Using often inaccurate characterizations of my position, and the position of those like me who are in favor of amending Rep. Rush Holt’s Election Reform Bill (HR811) to include a ban on Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, often called “touch-screen”) voting systems, my friend Steve Rosenfeld filed an article today at AlterNet titled “Are Voting Machine Purists Standing in the Way of Reform?” which is critical of my position.
The piece is in direct response to an article of mine published at AlterNet several weeks ago on the false arguments being put forward by supporters of Rush Holt’s Election Reform Bill (HR811) — folks like PFAW, Common Cause, MoveOn, etc. — in trying to see the bill passes as is and in opposition to an amendment that would ban dangerous, unverifiable, disenfranchising DRE voting systems.
In the editorial, Rosenfeld, describes folks like me, misleadingly, as “voting machine purists” and inaccurately suggest we have an “all or nothing approach” to Election Reform. Further, he goes on to mischaracterize a number of provisions of the Holt bill, as well as many of the arguments that have been made in favor of banning DREs.
I just spoke with Steve…
He did not speak to me before filing his piece, but rather worked from my original AlterNet piece — adapted, in turn, from an article here at BRAD BLOG — and built his presumptions from there. His presumption, he told me, was that various supporters of the legislation explained to him that “the bill could not pass if it included a DRE ban.” That premise, itself, was examined — and I thought, debunked — by the original article he was responding to. As well, he confirmed that he didn’t hear that argument directly from any Congressional offices who would actually be voting on the bill, but rather, second and third hand from various folks who have been in close touch with Holt’s office and the disinformation campaign they’ve been very actively running in support of the bill.
Simply put, his argument is that folks like me are attempting to derail the Holt Bill (not true, we’ve both worked on its development in support, have detailed many of the very good and much-needed provisions in the bill, and are now attempting to see it amended to help move us closer to true Election Integrity, transparency, and verifiability).
Steve concludes his “Don’t let ‘the perfect’ be the enemy of ‘the good'” argument thusly:
While my longtime girlfriend may be surprised to learn that I’m “Internet-based”, I’ll leave the bulk and the specifics of Steve’s comments for you to assess on your own for the moment. It’s a lengthy and well-meaning (if misguided) response and will, undoubtedly, require a lengthy response in response by me. I hope to find the time to create such a response.
Since I don’t, for the moment, I’ll just underscore my point in referring to Steve as a friend who has worked assiduously in the name of election integrity, particularly along with the good Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman at Columbus Free Press in their exhaustive investigations of the 2004 Ohio election debacle. I don’t believe Steve had a nefarious purpose in writing his piece. I believe he was simply misinformed about both the bill and the political landscape, which leads to him being completely wrong in his conclusions about both.
Beyond that, as Steve was, until recently, the producer of Radio Nation with Laura Flanders on Air America Radio, I might suggest that Laura have both of us on to debate this most important matter live on the air. I believe such an open and direct discussion would be very enlightening for the entire debate.
While I’m at it, and while Congress has been having a series of hearings to discuss the Holt bill, I might suggest that they too have a hearing dedicated to the pluses and minuses (if they can find any) for a DRE ban.
UPDATE: Mark Crispin Miller, author of FOOLED AGAIN: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and How They’ll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them), responds to Rosenfeld’s piece by writing, in part: “While I respect Steve’s point about the frequent need, in politics, for incremental measures, I think that HR 811 could easily do more harm than good. I oppose it only for that reason, and not because it isn’t perfect.” Mark’s full response is here…
DEMAND A BAN ON DRE/TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING!
– Email Congress!
– Call you members!
See www.BradBlog.com/Holt for more details, coverage, talking points & information on all of the above!
Go Brad!!!
A master debater AND a cunning linguist.
What does Mr. Rosenfeld say about all the experts who have hacked into DRE’s in various different ways and at various different points? It didn’t happen?
I’m shocked! You have a longtime girlfriend?
{Comment deleted. Totally off-topic. Do not post entire articles. Especially when they aren’t even close to on topic! Thank you. –BF}
Chamish – Wow that was really, really off topic!!! And long!!! Buy my book! Buy my book! Spam! Arggh.
