Electronic Voting Machines Place Our Democracy At Risk

[Bennet Kelley]

Electronic Voting Continues to “Place
Our Democracy at Risk”

“Electronic voting machines are placing our democracy at risk.” This dire warning on the eve of the election came not from MoveOn.org or Air America, but CNN anchor and lifelong Republican Lou Dobbs.

Dobbs was hardly alone in sounding the alarm, as in Maryland both gubernatorial candidates urged voters to use absentee ballots rather than rely on the state’s Diebold voting machines, and nationwide, 66 percent of registered voters believed it to be likely that hackers would tamper with the vote count. While it is encouraging that last week’s election does not appear to have been marred by major allegations of electoral theft, the alarm is still ringing and must be addressed prior to 2008.
In the past six years, the use of electronic voting machines has tripled and is now used by nearly 40 percent of registered voters.

Questions about these machines first surfaced after the 2002 Georgia elections in which Sen. Max Cleland and Gov. Roy Barnes were upset by Republican challengers on Election Day, despite leading in the polls, and it was later discovered that Diebold had covertly implemented a program patch entitled “rob-georgia.zip” shortly before the election.

These suspicions grew exponentially after the 2004 election in which exit polls “incorrectly” showed John Kerry winning the national vote and key states such as Nevada, Ohio, New Mexico and Iowa, but otherwise were “correct” in non-swing states and precincts without electronic voting. What was particularly egregious was that Diebold’s CEO promised to deliver Ohio to President Bush and proved to be a man of his word since significant discrepancies between the official tally and exit polls favored Bush 90.9 percent of the time.

Mistrust and concerns over electronic voting machines continued to escalate in this election cycle with the release of documentaries such as HBO’s “Hacking Democracy” and reports by the U.S. Government Accountability Office U.S. Government Accountability Office and private groups which collectively found that current voting systems were plagued with over 120 security threats and failed to meet “even the most minimal security standards.” A Johns Hopkins University study concluded that “we must carefully consider the risks inherent in electronic voting, as it places our very democracy at risk.”

The absence of widespread fraud, however, does not mean that this election was a success for the new technology. There were a number of reports of machines failing to register votes or flipping votes to a candidate not selected by the voter. For example, in the Florida race to fill Katherine Harris’ Congressional seat, there are calls for a revote after over 18,000 votes (or approximately 13 percent) went unrecorded in a race decided by 369 votes.

In addition, across the nation, voters waited in line for hours because of machine failures, inexperienced poll workers and lack of voting machines. In Maryland, a lack of voting machines meant that Sharolyn Hyson had to wait over three hours, until after 11 p.m., to vote. The African American eloquently noted that while the wait was nothing compared to the sacrifices of her ancestors who “died for the right to vote ... this is the 21st Century in the United States. We can do better.”

Ms. Hyson is absolutely right. Since the 2000 Florida fiasco there have been two major commissions on election reform – the National Commission on Election Reform (co-chaired by former Presidents Carter and Ford) and the Commission on Federal Election Reform (co-chaired by Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker) – which have provided detailed recommendations for reform. It is now time for action and the restoration of a Democratic Congress and the election of Debra Bowen (whom one blog labeled the “election integrity queen”) as Secretary of State in California increases the likelihood of significant voting reform. Congress must act quickly to restore confidence in our voting process, while Bowen should push to make California a model of electoral reform for other states and even Congress to follow.

The starting point, however, must be to address the vulnerability of electronic voting machines to attack or abuse since, as Tom Stoppard notes, “(i)t’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting.” That is why it is appalling that Las Vegas’ slot machines are subject to greater scrutiny than most voting machines, as unlike most election regulators the Nevada Gaming Commission has the source code for any software used, performs spot inspections and requires background checks for all programmers.

It is not enough to ensure that the voting process is secure since, as the 2001 National Commission on Election Reform stressed, Americans “can and should expect their system to be a source of national pride and a model to all the world.” A voting system to be proud of is one where voting booths are allocated based on the number of registered voters in the region and not their ethnicity; where there are serious consequences for attempting to suppress the vote through intimidation or misinformation; and which is not tainted by the partisan ambitions of the election administrators.

