— “Officials assess e-voting glitches: Confidence in electronic systems may be wavering” Oakland Tribune, 1/19/06
Such was the sometimes contentious, sometimes exasperating atmosphere, apparently, in Sacramento this week when State Senator Debra Bowen, transparent election champion and Democratic candidate for Secretary of State convened a hearing on the current electoral mess in the Golden State. The hearing was held by the Senate Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee which she chairs.
County Election Registrars from all over the state were called to give a report on how things are going (not well, apparently) and Election Integrity advocates filled the gallery to witness the goings on.
There was actually quite a bit of coverage by the media, some better than others, but overall, it’s nice to see an open forum for oversight and discussion of the state of democracy in this state. All the while, so much that is involved with the most fundamental element of democracy — the vote — has been done in secret corridors of power, darkened Boards of Election back rooms, Private Corporation board rooms, and of course, inside the uninspected, none-of-your-business software of completely untrustworthy, unaccountable electronic voting machines.
Articles hit late this week on Wednesday’s hearings in the LA Times, Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Vallejo Times Herald and elsewhere. While the “facts” offered by some of the reports were at times less than accurate, we note that it’s remarkable how many Journalists deign to cover such issues when they are granted “legitimacy” by an officially sanctioned Government Inquiry. (Just a thought to those of you who actually get paid for this sort of thing, from someone who doesn’t…but we’ve long advocated Journalists cover what is newsworthy. Not only what politicians have instructed them to be newsworthy.)
Let’s take a look then at some of the coverage, including our own on-the-air conversation on Friday evening with Bowen…
From Ian Hoffman of Oakland Tribune who has been particularly good in reporting on all of these matters for some time:
But the warts were on parade Wednesday:
-Sequoia Voting Systems’ computers don’t reliably add in certain rare primary votes.
-Election Systems & Software’s computers sometimes count more ballots than voters and can record the wrong choice for voters with long fingernails.
-Optical scanners made by Diebold Election Systems can be hacked (and so possibly can scanners sold by other vendors.)
Hoffman goes on to suggest that some of the California registrars were less than pleased to be there, discussing their work at all, in public.
One particularly clueless registrar, Debbie Hench from San Joaquin County, made a particular ass of herself by blaming the process of fighting for transparent, reliable elections as the culprit for the plummetting confidence in elections by the electorate:
“I’m sorry you feel scrutiny and transparency is bad,” said Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, chairwoman of the Senate Elections and Reapportionment Committee. But, she said, making a clean breast of voting problems is essential for fixing them and regaining the voter trust that has been in decline since the 2000 presidential elections.
“If you just tell people, ‘Trust us, we’ll make it all go away,’ that’s not the way you establish confidence,” said Bowen, a Democratic contender for secretary of state.
We spoke with Bowen on Christine Craft’s Sacramento radio program Friday evening, and she confirmed Hench’s incredibly daft comments. Here’s the MP3 from the half-hour or so we did together on Craft’s show if you’re interested.
As well, a BRAD BLOG commenter, Paula Woodward, posted a few interesting impressions after attending the hearing, pointing out yet another county registrar, Ira Rosenthal of Solano County, who seemed to be equally clueless. Woodward quotes Rosenthal’s “blame the messenger” comments aimed at Bowen during the hearings, charging her with “whipping up hysteria among the voters.”
Damn that Debra Bowen and her quest for honest, transparent elections! What must she be thinking?!
The LA Times, who has failed to report almost anything on these matters, decided to get in the game this week to point out that “Electronic devices in 53 counties…are still not certified for use in the June primary.”
They also point out that “Problems have arisen throughout California and across the country since electronic voting machines came into widespread use in 2004.” Not that you’d know it from their coverage (or lack thereof) since 2004.
The report continues to describe the disastrous state of affairs across the entire state.
At Wednesday’s hearing, officials also revealed errors in ballot counts in Solano and Merced counties during the November special election, and said Orange County’s ballots contain a serial number making it possible to tie the ballot to an individual voter — a violation of privacy requirements.
…
Also discussed were Diebold voting machines already bought by 17 California counties and complaints about that system’s weaknesses. The machines are still unapproved by the state.
Over at the SF Chronicle, John Wildermuth reported one registrar as saying, “At some point, some counties may have to make a decision about who they’d rather be sued by.”
