is that a proprietary ownership of the voting mechanism by ANY single private entity is a bad thing.  ...A VERY bad thing!

 ...Very bad...

 Why is that, you ask? Well... here's just a taste:

 Because it doesn't work!  Because it can't be checked!  Because it is too needlessly (and duplicitously!) complicated!  Because it is needlessly or horrifically expensive!  Because there's no paper record produced by it!  Because it renders a vote "recount" impossible and meaningless!  

Because there is no indisputable audit trail for the maintenance of the hardware and software!  Because it is "overwhelming" to most poorly trained election workers!  Because some of the persons officiating the corporate aspect of it... are criminals!  Because it is effortlessly easy to stealthily defeat or hack!  Because there is no independent oversight!  Because it is difficult to set up and run!  Because its software is patched with unauthorized and undocumented 'fixes'! Because we can't INSPECT the nature of the software code (...which can say anything!) or the hardware machines (...which can be secretly TOLD to say anything)! 

...Because it is turning our system of government wholly over into the hands of non-accountable and elitist corporate psychopaths!

Enough?  There is more.

At best, all this is hobbling and socially regressive! At worst it's culturally dangerous... a short detour to the cruelest fascism!   Among too many other valid criticisms to list, it is socially static and unrewarding, and it is without any respect for the individual concerned about the quality of his individual vote—its biggest injury/insult, in my opinion.  Your civil rights are discounted, nullified, and retired!  The reader is betrayed!

This evil betrayal of our Republic spits in your face, reader.  Feel rank and dreadful viscous-ness drool down your cheek and into your open mouth... with my apologies.

Sorry if that revolted your sensibilities.  It had to be said.  ...Everybody take a deep breath... I won't do that again...

Gazecki's 90-minute film, a concerned clarion cry of cultural warning, provides the individual with a cogent stream of competent professional people, university professors, United States Representatives, Election workers, Investigative journalists, systems engineers, research consultants, software experts... and significant others et al ... ALL suggesting a very strong potential for a dire threat to our representative government and free Republic!  No hype and histrionics here, sir or madam! 

In one instance, for example, a radical conservative owned the proprietary rights to the suspect and dodgy touch-screen electronic voting machines... that put him in office!  Presuming ethical behavior (...which has a damned good chance of going the other way, and south, _fast_... good reader!) is not remotely wise, forgetting that it is a clear conflict of rational interest that cannot be allowed... or remotely tolerated... from anyone!  Christ, himself!  Verily!

Allowing the henhouse keys to indicted foxes already raping this country is patent lunacy, folks!  You'd stop it if you could, if you knew about it... and you can!  

I'd mentioned that some of the key officiators were convicted confidence men... history will look back on you reader, and wonder... "What the hell was she THINKING"!?!  

Gazecki makes no sociological call on any of this, himself, remember, but showcases the facts for ready inspection by the viewer, regardless.  In all honesty this time... he reports; you decide.

I'd suggest that this -abomination- of biased CONTROL through our—public! You can bet we paid for it!—voting software and hardware (by an -extremely- canted and partisan minority!), is an affront to our Nation constitutionally, morally and ethically, and it is a clear disregard of the public interest that should otherwise be served as well!

That's why I'm voting now and in the future, folks, "absentee", so there is a paper record (...recommended for all reading this review!) which can still be counted and remains bereft of the 'Ballot Invisibility' William Gazecki very convincingly describes in his landmark film.  My "vote" (...that I had shamefully taken for granted...) becomes precious to me when it is threatened to become a complete charade! 

The bastards in non-elected leadership should have remained content just dictating the overall choice I could make.  They err in trying to absolve my choice completely. 

Al-Qaeda and ISIL are preferable to these SOBs!

If you've never voted, reader, or are comfortable with aggregate election machinery that is privately owned, secretly officiated and arbitrarily controlled... get a copy of this film before not a shred of democracy remains!  VOTE, friends and neighbors!  Now more than ever.

Oh—the fix?  That's easy!

Faster ain't always better, folks!  What price 'fast' if you can't trust it?  We take the time and spend less money (In the long run) to do a hands-on job (...with a troglodyte's paper trail!), RIGHT!  A hanging chad is at least VISIBLE, friend!  It trumps an "Invisible Ballot" seven ways to Sunday!  Lastly, Congress made this happen, folks!  They can make it "un-happen"!  Sweat the bastards!  I'm going to!

See—it's simple.  We got into it, simply, in the dark.  We can get out of it, simply (using old, verifiable, technology!) in the light.  Too bad if heads have to roll.  We'd have had too many real heads roll... innocent heads... later on, allowing this insanity to continue...

Contact www.williamgazecki.com or https://archive.org/details/dom-7911-1-invisibleballots to see this landmark film.  If you saw only one video this year, I've no doubt that this is the one it should be...

Read on, but vote.

Post script:  I started voting in 2004 for Kerry.  Bush had become, and entirely, unconscionable. You'll remember Kerry endured the "Swiftboat" degradation and the aspersions cast as regards the hugely respected medals he earned in combat... The Purple Heart And The Silver Star.  I was driving in my car and listening to the late-term forecasts for the Presidency and it was looking good for a Kerry win. Polls were favorable and exit polls, a very accurate indicator, showed that Kerry was in the lead.  I tuned in later to be informed of what was a "landslide" victory for Bush...Gazecki speaks to that huge disappointment we the betrayed must feel at such stark betrayal.