The Saturday before last I was interviewed on Air America’s Ring of Fire with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio concerning my call for the Election Reform Bill (HR811) by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) to be amended to include a full ban on Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems.
The interview was pre-taped, and an edited-for-time version was aired. The complete, unedited version of that 15 minute interview, along with a text-transcript is now posted here.
This past Saturday, Ralph Neas, the president of People for the American Way (PFAW), one of the groups supporting the Holt Bill as is, and fighting against a ban on DRE voting systems, was interviewed on Ring of Fire. I had been critical of PFAW’s unwaivering support of the bill during my interview the week before (as I have been in many articles here and elsewhere), so Bobby Kennedy asked Neas, a number of times, to answer directly to some of my criticisms.
The audio of that interview as well as a text-transcript, is also now posted here.
Now before I get to a huge number of concerns about the Neas interview and what I see as the dangerous PFAW position, and not to stack the deck (but I will anyway), Papantonio concluded his interview with me as follows, which I then promised to quote on the blog, so here it is…
BRAD: Yeah…
PAPANTONIO: I have followed your career, and I followed you on these issues, from day one almost. I am involved in litigation as you know. If I’m betting on anybody to be right, it’s you. Now what I want you to do is let your people know that. Somehow — your blog is incredible, I think it’s the most incredible blog out there on this issue — let ’em know that people that are actually involved in the litigation, that we think you’re right. We think you’re right.
There is no way…it is meaningless to create a “paper trail” if the “paper trail” can’t be recovered inside the machine, inside the mechanism and we can’t see something that’s left a mark, if it has not left a mark in that machine, forget it. It’s GOP thuggery politics as usual.
Brad, I want to thank you for joining us as usual…Ya know, every time I talk to you, you have the information. My bet is on you on this one. Thanks a lot.
BRAD: Thank you, brother. I’ll quote ya on the blog.
PAPANTONIO: Alright, appreciate it.
With that promise kept, on to the extraordinarily troubling Neas interview.
First, let me be clear: While I appreciate Neas and PFAW’s advocacy for Election Reform in America, the bottom line is that they are drop dead wrong on the issue of whether we should allow dangerous, disenfranchising DREs for use in our electoral system.
So are the other large public-advocacy groups who are marching behind PFAW on this, including Common Cause, MoveOn, VoteTrustUSA and others.
That PFAW is actually advocating in favor of DRE use in our electoral system — as you’ll see in Neas’ interview — is simply astounding and beyond my capacity, thus far, to understand. But I have tried.
I have worked long and hard, quietly in the background, with people from all of the above named groups in hopes of finding common ground. I don’t like public rifts between “the good guys”, which I consider all of those folks to be, especially since such a fight only tends to serve the true bad guys in this fight (voting machines companies, elections officials who won’t admit they screwed up by buying into the voting machine company lies, etc.). But I have been unsuccessful. All of those groups named above are still sticking with Holt, it seems, come hell, highwater, scientific evidence, reasoned argument, common sense and even against what most of them actually know to be the right thing.
I’ve had a number of lengthy telephone and email conversations with both Neas and their lead election policy attorney, David Becker, as well as others at PFAW on this matter, in order to try and find out why they continue to support a technology which mountains of scientific evidence has shown to be an unmitigatable menace to democracy. In all such conversations with them, productive and cordial as they were, they have time and again failed to offer any actual science or empirical study to back up their position. They’ve offered little more than anecdotal evidence, at best, to support their continued assertions that “DREs better serve the blind, disabled and language minority communities.”
Further, in Neas’ RoF interview last Saturday, he actually indicated that he might like to see Los Angeles (where I live!) convert from our current paper-based ballot system to an all-DRE system!
To say the least, I’m greatly troubled by that.
I’m further troubled by the fact that Neas also, whether purposely or not (I know that Holt’s office has been putting out a great deal of misinformation about their bill, and yes, I can prove it) misrepresented a number of the provisions of the Holt bill on national radio. Big time.
Though I admit to being wholly stymied by PFAW’s continued, unsupportable position — even while other groups who once supported DREs have since had the courage and common-sense to change their tune after seeing the dangers and failures of DREs first hand, as thousands, if not millions, were disenfranchised by these god-forsaken machines during the 2006 election cycle — I will not suggest any nefarious intentions behind PFAW’s support of the Holt bill as written. Namely, because I have no evidence to support any such nefarious intentions behind their support, and I only report what I can actually prove.
I presume that PFAW honestly believes in what they are advocating, despite the complete lack of demonstrable evidence to back up their position, and despite my best efforts to supply them with a mountain of actual evidence to show that they are simply wrong.
Unfortunately, PFAW has the big guns on Capitol Hill, the access, the mailing-list numbers, the regular access to the mainstream media and a multi-million dollar budget to make it all happen. I’ve got me, a blog where I’m forced to beg for small donations when I can (like that), a bunch of tireless fellow rag-tag citizen patriots around the country on my side and fighting like hell-fire for Election Integrity any way that they can and, in this case, we happen to have the facts and the truth on our side.
Let’s hope that will eventually win the day.
But first, before I get really tough on PFAW here — as this is damned dangerous stuff which I see them as recklessly advocating for — the niceties…
THE NICETIES…
“Bobby Kennedy Jr., Brad Friedman and Ralph Neas all agree on this part: comprehensive election reform is the top legislative priority facing the country right now,” Neas said near the top of last weekend’s interview. I both agree with him, and appreciate his sentiments there.
Later, Bobby then went on to ask Neas directly about a number of the points about which I’ve been critical of both the Holt Bill and PFAW’s support thereof.
(DISCLOSURE: I will again point out that I had a hand in helping Holt’s office write the legislation, as they kindly allowed me the opportunity to review drafts, give feedback, suggest language changes and the additions of key new provisions. Many of those suggestions and provisions were included in the final bill, though not all of them — including my persistent urging that they add language which would ban DRE systems from use.)
“Bobby, very importantly, I’m a fan of Brad Friedman,” Neas responded after he was asked directly about my concerns. “I think he’s a patriotic American. I think he really is committed to providing accessible, secure voting systems and we’ve talked to him for hours, Bobby, and they’re always good conversations.”
