Guest Blogged by John Gideon
“American citizens once took for granted that every vote mattered, but no longer. It is time that we, the elected state officials, work to restore American’s confidence in our electoral systems and undertake reform that moves to eliminate skepticism and uncertainty.” — NM Governor Bill Richardson’s 3/1/06 Letter “To the State Officials of the 50 United States of America” (Posted in full below)Today Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico made a powerful statement to officials in all states (see full letter below) as he announced that tomorrow he would be signing legislation that would require the state of New Mexico to go to a paper ballot based voting system. No longer will the state use Sequoia DRE (touch-screen) voting machines…the machines that reported large numbers of undervotes in previous elections…The same machines that disenfranchised minority voters…The technology Richardson describes as “simply fail[ing] to pass the test of reliability” in his open letter published today.
The Governor has also announced that the bill’s signing ceremony will be webcast. The announcement says:
www.billrichardson2006.com/reform/paperballots
Please watch the webcast, take a moment to look at the Governor’s proposals, and sign the petition to get your state, and the rest of America, to make every vote count
This all sounds wonderful, except???opponents of the legislation managed to get the legislation amended so that voting systems “owned or used” as of 1 May 2006 that do not use paper ballots can continue to be used until, among other things, debt on purchases of those machines are paid by the state. Then, the bill that appropriated funds to pay off the debt died in committee. Now the state needs to find the money to pay off the debt.
UPDATE 3/3/06: Signing ceremony video and petition calling on all states to join NM now here.
The complete letter from Gov. Richardson of New Mexico follows…
Dear Colleagues,
The hallmark of American democracy is one person, one vote.
The reason refugees and immigrants, students and professionals from around the world continue to flock toward our shores is because we fundamentally believe in the worth of each person. We believe “all men and all women are created equal.” We believe that regardless of gender, race, class or creed ? all voices deserve respect; all voices deserve to be heard. And when it comes to elections, all votes deserve to be counted.
But is our democracy, is our hallmark principle of one person, one vote, on solid ground?
Recent elections would suggest that democracy, the greatest system of government in the world, can be broken. As the world witnessed in 2000, the sanctity of the ballot box and the integrity of our government are vulnerable. The people of the United States lost faith in the electoral process, and the covenant between citizens and elected officials deteriorated. Those national officials scrambled to pass legislation to restore voter confidence, but in 2004, inaccurate exit polls raised further doubts about electronic voting machines without a verifiable paper record.
In New Mexico, a coalition of concerned citizens demanded action. Working together with these citizens and the state legislature, I signed several laws which guarantee that every ballot is counted. New Mexico improved and standardized training for poll workers. We established statewide standards for provisional ballots to ensure that voters in low-income areas will not disenfranchised. We made absentee voting fair, simple, and uniform.
And we took one more critical step to ensure one person, one vote.
On March 2, 2006, I will sign a bill that will transition New Mexico to an all paper-ballot system using optical scanners to count the vote. Paper ballots are the least expensive, most secure form of voting available. Having marked their votes with pen and paper, voters will walk out of the booth and know their voices have been heard. Optical scanners will quickly and accurately provide results, while in the event of a recount the ballots themselves will be a permanent, verifiable record of the people’s directions to their government.
Some believe that computer touch screen machines are the future of electoral systems, but the technology simply fails to pass the test of reliability. As anyone who uses one can attest, computers break down, get viruses, lose information, and corrupt data. We know this to be the case, and so we back-up our files to ensure nothing important is lost. Paper ballots serve as the ultimate back-up for our elections, providing secure and permanent verification of the will of the people.
New Mexico has chosen paper ballots as the best system to secure our election process. With the new system in place, future elections will be secure, honest, and verifiable. Every vote will count and the citizens of our state will know that their government belongs to them.
One person, one vote is in jeopardy if we do not act boldly and immediately. American citizens once took for granted that every vote mattered, but no longer. It is time that we, the elected state officials, work to restore American’s confidence in our electoral systems and undertake reform that moves to eliminate skepticism and uncertainty.
When a vote is cast, a vote should be counted. With paper ballots we will have a record. With paper ballots the fundamental principle of one person, one vote is safe.
