Voting Transparency
from the book
U.S. Voting Transparency
by John J. Rodenkirch
Chapter 1
U.S. Voting Transparency
U.S. Voting Transparency will end doubts about election results.
All voting will be done using a secure voting page that will be added to each person's secure ssa.gov/myaccount/ at the Social Security Administration (SSA). Only one ballot can be cast for each eligible Social Security number. For each ballot, the copy counted at the SSA and the copy to the state will both have the same unique number, so the SSA and states’ final vote counts will match. Ballot copies will never identify the voter. Voters will be able to compare the ballot they submitted, to their ballot as counted in the final SSA vote counts. Majority voting will replace state plurality voting. Ranked-Choice Voting can be used for runoffs. For elections and primaries, each political party will select its candidates and determine the number of its candidates for each governmental office.
The voting page will have information on how ineligible voters can see, dispute, and correct any incorrect and missing information.
Rejected, lost, altered, fictitious, and duplicate ballots, if any, will not change the SSA vote counts that get automatically matched, ballot by ballot, to state vote counts, using the unique numbers above.
References to things being done by the SSA could be done by the E-Verify system or other parts of the federal government.
The federal government will need to pass laws in order for the U.S. Voting Transparency system to work. The laws could be passed by Presidential Executive Orders.
Washington D.C. is referred to as a state in all of the following.
The SSA will best manage our transparent voting system without revealing anyone’s Social Security number and without increasing the types of information our federal and state governments have about us.
The SSA wants all eligible voters, and others, to have an up-to-date secure ssa.gov/myaccount. This will help protect people's information at the SSA and it will help the SSA provide benefits to people.
People will vote using a secure voting page in their ssa.gov/myaccount/. There will be an “I am not a Robot” box to check and a reCATPTUA question to answer before the voting page can be used. Use of the voting page will only involve using the mouse and clicking on things like letters, numbers, candidates’ names, and descriptions of things the voter wants to do. The clicks would all have the same sound and the sequence of things to click on would vary. Only one user can be logged into a voting page at a time. Possibly, the voting page can automatically download encryption software to the voter to use while using the voting page. Other cyber security can be added if needed.
At least a year before the beginning of each voting period:
- Everyone who is eligible to vote and wants to vote, should update or create their ssa.gov/myaccount/, so they will be ready to vote in the primary. They can be helped by anyone they trust, such as friends and family, their state government, community organizations, and their local political parties. Citizens who are registered to vote but do not want a regular Social Security number, will be able to get a Social Security number that will only be used for voting purposes.
- The states will need to create a combined list with just all their registered voters’ Social Security numbers, so they can eliminate duplicate registrations nationwide for the same Social Security number. The latest version of the states’ combined list of just all registered voters’ Social Security numbers will always be available for the SSA to upload. The SSA will inform the states about Social Security numbers on the list that the SSA believes are (1) for non-U.S. Citizens, (2) for people who are no longer alive, and (3) for people who are too young to vote in the applicable voting period. The states will check each Social Security number’s registered voter for each of the three things above that the SSA believes, and help their applicable registered voters correct any incorrect or missing information.
Ssa.gov/myaccount/ will have, among other things, the name of the person and the person’s Social Security number. Everyone’s ssa.gov/myaccount/ will have a voting page added, which will have answers for the following 7 questions:
1 - Is this person’s Social Security number for someone who is a U.S. citizen?
2 - Is this person’s Social Security number for someone who is alive?
3 - Is this person’s Social Security number for someone who is old enough to vote?
4 - Is this person’s Social Security number for someone who is registered to vote?
5 - Is this person’s Social Security number for someone whose right to vote is not revoked by the state they are registered to vote in?
6 - Which state is this person’s Social Security number registered to vote in?
7 - Which ballot from the state would the person with this Social Security number use to vote?
Answers for the first 3 questions above will come from and be entered by the SSA. The federal government has access to all the needed information. The states will be able to get their own answers anytime for the first three questions from the E-Verify system.
Answers for the last 4 questions above will be given by the states to the SSA for input in the voting pages.
When the answers to questions 1 through 5 above are “Yes” and questions 6 and 7 are answered, this person will be fully registered to vote and can vote.