Again, I thank Neas for the comments, and assure you that I too appreciate his hard work in favor of Election Reform. I have extremely supportive on these pages, over the last several months, of PFAW’s work on the FL-13 Jennings/Buchanan election contest, for example. I will, of course, continue to support their work there and wherever else it merits such support.
During the Neas interview, Bobby characterized me as “one of the Paul Reveres” of the Election Integrity movement, which I certainly appreciate as well.
And with that now out of the way…
NEAS’ FIRST INACCURACY: “The Holt bill provides for paper ballots”
With all of those niceties, out of the way then…Neas goes on to say, when asked by Bobby to describe some of my concerns about the Holt bill as drafted, that I “would argue that paper trails are different than paper ballots and [that] this bill doesn’t truly require paper ballots.”
The “Holt bill provides for paper ballots,” Neas asserted earlier in the interview, adding later that those paper ballots, “whether optical-scan or DRE, they’re treated the same way under the Holt bill”
No. They’re not. Though the Holt bill, in this latest iteration, describes all paper records as “paper ballots”, it does not require that all of those “paper ballots” actually be paper ballots.
True paper ballots are actually tabulated — either by optical-scan or hand. But they are tabulated.
DRE paper trail records, however — which the Holt bill misleadingly refers to as “paper ballots” — will never actually be tabulated by anybody or any thing on Election Night as the bill is currently written. And only a tiny minority (usually 3%) will ever be tabulated by anybody or any thing — and that will only be days after the Election is already over — in an audit process.
As well, there was a provision slipped into the Holt bill in the final draft that would allow 0% of DRE paper trails to ever be counted by anybody or any thing in cases where a race was close enough to trigger an automatic state-mandated recount. In other words, precisely when such an audit might be needed the most (and I’d argue it’s always needed if ballots are to be counted by notoriously inaccurate optical-scan machines) no manual audit of any paper record, ballot or trail, need ever be done, according to Holt.
Neas again, in indented text:
“Either under the opti-scan or DRE, they both produce paper ballots…”
Simply untrue. Unless you mean that a “ballot” in an American election is something which will most likely never actually be tabulated by anybody or any thing.
“…They are both fed into the software…”
Absolutely untrue. While a paper ballot might be scanned by an optical-scan machine, or otherwise counted by hand, a paper trail produced by a DRE is not “fed into the software”. It is never counted at all. Instead, the results of the election are taken from an internal, invisible machine count of an electronic representation of the voters selections which are never verified by the human voter.
PLEASE NOTE: It is simply impossible for any human being to verify an electronic ballot as tabulated inside a DRE system.
“…under the Holt bill, the voter has an opportunity to verify it, number one…”
Wrong again. As mentioned, an electronic ballot on a DRE can never be verified by the voter or any other human being (not even Superman). The only thing they can verify on a DRE is a paper trail. One that is not used for tabulation of election results and which, as studies such as those done by MIT and others, have revealed that most voters do not even bother to verify.
“…and number two, if there’s an audit, then the audit has to look at the paper ballot…”
Note his “if”. He’s correct, if there’s an audit, the audit will look at a tiny portion of the paper trails or the paper ballots, whichever one exists. However, they will never look at more than 10% of those trails or records and in most cases 97% of them will go completely unaudited. Worse, in some cases, as mentioned above, 100% of them will go unaudited and perhaps even uncounted in the first place by anybody or any thing.
“BRAD WANTS TO BAN TOUCH-SCREENS” — No he doesn’t.
Bobby then says (not wholly accurately, but he may not know better) that “Brad wants to ban touch-screens.”
Neas, who certainly should know better, then agrees, and discusses the “scores of disabilities organizations and language minority groups” who PFAW works with, in order to suggest that such groups favor DREs either because of their accessibility for disabled voters, or the ability to provide ballots in different languages.
Setting aside that, as it turns out, paper ballots are also now printable in every language, the sleight-of-hand that Neas accomplished in agreeing that I wish to “ban touch-screens” is no small semantic point.
By suggesting that “touch-screens” are the same as DREs in this context, and are either needed or preferred by disabled and language minority voting advocates as he named above, he has avoided the very linchpin of this debate. And it’s no small linchpin.
TO CLARIFY (and please read this carefully!): A DRE, by its definition, directly records the voters selections internally, inside the computer, onto computer memory, without allowing the voter to verify it. A DRE often uses a touch-screen interface. However, some touch-screen systems like the AutoMARK — which are perfectly acceptable for disabilities voters who wish to use them — are merely ballot marking devices or electronic ballot printer/markers with a touch-screen interface. They do not tabulate the vote or create an unverifiable record of the vote as DREs do. They simply assist a disabled voter and print out a ballot with their selections to be verified by the voter, and then counted by another means, such as op-scan or hand count.
If Neas and PFAW and the groups he says they work with truly want accessible, verifiable voting interfaces for such voters, a system which has a touch-screen interface, but does not dangerously tabulate unverified and unverifiable votes, is perfectly fine for optional use by such voters.
Neas then goes on to repeat the old “disabilities and language minorities” canard, about which I’ve written and spoken many times — including to Neas himself in a lengthy phone call with him and several other PFAW folks a little over a week or so ago.
He says:
“The people who have been on the ground, for decades, working with these machines, prefer the DREs if they represent the disabilities organizations or the language minority organizations.”
Wrong. Those groups who “prefer the DREs” are either misinformed about them, and unaware that there are alternative ballot marking devices available (such as I’ve described above) which provide the same accessible interface, but do not pose the same unacceptable risks as DREs, or — like the National Federation for the Blind (NFB) and the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) — they have received money from the voting machine companies themselves and are therefore, wholly compromised in this debate and should not be a part of it. (NFB has received $1 million from Diebold, and Jim Dickson, who frequently testifies to Congress and has extraordinary access on behalf of AAPD has taken at least $16,000 from voting machine companies, according to the NY Times…Both groups have been fiercely advocating for them ever since, and Dickson has gone as far as to insist, for years, that all voters must use DRE systems without even “paper trails” on them!)
