Boyd Keeps His Word, Brings $100,000 to Ellijay

Politics

Ray Boyd said last week he was coming to Ellijay on Saturday with $100,000 cash and promised someone would leave with at least $5,000 just for showing up. Boyd said that if anyone could prove him wrong on a non-partisan issue that he would give away the $100,000.Boyd kept his word. Before he spoke to the audience he placed a brief case on the stage opened it up and showed everyone $100,000 cash. It was like a scene out of a movie. People were stunned. Including me.

Some in the room were waiting to hear Boyd start talking about the upcoming primary election. Boyd has made it no secret that he is supporting Sam Snider in the 7th District and David Pennington for Governor. Boyd said this was a non-partisan issue and he stayed on message and did not discuss the election or the candidates.

So what was the non-partisan issue? Boyd talked for about thirty minutes concerning the liability of our electronic voting machines in Georgia. Boyd challenged people to think about the vote they cast on these electronic machines. When people cast their vote there is no paper trail. He said there is no way to do a recount of an election. He used the 2010 Deal vs Handel Governor race. In a runoff election Karen Handel lost to now Governor Nathan Deal by 2,500 votes out of 580,000 votes cast. A margin like that would normally call for a recount. Handel did not ask for a recount and conceded the race the next day. Boyd said Handel did not ask for a recount because as Secretary of State she knew the machines would only produce the exact same numbers again since there was no paper ballot to check.

This is only one of many examples Boyd gave for his reason to scrap the electronic machines and move to a paper ballot that could be scanned to record votes. But I think the most impressive example that proved the severity of the problem was a recent vote in Cobb County for SPLOST. This was a single issue election. There was nothing else on the ballot except to Vote Yes or No for SPLOST. SPLOST won in Cobb County by 79 votes. However, there were 128 blank votes. 128 people drove to the polling place, filled out all the paperwork, got the plastic card, went into the voting booth and then just decided “I don’t think I will vote today” and just left? 128 people just changed their minds after getting there and did nothing? I don’t think so, do you? Georgia purchased these machines twelve years ago and they are still in use today. Boyd asked how many people were working on computers that are twelve years old?

Boyd spent 30 minutes expressing his love for his country. Boyd is on a crusade he calls Save Georgia, Save America. He said he was going to do this again in several different locations around the state.

Boyd said now is the time everyone has been waiting on, to win the $5,000 dollars. He had his Granddaughter draw a number out of a bag and the lucky number belonged to Dr. Glen Snider.

After the drawing Boyd stayed around and took questions from the audience. No one could disprove Boyd or even attempted. Below is the handout that was given to everyone as they entered.

Read the hand out and let us know what you think about the way we vote in Georgia. Are you O.K. with the electronic voting machines?

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