In regard to question 1, it would be easy for a local area, like New York City or a single voting district, to have a separate vote just for eligible voters who live in the local area. It could easily include non-citizens who have a Social Security number, by allowing “No” answers for this question during the local area vote. This voting would just have to be at a separate time than any other voting. The age limit for voting in question 3 could be changed for the local area voting. People whose right to vote has been revoked in question 5 could be changed for the local area voting. The only people who could vote would be people (1) whose Social Security number is in the local area’s voter registrations and (2) who have set up their ssa.gov/myaccount/.
In regard to question 3, some states allow 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if they will be 18-year-olds during the general election. These states will provide the Social Security number for these citizens, which will be used to lower the voting age for these people in the primary. If these 17-year-olds accidentally try to vote during non-primary voting, there will be no ballot for them to complete and submit.
All voting for the applicable voting period will be done from each voter’s ssa.gov/myaccount/ voting page. It will involve clicking the “Vote” button, completing the ballot that will appear, then clicking the “Submit” button. Partially completed ballots can be saved, so the voter can log out of their ssa.gov/myaccount/ and log back in later to finish the ballot. During each of the last 10 days of each voting period, people with saved partial ballots will receive a notification caused by their saved partial ballot.
If the answer to question 4 is “Yes” and any of the other answers to questions 1 through 5 are “No”, the SSA will send an automatic message about the discrepancy to the voter registration state.
The only way people can see, dispute, and correct the information concerning answers for any of the questions 1 through 7 is with their ssa.gov/myaccount/ voting page.
The SSA will handle all questions and disputes from the ssa.gov/myaccount/ owners. Each voting page will have information on how to ask questions and how to dispute reasons why the person is ineligible to vote. The instructions will include a procedure about how the ssa.gov/myaccount/ owner can securely send scanned documents to the SSA. To protect ssa.gov/myaccount/ owners’ information, all communications between the SSA and ssa.gov/myaccount/ owners concerning questions, disputes, and documents will be done using the ssa.gov/myaccount/ voting page. Notifications set up for changes in the ssa.gov/myaccount/ will also apply to changes on the voting page. All voting related notifications will appear on the voting page.
At least 90 days before a primary or an election, each state will start maintaining an up-to-date digital file daily for the SSA with all the information each state has that the SSA needs to (1) maintain the voting pages, (2) answer all questions from ssa.gov/myaccount/ owners, (3) resolve all disputes ssa.gov/myaccount/ owners have, and (4) make sure that only eligible voters vote. The SSA will daily upload the file with all the information and update the voting page in each person’s ssa.gov/myaccount/.
People who get registered to vote and/or set up their ssa.gov/myaccount/ during a primary or election voting period will receive a letter from the SSA. The letter will ask the person to confirm that they recently registered to vote and/or set up their ssa.gov/myaccount/. The letter will be sent to the person using both the address before and after the person registered to vote and/or set up their ssa.gov/myaccount/.
The SSA will never disclose which eligible voters have not voted and/or which registered voters have not voted.
Information that is in any owner’s ssa.gov/myaccount/ and information that would be in any owner’s ssa.gov/myaccount/ if the ssa.gov/myaccount/ was fully set up, cannot be given to anyone other than the ssa.gov/myaccount/ owner. The only exception to the above is when the states give a list of just Social Security numbers of registered and actual voters to the SSA and ask the SSA to inform the states about Social Security numbers on the list that the SSA believes (1) are for non-U.S. Citizens, (2) are for people who are no longer alive, and (3) are for people who are too young to vote in the applicable voting period.
People who provide or receive information forbidden in the preceding two paragraphs above will need to immediately and publicly fully disclose the matter or be intentionally guilty of a voting crime. Setting up someone else’s voting account, without their permission, will be a voting crime. Hacking into someone else's voting account will be a voting crime. Hacking into the SSA voting information will be a voting crime. Anyone convicted of intentionally violating a federal or state voting law will receive a lifetime ban from directly or indirectly (1) having a federal job, (2) working under a federal contract, or (3) getting paid by any organization affiliated with a political party.
The SSA will make sure that no two ssa.gov/myaccount/s have the same Social Security number.
The SSA and the states will each investigate every instance where people state that they voted in the last election, but they cannot vote in the current election. All instances will be made anonymously public along with the reason(s) why each person cannot vote in the current election.