Brad – (described as) “Friedman, a muckraking journalist…”
Hey, they called you a journalist! Are you going to let them do that? The muckraking part is really redundant with all the muck run amok these days. Any worthy journalist would be a “muckraking” one.
Oh, and Brad, I hope you are not having that nasty “internet-based sex,” I keep hearing about. Next you’ll be having “internet-based,” children after your “internet-based,” marriage.
What a clumsy phrase. It sounds like Whitney Houston freebasing in a chat room.
The debate idea is really on-target. If this issue could truly be debated in front of major audiences, the truth would quickly be shown.
I believe there are way over a dozen razor-sharp critics of DREs that could wallop the heck out of any of those who still cling to this money-soping way of defrauding the public and putting people into office who are not elected. And because of that, unfortunately, we will have a great struggle to get such mainstream media exposure.
You keep up the good fight, Brad – we need you!
Can the debate have a segment for call-in questions? I want Mr. Rosenfeld to explain to me personally why I must use DRE’s 😉
I’ve been rather quiet on this whole issue thinking it might be helpful to try to get people to work together instead of splitting the movement into factions. I even emailed Brad personally about it, but at this point in time seeing what happens — insert any of our present scandals from a phony 911 investigation to the obvious corruption of our judicial system with all the squirming maggots in between — I can’t in good conscience say that any well-meaning backdoor way to accomplish a primary goal will work! I don’t care who’s ego is involved we need straight forward time and money saving solutions NOW.
By directly banning DRE’s the door is left open to get our money back from the bastards who have brought us our present American criminal regime!
It is the perfect time for the bill to be subjected to the amendment process. It is embryonic, as are all bills, at the moment.
It is standard fare for amendments to be proposed by each party this early on in the process.
And I suggest that everyone involved testify before the congressional committees involved. Brad, Bev Harris, Rosenfeld, John Gideon, et. al. should email, call, and or write the committee and offer testimony. It might be good to send along an attachment outlining or explaining the person’s proposed testimony.
Then afterwards do some lobbying while the hearing testimony percolates thru the minds of the committee members.
Hey Brad, have you put up a copy of THE AMENDMENT so we can all sign it?
It’d be like signing number 1 of the New American 10 COMMANDMENTS!!!!!!
FIRST COMMANDMENT:
THOU SHALT NOT STEAL ANOTHER ELECTION MFers!
Hey Dredd, doncha think that we the people should all start callin in to demand they get to TESTIFY???????
How bout it folks????????
The “All or Nothing Approach”
On its face, this “all or nothing” approach/attack that Steve Rosenfeld is making is seemingly reasonable, slightly effective even.
That is, until you realize that we are dealing with the most important rights that BOTH the individual citizen can have (the right to vote, which protects all other rights) as well as the most important democratic right we all have (the right to have that vote counted properly and tabulated properly on a one person/one vote basis).
Rights, ahem, are “all or nothing” things. It is illegal and unconstitutional to even “BURDEN” those rights, absent narrow and compelling circumstances.
Steve Rosenfeld’s argument proceeds from the statement that (paraphrasing) says “well, we’ve already got all these billions in machines in place so, we’ll just have to tolerate secret vote counting on DREs and opscans, but if we look at an election result and it seems wrong we’ll have no problem assembling a million dollar dream team of lawyers statisticians and computer experts to evaluate the election and its audit, then file suit or application for a full recount and pay those fees too…..” (not his words, but mine, given the playful liberties Steve took with the position of other activists, the above placing words-in-mouth is fair, IMHO.)
The Holt bill, which I actually do oppose in any event and no matter what, keeps the first counts secret and leaves any corrections, if any, to post-election audits and recounts. As a lawyer and dare I say emerging expert in post-election litigation, I stand to make TONS of money if only this kind of election disputing got a little more popular with candidates. But, as we know, almost all candidates easily and soon concede within 24-48 hours of the election.
