Preparation Is Key To Election Reform

[babylonsister]

Preparation Is Key To Election Reform
Rosemary Rodriguez Of The Election Assistance Commission On What Can Go Wrong, What Has Gone Wrong And What Can Be Done To Help

by Kevin Friedl

Thu. Aug 14, 2008


"No system is 100 percent fail-safe, unfortunately. And I know that's what people want. People want certainty. I want certainty."
-- Rosemary Rodriguez


Formed in the wake of the 2000 presidential recount, the Election Assistance Commission was created to help bring about the reforms of the Help America Vote Act and ensure that states were ready to administer trouble-free and transparent elections. As part of its work, the commission tests and certifies new voting machines and monitors the use of more than $3 billion in federal funds provided to the states to replace outdated voting systems.

With this year's vote fast approaching, Chairwoman Rosemary Rodriguez sat down with NationalJournal.com's Kevin Friedl to discuss the upcoming vote, Florida's persistent ballot problems and the prospects of conducting a "perfect" election. Edited excerpts follow. Visit the archives page for more Insider Interviews.


Q: The commission exists in large part because of the many problems that have plagued polling stations and elections in the recent past. With record turnout expected this year and the election less than three months away, is the U.S. ready to vote? Will we be?

Rodriguez: We have an idea of what can go wrong. We have seen a variety of things related mostly, I think, to election management. Do we have enough ballots? Are election administrators prepared in case something goes wrong? Those are the potential vulnerabilities in the system, and so the EAC's working really hard to make sure that everybody's ready and that they've done their worst-case scenario planning and they have all the right people at the table in that planning.

Q: Do you think they're there yet?

Rodriguez: {Laughs} Well, we've asked the local jurisdictions to file their contingency plans with the state. That's one of our best practices. And if the state wants to send them to the EAC, we'll hold them here. But we don't have any yet.... A lot of folks already have contingency plans in place, but some evidence of those plans would probably instill confidence for the voter.

Q: Why haven't more states passed them along to your office?

Rodriguez: It's not required, but it is in our best practices guidelines. To speculate, it might be the local nature of the way elections are conducted. Not every secretary can require their counties, or whatever their makeup is, to furnish them with that kind of information. But I think it's a good idea for legislatures in the future to take a look at.

Q: Are states taking this seriously looking ahead to the election?

Rodriguez: Yes. You've heard about the states, like Florida, that just said, "There's not going to be an opportunity to doubt what happens in the state of Florida. We're going to go with the system that we think bears the most scrutiny." So they've gone from that extreme -- and in New Mexico, the governor just said, replace the whole system -- to states like Ohio and Colorado and California that tested the equipment from scratch, did the complete recertification of their equipment, before they certified it for this election. So there's a variety of things going on in 2008, new systems or newly recertified equipment in a couple of states, that I think is all designed to instill voter confidence.

more/audio at link:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/ii_20080812_4924.php

[Peace Patriot]

1. "Perfect election" is a red herring. What B.S.!

This interview is chock full of bullshit, starting with the interviewer's intro:

"Formed in the wake of the 2000 presidential recount, the Election Assistance Commission was created to help bring about the reforms of the Help America Vote Act and ensure that states were ready to administer trouble-free and transparent elections."

Every phrase in this opener is untrue--before we even get to Rodriquez. They wanted "trouble-free" election theft, true. "Transparent," no.

The so-called "Help America Vote Act" was no more meant to bring about "transparent" elections than the "Patriot Act" was meant to "keep us safe." How's this for starters: Elections run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls?

God, I CAN'T BELIEVE how blind people are, and what ILLUSIONS we seem to agree to. It sends me into despair sometimes. How can ANYBODY be so STUPID as to describe this system as TRANSPARENT, and then let this asshole get away with positing a "perfect election," as what people want, and then knocking it down? How can anyone who calls himself a journalist be THAT STUPID?

[flashl]

2. In the 'wake' of the 2000 recount were troubling reports about military and overseas ballots

Are there improvements and/or certainty for the military and overseas voter today?

Statistics compiled by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) paint an alarming picture. According to the EAC, only 992,000 of the six million eligible military and overseas voters were able to request an absentee ballot for the November 2006 election, and only 330,000 of those ballots were filled out and actually reached local election officials.

That means that only 5.5 percent of eligible military and overseas voters were able to fill out a ballot and mail it in.

[Peace Patriot]

3. These systematic abuses cannot be corrected without TRANSPARENT vote counting.

There are MANY abuses, and MANY methods of vote suppression--and a lot of them involve the lightning swiftness and non-transparency of electronics (voter purges, for instance, and voter caging). The low military vote is appalling--and I have no doubt at all that it is deliberate, systematic and criminal.

These or other forms of vote suppression will continue until we have true representatives of the people in public office--whether in Congress, or as state AGs, or in the White House. Vote suppression is A CRIME. It is already against the law. Why is the law not being enforced? Because we have lawless SOBs in public office--and many of them are there compliments of Diebold & brethren.

We MUST change this. We MUST restore transparent vote counting--or we don't have a democracy. It's that simple. You think money is the problem (campaign donations)? How do you change that? You think the corporate 'news' monopolies are the problem? How do you change that? It all happens through our elected representatives. And we don't even have bottom line, minimal transparency--a 10% audit--in electing them. Many of them were NOT elected. They were Selected--by the fascist billionaires who own/control these electronic voting corporations.

And remember that these election theft machines are employed in our PRIMARIES, as well as in general elections. Where did Obama first get his edge? In the caucus states, which are NOT COUNTED BY DIEBOLD & CO. The far rightwing fuckwads at Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia (the big three) are PICKING OUR CANDIDATES--and then they get to choose between the Blue Dogs or Pukes, as it suits them! They want to give us an illusion of change, they let the Blue Dogs 'win.' They want a corporate resource war, they pick Pukes.

The best place to get this changed--to restore transparent vote counting--is in state/local jurisdictions, where ordinary people still have some influence. Your local registrar may live down the street. You may bump into your state legislator in the supermarket. And in small states, even the governor is more accessible than members of Congress, or of course the President. States and counties still have control over voting systems. This may not last long. The Feds are increasingly encroaching on this important state/local power. But, right now, it's still a local power. Congress is hopeless on this issue--and we should rightfully fear what they might do, if they get their fingers in it again. We need grass roots citizen groups in in every state/local jurisdiction to get this done.