Whenever an ssa.gov/myaccount/ is set up with an address that is different than the last known address the SSA has for the person, a letter will be mailed to the person at the last known address the SSA has. The letter would be to confirm that the person set up the ssa.gov/myaccount/, and that the person wants the new address used for all future communications from the SSA.
Contact changes submitted for an ssa.gov/myaccount/ will require that the contact information being replaced gets used to notify the recipient that the contact information is being changed.
People whose ssa.gov/myaccount/ address does not match the state that they are registered to vote in, will receive a letter telling them about the difference, which could be ok.
All voting related letters sent by the SSA will never have Social Security numbers or any other non-publicly available information. Each letter will be in an envelope with both of the following on the front of the envelope: “Do not Forward” and there will be a box that can be checked for “Return to Sender – This person does not live at this address”. The envelope will have a scannable code that confidentially tells the SSA which letters have been returned.
The states will register new voters the same as they do now except that the registration will include the person’s Social Security number. The states will also add the Social Security number to all existing voter registrations.
The SSA will create a generic digital ballot that the states can add candidates’ names and things like ballot initiatives to for each of the different digital ballots that each state creates for the SSA to use. If applicable, the states will build their rules for not rejecting ballots into their modified generic ballots; ballots will need to comply with the rules before they can be submitted. The states will identify the ballot for the Social Security number of each of their registered voters. This identification needs to be updated daily and made available for the SSA to upload daily, during each voting period.
If any of the different ballots has more actual voters than registered voters, the abnormality will be investigated and reported publicly.
Immediately after a ballot is submitted, it cannot be changed. When people vote, a blockchain ballot copy goes to their state, a blockchain ballot copy goes to the SSA ballot processing center, and a ballot copy remains in the voter’s account. All three copies will permanently (1) have the same unique number, (2) have the same timestamp, (3) be marked submitted, and (4) not identify the voter. Since all voting is done using SSA voting pages, the SSA vote counts for everything being voted on will match the states’ vote counts for everything being voted on. If these vote counts do not match, the unique numbers and time stamps will be used to find and correct the errors. Each voter can make a copy of their ballot that includes the unique number and timestamp, and then decide if and when to delete the ballot copy from their SSA account’s voting page. Ballot copies will not have any information that identifies the voter. A maximum of one ballot can be submitted from each SSA account voting page. When a state uses the ssa.gov/myaccount/ voting page for voting, all the voting in the state has to be done using ssa.gov/myaccount/ voting pages, so the total SSA vote counts will equal the total state vote counts.
The SSA will have a spreadsheet with all the ballots they counted. There will be a vertical column for each candidate and for everything else that people voted on, with the total vote counts at the bottom of each column. There will be a horizontal row for each ballot cast that includes the unique number and timestamp from each ballot along with all other information from the ballot that cannot identify the voter. The total number of voting rows will equal the total number of ballots. Voters will be able to enter the unique number from their ballot, to see and confidentially verify that their ballot was counted correctly. There will be a hide/unhide button to click so that only the ballot for the unique number can be displayed.
For a candidate involved with runoff voting, step-by-step calculations of the runoff processing will document each step of the process in the spreadsheet above. Also, there will be a section at the bottom of the spreadsheet that shows the total number of provisional ballots that could still be counted for each candidate.
The states will maintain their own version of the spreadsheet in the two preceding paragraphs. The spreadsheets will automatically identify matching ballots. The remaining unmatched ballots will be identified, corrected, and reported publicly.
Yes/No voting will be done the same as for candidates.
There will be no need for absentee or mail-in ballots, since people will vote using their ssa.gov/myaccount/ from anywhere in the world that has internet, which will make it easier for these voters to make sure their ballot was submitted and counted correctly. People in the U.S. Military will be able to use their ssa.gov/myaccount/ at U.S. Military bases. U.S. State Department employees abroad and citizens abroad who are registered with the U.S. State Department, will be able to use their ssa.gov/myaccount/ at U.S. State Department locations. Citizens abroad who are not registered with the U.S. State Department, will be able to use their ssa.gov/myaccount/ the same as citizens in the U.S. use it.
When people log into their ssa.gov/myaccount/:
- They can use their or a helpers PC or smartphone to vote. Only one person can be logged into an ssa.gov/myaccount/ at any time.
- They can be helped by anyone they trust, such as friends and family, their state government, community organizations, and their local political parties.
