Paper Trails
EmailPRODUCER REBECCA ABRAHAMS WRITES —
"This morning on GMA we highlighted some of the problems with electronic voting machines – including the lack of paper trail verification. Diane Sawyer said that she understands that ‘Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is key to all of this, to a national voting standard. We’re going to be calling him … because you gotta have faith in our voting mechanisms.’"
"Diane is right. Here’s why:
"In 2003 Congressman Rush Holt, a Democrat from New Jesey, submitted a bill that would mandate a paper audit for each vote cast by an electronic machine, much like one gets from an ATM. This bill had over 200 co-sponsors, from both parties. On the Senate side bipartisan legislation was also introduced.
"But these reform measures met with a wall of resistance from top congressional leaders. A ‘ Dear Colleague’ letter (YOU CAN READ IT HERE — http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=713&Itemid=990) was written in March 2004 by the Number #2 Repbulican in the Senate, Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — as well as since-indicted Congressman Bob Ney (R-OH), along with Democrats Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Rep Steny Hoyer of Maryland — and sent to every member of the House and Senate, urging them to vote against paper trails and leave the electronic voting machines as they were. The letter arugued that mandating any sort of paper trail would ‘undermine essential HAVA ‘ — Help America Vote Act, the 2002 election reform law –’provisions, such the disability and language minority access requirments, and could result in more, rather than less, voter disenfranchisement and error. ‘
"ABC Radio contacted Senator Mitch McConnell’s office four times over the past few months to get a fuller explanation of this language but none of our requests were honored by Senator McConnell.
"According to a recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice, if voter verified paper trails aren’t backed up by routine, random audits, then any vote tampering could go undetected if a sample of the printed receipts are not compared to the final count.
"The way to go, experts say, is with a real paper ballot that is optically scanned. "
– REBECCA ABRAHAMS
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I read, reread, and read yet again the “Dear Colleague” letter referred to in today’s blog. For the life of me, I simply cannot understand, or even fathom, why any kind of audit trail would “undermine essential HAVA.” Is it not vital to have some kind of mechanism to verify the results recorded by electronic voting machines? Or do those illustrious senators and congressmen want to have EVERY future election called into question because they lacked the foresight, not to mention the cojones, to include some form of verification? The most direct way to undermine a democracy is to undermine the confidence in its voting process: if voters feel their votes will be misrecorded or not recorded at all, then they simply won’t vote. (I live in Chicago, so I know a bit about such shenanigans.)
It would seem that Sen. McConnell’s feet should be held to the fire as to why he thinks no audit trail for electronic voting is necessary. Or, better yet, his entire state of Kentucky (which, up to this point, seems to have more common sense than at least one of its senators) should be the proving ground for those wonderful Diebold voting machines that provide no paper trail. When, on November 8, Sen. McConnell will have lost decisively to his Democratic opponent, or even to Brad Pitt, Harold Stassen, or Donald Duck, let him request a recount and see how far he gets!
Posted by: chuck | October 24, 2006, 1:40 pm 1:40 pm
when you own the people who make the voting machines it takes a lot of anxiety out of the election. you can win “hard fought” races by a few votes and no one can prove different. the current politbureau certainly has adpoted this stance. did you see a democracy anywhere around here?
Posted by: jim | October 25, 2006, 3:24 pm 3:24 pm
I wonder how the error rate of all the touch-screen machines used at fast-food restaurants, businesses, and multiple other places compares to the alleged problems with the touch-screen voting machines.
If high school kids working at fast-food places can use these screens and be accurate, then what are we to make of all the excuses given by the voting machine manufacturer? It seems that they are either incompetent, or…?
Not to all: It IS possible to make bulletproof systems and secure systems. These voting machines MUST have inspections made and must pass, including software (proprietary or not), before they are deployed to any precinct for use. Period. No excuses.
Wake up, America.
Posted by: Patriot | November 3, 2006, 12:06 am 12:06 am
Everyone is missing the point. As long as we outsource our election system to a private corporation or corporations who are allowed to hold any part of it as proprietary, there is nothing that can preserve the integrity of the system. Lack of transparency and verification ability is a fatal flaw and if we don’t insist on that, we should have no expectation of democracy surviving. It is on life support now.
SFL
Posted by: Maturin42 | November 3, 2006, 12:29 am 12:29 am
This electronic voting machine failure has been documented two years ago. Why is everyone now ‘heroically’ questioning their use when it is obviously too late to do anything about this national voting problem disgrace?
Rebecca, where was your head stick in what sand pile all these past two years?
Disgusted.
Posted by: JOE LANZA | November 3, 2006, 1:58 am 1:58 am
I have been following this farce for about a year.The congressman involved when caught for not making sure these machines could be manipulated.When caught tried for treason.
Posted by: Dominick DiMaggio | November 3, 2006, 9:06 am 9:06 am
There is not such thing as an honest and fair election anymore. We saw that in the 1960 Presidential election of J.F.K. when you had many, many dead people “voting”.Nixon actually won. We saw it again in Florida when the Democrats tried to disallow the military absentee ballots form being counted. There is no integrity in our elections anymore and I, personally, don’t trust whatever the outcomes are now or in the future. It is disgraceful and I think that Republicans are being unfairly singled out as the culprits. The Democrats should clean up their own back yards first rather than throwing their trash in their neighbors(the Rupublicans) yards. The Dems have a long history in voter fraud. May God help and save the United States of America!!!!
Posted by: John F. New York | November 3, 2006, 9:29 am 9:29 am
You would think that the Republicans would want to protect themselves from electronic ballot box stuffing. The fact that they don’t want countable paper ballots….the fact that Diebold is onwned by Conservative sympathizers….says to me that they would like some method of voting that allows easy manipulation. They stold the 2000 election for President in Florida the hard way….by voter intimidation and disenfranchisement, particularly of blacks. They stold the 2004 election for President in Ohio with the same methods….not enough voting machines in poor districts, but plenty in conservative districts, plus plenty of other irregularities. But now they see a wonderful new opportunity. Just steal the vote with electronic machines and they won’t have to care who votes or even, how often. They won’t have to push their base to vote….they won’t have to lift a finger. They can steal the vote right from their office with the push of a button. So, my questions is simply this…..why do republicans hate democracy?
Posted by: Dan | November 3, 2006, 12:44 pm 12:44 pm