Sincerely,
Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico
Kudos to him. Let’s thank him!
Thanks Bill for taking a step to preserve hope of restoring democracy in America. Do you think t heres’s any chance JEB will follow suit? You rock! John Bragg
Al Gore’s daughter was interviewed on CN8 Nitebeat this evening, promoting her new book "Lighting the Way". She is a knowledgable and eloquently spoken individual.
Possible "must read".
Wasn’t New Mexico just as rotten as Ohio and Florida in 2004? Is Richardson just cleaning up his act so his tricks don’t affect his own election?
Yes Richardson is in on it with the DLC, but this is an election year so we need everyone to pander and "be in on it" to see election reform! 😉
Anyway John it is good news. Now the report from Ciber was extremely sloppy, they said nothing could actually PREVENT the hacking but they did assure everyone that proper oversight in the offices would safeguard it.
WTF? I’m sorry, but we can’t afford some "2 step" process of security. That will allow the neocons to steal all the votes and take over with their corporate rethugs and DLC stooges….NO WAY.
This war just went into overdrive….I’m going after Diebold in Utah, and we are going to GET THAT COMPANY Ciber and Wyle, especially Cyber to explain themselves in California.
Doug E.
Better late than never.
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**’Expose Tom Feeney’**
"SUPPORT CLINT CURTIS!"
__www.clintcurtis.com__
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Good letter Governor.
For the rest of the governors who received the letter, take heed!
Paper ballots does not solve the problem. They are counted by optiscan machines. The "hack" demonstration in Leon County was on an optiscan.
And the most important thing with ballot scanners is to have random manual audits of the vote counts.
That will mitigate the threat as much as possible…..even if its florida.
Doug
There is NO REASON to use machines to "count votes".. Gimme a break. Our democracy isn’t worth having some people spend a few hours counting ballots?
WTF is wrong with people? There is NO reason we can’t have a 100% ‘non-electronic’ voting system in place in this country. Have we become SO lazy as a nation, SO dependant on ‘machines’ already, in our disposable gluttunous lives, that we can’t HAND COUNT VOTES?
My god.. what a joke..
All government officials need to pass laws that allow EVERYONE to have at least ONE day to go vote, and have voting last several days (for State and National level elections). That is, set asside 3 days to vote (for example), and make sure employers give ALL their employees at least one of those days off to go vote. Don’t make people chose between "pissing off their boss and voting" or "giving up their right to vote to keep their job".. Pass laws that force local programming systems (or fund their own channel for the day) to air the voting and ballot counting. Keep it ALL out in the open, all the time, for -every- election. Let the people watch and see what’s going on. NO vote should EVER be counted behind closed doors, EVER!
To this article, it’s great that they want to have "paper voting", but what about counting? and what about this bullshit of "locking in bad machines indefinately"? Where does money come from to buy these machines in the first place? Isn’t that "state level" anyway? Don’t the boards have funds from the State to buy equipment with? If so, how is there "debt" on these machines that isn’t already the State’s debt?
What we’re seeing here is typical politics.. Agree on one hand, then fuck it up with the other. These electronic machines will sit indefinately until enough "pro-true voting" people manage to get elected and push out the criminals. And believe me, anyone supporting hackable and innacurate voting systems is up to no good. Only a moron can’t see how screwed up these machines are (after seeing the evidence). Given that most elected officals are probably not retarded (in the literal sense), they must be up to no good to keep using these BAD MACHINES.
time to protect your country..not your political party..!!
>>>There is NO REASON to use machines to "count votes".. Gimme a break. Our democracy isn’t worth having some people spend a few hours counting ballots?
I totally agree, but it’s a lot quicker & easier than you realize.
In Canada all ballots are counted by hand in each polling place, totals posted & sent upstream for accumulation. Their results were available 45 minutes after close of polls. By counting at the polls, you have lots of parallelism & lots of chances for public oversight.
Savanster,
Of course there is no reason to count the votes with it. Everyone who owns a computer knows this fact.
However, states are being left with little to no choice in order to receive federal funds. I just found this out in Utah as well, so if they do have to get machines for more accurate "counts" and for the disabled, they better be scanners.
