Okay. Allow me to be as fair as possible, right off the top, following that headline. The all-day symposium which LA County Registrar/Recorder & County Clerk Dean Logan was kind enough to personally invite me to attend today at the California Institute of Technology, put “Technology” before “Democracy” at least in the title of the event…
…So technology came titularly before democracy, if not more so, as I good-naturedly chided Logan this afternoon. Though, in truth, it also tended to take the lead in at least those parts of the day that I was able to attend. But its hard to blame Logan for that. It’s become the trend in the “election industry” over the last few years, where techno-scientists, private corporations and others (both well-meaning and less so) have seized the day (and the tax-payer dollars), to place techno-“solutions” far ahead of the real needs of citizens and their Constitutional requirements for true, democratic self-governance.
To his credit, that wasn’t necessarily Logan’s purpose in scheduling or naming this symposium, meant to begin opening the process of selecting a new voting system for the nation’s largest voting jurisdiction to selected “stake-holders”. And the good news is, the ultimate solution (complete transparency) to our voting system woes, did tend to bubble up towards the top, to the apparent surprise of some, as the day worn on…
I missed the morning session, where techno-centric folks from CalTech and MIT addressed the assembled, so I can’t comment one way or another on their presentations. Similarly, I wasn’t there for Sequoia Voting System, Inc.’s e-voting champion and U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) commissioner Donetta Davidson’s address. Perhaps they all argued for full citizen oversight of every aspect of elections, such as the tallying thereof, though it would be hard to imagine.
Those favoring technology, over full public/citizen administration/tallying of elections, had lead speaking roles. Those who didn’t, didn’t. They weren’t invited to address the assembled at all.
But at least there were a (very) small number of us, if not nearly enough, invited to the event so that we were able to speak for the citizen election integrity advocates in a couple of the afternoon breakout sessions. And it seems that at least some of our points were heard.
Speaking at the closing remarks, LA County’s Election Tally Systems Manager Ken Bennett, the man charged with overseeing much of the county’s election technology, summarized what he’d taken away from some of those sessions. “We need to think about transparency and auditability as the key components to accuracy and security,” he said. (I’m paraphrasing there, but that’s pretty close.)
Good points. And it was good to hear it from someone in Bennett’s position.
While others in my particular break-out session seemed to treat the notion of hand-counting paper ballots at the polling place — which, as I’ve recently pointed out, is “Democracy’s Gold Standard” — like an idea that just landed from the planet Mars, the conversation has begun.
Of course, several of those same folks also seemed to have little idea that thousands of op-scan paper ballots went completely uncounted in LA County’s 2008 Super Tuesday Election, that computer-printed ballots can easily misprint ballots, as they did when I voted in the ’08 state primary, that touch-screen voting systems, even with so-called “voter-verifiable paper trails” are 100% unverifiable, that virtually every e-voting system currently certified at the federal level actually fails to meet statutory federal accuracy requirements, or that optical-scan paper ballot systems can be easily hacked in such a way that nobody was ever likely to notice, or even be able to do anything about it if they did.
Last year, at an election integrity event which both Logan and I attended, I asked him whether he might consider a pilot program to test the viability and accuracy of precinct-based hand-counted paper ballots as he considered a new voting system for Los Angeles. In the short exchange — captured on video — Logan conceded that he was “not closed to that idea,” while he (understandably) would not “make a commitment” to such a pilot project then and there.
“I’m not gonna stand here and make a commitment to a specific pilot project, tonight,” he said. “But what I will say is I have a history, both here and in my previous work in Washington, of doing pilot projects. So I’m not closed to that idea.”
Fair enough. But we are now more than a year on from that public exchange, and as Los Angeles prepares to spend millions of tax-payer dollars on a new system to replace its existing one, which has failed many times over, shouldn’t citizen-counted paper ballots at least be allowed a fair shot in the bargain? We’ve had ample opportunities, to date, for such a pilot program, but we’ve yet to see one.
Disappointingly, only three systems were presented to the assembled as possibilities for LA’s future voting system, as I was told, during the morning session: Two of them were optically-scanned paper ballot systems, and a third was a DRE (Direct Recording Electronic, in this case, a “touch-screen”) system.
