Not Ready For Prime Time
R. A. Hettinga
rah at shipwright.com
Fri Jun 4 07:38:32 EDT 2004
<http://www.sitnews.us/HowardDean/060104_dean.html>
Stories in the News
Electronic Voting - Not Ready For Prime Time
By Howard Dean
June 01, 2004, 2004
Tuesday
In December 2000, five Supreme Court justices concluded that a recount in
the state of Florida's presidential election was unwarranted. This,
despite the desire of the Florida Supreme Court to order a statewide
recount in an election that was decided by only 537 votes. In the face of
well-documented voting irregularities throughout the state, the U.S.
Supreme Court's decision created enormous cynicism about whether the votes
of every American would actually be counted. Although we cannot change
what happened in Florida, we have a responsibility to our democracy to
prevent a similar situation from happening again.
Some politicians believe a solution to this problem can be found in
electronic voting. Recently, the federal government passed legislation
encouraging the use of "touch screen" voting machines even though they
fail to provide a verifiable record that can be used in a recount.
Furthermore, this equipment cannot even verify as to whether a voter did
indeed cast a ballot for their intended candidate. Unfortunately, this
November, as many as 28% of Americans - 50 million people - will cast
ballots using machines that could produce such unreliable and unverifiable
results.
Only since 2000 have touch screen voting machines become widely used and
yet they have already caused widespread controversy due to their
unreliability. For instance, in Wake County, N.C. in 2002, 436 votes were
lost as a result of bad software. Hinds County, Miss. had to re-run an
election because the machines had so many problems that the will of the
voters could not be determined. According to local election officials in
Fairfax County, Va., a recent election resulted in one in 100 votes being
lost. Many states, such as New Hampshire and most recently Maine, have
banned paperless touch screen voting and many more are considering doing
so.
Without any accountability or transparency, even if these machines work,
we cannot check whether they are in fact working reliably. The American
public should not tolerate the use of paperless e-voting machines until
at least the 2006 election, allowing time to prevent ongoing errors and
failures with the technology. One way or another, every voter should be
able to check that an accurate paper record has been made of their vote
before it is recorded.
Both Democrats and Republicans have a serious interest in fixing this
potentially enormous blow to democracy. A bipartisan bill, sponsored by
Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), is one of several paper trail bills in the House
and Senate and it should be passed as soon as possible. A grassroots
movement for verified voting, led by organizations like VerifiedVoting.org,
is gaining momentum nationwide.
There is nothing partisan about the survival of our democracy or its
legitimacy. We cannot and must not put the success of one party or another
above the good of our entire country and all our people. To the
governments of the fifty states, Republican or Democrat, I ask you to put
paperless e-voting machines on the shelf until 2006 or until they are
reliable and will allow recounts. In a democracy you always count the votes
no matter who wins. To abandon that principle is to abandon America.
Email Howard Dean at howarddean at democracyforamerica.com
Howard Dean, M.D. and former governor of Vermont, is the founder of
Democracy for America, a grassroots organization that supports socially
progressive and fiscally responsible political candidates.
--
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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