Live Free Or Diebold
Tuesday was the primary election for the midterms here in MD. That means we get to vote for nominees for such fun offices as state senate and school board at-large, as well as for Governor, Senate, and House nominees. Now, midterm elections tend to be the forgotten, boring elections where no one turns out to the polls (oh wait, thats all elections isn't it?) and the primaries are even less exciting (especially when there is only one Democratic contender for Gov. and you dont have time to make an educated choice on who should be the next sheriff of Montgomery County [now if only one of them ran on a platform of legalizing drugs and prostitution, they'd have my vote. They all ran on such unimportant platforms as fighting Montgomery's increasing gang violence... BORING]). All this considered though, I do look forward to going to the polls and excersizing my democratic right and obligation to elect my government, and its something I take pretty seriously. Its not just a biannual chance to go hang out at my old elementary school, although that is icing on the cake.
Why is it then, that when I went and cast my vote (only for offices I knew something about... I left the ones I hadn't researched blank) that I felt unfulfilled, without that warm and cozy feeling of standing up and being heard with my vote? Why was I left with electoral blue balls (would republicans have red balls?)? Its because of those damn diebold machines. I punch in my choices on the screen, press the button indicating I am done, and then review the summary of my choices and indicate that they are correct, and then this little credit card dealie pops out and the screen returns to its "Insert a card to begin voting" screen. No indication that my vote was actually counted. No indication that it was counted correctly. All I am left with is a little piece of plastic that I then stuff in a box in exchange for an "I Voted/ Yo Vote" sticker. Is it sad that the sticker is the only tangible thing I see showing that I voted? All I want is a piece of paper behind a glass pane, that prints out my choices, so that I can see that there is some tangible record somewhere of who I voted for. I dont want to take it home, or even have to stuff it in a box myself. Computerized voting is certainly a great idea as it makes vote counting much easier and more accurate, but I need, and we as voters should demand, some sort of tangible paper trail that we can verify and that can be resorted to in the case of a dispute and checked randomly to help verify the vote. We can't rely soley on the good faith of a company that has publicised ties to one of the major political parties (here) or the local election officials to give us an election free of tampering. Not to mention, without a paper trail there is no way to correct any software errors. I work in software development, and I know that even after vigorous testing there are bound to be some bugs, and I dont trust that their software is perfect (and in fact it is not. See below). In addition, there are well documented accounts of how easy it would be to hack one of these machines and change the votes on it (here and here). So even if the manufacturer and voting officials are completely honest, some random malicious voter could compromise the validity of the results. You can never have a perfect election, but you can at least have checks to help find fraud and to ensure voters that it is not rampant enough to throw the election.
All of this is stuff I've been complainging about for a while, and really, there has been a reasonable ammount of public outcry about it, even if it hasn't been enough to make a real difference. Even Gov. Erlich, in one of his few moments of doing something useful, spoke out for requiring a paper trail, but the measure didnt make it through the state legislature (here). But matters were even worse Tuesday in Montgomery County. Evidently, when the polls opened Tuesday morning, the flimsy credit card things they use to validate your identity and unlock the voting machine to cast your ballot... Somewhat important pieces of the election process, were still in Rockville. All of them for the entire county. This meant that for at least the first hour that the polls were open, no one could actually vote. Because of this the polls remained open an extra hour that night until 9PM. I showed up with my parents at the polling place at about 8:50 as we had eaten dinner and done some more research on the candidates before going to vote. My Dad and I got signed in and then went to our voting machines and cast our ballots. I finished first, then My Dad, and then we waited around for a while for my Mom. Usually she takes a while as she is less comfortable with computers than my Dad and I. Then we realized that she was sitting at a table and filling out a paper ballot. I found this odd but figured maybe she couldn't figure out the machine and had opted for the paper ballot. I asked the poll worker who said that she had come in after 8 and therefore had to fill out a paper "provisional" ballot. This was bullshit as she had come in with us before 8. It turned out that this was not the case and the poll worker was mistaken. However the truth was no less annoying. It turns out that when the poll worker working the sign-in desk put her little credit card in and brought up her information to activate the card, the computer crashed. Since it had already signed her in to the system and counted her as already having voted(even though the card was stuck in the computer and had to be cut up when it was removed), she could not be given another card and therefore could not vote on a computer. So, due to faulty computers, she had to fill out a provisional ballot that will not even be counted unless the margin of victory is small enough for the number of provisional ballots to possibly make a difference. Furthermore, she had to put her drivers license number and name along with other personal information on the envelope that she placed the ballot in. So much for anonymous voting. She was so fed up with the extra hassle, she almost left without voting. Oh, and as I alluded to before, anyone who came in after 8 was given a provisional ballot. Nevermind that the polls were still open and the reason they were still open was because of a horrible screw up in the morning and there was no justification for making their ballots count any less than anyone else. The poll officials said that my Mom was one of at least 5 or 6 people at that polling place who had had to do provisional ballots because of a computer crash, and there are lots of reports of this happening at otehr polling places (see links below). The total numbers for the day at that polling place were less than 500, so thats at least one percent of all voters who had to cast second class ballots due to a computer glitch. Unacceptable.