So, after conceding the secret hackable counts that nobody can see on opscans and DREs, we are behind the EIGHT BALL in an extremely serious way:
1. We have conceding candidates in high %’s of districts.
2. We have legal expenses that are huge that we wouldn’t have if we had the sense to insist on protecting THE FIRST COUNT
3. We have computer expert expenses we wouldn’t have if we had the sense to insist on protecting THE FIRST COUNT
4. We have statistician expenses we wouldn’t have if we had the sense to insist on protecting THE FIRST COUNT
5. We have extremely short timelines and statutes of limitation,
6. We have elections officials, whether innocent (mostly) or corrupt (some), who, the last thing they want is lawyers and citizens “misunderstanding” “spinning” or discovering their mistakes and in any case putting the officials in the biggest media or internet fishbowl the citizens can find. THEREFORE, all elections officials tend to be slow in producing information and doing what they should, and have the semi-plausible deniability of “lots to do.”
7. We have the “sore loser” moniker in the media, if we are challenging anything.
8. CAndidates and their staff have already scheduled well deserved vacations starting 3 days after the election, and are exhausted and usually in debt or without money when the real battle is just starting, regarding the post-election audit or recount.
9. All of these burdens and expenses would not exist if we would have had the sense to insist on protecting THE FIRST COUNT, and rejecting garbage like Holt II that gives EVERYTHING to the secret counters and nothing to the citizens, except ILLUSIONS and EXPENSES.
Vindicating your right to vote and have that vote counted, will get a lot more expensive and unlikely via Holt institutionalizing secret first counts and post-election Illusions in place of first count checks and balances.
Because rights are really “all or nothing” type things for the most part, especially “inalienable” rights, we all need to have a gut check here.
If we keep our eyes on Congressional “realities” whereby this institution, fully 60% of the public believes is actively corrupt and accepting bribes, insists that the only realistic thing for the public to expect from congress is for congress to vote for Holt, and thus ratify that it’s their own re-elections for each congressional seat will be conducted under corrupt conditions of electronic trade secrecy. ANything less than first count secrecy is a non-starter, and we are supposed to cooperate in praising the emperor’s clothes on this.
On the other hand, we could take a rights approach, and KEEP OUR EYES ON THE PRIZE of those rights, instead of on bullshit statements about “realism” the source of which can not be traced. Our eyes on the prize, we realize that secret vote counting is “transparently” corrupt no matter when or where it occurs, and even if George and Martha Washington are doing it. Opscans count in secret too, it’s like watching a photocopier and thinking you can count filled in ovals at 60 page per minute scanning, if you think otherwise.
Thus, it is not a desire to derail a bill, or a lack of realism, or any other such cause that impels us to separate from Congressional Holt momentum and to declare the reasons for this separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that people are born with certain inalienable rights involving their liberty interests, and if “the right that protects all other rights” is not one of these inalienable rights, then nothing is safe OR inalienable.
Holt is not opposed for light or transient reasons. Rather, the right to vote purchased literally with the blood of thousands, is NOT going to be dropped into a black box where it is NEVER seen again (touch screens / DREs) nor is it going to be sent through a optical scan computer-machines secret first count where there is perhaps a 1% to 3% chance that truth will ever be known by any human being or combination of human beings (including election officals), much less being known by the entire public.
Over. My. Dead. Body. I’m taking rights my seriously. Yours too. Shouldn’t we all?
I’m asking, and I will risk annoying my friends to do this, that everyone consider this from a rights perspective. I submit we have no right to compromise or seek the compromise of our neighbor’s rights or the rights of future elections or future generations. There is no more compromise on fundamental rights than there is to only be tortured on weekends, but not 7 days a week. In other words, the compromise IS the violation of those rights.
As an advocate for the rights of democracy, let me say that the water is warm, we have the entire American history behind us, that every successful major movement from women’s suffrage to civil rights has used the Declaration of Indepence and inalienable rights as their foundation, and that anybody who supports or tolerates burdening and making voting rights entirely dubious by counting those votes in secret thereby removes themselves from the democracy tent, even though the democracy tent is no large it has room for 100 or more political parties.
No American can really look squarely at Holt’s secret first counts and support it, even if audits were beefed up, it doesn’t pass muster. I’d like to see Cong. Holt or any other Holt supporter pry away the ballot from any suffragette that worked their whole life for the right to vote, and then tell them their choices was (1) have the ballot filled out for them and counted secretly, under touch screens, via the “Help” America vote act, OR (2) fill out the paper ballot themselves and have the ballot counted secretly on an “optical scan” machine via the “Help” America Vote Act.
