This petition urges an immediate move to stop using scanners or computers to tabulate official election results. While we can use machines for a preliminary announcement of winners, we must verify the vote by hand counting the paper ballots.

In 2004, I testified before Congress on a request by a prominent politician to produce a prototype of code that could invisibly alter election results. This was produced with information on how to prevent election fraud. I was then told that the purpose was not to prevent fraud but to actually alter election results. A dozen years later, the vulnerabilities to our election system still exist.

In this election, foreign governments showed interests in disrupting our election process. Reports from programmers as far back as 2004, including myself, demonstrate that those with proper access could easily alter the voting at the tabulators. It is substantially less likely to actually alter the paper ballots counted by the tabulators. While the winner of the election cannot likely be changed, the procedures which would prevent the results from being altered can be instituted so that no further manipulation can occur. To accept the results and not fix the problem only invites further deterioration of our democracy and continues to erode America’s faith in its institutions.

Imagine if the wrong person is allowed to be president, senator or representative. Imagine if a country such as Russia admits to manipulating the election after Mr. Trump has already selected his administration and Supreme Court Justice. Our entire country would be in complete disarray with a questionable government and the population in revolt.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote for President of the United States. On election day, November 8, 2016, the New York Times reported that Hillary Clinton had an 85% chance of winning the election. In the words of the NYT article, “Mrs. Clinton’s chance of losing is about the same as the probability that an N.F.L. kicker misses a 37-yard field goal.” Other news outlets and polls had similar results.

In addition to these polls, both the “entrance polls” and the “exit polls”(those polls conducted as people were entering and exiting their voting centers to understand how people planned to vote and how they actually voted) were overwhelmingly in favor of Hillary Clinton. And yet, Donald Trump defied all odds and won the election.

So, what are we supposed to do when things don’t “add up”?

Why would we settle for counting our votes by a machine only once, and in only one way, when the results were completely opposite from the vast majority of pre-election polls, election-day polls, entrance-polls, and exit-polls, alike? Why not count the paper as the official count and confirm the machine count. It eliminates both tampering and computer error and gives the citizens of this country confidence in their elections and their government.