There are a lot of other reports of voting problems in Maryland, which I will not go into as I didn't personally experience them, and you can read about them elsewhere (here, here, and here). I have always thought that MD was a pretty safe electoral state and that it would never fall prey to the problems of Florida and Ohio in the last 2 elections, but due to these crappy systems, now I am affraid we might. It really doesnt matter whether it is intentional efforts to disenfranchise voters and/or change the results, or if it is an innocent computer glitch or a lack of verifiable results, but if we can't be confident that our election results are as close to the actual desires of the voting public as possible, then our system of goverment doesnt work. Democracy relies on the people being able to shape and change the goverment with their vote. But if there is any doubt at all as to whether those votes will actually be counted, then how are we supposed to have faith in our government. President Bush said after the 2004 elections that he had a "Mandate" and that being reelected confirmed that the American people aggreed with his policies and most notably with the War and the current direction there. That election was won by a very close margin. If we cant be almost absolutely sure that it was the actual desire of the people then our system has failed. The possible reprocussions of that election are enormous, especially if it was not decided properly. The sad truth is that without paper trails and more reliable machines, we can't be sure that it was.
Why is it then, that when I went and cast my vote (only for offices I knew something about... I left the ones I hadn't researched blank) that I felt unfulfilled, without that warm and cozy feeling of standing up and being heard with my vote? Why was I left with electoral blue balls (would republicans have red balls?)? Its because of those damn diebold machines. I punch in my choices on the screen, press the button indicating I am done, and then review the summary of my choices and indicate that they are correct, and then this little credit card dealie pops out and the screen returns to its "Insert a card to begin voting" screen. No indication that my vote was actually counted. No indication that it was counted correctly. All I am left with is a little piece of plastic that I then stuff in a box in exchange for an "I Voted/ Yo Vote" sticker. Is it sad that the sticker is the only tangible thing I see showing that I voted? All I want is a piece of paper behind a glass pane, that prints out my choices, so that I can see that there is some tangible record somewhere of who I voted for. I dont want to take it home, or even have to stuff it in a box myself. Computerized voting is certainly a great idea as it makes vote counting much easier and more accurate, but I need, and we as voters should demand, some sort of tangible paper trail that we can verify and that can be resorted to in the case of a dispute and checked randomly to help verify the vote. We can't rely soley on the good faith of a company that has publicised ties to one of the major political parties (here) or the local election officials to give us an election free of tampering. Not to mention, without a paper trail there is no way to correct any software errors. I work in software development, and I know that even after vigorous testing there are bound to be some bugs, and I dont trust that their software is perfect (and in fact it is not. See below). In addition, there are well documented accounts of how easy it would be to hack one of these machines and change the votes on it (here and here). So even if the manufacturer and voting officials are completely honest, some random malicious voter could compromise the validity of the results. You can never have a perfect election, but you can at least have checks to help find fraud and to ensure voters that it is not rampant enough to throw the election.