Indeed, that assessment be a reality for Boards of Election around the country before long. And for good reason.
However, Wildermuth errantly forwards the impression that the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 now requires at least one electronic voting machine in every precinct when he writes, “the law also requires states to provide, by this year, at least one voting machine in every polling place that could be used by disabled voters and non-English speakers.”
That’s simply not true. Had Wildermuth said “at least one voting device” or “system” we might have let it slide, as Greg Moberly’s report for Vallejo Times Herald was much more egregiously incorrect. He reported “Federal standards set under the Help America Vote Act require a touch-screen voting machine this year for disabled voters at all polling places.”
While we’re pleased to see Moberly covering the topic (and it’s not the first time he’s done so), it would be nice if he got such an important fact straight before reporting it to readers. Moberly can be emailed here: GMoberly@thnewsnet.com or called here: 707-553-6833, if you’d like to report to him (politely please) so he is clear on this important matter for any future reports.
Way to go, Debra. We’ve got your back.
Brad–I did indeed email Mr. Wildermuth, however the email address you listed is not working.
Any suggestions?
Peter in Ore.
Home of the mail in ballot
Should I have a clue why so many Americans, who are lovers of true constitutional democracy, who love the concept of the government of, by, and for the people, would have such a low opinon of politicians, presidents, congressmen, and neoCons of the state sort?
And therefore not give a shit about their preposterous bullshit and show it by being at the beach by a bonfire drinking beer instead of voting?
Golly gee, puzzling is it not?
Or is it just their way of saying fuck it, bring on the destruction of the world. Come on George, Bill, Dick, Paul, Jack, and Karl, we call your ficking bluff, blow the fucking world up.
We are going out without ulcers …
Peter K – I’ve fixed the Email link to Moberly (and it’s for Moberly, not Wildermuth as you errantly mentioned). Sorry about that, and thanks for letting me know!
Thanks Brad, one good correction deserves another
Peter
Are things really turning around? We’ve been disappointed so much in the past with so many false signs, I feel like a beaten dog, and I can’t bring myself to believe it.
Did you ever think that these creeps ruining our democracy are the products of our schools, they are our friends, neighbors, relatives, acquaintences, products of America. What’s wrong with this country? We produced these people!
Big Dan – The ringleaders are not products of public schools. They’re the product of establishment schools who groom their young to take the mantle of "leadership" and believe that the general public are simply fodder for their profit-margins.
The average American, on the other hand, has been duped. Think about our resident trolls – they’re suckers in every sense of the word. They were co-opted by corporate mass media and the churches, which in turn are controlled by those ringleaders. As much as I loathe the ignorant body of people who fancy themselves Republicans, I also feel very very sorry for them. True, it is their ignorance and willingness to abdicate their citizen responsibility of holding government accountable and questioning their party’s actions instead of blindly following that has lead to a criminal enterprise heading up the most powerful country in history and thus caused untold death, damage, and destruction. But when all this shit finally goes down, man are they ever gonna feel stupid 🙂
This patriotism and flag waving bullshit nationalism has been sold to us since we could walk and talk. What I want to know is what makes people like us resist? Is it inherent intelligence? Is there a wisdom gene, or a compassion gene somewhere? Is it some experience that we have in common? I’d really like to know why what seems so OBVIOUS to me is apparently hidden, or at least drastically obscured, from others?
I’ll say this about public schools though – we don’t teach critical thinking. We claim to, but when it comes down to making rational life decisions, we pretty much tell em to trust the government. Educational institutions should be (and used to be) forces for radical change, especially in the direction of democracy and resistance to control. What happemed to that? That’s why in every totalitarian coup (China, Cambodia, Stalinist Russia, etc) the first people to get rounded up and whacked are the educators. In some sense that’s exactly why our public education system does not get adequately funded. How dangerous to power would a nation of real thinkers be? That’s why religion has become so prevalent in government over this president’s tenure – nothing like religion for thought control.
Soul Rebel and Big Dan– I think part of the "wisdom gene" may be skepticism and an ability to tolerate insecurity – to even welcome it as a vital element of growth. (Hence the name "progressives"?)
