Editorial: Vote-rigging is as old as voting itself

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Sheila Lennon: Count the vote as though every vote counts

As Jackson had just said, this is not about the Kerry campaign. John Kerry seems to have vanished from the public arena, content that he lost — to the disappointment and anger of some supporters who had donated to his fund to cover recount expenses. And it's not about "changing the results."

Blackwell may bluster, but Councilman Russel Rude of tiny Union County, Ind., knows what it's about. In a public meeting at which county officials weighed paper and computer voting systems, Rude asked how voters can be sure the program is correct. (We'll be back to him.)

Vote-rigging is as old as voting itself, but it's especially easy now in this window of time where so few politicians grew up knowledgeable about computers and the new ways they could be used to stealthily rig the vote. Once upon a time, locking up the machines was enough. Now, a modem call to the central vote-counting server can deliver an election. We might never know, because the software is a trade secret that no one may examine.

I wanted to hear Mr. Blackwell, in his capacity as a public official charged with ensuring a clean and fair election in his state, vigorously support the right of every voter to know for sure that his or her vote was accurately counted — as Rev. Jackson and Councilman Rude did — rather than whine about the cost, inconvenience or futility of this fundamental rite of democracy, the vote recount.

Anyone who's at all computer-savvy — especially elected public officials in charge of voting — should applaud tests to make sure that the private software that counts the votes is not also shuffling votes in strange ways. (We know about programs that pretend to be eBay or PayPal wanting you to "confirm" your credit card number in order to steal it; it's not a big leap to imagine how unexamined voting software could trap your vote and throw it away without counting it, for instance.)

But you don't have to imagine. The Indianapolis Star reported on Nov. 11 that very odd things happened inside the computer counting the votes of Franklin County, Ind.:

Election equipment counted straight-party votes for Democratic candidates as Libertarian votes, an error that could affect election outcomes in as many as nine counties, the Richmond Palladium-Item reported...

The original story from the Richmond Palladium-Item has slipped into the archives, but the impact remains.

In a story published today (County officials wrangle over voting methods), that paper reports on discussion by Union County (Ind.) officials as they buy new voting equipment for their 5,000 registered voters. Enter Councilman Rude:

Councilman Russel Rude said optical scanners are expensive counters that require a yearly cost for reprogramming in three of four years. Poll workers could be better paid to count the ballots and the county would save money, he said.

The programming error in Franklin County by Fidlar Election Co. also was a concern for officials. Rude asked how voters can be sure the program is correct. He's concerned deliberate errors might be written into programs that might not be active until election day, so pre-testing wouldn't catch them.

"The mistake (in Franklin County) was caught because it was obvious. What if only 2 percent of the votes had been shifted? It wouldn't have been caught," Rude said.

This is the attitude I want to hear from an election official: Taking seriously the need for a transparent, verifiable voting system so "voters can be sure the program is correct." It's his job.
It's also Kenneth Blackwell's job.

Olbermann reported last week that 8 in 10 Americans believe President Bush won re-election legitimately; 2 in 10 have their doubts.

If any of the recounts or investigations or as-yet-unknown whistleblowers do eventually reveal that programmers — rather than voters — elected our leaders, remember how these two very different public servants served the public interest.

This voter would rather spend some public money on cheerfullly vetting the vote than wonder whether all the voting is really done by some guy in India who got his job through outsourcing.

complete article can be found at: http://www.king5.com/sharedcontent/ptech/weblog2/113004ccdrptechweblog.b77f8b.html

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1. You don't have to register to read it at this link

http://www.projo.com/cgi-bin/include.pl/blogs/shenews/archives/week134.htm#ohio

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2. kick

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3. kick

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4. Good piece. Thanks for posting.