Wouldn’t be surprised to see the above suffragette say “Get the heck away from me, or I WILL SHOOT! I don’t need your “Help” for me to vote and America doesn’t either!!”
Our rights are not negotiable, our Constitution is not negotiable (only amendable thru extremely open, public process). Is it somehow extreme to insist on and think about rights of voting in the voting rights movement, or are we all messed up in the head???
I’m with you Ancient! Post#12.
Thanks for all you do, Mr. Lehto!
Thanks to Brad every day!
FL-24
Important meetings happening in WASH DC with Clint Curtis, Marty Ward and Lauren Hallahan. This just in:
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We had one appointment scheduled on Monday with Hilary Shelton Director of the NAACP Washington Bureau. After listening carefully to the results of our Walking for Democracy and Clint’s recommendations for effective Election Reform, he gave us people to contact that he felt should hear about the work we are doing and Clint’s ideas on reform. He asked Clint to create a “White Paper” on Volusia County describing the ways in which the county made it harder for voters to get to the polls.
If you have any information on Volusia or any other county, please let me know.
Following that meeting we went to the Hill to see what just might unfold. Often on the Hill, as in life, it takes persistence and being in the right place at the right time to get things to happen. We went to Congressman Kucinich’s office first. Perfect timing -He just happened to pop out of his office at that moment. After introducing us to his legislative assistant in charge of Election Reform, he asked us to walk down the hall with him. He discussed the possibility of having Clint testify at upcoming hearing about how easy it is to manipulate the vote and what is needed for reform.
Next, we followed up on Hilary Shelton’s suggestion to connect with Keenan Keller, Senior Counsel for the Committee on the Judiciary with John Conyers. Perfect timing ““ He was available. He was very impressed with the hard data we have gathered with Walking for Democracy. He and Clint discussed ways to effect election reform.
After meeting with Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee and John Conyers staff to schedule future appointments, the day was over on the Hill. The Clint Curtis Weight Loss Program continued with a long walk to the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Memorial. We touched base with history and reminders of why we are fighting so hard for the rights of each American.
Tuesday morning we met with Eddie Hailes, senior attorney of the Advancement Project and Jon Greenbaum, Director of Voting Rights Project Lawyers Committee of Civil Rights Under Law. They also were impressed with our data from Walking for Democracy and the dedication of our volunteers.
A “White Paper” was requested from them as well so any information on voter intimidation or voting irregularities, absentee ballots not being mailed or being destroyed, please let me know.
Back on the Hill, we met with Ellen McLearn, legislative aid for Robert Wexler. We had a very constructive meeting and each shared suggestions and the frustration of getting the Florida Election Reform initiative through the legislature with the proper amendments. Lastly, we spoke with Michelle Mulder , Counsel for Rush Holt. Over the past two years she has worked very hard to design a bill with the input of Election Reform leaders and activists across the country. Clint discussed all the innuendos in the wording that gives the computer programmer the wiggle room to hijack the election. We met her at various events over the week and are in touch with how the bill is moving along.
Wednesday began with a meeting with Stephanie Tubbs-Jones Chief of Staff, Patrice Willoughby, who took notes on suggestions Clint made on the Holt Bill. The Congresswoman has joined U.S. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in a comprehensive voting reform legislation to make sure that every American is able to vote and every vote is counted. Going with the flow, we asked to be allowed to go to the Voting Forum only open to Congress and their staff where vendors displayed their newest and greatest Voting Machines. After Ms Willoughby escorted us through the gauntlet of vendors, Clint took the opportunity to explain the ways in which each machine could be hacked. Many had “toilet paper rolls” attached directly to the tabulator machine that can be heated up and thus erased, rolled back, blacked out and rewritten; others were connected to the Internet or phone line ““ always a safe and secure places to transmit information…(wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)
Adam Abrogi, Counsel Committee on Rules and Administration for Diane Feinstein, was very interested in our data and ways in which Clint saw that the bills could actually make it through the Senate.