During the past couple of years, I have been working on my sister to bring her over to seeing what is happening in the country. She’s not a Republican (we were raised as FDR-type Democrats), but listening to music, going to movies, buying what she wants, participating in the great commercial bazaar is what is important to her. It’s a kind of security. Bringing her to see the necessity of political honesty and action in this time and place has been enlightening to me. She has wanted to run away, to scream, "I can’t hear you!" It obviously disturbs her greatly to contemplate the utter corruption, greed, and criminality papered over by the "good life". She knows it, but she doesn’t want to see it.
Happily, she is finally getting mad, and it is a great joy to me to see it.
There is also a security to be in the "organization" and to be looked upon as a tribal member of the big, rich tribe – corporate America. Why would you want to be wandering outside the borders when you could be part of the glittering fun? Fly to conferences in interesting places, stay in nice hotels, participate in the heated and almost-erotic atmosphere of trade shows, be part of a network of wealth. It colors all the perceptions, as we see clearly in many election officials, but also among people in the corporate MSM, and elsewhere.
I think those who welcome insecurity as a concomitant to growth will always be in the minority but, historically, have done the work of bringing about necessary change. The political perceptions of those immersed in security are generally fuzzy, and there comes a time when facts of crime and corruption cannot be ignored (because they are perceptibly destroying the system of security), the "progressives" come into their own in fashioning a way out of the mess. (It is probably a cyclic or spiral historical process.)
Outside of all this, there is a foundation from which to work. From Molly Ivins latest column speaking of enabling Democrats:
The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush’s tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?
(Molly’s getting especially militant lately, and I love it!) We progressives work with what we have and it’s not all bad.
It’s important to remember that the American Revolution wasn’t overwhelmingly popular among the colonists. Many of them were doing just fine commercially by cooperating with the Crown. If they had had opinion polls back then, it might have been about 50-50 whether to break from England.
It’s the same today. Substitute Bush and Cheney for King George III. Last year Wall Street paid huge bonuses…they’re doing O.K. The media are sycophantic to the administration…ad rates and ratings stay strong. Consumers are happy…the stores are full of all kinds of junk to buy, and with interest rates relatively low they’re able to borrow out their home equity and spend, spend, spend.
A lot of people who aren’t politically oriented are happy with the status quo. My three adult daughters have no clue about what I’m all upset about.
Bush and Cheney have one huge advantage over George Washington in terms of public support. Washington’s army was small, and the soldiers didn’t always get paid. Today’s military-industrial complex has left millions of American families dependent on the Pentagon for life…salaries, pensions, health benefits. These families don’t hate war, and just don’t want to hear that the commander in chief was elected by fraud.
There must be some reason why more people voted in Vietnam before it fell, and Iraq, in its recent elections, than do in presidential elections in the United States.
The United States has a lot of people who are so fed up with the bananna republic the republicans now idolize, that they do not have enough faith in the system to vote.
It says a bookfull.
Robert at #9 — It’s a good point about the dependency of people on the military-industrial complex.
But that’s why a revolution, beginning in ideas, is not only vital but virtually assured. (The only thing that could stop it would be oppression of the worst kind.)
The military-industrial complex and big oil/oil economy have spiraled far out of control and any kind of rational purpose and are parasitically killing the host. We have no choice but to redirect energies and resources and to radically restructure the nature of our economy and workforce — as well as assert the power of democracy. (It wouldn’t be so radical or so traumatic if everyone were rational and said, "Yes, it obvously has to be done." But we are not dealing with rational forces.)
And the politicians refuse to lead. They turn away just as my sister did (but, of course, they have a larger responsibility not to.) Their purpose appears to be soothe and pet nostalgic and irrelevant prejudices ("We’re the greatest country on earth.") and to assure people that we can keep going as we are — assuming, of course, a few policy disagreements. We are seeing an astonishing failure of leadership. (Of course they have a stake in the military-industrial complex, too.)
Someone will have to take the lead. (You have to be impressed with Gore currently.) Someone will have to start talking honestly. Someone will have to bring exitement and joy and forward-lookingness into the revolutionary process. And the longer we put it off, the greater the adjustment necessary.
(We certainly have moved beyond the topic of elections in California. I emailed Moberly, BTW. I think we are going to win on this issue, but I can’t help feeling a kind of astonishment that we are only – as far as the MSM that covers it – at the point of "confidence wavering" about e-voting. What was that confidence based on anyway? It’s almost a kind of dark humor. But it is very good, of course.)
I also oneself something would want to find out on this theme. Very attentively I will read every post.