New York Times: Counting the Vote, Badly

[helderheid]

November 16, 2006
Editorial
Counting the Vote, Badly

Last week’s elections provided a lot of disturbing news about the reliability of electronic voting — starting, naturally, with Florida. In a Congressional race there between Vern Buchanan, a Republican, and Christine Jennings, a Democrat, the machines in Sarasota County reported that more than 18,000 people, or one in eight, did not choose either candidate. That “undervote” of nearly 13 percent is hard to believe, given that only about 2.5 percent of absentee voters did not vote in that race. If there was a glitch, it may have made all the difference. Ms. Jennings trails Mr. Buchanan by about 400 votes.

The serious questions about the Buchanan- Jennings race only add to the high level of mistrust that many people already feel about electronic voting. More than half of the states, including California, New York, Ohio and Illinois, now require that electronic voting machines produce voter-verified paper records, which help ensure that votes are properly recorded. But Congress has resisted all appeals to pass a law that would ensure that electronic voting is honest and accurate across the nation.

Fortunately, that may be about to change. With the Democrats now in control of both houses, there is an excellent chance of passing tough electronic voting legislation. Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, had more than 200 co-sponsors for a strong electronic voting bill before this month’s election, and support is likely to grow in the new Congress. In the Senate, Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who will be chairwoman of the Rules and Administration Committee, which oversees elections, plans to develop a similar bill.

The problems with elections go well beyond electronic voting. Partisan secretaries of state continue to skew the rules to favor their parties and political allies. States are adopting harsh standards for voter registration drives to make it harder for people to register, as well as draconian voter identification laws to make casting a ballot harder for poor people, racial minorities, the elderly and students. Some states have adopted an indefensible rule that provisional ballots cast at the wrong table of the correct polling place must be thrown out.

Congress has failed to address these and other important flaws with the mechanics of the election system. But this, too, may be about to change. Senator Feinstein is saying that providing fair access to the ballot will be among her committee’s top priorities in the coming year. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, plans to revise and reintroduce her “Count Every Vote Act,” which takes an admirably broad approach to overhauling the voting system.

Election reform has tended to be a partisan issue, with Democrats arguing for reform and Republicans resisting it. It shouldn’t be. Congressional Democrats should make fixing this country’s broken system of elections a top priority, and Republicans should join them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/opinion/16thur1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[applegrove]

1. Good news. Electoral Transparency is at the top of the list. And all it

too was to get rid of the GOP. :woohoo: I hope that Dems paint the GOP as obstructionist in regards to election transparency cause that is what the GOP is.

[helderheid]

2. I hope we pass Kucinich's bill

H.R.6200

Title: To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require States to conduct Presidential elections using paper ballots and to count those ballots by hand, and for other purposes.

Sponsor: Rep Kucinich, Dennis J. (introduced 9/27/2006)
Cosponsors (19)

Latest Major Action: 9/27/2006 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on House Administration, and in addition to the Committee on Government Reform, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.

co-sponsors:

1. Rep Brown, Corrine - 9/27/2006
2. Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy - 9/27/2006
3. Rep Conyers, John, Jr. - 9/27/2006
4. Rep Filner, Bob - 9/27/2006
5. Rep Grijalva, Raul M. - 9/27/2006
6. Rep Gutierrez, Luis V. - 9/27/2006
7. Rep Hastings, Alcee L. - 9/27/2006
8. Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. - 9/27/2006
9. Rep Jackson, Jesse L., Jr. - 9/27/2006
10. Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila - 9/27/2006
11. Rep Johnson, Eddie Bernice - 9/27/2006
12. Rep Kaptur, Marcy - 9/27/2006
13. Rep Lee, Barbara - 9/27/2006
14. Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. - 9/27/2006
15. Rep McDermott, Jim - 9/27/2006
16. Rep McKinney, Cynthia A. - 9/27/2006
17. Rep Solis, Hilda L. - 9/27/2006
18. Rep Waters, Maxine - 9/27/2006
19. Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. - 9/27/2006

[Jeffersons Ghost]

5. nice info... really good OP today Helder

[SoCalDem]

3. Sorry, but "...tough electronic voting regulations..." are NOT what's needed

What we need is to totally split off ANY office whose term is served in DC..

that means :

seante
house
presidency

What has "caused" all our problems is the penchant for states/towns/counties/lobbyist groups to piggyback THEIR long-ass propositions, judicial, city council/dogcatcher/you-name-it, onto the same ballot. By doing this, it creates the NEED for such a large ballot, with so many things to vote on, that they saw "electronic" as an "easy fix"..

They were WRONG... in spades.

Whether we like it or not, ALL congressional and senatorial elections are now "nationalized", and we just need to get used to it.

E-voting proponents love to remind us that "elections are run by the states".. well goody-for-them, BUT suppposedly
all schools are run by states too, and that never stops the copngress from mandating test procedures, and rules for them to follow.

Easy fixes:

1. Voter ID cards for ALL voters
....Costco seems to be able to do it on the spot, and with a picture too..

2. Card-stock 5 x 7 ballot for congress/senate/president
....easy to store and it would never have more than 3 offices to elect..3 columns with a box next to each alphabetized name...and a sharpie pen to fill in the box...infintely storable and recountable. A bank's money counter could count the number of "ballot cards", and a team of "counters" at the end of the voting day with a chalkboard, a video camera and a phone could easily handle the task of tallying the vote counts.

3. All 18 year old high school seniors automatically registered to vote
....the boys already have to register for the non-draft selective service

4. Make August "National Voter Registration Month"..(any extra awareness is a good thing)
....if we can have National Dairy Month, why not?

[Jeffersons Ghost]

4. here's your 4th vote K&R