- The atmosphere was electric. News cameras and documentary
filmmakers jostled for position at last Wednesday's packed hearing of the
federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) on the "Use, Security,
and Reliability of Electronic Voting Systems" in Washington, D.C.
The elegant oak-paneled room was jammed with reporters, elections officials,
business reps, and a sprinkling of activists.
-
- Tensions were running high as public confidence in America's
electronic voting systems is collapsing. A steady stream of scientific
reports and news stories about shady voting companies, who secretly install
uncertified software, has the nation's election officials reeling.
-
- At the beginning of the hearing Chairman Dr. DeForest
B. Soaries, Jr. said, "Voting has evolved, since the founding of our
democracy. "Devolved" would have been a better description.
-
- At least one state, Missouri, will consider legislation
(House Bill 1744) that effectively bans the use of all voting machines,
including ballot scanners. California's Secretary of State Kevin Shelley
has decertified thousands of Diebold touchscreen machines and has called
for a criminal and civil investigation of the company. Several states are
considering requiring printer attachments for paperless voting machines,
while others are simply panicking and looking to Washington for guidance.
-
- And guidance is all they're going to get. The Bush Administration
has pulled funding for the development and implementation of any meaningful
standards or certification for voting technology, not that those things
would make any voting machine secure, or give back to the voter their right
to vote.
-
- At least the EAC hearing was an opportunity for a full
and fair debate about the issue. Yes? Not a chance.
-
- Although Chairman Soaries went out of his way to announce
that the Commission is bi-partisan, two Republicans and two Democrats.
Bi-partisan doesn't mean balanced. If the Commission was balanced the panels
should have been balanced, and they most definitely, were not. Of those
who testified on the issue of voter verified paper trails (VVPT), 14 were
against it and 5 were for it.
-
- And no one spoke in favor of paper-only elections. That
was no accident.
-
- During a break in the testimony I hustled up to the front
of the room to ask Chairman Soaries if there was going to be any testimony
that would question the legal right or technical wisdom of allowing machines
to be involved in the voting process. Soaries seemed taken aback by the
question. He responded that it was not the roll of the Commission to address
that issue. The Commission, he said, was there to "assist" election
officials and voting machine manufacturers in setting guidelines for voting
technology.
-
- That seems at odds with the EAC's mission statement which
is quite broad, "The United States Election Assistance Commission
(EAC), an independent bipartisan agency, is authorized by the Help America
Vote Act (HAVA) to serve as "...a national clearinghouse and resource
for the compilation of information" on various matters involving the
administration of Federal elections."
-
- Apparently, all the EAC wants to compile is a list of
voting machine technologies from which election officials may chose. It's
like picking rotten apples out of the same barrel.
-
- Soaries added that election officials know that they
can use paper ballots instead of machines. But, that's not really true.
Many state elections officials believe that the Help America Vote Act (HAVA)
mandates the purchase of modern voting technology. It doesn't. Some state
officials also believe that the blind and English-illiterate are legally
entitled to these machines. They aren't. Someone at the EAC should call
Rhode Island's Election Commission (401-222-2340) and order a tactile paper
ballot for the blind. They should also look into how other countries handle
the illiteracy problem through the use of pictures and symbols as well
as words. See: www.electionaccess.org/Bp/Ballot_Templates.htm.
-
- The Commission put on a good show of giving voting machine
vendors a hard time. However, Chairman Soaries reassured the vendors that
the Commission was there to "assist" them. It was clear that
the EAC has set the stage for another problematic "public-private
partnership".
-
- In his testimony Dr. Avi Rubin debunked the myth that
there's any security or integrity to paperless voting technology. And California's
Secretary of State Kevin Shelley was also impressive. However, excluding
Avante, the same old lies were told by the vendors, election officials,
and organizations like the League of Women Voters. Their mantra was, as
always: nothing is 100% accurate, but the machines are safe, secure, and
"fun" to use. People really "like" using them. They
even had polls to prove it.
-
- The Commission's talking points for future action were
also the usual stuff: improve voter and poll worker education, gain back
voter confidence (emphasis on "con"), and improve the public's
perception of whatever the heck is going on. Apparently, all the bad news
about voting machines is scaring people. And that might mean that people
will not vote. Of course, voters aren't voting anyway, the machines are.
But, the EAC was not going to let that "reality trump the importance
of "perception", a word Chairman Soaries repeatedly used.
-
- Conny McCormack, County Clerk and Registrar of Los Angeles
County, who is very pro-paperless touchscreen technology, employed a very
clever strategy in her remarks to the Commission. McCormack pointed out
that public concerns raised about touchscreens are the same concerns raised
in the past about lever machines and ballot scanners. She clearly wanted
to give the impression that U.S. elections were secure using those technologies.
But, the facts prove otherwise.
-
- One of the best articles written about vote fraud and
technical irregularities is the 1996 article, Pandora's Black Box, by Philip
M. O,Halloran. One of the worst vote fraud cases happened in Cincinnati,
Ohio.
-
- The following is an excerpt from the Cincinnati Post
of October, 30th, 1987: "Cincinnati Bell security supervisors ordered
wiretaps installed on county computers before elections in the late 1970s
and early 1980s that could have allowed vote totals to be altered, a former
Bell employee says in a sworn court document. Leonard Gates, a 23-year
Cincinnati Bell employee until he was fired in 1986, claims in a deposition
filed Thursday in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, to have installed
the wiretaps. Cincinnati Bell officials denied Gates, allegations that
are part of a six-year-old civil suit that contends the elections computer
is subject to manipulation and fraud. Gates claims a security supervisor
for the telephone company told him in 1979 that the firm had obtained a
computer program through the FBI that gave it access to the county computer
used to count votes."
-
- O'Halloran reports, "Another Cincinnati Bell employee,
named Bob Draise, admitted to being involved in a second phase of the illegal
operation, which involved wiretapping several prominent Cincinnati political
figures including a crusader against pornography named Keating and the
Hamilton County commissioner, Allen Paul." "...as a result of
the ensuing scandal, Draise was convicted and five Cincinnati police officers,
who were allegedly involved in the wiretapping operation, abruptly resigned.
The alleged involvement of the FBI was never pursued and the Bureau itself
did not follow up on the Gates allegations. In spite of all the evidence,
the appeal by the plaintiff failed and the issue was laid to rest."
-
- There are numerous examples of vote fraud and irregularities
down through the decades that myself and others have enumerated and can
be found on the following webpage: www.ecotalk.org/VotingMachineErrors.htm.
-
- Judging from what's going on in Missouri and around the
country, it appears that the public is finally beginning to question America's
100-year bad habit of using voting machines. In was an interesting moment
at the EAC hearing when Chairman Soaries said that history was being made
that day. Our right to vote was being debated all over again. And in that
beautiful oak-paneled room I could almost see our founding fathers scratching
their heads wondering how we could have messed up such a simple process.
But, crooks love chaos. And we've got that by the bushel load.
-
-
-
- My mantra remains: Vote Paper Ballots, Ditch the Machines.
-
-
- Lynn Landes is one of the nation's leading journalists
on voting technology and democracy issues. Readers can find her articles
at http://www.ecotalk.org/ EcoTalk.org. Lynn is a former news reporter
for http://www.dutv.org/ DUTV and commentator for the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC). Contact info: <mailto:lynnlandes@earthlink.net>lynnlandes@earthlink.net
/ (215) 629-3553
|