If, as Logan said today, he wasn’t trying to push any particular voting system yet, but rather, wishes to hear from the “stake-holders” as the process moves forward, shouldn’t fully-transparent, precinct-based, citizen-counted paper ballots at least be included among the systems examined, considered and tested?
As I wrote in my recent Op-Ed for the Commonweal Institute: “While hand-counted paper ballots are routinely discredited by those who stand to gain from secret vote counting, you’ll note the odd paradox that in the closest of elections, those same individuals are often the first to demand a fully public hand-count of paper ballots … to determine who actually won and who actually lost.”
If citizen-overseen hand-counts are therefore “Democracy’s Gold Standard”, the ultimate arbiter of who won and who lost any election, why not examine the pros and cons of a system which hand-counts ballots in the first place, before — once again — wasting millions of tax-payer dollars on yet another electronic system that is likely to fail as brilliantly as virtually every other electronic system currently in use across the country already has?
My great thanks to the Registrar for kick-starting the conversation and inviting me to take part in it. I hope many others like myself will be invited to participate in the next part of the conversation, and that fully-transparent elections will be considered along with other non-transparent systems.
Let’s put “Democracy” before “Technology” for a change. LA County now has a very good opportunity to examine the possibilities of doing exactly that.
“Examine the pros and cons . . .” Not there. Don’t know. But here’s the reality. If you, the universal you, first take a look at what you need, you’ll know exactly what to buy when you get there . . . and what not to buy. New car? Gotta have four wheels and drive a few miles before it stalls. Check. New phone? Gotta take pictures with it. Check. New voting system? Oh, that looks nice. It costs millions of tax payer dollar. Let’s get that one. Check.
Again, not there. No, I’m in Florida where we have a habit of rushing out to buy new machines without even fully understanding the problem. But if L.A. has a comprehensive set of voting requirements, wouldn’t it include such nice-to-haves as certifiable recounts, voter marked ballots, real audits? Oh yes and capabilities to recover the votes when a machine crashes. Because machines will crash and miscount and usually at the most inconvenient time, during the closest of races. Why were touch screens even invited to this party?
Democracy’s Gold Standard should be required reading for every election official.
Unfortunately, there is a six-letter, dirty word that is rarely mentioned as the true driving force of those advancing the “technological solutions” — profit!
Yes. Profit, time and sadly comprehension. There are well-intentioned SOEs and SOSs. But they aren’t technical and by the way like many of us never, ever want to be technical. Turn it on. Turn it off. Repeat if necessary. So the problem becomes one of hiring the best people and/or listening to the advice of others (vendors). Which by the way is exactly how we got into the touch screens in the first place. Otherwise, how could anyone procure an expensive system designed to intake about 100 ballots per each, is guaranteed to fail at some point and offers no tracking or recount capabilities.
There is a simple solution, really, for those of us in the election integrity movement who actually care.
We could go to the polls first thing in the morning on election day, en mass, and destroy the machines, ALL of them. Smash them, just as the first saboteurs threw their shoes into the gears.
The destruction of whatever ineffective and dangerous machines are in place will require some sort of solution in the days and weeks that follow the “election riots,” and in the end, with not enough time to find and replace the machines, paper ballots will be the only possible workaround.
A few thousand of us would have to be prepared to be martyrs who would go to jail and be branded as subversives, but perhaps representative democracy and the integrity of the electoral process would be saved.
Or, we could follow the advice of the Democrats and Republicans and ignore the problem and just vote and then go off to watch American Idol.
Just to be clear, CharlieL, The BRAD BLOG does NOT endorse destroying voting machines which would also likely result in the complete disenfranchisement of hundreds, thousands and/or millions of voters.
They should be done away with, most likely, after the type of hand-count pilot programs are done, to determine how to move ahead without machines. But it all must be done peacefully. And in a way that *increasing* enfranchisement, rather than decreases it.
Why is it, Brad, that after reading piece-after-piece produced by you and other astute members of the electoral integrity movement, I get the feeling I’m being forced to watch a re-run of a very bad horror movie, over and over again.
Consider this passage from Andrew Gumbel’s Steal This Vote:
A study performed by the computer risk assessment company SAIC International at the request of the State of Maryland identified 328 security weaknesses, 26 of them critical, plus a whole slew of other high-risk issues that would arise if the system were ever hooked up to a network. The state redacted 2/3 of the report before releasing it.
