Voting should be safe, secure, transparent and verifiable! A viable democracy demands it!"
This essay was done in the aftermath of the 2004 presidential campaign in which numerous instances of voter suppression, disenfranchisement, strange computer anomalies and later discarding of voter evidence, were reported. There are points I made earlier in the paper below, with which I might differ now, such as my view now of the Holt Bill which seems to have some serious flaws in it. There are some good things that have happened. Notably, in my own State of California, I am heartened that Debra Bowen, our State Secretary of State, has de-certified electronic voting machines.
It is with a lasting sadness, though, that I look back on that election and believe in my heart that something terribly wrong, perhaps criminally wrong, took place before, during and after the election. I vowed I would do all I could to try to contribute to the restoration of confidence in our electoral system, as an advocate and community activiist. But, I still feel greatly saddened that the egregious problems in our voting system have still not been addressed - and we are only one year away from a general election in which a new president will be selected. Is this wrong or what; what will it take to wake up the sleeping giant of America! Why don't we care enough about our won democracy to correct electoral injustice? I ask what has happened to my country.
Karita Hummer
Forever saddened by the 2004 Presidential Election, as well as the 2004 Presidential
ELECTORAL REFORM
Prepared by
Karita M. Hummer, Co-Chair Task Force, Electoral Reform Task Force, A Better Future for All
and
Donna Jones and Loretta Cochran, Members, Task Force
March 22, 2005
INTRODUCTION
Democracy is the bedrock of our way of government and when our elections do not protect the right to vote, do not ensure the integrity and security of our vote, and do not fairly count the vote, that way of government is seriously undermined. When even one American’s vote is callously denied, we are all injured and insulted. A Better Future for All stands squarely behind Electoral Reform to ensure the integrity, security and transparency of our vote – and, thereby, the protection of our nation as a democracy.
There has been considerable evidence of wide-scale voting problems in the last three national elections: with obvious voter suppression, disenfranchisement, undercounts and miscounts in evidence and the additional possibility of outright election fraud not ruled out.
(“A general definition of election fraud is the corruption of the process of casting and counting votes.”
Minnite and Callahan, 2003 De-mos
De-mos: A Network for Ideas & Action 15)
Fraud occurs by individual or by organizations and includes instances of write-in of fraudulent absentee votes, not counting or destroying ballots, or buying votes. P.14)
However, infringements of voting rights of any type, anywhere, is unpardonable in a democratic society. Major infringements certainly rise to the level of crime against our form of government, by whoever commits them, and some of these likely rise to the level of high crimes. When there is sufficient evidence, investigations should take place, civil and criminal charges should be brought to bear, and remedies should be sought.
The media casting a blind eye on voting infringements, irregularities and anomalies is unacceptable. Complacency by the media, in the face of such suspicion does not serve the public interest. And, should such practices have deprived anyone, anyone!!, of their constitutionally protected right to vote, THAT is a story worth telling. It's not about counting votes or even who has the larger numbers perse. Irregularities go way beyond that question. Indeed, it is a question of justice and civil rights. The infringement of civil rights at the ballot box is of major consequence whether it happens to a majority of voters or to a minority of voters. All voters need assurance that their civil rights as voters are protected under the law of the nation at all times. Anything less is an abridgement of democracy. When our media is reluctant to tell that story - the story of the wounding of the people’s democracy – the people are prevented from knowing their own story. It’s not good enough for just some of us to know the story of electoral abuse. Everyone deserves to know the story, and to consider how together we might prevent future abuses.
A Better Future for All wishes to disseminate the story of electoral abuse and how the nation is thereby deprived when it occurs. We hope to foster momentum for electoral reform and to join the cry for real, honest, secure elections throughout our land.
It has been said that unfair elections have occurred over the course of our nation’s history, sometimes benefiting one party, sometimes another. To that, we say, and believe we are joined by the great majority of Americans, “no more!!”
CONSTITUTIONAL
THE PROBLEMS IN OUR SYSTEM
From the past
We know that vote fraud and other forms of disenfranchisement have been observed in elections throughout our history.