Later that day we went to a hearing on Election Reform. The panel gave a wide range of perspectives from “all is great don’t touch anything” from the SOE of Georgia ( just ask Max Cleland how he felt about the way the Georgia voting machines tallied in 02″¦..) to Matt Zimmerman of The Election Frontier Foundation who wants complete transparency of elections. We were glad that we had spoken with many of the Congressional offices that were present at the hearing so that they knew the reality of the hard evidence of Walking for Democracy and Clint’s computer programmer’s perspective of what is needed to protect our vote.
Friday, Lauren and I had a great time sitting three rows behind Valarie Plame at the House Committee on Oversite and Government Reform hearing held by Congressman Henry Waxman. He lived up to his reputation as “Bull Dog Waxman”. We had fun at lunch with Wayne Madsen, http://www.WayneMadsenReport.com , who was instrumental to getting Clint’s story out there and in the BLOGS. Amazing how Clint has gone from conspiracy theorist to mainstream thanks to everyone’s hard work and dedication from BLOGGING to Walking to contributing.
Clint and I will be returning to Washington for final meetings on the Hill and to go to the PDA Grassroots Leadership Conference this weekend to ready for the launch of Clint Curtis for Congress Campaign 2008 .
ACTION
Contributions to support Walking for Democracy (as we are now into the Discovery phase with trips to Washington) at http://www.clintcurtis.com would be most appreciated.
It will cost $2000 per County to do Discovery and we would like to do two Counties.
This reminds me of a Florida judge’s ruling that the people there didn’t have a right to a perfect voting system.
Why not?
If your bank told you a line like that, you wouldn’t keep banking there unless you had the brains of a soda cracker.
On AlterNet I post as “diogenes”, because they seem to require that posters hide behind a “user name”, unlike BBV or here on BradBlog, where use of our real names is encouraged. This is a good thing and I wish it were the standard practice at all sites that accept comments because it forces you to examine your comments with a very critical eye. That said, we must step up our opposition to Holt’s ‘son of HAVA’, HR 811, otherwise people who, if they knew the true danger of this bill might think that it’s harmless so go ahead and approve it. If this happens, the alacrity of the Republicans to sign this treason into law will be astounding, and only then will we know that once again we fell for it. So it is our patriotic duty to make sure this monstrosity is aborted. Keep up the good fight.
Brad is right on the money here: DREs must go. Just because they are in place is meaningless. Yeah 3.8 billion was wasted on HAVA (or well spent if you are a Republican criminal who wants to steal elections), but 3.8 billion is wasted every two weeks on the Iraq mass murder campaign. Unless we vote the scum out, disinfect their offices, and place actually elected reps in their place ASAP (as in 2008), the jig is up. We will be full out fascist dictatorship in no time. We already are with the Enabling Act, sorry, the Military Commissions Act, it’s just that the mechanisms of total police state just haven’t been USED yet.
Why not standardize the country’s elections with one system that is known to be the cheapest, most accurate, most easily recountable, most quickly implementable and most SECURE BY FAR — Paper Ballots, Hand Counted.
Say it with me boys and girls:
Paper Ballots, Hand Counted.
Paper Ballots, Hand Counted.
Paper Ballots, Hand Counted.
We don’t need no stinking HAVA, or HR811, for that matter.
When I hear the argument that we must use DREs because we have them, or that a “big” change to paper ballots hand counted wouldn’t get buy-in from the voters, I think back to 20 years ago in my community when people were sure that recycling “wouldn’t work” because people wouldn’t participate. Within six months of it being instituted on a partial basis, people were participating as if they had been the whole of their lives.
It is time to remove the election theft operation fully and completely from our “democracy.” Don’t take “can’t do it,” “we’ll do it later,” or any other crap you hear from apologists. Without fair accurate elections (our present condition), America is a banana republic dictatorship — and a menace to the planet.
Yesterday I heard that Holt now requires text conversion technology that would ultimately cost……..get ready……$4 billion. Son of HAVA indeed!
Add to that consolidation of Executive power through the newly strengthened EAC and control over Federal elections, and this Holt bill becomes dangerous to everything we (and the founding fathers) have ever fought for.
Do we want to see the worse-than-useless EAC ensconced forever and peopled directly by the White House?