Remember those hanging chads from Florida in the election of 2000? That was of course the most notorious failure of election equipment in modern memory. In the wake of that disastrous election, the results of which are still disputed by many, counties and cities across the country moved to purchase and install nice, new, modern, electronic, touch-screen voting machines in place of the old-fashioned punch-card types.
But guess what? All those fancy new machines have turned out to be the cure that's worse than the disease. In The New York Times Magazine this past January, Clive Thompson wrote:
In the last three election cycles, touch-screen machines have become one of the most mysterious and divisive elements in modern electoral politics. Introduced after the 2000 hanging-chad debacle, the machines were originally intended to add clarity to election results. But in hundreds of instances, the result has been precisely the opposite: they fail unpredictably, and in extremely strange ways; voters report that their choices 'flip' from one candidate to another before their eyes; machines crash or begin to count backward; votes simply vanish. (In the 80-person town of Waldenburg, Ark., touch-screen machines tallied zero votes for one mayoral candidate in 2006 – even though he's pretty sure he voted for himself.) Most famously, in the November 2006 Congressional election in Sarasota, Fla., touch-screen machines recorded an 18,000-person 'undervote' for a race decided by fewer than 400 votes.
The problem is that most of the touch-screen machines do not produce any paper record and thus their results are not verifiable. In a landslide election, that may not matter. But if the election is close, and recounts are demanded, the lack of paper records could create mayhem.
Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) has made a crusade of trying to rationalize the nation's voting systems. A holder of a Ph.D. in Physics, Holt has been pushing for changes in the law for the last several years. Now he's anxious to avert an electoral catastrophe this coming November. His bill, H.R. 5036, would reimburse any counties that opt to retrofit their touch-screen machines with paper records that voters can verify. As Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) pointed out as she led debate on the House floor on behalf of the bill, "Having a voter verified paper trail with an automatic routine audit will go a long way to increase voter confidence and deter fraud."
In his remarks during the floor debate on Tuesday, April 15th, Holt warned that without the extra federal assistance to the states and counties prior to this November, six complete states and a number of counties in 14 additional states "will be conducting completely unauditable elections in 2008."
The problem for the bill arose with the cost estimate of $685 million issued by the Congressional Budget Office. As Lofgren pointed out, that was the estimate Rep. Holt had calculated way back in early 2007 when he first offered his legislation. Further, she said, that number "anticipates the participation of everyone in this bill. I think it is highly unlikely that every jurisdiction will participate in every aspect of the bill…It is clear that the actual score or total would be less."
But that was seemingly enough to change the minds of Republicans who had previously supported the bill. Although the committee vote had been both bipartisan and unanimous, suddenly the minority party had problems with the bill. Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) led the fight on the House floor against H.R. 5036.
Ehlers maintained that he and Holt had not been able to reach full agreement on a satisfactory package. He explained, "I supported it out of committee because I thought it should reach the floor for floor debate. I anticipated that it would be taken up under a rule where we might have the possibility for an additional compromise, but that has not happened."
Ehlers said he had some qualms about total reliance on paper records, believing that "redundancy in an electronic fashion" might be sufficient. "But the final blow to our efforts was the judgment of the CBO that it was $685 million for 1 year. I realize that Mr. Holt had estimated that would be the cost in his original bill. In fact he had included it as an authorization in his original bill." But now that CBO had confirmed that number, "I am afraid that is likely to be the death knell."
In vain did Holt and Lofgren protest that since the bill was optional, and not all counties would opt in, "there's not way that that would be the full amount."
Holt said the principle was quite simple: "Anything of value should be auditable. Votes are valuable." But "in too many places around the United States, they are not even auditable." He pointed out additionally that "already in this primary season, there have been numerous, numerous problems, questions, and unresolved disputes." He added:
In county after county, in State after State, electronic voting systems have failed in many ways, failure to start up in the morning, a mismatch between the electronic count and the end-of-day printout, failed memory cards, and on and on and on. In too many places, the irregularities can not be resolved. There is no way to resolve them. There is no way to know because there is no record of the voter's intentions.
Citing studies performed by both California and Ohio, Holt said "a number of academic and public policy experts have recommended that the shortcomings of these systems be addressed. He quoted the Brennan Center for Justice of New York University Law School, which found that the many reports of problems during the primaries "provide a preview of potentially widespread machine failure and disenfranchisement in November."
It wasn't until his concluding remarks, however, that Ehlers finally let the cat out of the bag:
I also want to comment that the White House also has taken a dim view of this. They've issued a SAP [Statement of Administration Policy] this afternoon, somewhat to my surprise, that indicates that they oppose this bill and urge Members of Congress to vote against it. [Emphasis added.]
In her closing remarks Lofgren confessed her disappointment at the change by Ehlers. She noted that in the past year:
…we have worked with Secretaries of State, the National Association of Counties, disability rights groups, voting rights groups, civil rights groups, to try and get a measure that could garner broad support across the country. … I will say that the White House issuing an SAP today, after a year's work, I think, is really bad faith. We have worked very hard, and to come out at the last minute is really very unprofessional.
Although the bill garnered more "yeas" than "nays," it failed because it had been brought to the floor under a rule requiring a two-thirds vote to pass. It also didn't help that the White House expressed its opposition to the bill at the eleventh hour, resulting in a change of heart among House Republicans.
Common Cause President Bob Edgar was dismayed: "The United States is spending billions of dollars to build democracy overseas, yet our own Congress turned its back on the workings of our own democracy."
So if you loved Florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004, you might just be over the moon this coming November.
-- Beverley Lumpkin
Glad to see that the elections are on your radar screen. We have been investigating election fraud for years and in many ways it gets worse with every election. Brett
Posted by: brett | Apr 25, 2008 at 08:31 AM