Many of the folks who haven’t taken money from the voting machine companies, like blind technology expert Noel Runyan who, I’m now told will thankfully now be testifying before a Congressional hearing this Friday, have called for “an immediate ban” on the use of DRE systems. He has led the way with advocates from the community, in an attempt to counter the NFB and AAPD garbage, and has said that the current DRE systems are simply unacceptable for use by the blind and disabilities communities.
Runyan wrote a full report, “Improving Access to Voting”, released by Demos.org and VoterAction.org last month decrying the inaccessibility and unverifiability of DRE systems for blind and disabled voters. More recently, as we reported last week, he released a statement calling for “an immediate ban” on DRE systems. That statement has so far been signed by nearly 40 blind and disabled voting rights leaders.
“Electronic ballot systems such as the direct record electronic (DRE) machines…now in use,” the statement from Runyan and the others reads, “have quickly proven to be neither fully accessible to all voters nor secure and accurate methods of recording, tallying, and reporting votes. While the goal of private voting has been achieved by some voters, this has often been without meaningful assurance that our votes have been counted as cast.”
It goes on to say that DRE systems “are inappropriate for use, because these systems make it impossible for voters to verify that their votes will be counted as cast.”
(I interviewed Runyan last Saturday while sitting in as Guest Host of on Air America/Nova M Pheonix. That interview is right here [MP3, appx. 30 mins])
Lida Rodriguez-Taseff of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition (MDERC) who has been one of the nation’s most outspoken advocates for language minority voters, recently joined in signing Runyan’s statement.
As well, Dolores Huerta, one of the nation’s leading Hispanic civil rights advocates, founder of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, has similarly joined the call for a ban on DRE voting systems.
As if all of that isn’t enough, a recent study revealed that once New Mexico banned DREs after their disasterous experience with them in 2004, and moved to all paper-based balloting in 2006, the rate of undervoting in minority precincts plummeted — a full 85% in Native American communities and 69% in Hispanic precincts!
And yet, PFAW still claims support for language minority voters as one of their key reasons for not only supporting the Holt bill as is, but advocating in favor of DRE system use for such minorities!
What am I missing here?! When I asked them directly about that point during our phone call a week or two ago, I was told that the study I referred to “didn’t make it clear whether or not there was actually comprehension by those voters…that we don’t actually know if those voters knew what they were voting for or not.”
Sigh…
PFAW WANTS ME TO VOTE ON A DRE!
Next, Neas goes on, in the interview, to make one of the most troubling points I’ve heard. (A point which was also, disturbingly, made to me by one of the other PFAW folks during a previous phone call.)
Neas speaks about Los Angeles — the town where I’ve lived for ten years or so. He does not live here, but I do. He talks about all of the different language minority voters that live here — we have some 8 million voters in this county alone, more than many full states — and he goes on to seemingly advocate for our current paper-based InkaVote system to be replaced with ALL DRE SYSTEMS!
Excuse me?!
By the way, whether Neas knows this or not, California already requires that any voter who wishes to vote on a paper ballot must be allowed to do so. Thus, despite the fact that we already must have, by state law, enough paper ballots in all of the needed languages for voters at our polling places, PFAW would like — if Neas is to be taken at his word — to have paper ballots present, but not used, and instead leave the majority of votes to be cast on dangerous, inaccurate, ridiculously expensive, unverifiable, easily hackable DRE systems.
As mentioned, I appreciate Neas and PFAW’s efforts to rally Congress and the country in favor of election reform, but they are simply and wholly and completely dead wrong in their support — and even advocacy — for DRE systems in our democracy. And, as his comments suggest, I’d say dangerously so.
With all due respect, Mr. Neas and PFAW: Please keep your hands off of my electoral system in Los Angeles!!!
TIME, POLITICS, AND THE SCIENTISTS
A few more items.
Neas goes on to admit that both professors Avi Rubin and David Dill — two of the country’s most respected computer scientists and voting machine experts — support a ban of DREs, but are going along with support of the Holt bill because, as they’ve been told (by Holt’s office, I’ve yet to find any other office who concurs), that if the bill was amended to include a DRE ban it couldn’t be passed by Congress.
What Rubin said recently, in characterizing his 3/7/07 testimony at a Congressional hearing on the matter, is that: “After four years of studying the issue, I now believe that a DRE with a VVPAT (voter-verified paper audit trails) is not a reasonable voting system.”
Prior to that, he wrote in his blog: “Personally, I would support a ban on all DREs, with paper trails or without.”
Dill has privately made the same point, along with just about every other computer scientist I’ve spoken to. And yet, it seems a number of them are supporting Holt anyway under the same false presumption that a DRE ban would kill the bill.
If they believe that, as Neas seems to, with all due respect to such folks: They’ve been had. They are scientists and voting systems experts, not politicians. It would be nice if they all simply helped to inform those in Congress who must vote on this matter by speaking loudly and clearly about what it is they know, from their scientific perspective, to be necessary for Election Integrity: That DREs cannot be used safely in a democracy. If they all said that, outloud, as many of them have said quietly, Congress would be insane to institutionalize such systems for years to come in the face of such expert testimony.
It would be nice if, beyond that, the scientists would leave the politics of the matter to those who are experts in politics, like the politicians. Especially since some of the political offices in play here have been, um, less than honest in the course of their assiduous advocacy for this legislation.
Last point of note for now; Neas says “our fiercest opponent is time,” hoping that the bill can be passed by both the House and the Senate “by the Summer at latest, so that the state and county governments can actually implement the reforms” in time for the 2008 Presidential Election.
Worried about time? Me too. Ban DREs today, and almost every other voting system already available is by and large good to go, and will meet the requirements of the Holt bill (presuming their manufacturers will disclose the source code they use, as mandated, etc.)
Real, paper-based, paper ballot producing optical-scan voting systems can be used tomorrow. The president of the nation’s largest maker of them, ES&S, has already said they would have no trouble adapting the software for multi-language use.