De-mos pointed that out in their seminal publication, “Securing the Voter, and Analysis of election Fraud”, Minnite and Callahan, 2003, p.13, 14.
http://www.demos-usa.org/pubs/EDR_-_Securing_the_Vote.pdf
“Debates over election fraud are not new. They have been a staple of discussions about
elections and democracy in the United States for more than a century. But in recent
years, issues of fraud and voting integrity have increasingly come to the forefront of
public policy discussions over the health of America’s democracy. Even before the 2000
election, consistently low voter turnout rates and obstacles to participation motivated
various efforts to increase voter registration and turnout—efforts that in turn raised questions about voting integrity.” Minnite and Callahan, 2003, p. 13
In a study of election fraud over a ten year period, 1992 to 2002, outright fraud actually appears to have been reduced, in contrast to earlier times when parties were much stronger at the local level. Minnite and Callahan, 2003, p. 10
While the De-mos study ruled out any strong evidence of outright fraud over the period of their study, they did cite other election problems calling for attention.
“The disenfranchisement of voters through antiquated voting
systems, system error, and improper management of registration
databases, as occurred in Florida in the 2000 election, is
a far bigger problem than traditional forms of election fraud.” Minnite and Callahan, 2003, p. 10
Current state of alertness
What appears to be different now, at this point in time, is that a substantial citizens’ movement has become organized and vigilant about our elections, and, whereas, while outright questions of fraud still demand attention, other forms of voter suppression, are deemed now worthy of equal attention: voter suppression, intimidation, disenfranchisement, voter purges and partisan conflicts of interest in the administration of elections. The very technology that has given rise to such angst in advocates for accurate elections has also made it possible to study anomalies and irregularities in much more exquisite detail. This Movement is intent on setting in place the mechanisms for expanding enfranchisement of citizens and capturing the true intent of their preferences at the ballot box.
What the Literature says
Problems from 2000
United States Commission on Civil Rights Report
June, 2001
From the Conclusion Executive Summary http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/exesum.htm
“The Commission found that the problems Florida had during the 2000 presidential election were serious and not isolated. In many cases, they were foreseeable and should have been prevented. The failure to do so resulted in an extraordinarily high and inexcusable level of disenfranchisement, with a significantly disproportionate impact on African American voters. The causes include the following: (1) a general failure of leadership from those with responsibility for ensuring elections are properly planned and executed; (2) inadequate resources for voter education, training of poll workers, and for Election Day trouble-shooting and problem solving; (3) inferior voting equipment and/or ballot design; (4) failure to anticipate and account for the expected high volumes of voters, including inexperienced voters; (5) a poorly designed and even more poorly executed purge system; and (6) a resource allocation system that often left poorer counties, which often were counties with the highest percentage of black voters, adversely affected.”
From Vote Watch
http://www.votewatch.us/
Reprinted from Vote Watch
“The Problem
Soon after the 2000 Presidential Election, Caltech and MIT conducted a nationwide study of the problems associated with the election and current voting technology. They found that at least 1 in 25 (or 4% to 6%) of the votes cast in the 2000 election were "lost" – either uncounted or miscounted.
How did all these votes get lost? According to Caltech and MIT, the problems were:
• Confusing ballots and faulty equipment caused 1.5 to 2 million votes to be lost
• Registration mix-ups caused 1.5 to 3 million votes to be lost
• Poor polling place operations resulted in up to 1 million votes being lost
• Problems with absentee ballots caused an additional unknown number of votes to be lost
While Florida was the focus of most media coverage, the Caltech/MIT study found that Illinois, South Carolina, and Georgia had even more severe voting irregularities than Florida. In Chicago, "almost one out of every ten ballots for president did not register a vote."
Five other states – Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin – had such close margins of victory that the winner of their electoral votes might have changed if lost votes had been fully and accurately counted.
The impact of the "Nader Factor" on the 2000 election pales in comparison to the "Lost Votes Factor." Lost votes far exceeded the number of votes cast for all third-party and write-in candidates combined.
The "Lost Votes Factor" is expected to influence the 2004 election as well, despite government efforts to create more effective voting systems.
As we learned from Caltech and MIT, four to six million voters cast lost votes in the 2000 Presidential Election. In other words, only 94% to 96% of us had our votes count, or count as we intended. We deserve better. It's time for a change.
We encourage you to learn more about the extent of the problem, and to join us as part of the Votewatch Solution, assuring that statistically significant lost vote issues are identified and widely reported before our next election is certified.”