There is an old proverb “do not stand in a dangerous place trusting in miracles,” which reminds us that while we may have dodged a bullet on Election Day, this offers no guarantee for future elections. It is imperative that we address this continued threat since democracy is too precious for its preservation to depend on luck or miracles.

Bennet Kelley is the former national co-chair of the Democratic National Committee’s young professional arm, publisher of BushLies.net and a columnist with the Santa Monica Daily Press.

[Demeter]

1. Especially as the Machines Didn't Do the Job (Election Theft)

When the final chapter on electronic voting machines plays out, the GOP will be deader than the dodo.

[krkaufman]

5. Republicans gained power during the Reagan era ...

... without the benefit of electronic voting, so don't presume that we only have the one hurdle to clear. Heck, the Right has major advantages in many areas within election reform alone, from gerrymandering, to soulless disenfranchisement, to the Senatorial bonus in the Electoral College. Add-in the loss of the Fairness Doctrine and the steady drift (or outright charge) towards corporate news release media, and you've several windmills beyond black box voting.

Not meant to discourage, but to encourage battling them on multiple fronts.

[Demeter]

8. Always, and Everywhere!

Because the DLC didn't fight the GOP at home, we are condemned to fighting them in Iraq and Afghanistan, and South America, and wherever else they spread their filthy hands and evil designs.

It would have been much better if we'd stopped them: prosecuting Nixon, prosecuting Reagan, prosecuting Poppy--all lost chances. This time we must go the whole nine yards to ensure that no pompous mental midget ever thinks he can take the Presidency for a spin into a crowd of foreigners and get off with a pension.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Thank you for this post, Bennet Kelley--and welcome to DU!

There is no more important issue than this! Without transparent vote counting, we lack the power to address any other issue.

We need to repeal HAVA, and start over--not apply a yet more complicated "fix it" (as with HR 550). The huge Absentee Ballot vote this time is the key (50% statewide in Calif!). A lot of voters are now onto the problem, and are trying to find a way round the rigged electronics. We need to mobilize this huge block of discontented voters and pressure local/state officials to, a) HAND COUNT the Absentee Ballot votes, and b) POST the results BEFORE any electronics are involved. We will thus begin to create a paper ballot system BY DEFAULT--circumventing the entrenched corruption, connected to $$billions in e-voting contracts, that has made reform so difficult. HR 550 just applies a patch to this rigged system. In my opinion, it's an attempt to preserve the $$billions in boondoggle funding. We can't do much about that. Our state and federal Dem party leadership is as involved in this corruption as the Republicans (or, in some cases--Dean, for instance--is hampered by the corruption, as we all are). The new Congress (with Diane Feinstein chair of the Senate committee on elections) will preserve as much of corporate control over our elections as they can. We'll just have to work at the state/local level for our own standards of transparent vote counting. No secret code! Count every vote! (Maybe we can get Bowen to appropriate some money for human hand-counters. I wish Congress would do it--but I doubt it's even on the table.)

[Kelvin Mace]

3. Welcome to DU

and thanks for the great piece.

May I run it on my site?

[krkaufman]

4. Great for Lou Dobbs finally coming around, but let's not diminish ...

... MoveOn.org and Air America Radio, and all the other organizations who've been calling for reform -- and outright revolution -- on the electronic voting front. Lou Dobbs is only remarkable in being one of the few current newscasters, of any prominence, making electronic voting a major issue. Keith Olbermann being another.

So thanks to Lou Dobbs for contributing, but let's not ignore those who have been fighting the fight every day for years.

[Mugsy]

6. My greatest fear: A Democrat win will make voters complacent...

...and put election security on the back burner.

There is no reason NOT to believe that "the powers that be"... likewise fed up with GOP abuses of power and straying from "pure Conservativism"... decided it was time for the Republicans to lose. So simply winning this election doesn't "prove" the election system in use "actually works".