On the other hand, there is no DRE currently on the market which meets either the word or the spirit of the Holt bill (even if other casual, if forewarned-about loopholes remaining in Holt would allow a bad-guy Secretary of State, like Ohio’s J. Kenneth Blackwell, to declare the current DRE systems, with terrible reel-to-reel paper trails, as acceptable for use under Holt…another unfortunate by-product of sloppy legislation.)
Beyond that, any new DRE technology will have to go through a full round of new testing and certification processes which will be very hard to do legitimately prior to the 2008 election cycle (not that legitimate testing has ever been the hallmark of our nation’s “certification” process).
If PFAW and the others were truly worried about a bill that can be implemented in time for 2008, they’d join those of us calling for the Holt bill to be amended to include a full and immediate ban on DRE voting systems. You can call on such a ban by Congress by clicking here. Please spread the word. For democracy’s sake. We don’t have anywhere near the resources that PFAW and friends do. All we have, as I mentioned at the top of this long piece, is the truth and the facts. So it’ll be up to you to take action and reclaim your democracy.
The audio and text transcripts from both Brad Friedman’s and Ralph Neas respective interviews on Ring of Fire with RFK Jr. and Mike Papantonio are now posted here…
What will it take for these assholes to realize that this is not “Congress as usual”?
What will it take for these self-satisfied motherfuckers to realize that they are playing games with principles whose scope and consequences gave the Founding Fathers nightmares?
Brad, I was impressed with your stance. I think you have decided on diplomacy and bona fide debate done with distinction even in the face of a perplexing opposition.
Your take on it is the long term winning strategy.
Keep getting stronger on the facts and evidence, and keep getting more cordial but never-the-less devastating in the presentation of those facts and evidence.
It seems that you have prepared as if it is an argument before a jury of many different people whom you do not want to offend by ad hominem type attacks on the opposition. That approach will prevail.
And as to the merits of the debate, I think an amendment of Holt 811 to rid the world of what is wrong with DRE’s is the proper approach, while at the same time explaining that what is not wrong about them will be preserved.
There seems to be brainlock when the term “DRE” is used. Perhaps breaking “DRE” down into its unique components (“objects” a la OOD and OOP) would assist those who do not yet grasp fully the entire world of DRE functionality. Then expose those objects or portions of DRE functionality for their problems, while at the same time not attacking other components that are not a security threat.
And one other thing, since we are at the worst place we could be, in today’s world, in the saga of electronic voting machines, lets all remember that as things improve, some positions could be changed since the situation will have then improved.
Dredd, you’re saying it’s like Hatch et al reflexively spouting “Voter fraud! Voter fraud!” when questioned on election reform, because the lie of “Voter fraud!” had been hammered into them so long that they could no longer tell the difference between imaginary “voter fraud” and the very real election fraud that was going on.
But instead this group is spouting “Touchscreens! Touchscreens!” when questioned about Direct Record Electronics… because they do not understand the difference between an electronic ballot, a paper ballot, and a piece of paper spit out by a machine that may or may not accurately represent an electronic ballot.
… They’re still idiots 🙂
The_zapkitty #3
Yes, I have noticed when one is engaged in briefing courts, or any entity that makes decisions based on both fact and law, that it is very important to establish a fixed dictionary of terms at the very onset. Otherwise confusion tends to appear.
“Direct Recording Electronic” is a vague term that is only defined currently by how it is used or how it internally performs.
If it is not used exactly the same or does not perform exactly the same in all versions of all machines, software, or combinations thereof, whether or not they are made by the same vendor, then there is no one fixed meaning from which to argue, urge, or explain.
Instead there would be “DRE type 1”, “DRE type 2” … “DRE type n”, and so forth. Arguments, declarations, urgings, and explanations should therefore reference a definion by referencing the specific incarnation of the “DRE” at issue.
The meaning of “direct”, “electronic”, and “recording”, individually as well as collectively, are likewise susceptable to multiple meanings depending on the hardware, software, and/or the implementation thereof.
In theory a “DRE” can be touch screen or not touch screen, RAM only, RAM plus disk storage, disk storage only, or storage thru a network to a remote database or other storage type. There are hundreds of possible configurations.
I think the better practice would be to identify the applicable issues and principles by definitions separate from any existing machines, software, or combinations thereof.
We should develop a clear dictionary of the terms of art of elections and voting, and thereafter rate the machines, software, and combinatios thereof based on those fixed definitions.
Then if machines, software, or combinations thereof change, they will be judged on a fixed and well known language instead of creating yet another opportunity for obfuscation.
DRE Paper Trail = Vapor Trail.
from Oregon; we have paper ballots. there have been no problems since the people of this state voted to bring back all paper ballot, and vote by mail.
To those of us that live in a politically civilized state, we do not understand why those of you in other states do not have the opportunity to do the same?
I must agree with Brad, there is no point in argued that would make electronic voting machines of any kind worth giving up your right to know the vote was counted. Anything less is a ridiculous compromise to the basic right of each citizen.
I was just listening to Brad on Ring Of Fire. He makes a lot of excellent points, but I have to disagree somewhat with Brad’s conclusion in this exchange:
Pap: So what is it that makes these machines work in a way that we know we don’t have to worry about GOP thuggery?
BRAD: Getting rid of the machines.
Okay, I agree that as the machines are today, they have to go and must not be used under any circumstances. However, in the case of disabled voters who could benefit from a computerized touch-screen or audio interface, a new machine could be developed that only serves the function of printing out the paper ballot. This machine would not have any code inside it to do any kind of electronic counting. There would be no electronic counting allowed, period. This would be a high-tech paper ballot printer, only for those voters who could benefit from it. Everyone else would continue to mark their votes directly onto a paper ballot.
I do think technology can be used in a smart way and the idea of any kind of machine being harmful is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
– Tom
BRAD: Do whatever it takes be it debating detractors in a meaning forum or speaking on the floors of Congress. i agree with these cats. To take it a step farther, this country NEEDS your point of view to win!
What does Pap mean by ‘GOP thuggery’ ?
Does he mean that our election system and Government has been taken over by shifty 501c-3s and political appointees and elected officials through election fraud, aka hacks ?