Raba Technologies, which employs for former NSA employees, found it took approximately 20 seconds to pick the two locks securing each of Maryland’s 16,000 AccuVote-TS terminals. Computer scientist William Arbaugh of the University of Md said “We could change ballots [before the election] or change votes during the election.”
In reliance on this report, the state’s top election official, Linda Lamone, concluded that the system was “flawless.”
Perhaps this is a propitious time to honor Mary Travers of Peter, Paul & Mary, by recalling a famous line:
Ernie asks:
Welcome to our nightmare.
On that redacted SAIC report Gumble speaks of, The BRAD BLOG was finally able to obtain the UNREDACTED version, and it’s even more incredible what happened along the way.
We released the night before the 2006 election right here…
We appropriately described it at the time, as the “Pentagon Papers of E-Voting”.
At some point the physics of electronic signals in conjunction with transparency and public oversight in our elections is going to be proven a grease fire. It will be a SCIENTIFIC FACT.
I can’t blame CharlieL above for adding his suggestion. (at least he’s thinking)
The only way to possibly find out about hidden logic in maliciously doped chips is to destructively reverse engineer it under a microscope. Smashing, but legal slow speed smashing.
Relax CharilieL, pretty soon things will break down in the United States for the oath breakers, as they will have so screwed the pooch and caused the US government to be running into a small problem as our bond market gets vaporized. This country won’t last 10 more years of this mathematically. Voting probably won’t mater then.
Peace. Don’t do it! lol ;o)
Don’t take the “911 SWF Shot”
S = Squalaine
W = with
F = Fucked up stuff
I can’t believe how messed up this stuff has got. How much time and energy it wastes. The people ruined, the dead, the whole arrogant wasteful nonsense. The over reactions. The media . fuck it’s a mess . You know, I really believe, even once we prove this once and for all, it’s going to be side stepped from public oversight by more ways.
#1 Internet Voting
#2 Forced Mail In Voting
#3 Electoral College
Already they are unapproachable from anyone without hell of resources. They do this so they can use time as a weapon. Fee’s, court date’s, fine’s, etc. It delays, where a delay equals … well you get it. a mess with no accountability.
Truthout get’s it. http://www.truthout.org/091709H
Thanks for the link to the Nov. 2006 piece, Brad.
The content and scope of the redacted materials is nothing short of scandalous. Entire segments of the report pertaining to security problems and risk assessments were redacted.
Among the words redacted were:
Then there’s:
and:
As you know, the list goes on and on.
My questions: What was the outcome of all this? Is the system still in place in MD? What became of Linda Lamone? Is Linda Lamone really an aging Linda Tripp after another nose job?
Brad:
I know that BradBlog doesn’t condone, wouldn’t support, wouldn’t endorse, and would totally denounce any violent or physical action that was illegal. There are probably NO reasonable entities that WOULD support such actions.
Such actions would be ILLEGAL if done individually, and CONSPIRACY if they were done with group planning.
That said, I think the single most important aspect of a representative democracy is THAT WE CAN, WHEN WE FINALLY WAKE UP, CHANGE OUR GOVERNMENT.
If elections are not fair, honest, and open, even IF we could overcome the corporate-controlled media and massive structure of lies, WE STILL COULDN’T CHANGE OUR GOVERNMENT.
At that point, there may be no alternative but to turn away from the “reasonable” and towards the more extreme.
Violent civil disobedience WOULD disenfranchise hundreds of millions of people IN THE SHORT TERM, in order to provide FULL and OPEN FRANCHISE to ALL PEOPLE in the long (post-revolutionary) term.
Some decisions aren’t easy. Some moments in history aren’t simple, or without great consequences.
As I said, we can do what needs to be done, or we can keep playing “the game” the way the (corporate-rented) Democrats and the (corporate-owned) Repbublicans want us to.
“If, as Logan said today, he wasn’t trying to push any particular voting system yet, but rather, wishes to hear from the “stake-holders” as the process moves forward, shouldn’t fully-transparent, precinct-based, citizen-counted paper ballots at least be included among the systems examined, considered and tested?”
Sounds familiar to health/care/insurance fight: Obama’s not “pushing” any particular plan — just that single payer’s not to be talked about.