All of this is stuff I've been complainging about for a while, and really, there has been a reasonable ammount of public outcry about it, even if it hasn't been enough to make a real difference. Even Gov. Erlich, in one of his few moments of doing something useful, spoke out for requiring a paper trail, but the measure didnt make it through the state legislature (here). But matters were even worse Tuesday in Montgomery County. Evidently, when the polls opened Tuesday morning, the flimsy credit card things they use to validate your identity and unlock the voting machine to cast your ballot... Somewhat important pieces of the election process, were still in Rockville. All of them for the entire county. This meant that for at least the first hour that the polls were open, no one could actually vote. Because of this the polls remained open an extra hour that night until 9PM. I showed up with my parents at the polling place at about 8:50 as we had eaten dinner and done some more research on the candidates before going to vote. My Dad and I got signed in and then went to our voting machines and cast our ballots. I finished first, then My Dad, and then we waited around for a while for my Mom. Usually she takes a while as she is less comfortable with computers than my Dad and I. Then we realized that she was sitting at a table and filling out a paper ballot. I found this odd but figured maybe she couldn't figure out the machine and had opted for the paper ballot. I asked the poll worker who said that she had come in after 8 and therefore had to fill out a paper "provisional" ballot. This was bullshit as she had come in with us before 8. It turned out that this was not the case and the poll worker was mistaken. However the truth was no less annoying. It turns out that when the poll worker working the sign-in desk put her little credit card in and brought up her information to activate the card, the computer crashed. Since it had already signed her in to the system and counted her as already having voted(even though the card was stuck in the computer and had to be cut up when it was removed), she could not be given another card and therefore could not vote on a computer. So, due to faulty computers, she had to fill out a provisional ballot that will not even be counted unless the margin of victory is small enough for the number of provisional ballots to possibly make a difference. Furthermore, she had to put her drivers license number and name along with other personal information on the envelope that she placed the ballot in. So much for anonymous voting. She was so fed up with the extra hassle, she almost left without voting. Oh, and as I alluded to before, anyone who came in after 8 was given a provisional ballot. Nevermind that the polls were still open and the reason they were still open was because of a horrible screw up in the morning and there was no justification for making their ballots count any less than anyone else. The poll officials said that my Mom was one of at least 5 or 6 people at that polling place who had had to do provisional ballots because of a computer crash, and there are lots of reports of this happening at otehr polling places (see links below). The total numbers for the day at that polling place were less than 500, so thats at least one percent of all voters who had to cast second class ballots due to a computer glitch. Unacceptable.
There are a lot of other reports of voting problems in Maryland, which I will not go into as I didn't personally experience them, and you can read about them elsewhere (here, here, and here). I have always thought that MD was a pretty safe electoral state and that it would never fall prey to the problems of Florida and Ohio in the last 2 elections, but due to these crappy systems, now I am affraid we might. It really doesnt matter whether it is intentional efforts to disenfranchise voters and/or change the results, or if it is an innocent computer glitch or a lack of verifiable results, but if we can't be confident that our election results are as close to the actual desires of the voting public as possible, then our system of goverment doesnt work. Democracy relies on the people being able to shape and change the goverment with their vote. But if there is any doubt at all as to whether those votes will actually be counted, then how are we supposed to have faith in our government. President Bush said after the 2004 elections that he had a "Mandate" and that being reelected confirmed that the American people aggreed with his policies and most notably with the War and the current direction there. That election was won by a very close margin. If we cant be almost absolutely sure that it was the actual desire of the people then our system has failed. The possible reprocussions of that election are enormous, especially if it was not decided properly. The sad truth is that without paper trails and more reliable machines, we can't be sure that it was.
posted by Unknown | Thursday, September 14, 2006
5 Comments:
I recomend watchign this video:
http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/videos.html
hey. sorry to hear about the election shennanigans. it's just unbelievable to me that the state would employ the use of these election machines knowing full well that when election time comes, they won't know who the people actually voted for. lucky for me i escaped all that business by fleeing the country. unlucky for me is that i'll have to deal with all the elections that diebold rigged when i return next year. seriously, we've come to a juncture in our democracy where the question "what's the point in voting?" is truly valid. we have no reassurances that our votes are counted correctly or even at all.
yeah... anyway, sorry we didn't get to meet up before i jumped ship. keep the blogs a'comin'.