If he does, than he’s right IMO
It’s already done so now we have to wade out of this rotten, stinkin mess
by declaring corporations and foreign countries are not people (US citizens) and not allowed to lobby congress and adjust the laws as such
I totally commend Brad for bringing PFAW to Thomas Jefferson’s “bar of public reason” or at least TRYING to! This discussion is much needed, and I haven’t heard anything, publicly, til now.
On a detail, though important point, having to make a disctinction now between touch screens and DREs is more than just a bummer and a lost investment. (ballot marking devices use touch screen interfaces to print a paper ballot with the voters intentions marked already).
for the same reason of the study brad alludes to showing that (in the one i saw) voters actually caught ZERO mistakes on the paper trails, (presumably because they pay attention to the screen primarily) the percentage of errors caught on Ballot Marking Devices may also be Zero. But let’s say that via voter education we scream that percent all the way to 50%
What that means is that 50% of the errors and fraud slip through and become VOTER VERIFIED FRAUD. This is the new gold standard of fraud, because even if a defect in the software is proven, there are strong arguments that the voter WAIVED any such error by “approving” their printed-out ballot. Thus, this system comes complete with duct tape for the mouths of all voting activists who will get laughed at for suggesting a problem when the voters approved these things, each and every one of them.
The reason secret ballots are justifiable is that we get to vote secretly in this otherwise VERY public process because the only ballot we can screw up is OUR OWN, and it is our right to do so (otherwise, without the right to make mistakes we are not really Free if you think about it).
I don’t want to set up a touch screen, non-DRE system whereby a successful fraud may well be UNCHALLENGABLE due to “waiver” arguments, especially when we know in advance that voters are highly likely to pay attention ONCE, not TWICE.
one person / one vote / TWO checks? (electronic and paper?) No thanks. I wrote a bit more about this here: http://www.democraticundergroun...mesg_id=469461
Tom R (#7) said he disagreed with a point I made with Pap, and then went on to say:
Please go back and read the article posted above in full. In particular, please read the graf that begins (in bold nonetheless) “TO CLARIFY (and please read this carefully!): ”
It says precisely what you said above.
Paul Lehto (#10) –
Using electronic ballot marking devices (touch-screens which are not DREs) for language minority folks is ridiculous. For the blind and disabled, however, it’s not so ridiculous. At least, if that’s what those groups *wish* to make available for *optional* use, one per polling place, etc., I think that would be a more than acceptable compromise.
That presumes all of the security issues are in place (secure chain of custody, disclosure of source code for both ballot marking device and op-scan used to count it, if that is used etc.) and that such voters are also allowed help, if they prefer it, to vote by the other available means either at the polling place or at home via absentee etc.
Given that my position, of late, has been inappropriately characterized as the “all or nothing approach” and making “the perfect be the enemy of the good”, I’d say that my real position, as stated above, shows that such claims about my position are wholly incorrect.
I am willing to work with folks, even if the resulting system is not the one I might otherwise choose if I was King of the World. And, as you know, I’ve taken some heat for that position (including from you.)
Unfortunately, it’s the Holts and PFAWs and Common Causes and MoveOns and VoteTrustUSAs who don’t seem willing to work to find consensus among the EI community. That regretable position has been very dangerous, and unnecessary, for the movement, in my opinion.
Great article. Hope the whole article stays on top via headline only for several days.
Brad #11
Fair enough Brad. I missed this in your discussion on Ring of Fire.
– Tom
Just a small note, as of Feb 10, 2007, Los Angeles County had 3,945,640 registered voters, not the 8 million cited above (my source: http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/ror_2102007.htm).
Responding to Brad #12
You say you will work with people, but if that involves supporting Ballot Marking Devices that disfranchise people and/or make for the perfect fraud because the mistakes slip right by the disabled and nondisabled alike, WHY O WHY would you want the disabled to suffer such an ignominious electoral fate??? In other words, why treat the disabled worse than the nondisabled, if you accept my premises above (which you do in the article above by referencing the studies)?
(Trying to get to the merits of Ballot Marking Systems here)
Excellant work Brad. We have and will continue to labor for the removal of these machines. I was trained by De La Rue and know these machines quite well. They lack any consistant security measures. The simple exposure of the “Yellow Button” was enough to ouster Bruce McPhearson. If more elected officials were aware that support of DRE’s would cost them their office, they may change their tune and support the ban.
Keep up the fight. We will prevail
I was wrangled off to a VoteRescue.org meeting here in Texas last night and nearly drowned in a sea of terms I was only vaguely familiar with on the paper ballot/trail battle. Investigation today led me to your blog (another first). Thanks for upgrading my view and confirming my suspicions.
One thing keeps bugging me though. Grass-roots meetings fling the word “democracy” around like a touchstone and it sickens me. So at the opportunity I spoke up last night as I do now to you. We, the people, were given a Constitutional republic, NOT a democracy, as a structure of government – “…if we can keep it” -B. Franklin.
Ben, John, James and the Thomases are rockin-and-rollin in their graves with the million Media-mentions per hour bringing us closer to their nightmare of mob-rule. Speak a lie often enough and it becomes perceived as truth. Truth is our battered Constitution provides for democratically-elected representatives.
I realize its much easier a word to say or type, but the lie must be opposed and corrected. If not by politicians then perhaps the bloggers and journalists are left with the task. The difference between a Constitutional republic and a democracy in this crazy time is possibly a more important point even than any form of vote-tampering, regrettably both are urgent.
Paul Lehto (#16) asked:
I don’t. Which is why such disabled folks if they wish to use such machines to help them vote privately and independently may do so, optionally if they wish to.
They also may vote by same means that all other voters vote either at the polls or via absentee with assistance, if they wish, a courtesy that is extended to such voters (and not others).
Seems like a workable common ground position to me. Nobody is forced to vote on anything, any more than anybody is forced to use a wheelchair ramp rather than a staircase, when both can be made available. And if the result is a verified paper ballot to be counted by a means separate than the device which helped the disabled voter fill it out, I fail to see the problem. Though please feel free to let me know what I’m missing.
While I’m open to any device that results in a verified and counted paper ballot, I reject the silly, unsubstantiated premise you offer that I “want the disabled to suffer such an ignominious electoral fate.”