From Civil Rights Project: Harvard University Report
http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/electoral_reform/ResidualBallot.pdf
DEMOCRACY SPOILED: NATIONAL, STATE, AND COUNTY DISPARITIES IN DISFRANCHISEMENT THROUGH UNCOUNTED BALLOTS, October 21, 2002
Key Points
“Ballot spoilage is a national problem that varies greatly from state to state.
These State-level disparities mask far more dramatic disparities on the county level.
Disparities in residual or spoiled ballot rates are clearly the most important race-related civil rights problem identified from November 2000.
Many factors cause the substantial disparities in ballot spoilage rates and mere technological improvements will not sufficiently address these problems. … (These studies are consistent in their broad implications with analyses of the disparities that many analysts have noted in Florida in the 2000 election. The Civil Rights Project study of residual ballot rates found a strong relationship between ballot spoilage and black population; specifically, as the black population in a county increases, the spoiled ballot rate correspondingly increases. Similarly, as the white voting age population in a county increases, the spoiled ballot rate correspondingly decreases. Parentheses are the author’s. KMH )
From Cal Tech and MIT Study
Voting technology fact sheet
July 16, 2001
VOTING: WHAT IS, WHAT COULD BE a report of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
July, 2001
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/voting2facts.html
Reprinted
The Problem
“• The election process lost 4 to 6 million presidential votes in 2000. (Page 8)
• An estimated 1.5 million presidential votes were not recorded in 2000 because of difficulties using voting equipment. (Pages 8-9)
• Up to 3.5 million Senate and governor votes were lost because of technology over the last election cycle for these offices. (Page 21)
• According to the US Census Bureau, in the 2000 election, 7.4 percent of registered voters who did not vote (approximately 3 million) reported that trouble with their registration was the main reason they did not vote. (Pages 8-9)
• According to the US Census Bureau, in the 2000 election 2.8 percent of registered voters who did not vote (approximately 1 million) reported that long lines, inconvenient hours, or polling place locations were the main reason they did not vote. (Page 32)”
For Full Cal Tech/MIT Report
VOTING TECHNOLOGY PROJECT
CALTECH MIT, July 1, 2001
Author(s): R. Michael Alvarez, Stephen Ansolabehere, Erik Antonsson, Jehoshua Bruck
http://www.votewatch.us/reports/report.2004-08-14.8236285198/report_contents_file/
De-mos: A Network for Ideas & Action 13
Securing the Vote,
An Analysis of Election Fraud
Lori Minnite
Assistant Professor, Political Science, Barnard College
David Callahan
Director of Research, De - mos
© 2003 De-mos: A Network for Ideas and Action
Reprinted from p.13, 14.
“Debates over election fraud are not new. They have been a staple of discussions about elections and democracy in the United States for more than a century. But in recent years, issues of fraud and voting integrity have increasingly come to the forefront of public policy discussions over the health of America’s democracy. Even before the 2000 election, consistently low voter turnout rates and obstacles to participation motivated various efforts to increase voter registration and turnout—efforts that in turn raised questions about voting integrity. Critics of reforms—such as the institution of mail-in voting in Oregon, the loosening of guidelines for absentee ballot use, and, most notably, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (the “motor voter” act)—have charged that
these reforms increase the chances of voter fraud. Other frequently
proposed reforms, such as election day registration, have been criticized on the same grounds.”
PREDICTIONS OF PROBLEMS FOR 2004 ELECTION: WARNING SIGNS
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0527-02.htm
Published on Thursday, May 27, 2004 by Knight-Ridder
Coalition Fears Major Voting Problems Will Recur in Fall
by Nora Achrati
In the late Spring of 2004, this author warned that significant problems would recur in the election of 2004.
Warning of the dangers of disenfranchisement, citing the Cal Tech/MIT 2000 incident report, in which 4 – 6 million were disenfranchised, she predicted that the main underlying election problems of the election would be:
“Confusing voter registration and identification requirements, errors in purging lists of eligible voter, misused and malfunctioning voting machines, including the infamous punch-card machines, and inaccurate counting of ballots cast by voters who may be voting in the wrong precincts.”