I sure as heck don’t want them to be Diebold scanners however, if these threats really can’t be secured.
They need to be ANY other company, and that is going to take us bringing them into court more specifically, it will take putting the ITA examiners under oath. So flood the Senate Rules Committee of California, and continue to pass the word….we have a war of attrition to win.
Doug E.
Wish we had paper ballots in cal-ee-forn-ee-ah
Diebold has been certified to had the gop our state
That best i can do is to vote absentee and keep a copy
This all sounds wonderful, except………opponents of the legislation managed to get the legislation amended so that voting systems "owned or used" as of 1 May 2006 that do not use paper ballots can continue to be used until, among other things, debt on purchases of those machines are paid by the state. Then, the bill that appropriated funds to pay off the debt died in committee. Now the state needs to find the money to pay off the debt.
By John Gideon, votersUnite and VoteTrustUSA
March 01, 2006
But How Long Will It Take To Come Into Effect? found on http://www.votetrustusa.org/
So . . . How much is it going to coast? Could the Democratic Party in New Mexico lead a fund-raising campaign to "buy out" the machines that are being grandfathered into continued use because of the funding amendment? If not them, could a national body do that?
This is a huge victory here in NM. The machines will all be Automark op-scans and there is a mandatory random audit requirement to pick up any hanky panky. If it’s found a recount using the paper ballots as the official votes will happen.
Yes, we got into trouble with some of the money but Richardson has already gotten an appropriation of $11 million passed and the feds kick in about $9 mil I think. He has pledged to do everything in his power to get the rest, and it was Richardson who was pushing a requirement that the new system be in place by the 2006 elections. The problem is some counties had already purchased DREs, some so recently that they are still not paid for.
Richardson worked closely with election reform activists here to get this bill drafted and passed. And one of our best progressive state senators, Linda Lopez, worked like a dog to get it done, along with our house speaker and others.
This is a win, believe it!
Doug E #5
If you understood the power structure of congress, which you continue to refuse to grasp, you would blame those in power, not those being abused by that power.
"The provision is one of a handful that neither the House nor the Senate has voted on but that Republican lawmakers crafted during closed-door negotiations last year after Democrats had been excluded from the talks" (link here).
Congress is set up like the Administration … ONE PARTY rule. The mythological two party system and even the multi-party system is a concept that applies only to campaigns. Elections contemplate two or more parties, however, the governing, once elections are over, contemplates only a ONE PARTY SYSTEM.
Ask yourself "how many democrats, independents, greens, libertarians, or other political parties, chair committees in the senate or in the house?".
Then tell yourself the truth, and say "ZERO".
Then ask yourself why campaigns are multi-party, but government is a one party system.
Then tell yourself the truth, and say "because the existing congressional rules, which are law, make it that way":
"The chair of each committee and a majority of its members represent the majority party. The chair primarily controls a committee’s business" (link here).
The majority party is not plural, it is singular. ONE PARTY governs and any other parties are the victims.
That is the way the law is now. It should be changed by a constitutional amendment in the years ahead (not this year), to allow pro-rata chairs of committees, and the membership of each committee should be pro-rata.
That way congress will work like Americans think … let everyone be heard … and let everyone vote on it.
So long as we continue to blame the victims (independents, democrats, greens, libertarians, and the people) the majority republican party will continue its dictatorship via the one party government system.
Dredd,
You again fail to see that the corrupt democrats also enable them.
And certain states aren’t setup that way at all, which in fact means once we roll instant-runoff voting into law, neither party will ever have a lock on any seat again.
Independents will hit nationwide.
Doug
Doug #18
No I do not.
You fail to explain how, in a ONE PARTY governance after the election is over, how the victim "enables".
What enables is the fascist underpinnings in the legal structure of congress.
The ONE PARTY majority gets all committee chairs, all majority votes in all committees, and full control.
Your senseless accusations would equate to blaming someone in the back seat for what the driver is doing.
Really, really senseless, and devoid of an understanding of congressional structure.
Interesting discussion – but the optical scanners stink too.
Vote-PAD, and people who passed first grade math class. It’s what we need.
Dan
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