As mentioned, I don’t accept your premise. And don’t feel that making accommodations for disabled voters to be able to vote privately and independently, as well as retain integrity of both the vote casting and the vote counting equates with “treating” anybody any “worse” than anybody else.
Ron #18
While I appreciate your point (and welcome to BRAD BLOG, btw! Always happy to see more Texans here!), I believe you’re stuck on a semantic difference. At least in this case.
Voters are, in fact, entitled to democracy at the polls on Election Day in democratically selecting their representatives.
Whether you view the overall government as a representative democracy or a constitutional republic (as you mentioned) seems somewhat beside the point of the issue at hand. At least to me, for the moment…
I am a Texan also, and I want to thank you Brad for your voice on dumping DREs. When you wrote about Neas’ inaccuracy you spoke of “true paper ballots” and said they are actually tabulated either by optical scan or hand. Since the Harri Hursti Hack in Leon County, Florida on a scanner, I would argue that a scanner counting our precious paper ballot would put us right back into the realm of the unknown as to how our votes are being counted. We need to demand dumping DREs and call for hand counting the ballots. We now have a bill in Texas for just that, HB 3894. I wish it had all the support it deserves.
Paul Lehto:
Paul, you want hand counting of paper ballots. That is currently the logical solution to the problem.
That is not going to happen with “Holt II”.
They have been talked by the EVM supporters into ruling that option out right off the bat. Optical Scanners are the least that they are psychologically equipped to accept right now.
Now opscans are , indeed, just as inherently hackable as DRE’s… but at least there is a paper ballot left behind to count. Give them a few more rounds with the opscans disagreeing with the hand counts and they’ll start saying to themselves “Why are we paying for these machines when we consistently have to hand recount anyway?”
As for the blind… I am blind. I was blinded by diabetic retinopathy as an adult. Now I can never, ever do many things that I used to do. And I know this: You cannot make everything equal for everyone. The most you can do is make an effort.
One of the things I cannot do, under the currently available options, is vote privately, independently, and securely. The closest I can theoretically get now is by using Vote-PAD to fill out a paper ballot… but that ballot would be optically scanned. That tosses “securely” out the window… but at least I’d be in the same boat as everyone else. Equal, even 🙂
Now… A ballot-marking device with a touchscreen interface would not be as secure as Vote-PAD, but would it add measureably to the insecurity already introduced by the presence of the opscan?
No. And that’s quantifiable if you want to get into the details.
The optimal solution would be to make the federal elections a national holiday and have hand-counted paper ballots, with the blind using whatever assisted means they may choose to create their ballots.(as Brad pointed out).
That cannot happen before they fuck up the next election. Nothing can stop them from fucking up the next election, even with the best of intentions of all parties involved.
The most we can do now is emergency measures that lay the ground for an optimal solution in the future. Get the DRE’s out of the equation, open up the election process to citizen oversight, get true paper ballots set by law as the ballot of record, and keep the citizenry awake and aware enough to prevent repeats of the most overt forms of fraud from 2000 and 2004…
… and most importantly…
… keep them from setting opscans in stone via incremental laws quietly passed over the intervening years. Never let them settle down into complacency until the optimal solution is acheived.
But by constantly screaming “HAND COUNTED PAPER BALLOTS NOW NOW NOW!” you are playing into the hands of the DRE shills advising Holt and company. You are saying exactly what they want you to say. And it helps them hang onto DRE’s. Yes, even though HCPB are indeed the optimal solution insisting on them now, at a federal level, helps the DRE shills.
Should you keep insisting on HCPB?
Of course you should.
Always keep the optimal solution in front of the lawmakers’ faces…
…
… but don’t use the blind as an excuse to push HCPB. And from your ill-thought out commentary it seems that it what you are doing. And if you insist on doing that you will be no better than Diebold et al.
Welcome to reality. It sucks. We can’t change that… but we can keep trying 🙂
This is a great summation of the inaccuracies of the opposition arguments. I would hope everybody in the movement, but especially the groups that are racing to get this bill through, read this important thread!
Brad must feel like Howard Dean sometimes. A guy with a tremendous accumulation of wisdom and skill about this important service to America, but very little support from the powerful folks with the cash.
Brad, why don’t the Dems hire you as some kind of expert e-vote consultant? And also any Republicans who really care about an unbiased e-vote expert? Or have you testify in front of congress, like Al Gore just did about Global Warming?
You listening, Ted Kennedy and John Conyers???
Dredd you are dead on about the need for ” a fixed definition of terms.” It seems to me that is precisely how the devil got into the details!
…and today, just now, I heard the lying corporate fascist scumbag Rush Limbaugh say that Edwards used the press conference about his wife’s health, to get a bump in the polls!!!
Relax Big Dan (#26). Understand that Slush Lamebotomy is a fascist shill for the bush nazis and is paid well for his slander and other forms of lying. Lamebotomy also admitted, just after his paymasters lost in a landslide last Nov., that he had been “carrying water” for the bush administration. You can take some solace in the fact that he is nothing more than a malevolent wad of gristle stuffed into a sausage casing. I loved it that some sanity-based listeners pretending to be retarded bush-bots called into his “program” to suggest to Lame that he “should just get over the ReThugliCon landslide loss.” Oxycotin Boy didn’t much like that I can tell you.
Big Dan
“fascist scumbag rush limbaugh” Your much too generous with the accolades . . .
John Edwards has just given America a lesson in REAL Family Values.
…and Limbaugh said, in defense of Rove & Myers, “It’s not up to the innocent to prove their innocence.”
WHAT ABOUT THE DETAINEES, RUSH?????????????????????????
YOU HYPOCRITE!!!!!!!!
Oh, and another thing…. Paper Ballots, Hand Counted.
