As a voting activist, I'm greatly appreciative of MAN OF THE YEAR, which was masterfully performed, suspenseful, accurate, romantic, funny. Silly? Hardly. Why would one think so?  Perhaps it's only we who are voting activists who can appreciate the drama. We can definitely appreciate and imagine the following:

• ...the theme: Remember Williams' line that voting machines are not as accurate or reliable as slot machines for gambling? This unfortunately has been shown to be true. See the GAO report, the Common Cause report, Brennan Center for Justice reports, Lou Dobbs' Democracy at Risk series for confirmation of the inaccuracy and unreliability. See voting activists' web sites such as www.CoalitionforVotingIntegrity.org for example, which has many more details.
• ...the attitude of cockiness of the corporations whose bottom line is more important than providing an accurate and secure product with voter-verified paper ballots. We have seen much such arrogance. 
• ...the criminal possibilities where one can imagine a drama wherein slander and crime would be used to prevent knowledge of a poor product and misbegotten result. The movie's depiction and promotion of it being perfectly acceptable to only have the 'perception' of a democratic election is well within the realm of possibility for us. Let's all face this possibility right under our noses.
• ... the lackadaisical cooperation of the political parties and government at all levels in not challenging possible errors. Remember 2000 and 2004 and look at the present government at all levels in lazily accepting the vendors' sales pitches. This was a great money-making deal for these corporations.
• ...and we can definitely appreciate the lack of checks and balances on these machines that would lead to such errors. Switching? Skipping? Counting twice? Getting to x number of votes and counting backwards? Computer voting experts report all these scenarios as probabilities.

What is a voter to do?

1. Advocate for voter-verified paper ballots/records. A precinct-based optical scanner is a good choice in that these machines have a voter-verified paper ballot inherent in their operation. You the voter see your vote on paper and that paper acts as a check on the electronic machines on election night to check the electronic machine results, with the paper being the official vote if the tally doesn't match. If they do match, great! We have minimal proof that the machines worked correctly in that election. 
2. Advocate for stricter certification standards of the voting machines at the Federal and State levels.
3.  Write your State and Federal legislators to press for emergency paper ballots for this and any election until electronic machines have paper proof of our votes.
4. Write newspapers and media about the need for these actions and your dismay that such error could happen. And remember it can and likely has happened in front of our eyes. When there is no independent proof, how are we to know if our vote has been counted and recorded accurately? We are the guardians of our democracy. Let's be vigilant so that we will renew our democracy. See this movie and rate it FIVE STARS plus.
5. Vote, it's more important than ever! It's important to be fully involved citizens. Your vote may or may not count if you vote on electronic voting machines, but it definitely won't count if you stay at home. 

Ruth Matheny

Doylestown, PA