Anyone with an ssa.gov/myaccount/ who believes that they should be eligible to vote but runs out of time trying to get a “Yes” answer to questions 1 through 5 and complete answers to questions 6 and 7, can submit a provisional ballot. The provisional ballot will not be included in the vote counts unless it gets changed to a regular ballot. If the person disagrees with their ssa.gov/myaccount/ reason(s) why they are ineligible to vote, the person can dispute the reason(s) with the SSA. The person’s ssa.gov/myaccount/ will have information on how to ask questions, how to dispute reasons why the person is ineligible to vote, and how to securely send scanned documents to the SSA.
Provisional ballots can be completed by clicking on the “Provisional Vote” button next to the “Vote” button in the ssa.gov/myaccount/ voting page. When the “Submit” button is clicked for a provisional ballot, the copy of the submitted provisional ballot in the ssa.gov/myaccount/ will be marked “Provisional Ballot” and remain in the ssa.gov/myaccount/ without a copy going to the state or to the SSA vote processing center. If the answers for questions 1 through 5 on the voting page are “Yes” and there are complete answers for questions 6 and 7, the “Provisional Vote” button will not work; the ssa.gov/myaccount/ owner will see a message that states that they can use the “Vote” button to complete a regular ballot instead of a provisional ballot. The message about using the “Vote” button instead of the “Provisional Vote” button will not be a pop-up message that might not display if the account owner did not turn off the pop-up blocker.
When the answers for questions 1 through 5 all become “Yes’ after a provisional ballot is submitted, the submitted provisional ballot will automatically become a submitted regular ballot, the same as if the provisional ballot had never been submitted. Ssa.gov/myaccount/ owners with provisional ballots without activity to get the answers to questions 1 through 5 all changed to “Yes”, will receive notifications of ssa.gov/myaccount/ activity caused by reminders to the account from the SSA about the inactivity. The closer to the end of the voting period, the more frequent the notifications. When the owner goes into their ssa.gov/myaccount/ to see what the activity is, they will be informed (1) that the SSA double checked the information that makes them ineligible to vote, and they are still ineligible to vote (2) if they do not dispute the “No” answers in questions 1 through 5, their provisional ballot cannot get changed to a regular ballot and will not be counted in the final vote counts and (3) if they do not dispute the “No” answer(s) before the end of the voting period, their provisional ballot cannot be changed to a regular ballot and be counted. Disputes filed before the voting period ends will get processed and if applicable, the corresponding submitted provisional ballots will get changed to submitted regular ballots. The delays in getting these regular ballots processed will delay the vote results that these ballots could have changed.
All voting systems that citizens currently use to vote can easily be switched over to the U.S. Voting Transparency system as soon as Congress gets the SSA ready for when the first state wants to use it.
U.S. Voting Transparency does not propose any changes to the Electoral College or any other changes to how the president and vice president are selected.
Majority voting will replace state plurality voting, this change will:
- enable people to vote for the candidate they prefer without helping any candidates they dislike
- protect us from “spoiler candidates” that get candidates elected whose ideas are not supported by the majority of voters
- reduce the state legislators’ concerns about votes for Libertarian Party and Green Party candidates, which should make it easier for these two political parties to get ballot access
Changing the requirement from receiving the most votes to receiving a majority of the votes, will require some runoffs. For instant runoffs, Ranked-Choice Voting has voters rank the candidates when they vote. If no candidate gets a majority of the votes, there will be an "instant runoff." The candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated. A voter whose vote was counted for an eliminated candidate, will then instead have their vote counted for their next remaining ranked candidate. If there is still no candidate with a majority of votes, this process will continue until one candidate receives the majority of the final votes.
Voters should only rank candidates who they approve of, so they do not help candidates they disapprove of who could make it to the final round of the Ranked-Choice Voting runoff.
Requiring all voters to rank all the candidates for each governmental office being voted for is asking for too much. With all the negative campaign advertising that goes on, too many voters will just be guessing about the ranking of candidates that they disapprove of. Also, after ranking the candidates they approve of, voters may fill in the remaining ranks in numerical order starting with the first candidate without a ranking; this would give an advantage to candidates listed the highest on the ballot.
For regular runoff voting where voters are expected to vote at least one more time, voters do not have to keep voting. The candidate who ends up winning will have a majority of the votes in the last round of voting.