Here’s my suggestion: someone put a call in to George Soros asking him for $20 million (we don’t need no stinkin’ $3.8 billion HAVAelectiontheft) to fund:
1) Paper Ballots
2) Translucent, lockable Ballot Boxes
3) Indelible Pens
4) Courtesy-screen desks
At $250 total per voting station, with 3,500 precincts in America, and say 4 voting stations per precinct on average, that only comes to $3,500,000 total. But you’ll want the other $16,500,000 to pay for a media blitz embarrassing election officials into taking a free solution that is thousands of times more secure than the electronic vote-stealing equipment that has been diarrheaed down onto our localities by ReThugliCons running Diebold, E E & S, Sequoia, and others.
Anyone see any downsides in this plan?
5) Citizens actively count these hand paper ballots for transparency. No “secret” voting by “officials”.
…I mean not secret “COUNTING” by “officials” (like in Stalin’s USSR)
OLDTREE (comment #6):
While I am also proud to be from Oregon, where we vote on paper ballots, I can tell you that a LARGE percentage of them (I think over 85%) are counted by easily corruptible ES&S or Sequoia equipment.
It is only because we have one of the most honest and honerable Secretaries of State in the entire USA (Bill Bradbury) that we haven’t had problems. YET!
I, however, would like to improve the mechanisms by which our paper ballots are counted and randomly audited in Oregon.
I would like to know that IF we should ever have a Rethuglcian hack SoS, we wouldn’t suddenly find OUR exit polls not matching the tabulated results of our paper ballots counted by Rethuglican-owned and operated companies.
It seems like whenever Rethuglicans get involved in the electoral process in any way, the previously quite reliable polling technology that has worked so well for dozens of years starts to have unexplained errors, whee Rethuglcans who looked like they were going to lose start having “suprise” and “unexected” surges in the vote count.
Big Dan: exactly right, I left off the counting procedure.
Here it is, exactly as it was done for hundreds of years in this country before the election theft specialists began their takeover of America:
1) Observers from both — make that ALL — parties are allowed and ENCOURAGED to be present during the voting and after for the counting.
2) Designated (through random chance lottery) volunteers actually touch the ballots removing them from the just unlocked boxes to a well-lit table, one box at a time.
3) With as many people looking over their shoulders as space allows, and videotaping if observers want, the votes are counted one-by-one
4) If any vote can’t be determined, by confusing marks or whatever, they are put aside in an “undetermined” box to be dealt with later if the count is very close
5) When all the votes are counted, totals are made, again with the agreement of several designated counters
6) Totals are posted prominently at each local precinct of the votes cast and counted there, THEN, and only then, the totals are submitted to the central election district “authorities.”
7) Individual citizens are “allowed” and ENCOURAGED to drive from precinct to precinct to tallying the posted totals themselves so they can compare with election district totals.
8) Cost: near zero because most of the work is done by volunteers. I’d voluteer in a heartbeat — hell, I’d pay to be able to do this work just to get the nazis off my neck.
9) Our new representatives actually represent us and they begin:
Repealing the Military Commissions Act, the Patriot Act, the tax cuts for the billionaires, and all other criminal acts the bush gangsters have done in the past six years
Extracating us from the illegal mass murder campaign in Iraq
Developing a Manhattan Project for Energy Sustainability and self-sufficiency.
I kick back and enjoy a bottle of Champagne.
9) Security: near infinite. It would be so hard to steal even a single vote that it just won’t be worth it.
Big Dan (#24): “And also any Republicans who really care about an unbiased e-vote expert?”
Damn, that was the best laugh I had all day. IF ONLY there were anybody left in the Rethuglican party who cared about anything more than their own re-election and protecting their PARTY at all costs.
PATRIOT (#30): “Here’s my suggestion: someone put a call in to George Soros”
Another chuckle. Soros is pathetic. He never seems to put his money where it really MATTERS. If he had thrown just a couple of million at a major public relations campaign in the days immediately after 11/7/2004, we might not be where we are now.
And in re your #34, Patriot. I will join you for that glass of champaign. It is a great vision.
Charlie #35: you may be right about Soros. I used his name to quickly conjur up the notion of $20M in cash. The best way to do this would be a detailed initiative, put out on the blogosphere, that attempts to get donations from millions of Americans….say one million Aemricans at $20 each.
I can see the posters now:
Free and Secure Elections: what’s your excuse for being against this?
Your presentation on the Holt Bill controversy is excellent. I agree with you completely.
I do have one question with regard to automatic recounts, when the race is close. You indicated that in such a circumstance, the paper trail records would not be tabulated at all (as opposed to 3% in an audit). I thought the Holt bill made the paper trail records the “ballot of record” for the purpose of recounts. Are you saying that an automatically required recount would be all electronic, whereas a recount demanded and paid for by a candidate would be a hand count of paper trail records?
We should not rely on the recount provisions of any laws to protect the integrity of the voting process.
The systems — both the technological ones AND the human ones — are so corruptable that we will never get a recount, and when we do, it will be prohibatively costly (as in San Diego), and then rigged (as in Ohio).
If the initial pricinct vote is not honest, it is like the original trial in a criminal matter — appeals (recounts) might catch MAJOR problems, but “the facts are the facts” and the original counts will stand.
If we have not learned anything from the elections of 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2006, it is that the “fores of evil” that have taken over our country will do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to subert the electoral will of the people AT EVERY STAGE OF THE PROCESS and even within THE MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE PROCESS and that only by having “paper ballots, marked and counted transparently by hand” will we have a chance to taking back our government from the criminal cabal that is the Rethuglican Party.
CharlieL
Portland, OR
CLL2001@gmail.com
Patriot, #s 30 and 36,
Good plan. Let’s all put up twenty bucks! I’m in. So’s my wife. And my teenager. And my twelve-year old.
Eighty bucks. Somebody set up the site. Maybe Brad can do it.
Wouldn’t that be a kick, showing up to Congress with 20 mil and a plan to cover – without expense – the next election? Ballots, clear plexiglas locked ballot boxes. How quaint. How workable. Would y’all count ’em? I’d volunteer to help with that, too…
shw
“I’m not going to resign, I’m going to stay focused on protecting our kids,” says Gonzales.
The tactic? Link resigning with “being against something everyone likes”…kids, troops, etc…
So, you can say, “You want me to resign? So, you’re AGAINST kids? You don’t want me to protect kids?”
DOES ANYONE GET THIS???