When Republicans eked out tiny 1-2% victories in elections polls showed them losing by 5% points, I felt it was a good indicator of "vote shifting". In Virgina, despite one verbal feux-paa after another, Allen consistently led Webb by ~5% until the day before the election, and Webb didn't pul ahead until it became clear that control of the Senate was in the balance.

The problem is that we allow these voting machine companies to keep their software "secret" because it is "proprietary" and revealing the code would give their competition free software it cost them millions to develop. The solution if for the government to write the software, laying down hardware requirement specifications like a printout and network security... not the corporations... and companies like Diebold can then complete by building machines to run it.

[LiberalEsto]

7. First step: re-frame the name

I refer to these electronic voting devices now as Cheating Machines.

Thank you for an excellent post.

[Demeter]

9. Clever! I Will Quote You!

[oc2002]

10. This is a must deal breaker for me and the Democratic party. This must be addressed.

There must be accountablility and verification of all e-voting in all 50 states as a priority coming out of the House and Senate, or the dems are truely a gaggle of fools that I will have nothing to do with.

[Joe Chi Minh]

11. Why do you posit an absence of widespread fraud? An official or

quasi official body, only the other day, stated that the evidence for the loss of no less than 4,000,000 votes for the Democrats was virtually indisputable.

Apart from anything else, apparently, the prevention of Democratic Congressmen and Senators from winning the seats affected by such fraudulent miscounts is likely to have crucially affected the appointment of judges.

[dkblogger]

13. I agree totally ! Ohio still has a Rep house and court

Here in Ohio with the outpouring of voters for Brown and Strickland the R's kept the majority in the congress, and our courts are still ALL REPS !!! Now how did that happen ? Hint..Diebold, ES&S, Blackwell doing all in his power to prevent the Dems from voting ! Were IS the media checking into this ?

[Stevepol]

12. I get sick of reading comments like this:

"The absence of widespread fraud, however, does not mean that this election was a success for the new technology."

What does that mean, "the absence of widespread fraud"? How the hell can you tell there was an "absence of widespread fraud"?

When will people get it thru their heads that when your vote is counted in total secrecy without even a breath of auditing or verification of any kind, that is, any verification using PAPER, YOU CANNOT HAVE THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF CONFIDENCE IN THE RESULT.

It doesn't matter who won the election. The vote count in this last 06 election, which I greatly applaud and breathed a sigh of relief over, can not be trusted any more than the GA 02 election that is mentioned in the article or the 04 Kerry loss or any number of other suspicious losses by Democrats.

WE DO NOT HAVE A DEMOCRACY TODAY AND NOBODY CAN SAY THERE WAS AN ABSENCE OF FRAUD ANYWHERE. It's impossible to have definitive proof of fraud or the lack of fraud as long as we have secret vote counting by private firms without verification. If there is a paper ballot print-out that is voter-verified and then re-counted or audited under closely supervised and fair rules, then we can at least accept the result as almost certainly OK. Otherwise, I wish people would shut up about there being "no widespread fraud" or "there's no evidence that fraud occurred" or any number of other inane statements about something it's impossible to know.

[dkblogger]

14. I read that "the fix" didn't allow for the huge voter turnout.

The election defence alliance (EDA) is calling for an investigation. They claim a major D undercount, and overcount of R's. They claim the rigging had to be done in early Oct, set up to give a close number to poll amounts. They set it to deal with expected voter turn out. Also interesting was the CNN exit poll numbers at 7:07PM on the 7th, they showed 55% D, 43.5% R, an 11.5% margin. Next day they had an ADJUSTED EXIT POLL 52.6%D to 45.1%R a 7.5% margin. Adjusted that sucker right down to fit the supposed results.

[Bennet Kelley]

15. Sickening Absence

I think we agree that whether or not fraud occurred in the past election falls into the category of what Donald Rumsfeld would call "unknown unknowns" -- although we can also agree that it remains a possibility.

Where we disagree is that you presume fraud absent any evidence, while I take the opposite approach. I believe claiming fraud absent any proof is irresponsible and only damages our credibility. There are plenty of compelling facts to support the cause, so I see no reason to invent others that cannot be substantiated.