If it is made mandatory to rank all candidates, like they do in Australia, what happens to the ballot if some candidates are not ranked?
Instant runoff voting calculations and step-by-step documentation that voters can check for elections and primaries will be done automatically by the U.S. Voting Transparency system. The detailed calculations and documentation will be shown in the vote count spreadsheet where voters can make sure their ballot was counted correctly.
Candidates will be able to ask their supporters (1) to rank the candidate #1 and (2) to not rank any of the other candidates for the governmental office being voted for. Candidates who ask this will risk not being ranked at all by supporters of the other candidates. Negative campaigning can have the same effect.
Ranked-Choice Voting worked properly in the Alaska 2022 Special General Election. The underlying problem with the election was that each political party should have had their own Ranked-Choice Voting primary and selected one candidate to be on the ballot.
Each voter will be able to use their ssa.gov/myaccount/ voting page to click on and watch what each candidate says they and their opponents plan to do when elected. Candidates can add information anytime, but it can only be deleted by the owner of the voting page.
Primary voting will work similarly to election voting. SSA vote counts will match state vote counts. There will be a spreadsheet where voters can make sure their ballots were counted correctly.
Voting page account owners will only be able to select and vote in one political party's primary. Each political party will have their own primary and can use Ranked-Choice Voting to select their own candidates for each ballot. This would increase how much input citizens have concerning who their election candidates are. Each political party will determine the order that their candidates are listed on the primary ballot.
For primaries and elections, each candidate's name must be accompanied by the political party the candidate belongs to. Each political party will select its own primary and election candidates and determine the number of its candidates on the ballot in each primary and election for each governmental office being pursued.
Other political parties like the Libertarian Party and the Green Party can get ballot access, as follows.
Each state can have up to 8 candidates on the ballot for each governmental office being voted on.
Each political party that will not have candidates in the primary can (1) register with the state, (2) give the state a list of governmental offices they want to have candidates for on the election ballot, and (3) pay a $250 fee. On the day of the primary, everyone with an ssa.gov/myaccount/ can request one of these political parties that did not have candidates in the primary. The request will be for the political party to have candidates on the election ballot for the offices the political party listed for the state. The political party with the highest number of requests will have candidates on the election ballot for all the offices on the list that they gave to the state, except for offices that already have eight candidates. Then the political party with the next highest number of requests will have the same thing. This process will continue until each requested political party has their list of offices that they can select candidates for. These candidates will be listed on the ballot, with the political party they belong to, from the highest number to the lowest number of requests for their political party.
The requests in the preceding paragraph will be shown in a spreadsheet. Each ssa.gov/myaccount/ owner who made a request will be able to confidentially verify that their request was counted correctly. Each political party will be able to confidentially check that the list of offices for their candidates is correct.
To identify where “get out the vote efforts” are most needed, the SSA will periodically issue the following information during each voting period: The number of both actual voters and eligible voters by age for each gender in each racial group for each voting district. The SSA should have all this information without having to ask anyone for it.
Opinion surveys can be done for organizations that pay the SSA. Eligible voters will have the option to get a notification from their ssa.gov/myaccount/ caused by their eligibility to participate in a survey. The SSA will use the Voting Transparency system to survey voters as follows: An organization can request anonymous survey participants based on voters’ ages, gender, racial group, voting district, and who voted in the last presidential election. The organization would get anonymous survey results. Survey responses will never be linked to the applicable voter. The survey results will always include (1) the selection criteria for all voters included in the anonymous survey, (2) the exact wording and sequence of everything the participants saw on their screen, (3) the date of the survey, and (4) the unique number assigned to the survey by the SSA. If an organization wants to publish their survey results and say that the survey was done by the SSA, the organization will need to include the unique number assigned by the SSA. The unique number will enable anyone to see items 1, 2, and 3 above for the survey.
U.S. Voting Transparency is needed for voting districts to have citizen voting, for when their elected representatives are intimidated by those who use force to achieve political and social goals. Citizens need a quick and easy way to vote on changing (1) where and how government and donated money gets spent in their voting district, (2) law enforcement procedures in their voting district, and (3) criminal penalties for crimes committed in their voting district.