It’s like linking bad things like trashing the constitution, with fighting terrorism.
“This bill takes away some of your liberties, but it fights the terrorists. ARE YOU FOR THE TERRORISTS?”
The question is: HOW STUPID ARE PEOPLE???
When they one day soon try to censor the internet, they will link it with something like pedophilia or terrorism. They will say they are passing this internet legislation “to fight pedophilia” or “to fight terrorism”. Then they will say, “You ARE against pedofiles, aren’t you?” Or, “You ARE against terrorism, aren’t you?”
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/G...sign_0322.html
The headline should read,
“ALBERTO GONZALES ATTEMPTS TO LINK ‘PROTECTING KIDS’ WITH SAVING HIS JOB”
…or…
“ALBERTO GONZALES ATTEMPTS TO LINK ‘PROTECTING KIDS’ WITH POLITICIZING THE ATTORNEY GENERAL POSITION”
DO YOUR DUTY, CMSM!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Voter-verifiable” vs. “voter-verified”
Brad,
You mentioned that you were involved in helping to refine the language in Holt II.
Given your sensitivity to the English language, you undoubtedly noticed that the bill inappropriately uses the term “voter-verified” where the correct term would be “voter-verifiable.”
Did you have a chance to call their attention to this?
To conflate those two terms may have been excusable a few years ago, but not today. As you indicate, studies have now shown that too many voters don’t bother to verify their paper receipt.
Last summer, I endeavored to convey all this to a spokesperson in Holt’s office.
My approach—perhaps too subtle, in retrospect—was that the current wording of the Holt bill would be imposing a literal, legal obligation on the voter to verify the paper record. Since the bill would mandate a “voter-verified” receipt, the bill would be placing a mandate on the voter, not merely on the voting-machine vendor and the jurisdiction.
I had hoped the spokesperson would grasp the logic of this, and agree that the wording needed to be corrected. Unfortunately, he could see no problem with the current wording, and he in fact defended it.
Our correspondence was conducted via email, so I have the exact transcript of our discussion. Here’s a verbatim excerpt, which leads off with an abstruse rationale for using “voter-verified” in place of “voter-verifiable.”
His remarks are quite enlightening, but not in the way he intended.
“As to DRE-printed ballots, might some voters not bother to look at them? Yes — that is possible. But the language in HR 550 — requested strenuously by the computer scientists who helped us draft the bill specifically because pro-cryptography forces were starting to use the term “verifiable” to allow for cryptographic methods of verification– pre-empts the possibility that jurisdictions will deploy such cryptographic methods of ‘voter verification.'”
“What are the implications of some voters not verifying the DRE-produced records presented to them for verification, while we call for “voter verified” records? As a practical matter, there are no implications.
“Some of your questions seemed to suggest that it might somehow be possible to prove that some voters did not inspect and verify their votes, and on that basis a legal challenge might be waged against the use of those records in recounts on the grounds that they are not “voter verified” records. But absent filming voters while they cast their ballots–something that neither Mr. Holt, any other elected official, any election official, or voter would or should support–there will never be any independent evidence confirming whether or not the voters looked at the paper records, except the word of the voter him/her self.
“Moreover, in the drafting of this legislation in both the 108th and 109th Congress’s, no concerns were raised by any attorney regarding your premise (i.e., if the voter skips verification of the paper record, the voter will be in violation of federal law), and none have been raised since by any attorneys involved in evaluating/monitoring HR 550’s progress in Congress. Should the subject come up during any mark-up of the bill, Mr. Holt will keep your thoughts in mind.”
I must say, I found his closing remark quite consoling. 😉
Call me crazy, but….
WHAT DOES FIRING FEDERAL PROSECUTORS WHO ARE INVESTIGATING CORRUPT REPUBLICANS, HAVE TO DO WITH HELPING KIDS?
Are the talking head in the CMSM (Lou Dobbs, Brian Williams, etc..) that gutless to ask this question IMMEDIATELY after Gonzales says it?
JON STEWART DOES IT ALL THE TIME!
The Daily show is better than ANBCBSNNX!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey Lou, we know you hate illegal aliens, but you also love NOT challenging ridiculous statements by Gonzales!
big dan:
All this hysteria about the abuse of children started happening about the same time as the Republicans started to take over everything. I don’t have the police reports or statistics, but I’ve heard many times that nearly all abuse takes place in the home, involving friends or family, or at church.
In other words, places where a long term relationship with the child can be established with a trusted associate. Entrapment over the internet using adults to lure nitwits into being stupid enough to show up at a supposed child’s home proves nothing and “dateline” should be ashamed of itself for causing parents and children to be terrified they’re going to be harmed. It creates a general atmosphere of darkness where none exists.
By the way, Gonzales uses false, “Dateline”, “facts” and figures to prop up his crusade against the internet. The overwhelming number of, so called, predators are young people getting together with other young people.
disgusting liars!
Matt Shapiro asked:
See Sec. 327 of the bill which essentially waives all of the audit requirements in the bill itself. So no audits need be done under the Holt federal protocol in the event of an automatic state recount. If the state, in turn, requires only a machine recount (versus a hand recount), then no ballot would ever be recounted or audited by hand in such a case.
Roy Libscomb, in re: “Voter-verifiable” vs. “voter-verified”
I believe I grasp the angle you’re coming at this, and as you guessed, I am quite sensitive to the difference in those two phrases, but I see it differently (and perhaps, closer to the way Holt’s office seems to see it).
“Voter-verifiable” ballots, as I see them, are ballots which are not necessarily verified by the voter, but could be. “Voter-verified” ballots means they are verified by the voter.
A hand-marked paper ballot is, by it’s definition, voter-verified. A DRE paper trail is maybe, maybe not verified (though it is verifiable), but it’s not a ballot either if it’s not actually tabulated. Instead, the tabulation occurs via the electronic ballot, impossible to verify, inside the machine.
Either way, as mentioned, I believe I understand the legal theory you’re applying. Though I see far more upside in applying it the other way, as explained above.
And I hope that answer doesn’t bring as much scorn or ridicule as the Holt staffer’s response did (even if I’m used to it) 😉