On November 3, 2004, Common Cause reported that "the American public was relieved that the Presidential election was not tied up in recounts and lawsuits, and that the Supreme Court would not have to step in and appoint the next President. Many American believed - and the press reported - that the election has been orderly and fair. Unfortunately, they were wrong." In its membership recruiting campaign, the non-profit organization pointed out how the "election of 2004 was at least as marred as the disastrous election of 2000! From Columbus, Ohio, where an electronic voting system reported that George Bush had received 4,258 votes, but only 638 votes were cast - to North Carolina, where thousands of ballotswere lost when a computer ran out of disk space - all across the country the electoral process was riddled with problems." A survey was part of the Common Cause mailing, which encouraged recipients to join the "common cause" and "help fix our broken electoral system".
O.U.T.R.A.G.E. had spent millions of dollars on the most sophisticated computer programs, high-tech equipment, and built-in safeguards to protect against voter fraud, computer error or malfunction, and human tampering. The elections of Tuesday, November 4, 2008 had been perhaps the most honest and accurate voter tabulation in the history of the United States. Those O.U.T.R.A.G.E. volunteers who had helped create the one-of-a-kind computerized voting machines had even incorporated a whole system of checks and balances to assure that one voter only cast one vote. You didn't register as a 'Republican' or 'Democrat' or 'Independent' - you registered confidentially with your Social Security number and address; you provided a secret password before you voted. After your ballot was cast, a 'receipt' was printed out for two reasons: to verify that your vote had, indeed, been caast and recorded; and to show your employer in order to be paid for the time you took off to vote.
Voters were encouraged to keep those receipts and bring them along to the next election. It would serve as a back-up procedure to confirm you were the same voter who cast his or her ballot last time. All in all, it was as foolproof a system as mediocre human minds could devise.
Now that the elections were over, the O.U.T.R.A.G.E. teams who focused on voting issues were in the process of a new idea:
before it was time for mid-term elections, a federal lottery would be tied into the voting process. To encourage even more people to vote, Election Day would not only be a paid holiday, but each ballot would also be a 'lottery ticket'. A random computerized drawing would determine a broad range of winners who could - with their voting 'receipts' - claim cash prizes or special merchandise awards. In the old pre-Revolution days before January 17, 2008, pompous politicians would be prone to bellow, "Who will pay for this excess?" while they recklessly spent billions of useless wars, squandered billions more on worthless 'pork' or earmarks; and wasted billions more on needless and derelict programs that served only to increase the taxpayers' burden of supporting a bloated and unproductive government. With as much as 90% of the government excessive expenses being eliminated, O.U.T.R.A.G.E. believed there would be sufficient room in a new budget for a voter rewards and appreciation project. It would motivate people to vote and add some 'zip' to the otherwise tedious process. If and when it became necessary to fund the project, voters could be invited to 'buy' more lottery chances, just as they did in their state lotteries. Merchandise prizes, such as cars, television sets, etc., could be donated from manufacturers or retailers who wanted to play a part in encouraging voter turn-out.
All the 'bugs' needed to be worked out, and the O.U.T.R.A.G.E. volunteers were hard at work