Shame on you for bringing up doubts in our electoral system. The American people deserve to trust the democratic process, and as technology moves forward the last thing we need is backward-thinking people like you making people mistrust technology and doubt that their votes are counted. It is horrible that you would bring up these doubts without having concrete proof... nay, a criminal conviction... that the voting machines were intentionally compromised, and enough so to alter the election results. Quit your fearmongering and get back to work!
a quote regarding electronic voting from the washington post article at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/16/AR2006091:
"We know the equipment works because it's been qualified to federal standards," said Kevin J. Kennedy, executive director of the Wisconsin State Elections Board and president of the National Association of State Election Directors. "The real challenge is to make sure our poll workers are trained and make sure voters have been educated so that we don't have an experience like Maryland had."
What exactly are our federal standards? And why is that any reassurance that the equipment works.
... and:
For several years, prominent computer scientists have taken aim at the electronic voting machines, which in essence are computers. In analyses of the software that runs widely used models of the machines, and in tests on specific brands, the scientists have shown how they could manipulate the machine to report a vote total that differed from the actual total cast by voters.
yes... in essence they are computers, but probably closer to the truth they are machines turned evil, lying in wait for the right moment to strike down humanity and conquer earth to begin terraforming it into a glassy technological utopia of stainless steel skyways and trees of brass.
...and!:
Further clouding the election process is the fact that, in many states, the administration of elections remains in political hands -- run by secretaries of state or other officials who run for office with partisan affiliations and who often have designs on higher office.
Robert Pastor, director of a commission on election reform organized by American University and headed by former president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James A. Baker III, said this tradition should be abandoned.
"The Carter-Baker commission identified 87 steps that need to be undertaken," he said. "Regrettably, almost none of them are being done right now. I would start by establishing statewide, nonpartisan election administration."
... ducore, you're right about one thing. we deserve the democratic process.
I was watching the baltimore fox affiliate's 10 oclock news last night (that was my first mistake, not only is it a Fox station, but also a Sinclair station, possibly their flagship since they are based in baltimore). Anyway, I was watching it specifically for the election SNAFU coverage which had been mentioned in the 10 oclock news commercial that was on during Family Guy. The piece focused almost exclusively on the human error aspects of the voting problems such as AWOL judges, and lack of training. I guess this makes sense because these are The issues addressed by State Elections Administrator Linda Lamone's 10 point plan which is descibed like this on fox45's website:
State Elections Administrator Linda Lamone has a ten point plan. It includes: the firing of late election judges, a refresher training session for all other election judges, and clear instructions for poll workers who do make the cut.
Never mind the rampant problems with the voting machines themselves. In fact, some guy they interviewed in the piece said basically "yeah we had training for teh judges, but many of the them did not fully understand the systems, and we need resfresher courses". No Shit... forget for a moment that most election judges are retired folk who are unliekely to know how to setup a LAN, or diagnose a computer problem. But also when the machines are shit... all the training in the world wont fix that problem.
The best nugget from the piece however was this at the very end, and I paraphrase: "Some have called in to question how secure the voting machines are. In fact, a Princeton study released last week finds that the election results could be compromized if a malicious person gets only a few moments access to a mahine. Now back to you Bob with a human interest story about a little puppy who just wouldnt take no for an answer and ended up the hero of a small Maryland town. Bob."
OK, I made up the human interest story part, but seriosuly, they just kind of breezed over the whole OUR DEMOCRACY MAY BE A FARCE thing. How do you mention something like "by the way, you know how every few years you vote for the leadership of the country, and how thats like the foundation of our great style of government that is so great that we want to export it forcefully to the rest of the world? Yeah, about that, it could easily be rigged... OK, wow that was boring, now on to something people care about" Please tell me that this is only a Fox/Sinclair thing and that some other media outlet has treated this with the gravity it deserves.
On the plus side, now I have that "Human interest story" song from the duncan donuts commercial stuck in my head.
One more serious note. When I get a chance, I'm gonna write some letters to the Governor and the elections commision about this whole fiasco, and I encourage you all to do the same. Maybe if people put some pressure on the people running this stuff they will fix the voting system at least by 08.
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