Citizen support for ballot initiatives, amendments, and other citizen voting will increase after the U.S. Voting Transparency system gets implemented. Every possible way for citizens and their state legislatures to redirect and reduce federal government spending involves citizen voting.
If you think that U.S. Voting Transparency is better than our current voting system and that we should take the first step in the next chapter, please share the URL below via email and social media. Include your State Senator, State Representative, people who have worked on ballot initiatives, your friends and acquaintances, and as many other people as possible. Please tell them why you think that the U.S. Voting Transparency system is better than our current voting system and why we should take the first step in the next chapter.
Thanks for sharing these two chapters at http://www.USVotingTransparency.com via email and social media with as many people as possible.
Contact information for everyone's elected representatives is at - myreps.datamade.us
The more that people tell other people about the U.S. Voting Transparency system, the sooner we will all have this system.
U.S. Voting Transparency will not happen by itself.
Please email your questions and thoughts about USVotingTransparency.com to: JohnJRodenkirch@gmail.com
The “Look Inside” feature at Amazon.com for the book U.S. Voting Transparency has the Introduction’s first six pages.
Chapter 2
First Step for U.S. Voting Transparency
The first step for U.S. Voting Transparency involves the federal government’s E-Verify system where employers digitally submit Social Security numbers of job applicants to the federal government to see if the applicants are eligible to work.
The actual first step for U.S. Voting Transparency is for states to start asking the federal government to set up a modified E-Verify system. The modified E-Verify system will enable states to enter a list of just Social Security numbers and get the list returned within 24 hours with answers to the following three questions for each Social Security number.
Is this Social Security number for someone who is a U.S. Citizen?
Is this Social Security number for someone who is alive?
Is this Social Security number for someone who is old enough to vote?
The modified E-Verify system would also have to enable the states to help their residents correct any incorrect and missing information?
The federal government has the information to do the above.
Before the state voting begins, states will notify their registered voters about any “No” answers to the three questions above. The states will then work with the federal government to help their registered voters correct any incorrect or incomplete information.
Immediately after the state voting ends, the state will publicly disclose just the answers from the modified E-Verify system for the Social Security numbers of all actual voters. The number of Social Security numbers for actual voters will equal the number of ballots cast. The publicly available answers above will not include Social Security numbers or any other information.
None of the above will interfere with the current voting system except for identifying ineligible registered voters so that they cannot vote.
Possibly, ineligible voters who publicly disclose that they voted will receive immunity for voting and $1,000 from the governmental office that classified them as being eligible to vote.
As soon as one state asks the federal government for this system, eligible voters in other states will want their states to do the same.
The more states that implement this first step, the sooner we will all have The U.S. Voting Transparency System.
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires the states to make a reasonable effort to remove ineligible voters from the official voter rolls.
If there are no problems with ineligible voters voting, this first step will not change any vote results. The only thing that would change is people's trust in voting results would increase, which would increase people's belief that we live in a democracy.
All the states that take this first step, will need to create a combined list with just all their registered voters’ Social Security numbers, so they can eliminate duplicate registrations in their states for the same Social Security number.
The federal government should set up another modified E-Verify system that the federal government and the states could use for future pandemic type payments. The pandemic money that went to ineligible non-U.S. citizens would have been enough to pay for (1) setting up this first step (2) setting up the U.S. Voting Transparency system in the preceding chapter, and (3) paying off part of the extra money borrowed to make the pandemic payments.
If you think that U.S. Voting Transparency is better than our current voting system and that we should take the first step in this chapter, please share the URL below via email and social media. Include your State Senator, State Representative, people who have worked on ballot initiatives, your friends and acquaintances, and as many other people as possible. Please tell them why you think that the U.S. Voting Transparency system is better than our current voting system and why we should take the first step in this chapter.
Thanks for sharing these two chapters at http://www.USVotingTransparency.com via email and social media with as many people as possible.
Contact information for everyone's elected representatives is at - myreps.datamade.us
The more that people tell other people about the U.S. Voting Transparency system, the sooner we will all have this system.
U.S. Voting Transparency will not happen by itself.
Please email your questions and thoughts about USVotingTransparency.com to: JohnJRodenkirch@gmail.com
The “Look Inside” feature at Amazon.com for the book U.S. Voting Transparency has the Introduction’s first six pages.
Copyright © 2021, © 2022, and © 2023 by John J. Rodenkirch. All rights reserved.