A Gathering Storm
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/2004votefraud_pre1102.html
A Caging List is purported to exist in Florida
New Florida vote scandal feared - October 26, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm
Watch the video at the top of the BBC web page.
Secret documents from the Bush Campaign in Florida suggested a list had been prepared for possible vote challenges. As cited:
”Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list". It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.”
A Chill Wind Picks Up: Lightning on the Horizon
Flash News from TomPaine.com
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/an_election_spoiled_rotten.php
From:
An Election Spoiled Rotten
Greg Palast
November 01, 2004
On the eve of the election, scary news assailed eager Election Day workers. What a shock to read:
“It's not even Election Day yet, and the Kerry-Edwards campaign is already down by almost a million votes. That's because, in important states like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, voter names have been systematically removed from the rolls and absentee ballots have been overlooked—overwhelmingly in minority areas, like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, where Hispanic voters have a 500 percent greater chance of their vote being "spoiled." Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on the trashing of the election.
John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted. He's also losing big time in Colorado and Ohio; and he's way down in Florida, though the votes won't be totaled until Tuesday night.
Through a combination of sophisticated vote rustling—ethnic cleansing of voter rolls, absentee ballots gone AWOL, machines that "spoil" votes—John Kerry begins with a nationwide deficit that could easily exceed one million votes.”
ACTUAL ELECTION PROBLEMS, 2004
Shattering the Myth: An Initial Snapshot of Voter Disenfranchisement in the 2004 Elections
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, People for the American Way, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 12/1/2004
“The Election Protection Coalition, which mobilized election monitors around the country on November 2nd, gathered extensive observations on how well the voting system performed. In this report, they document systemic problems that resulted in the widespread disenfranchisement of American voters.”
http://www.tcf.org/Publications/ElectionReform/file_476.pdf
http://www.tcf.org/4L/4LMain.asp?subjectid=2&ArticleID=612
People for the American Way
NAACP
Lawyers Committee
An Election Protection coalition of organizations from across the country organized their resources to support election protection efforts in 17 states where part disenfranchisement had occurred. The Coalition collected 39,000 complaints in their Election Incident Reporting System. These major problems collected were in the areas of: Registration Processing, absentee ballots, machine errors, voter suppression or intimidation and provisional ballots.
Altogether there were 10,000 complaints regarding registration, thousands of complaints regarding absentee ballots and machine errors and more than a thousand complaints of voter suppression or intimidation and problems related to provisional ballots. In addition, there were reports of long lines, difficulties for voters with disabilities, inaccurate guidance at the polling place and inadequate language assistance.
November 15, 2004
"Confessions of an Unwitting Accessory"--A Commentary by Assoc. Dean Ian Solomon
http://www.law.yale.edu/outside/html/Public_Affairs/537/yls_article.htm
This essay is an eloquent personal account of this Yale Law Professor’s Election Day activities as a volunteer in Florida on election day, and how ill prepared he actually was to deal with the emerging problems of that day, and, in hindsight, the large scale problems that have come to light since that day.
Excerpts
“….But then the stories of voting irregularities poured in. There was the Ohio county where a memory card showed several thousand more votes for Bush than there were total votes cast. There was the machine in North Carolina that "lost" several thousand votes. There were the reports of several counties in Florida, all using optical scanner machines, where democratic precincts voted overwhelmingly for Bush. There was the realization that exit poll errors were correlated with the use of electronic voting machines. There was the sense that the data from the precincts where I had worked understated what felt like a Kerry landslide. And there were the increasing allegations of machine vulnerability to hacking made public by Blackboxvoting.org and others.
And that's when I realized that I might have been an unwitting accessory to fraud. Like every other Democrat, I had prepared to avoid the problems of 2000 only to be blindsided by new problems in 2004. We had been so worried about the safekeeping of paper ballots that we neglected the security of digital memory devices. We had been so worried about voting law that we neglected voting technology. Most important, we had been so worried about voter suppression in poor and minority areas that we didn't pay attention to voter inflation in Republican areas.
We should have had trained observers - computer scientists, not lawyers! - verifying the integrity of polling data from machine upload through the tabulation of countywide and statewide results. Somehow we neglected the most vulnerable step in the vote-counting process, leaving a gaping hole for error and fraud, casting in doubt the validity of election results in many states.
So what is to be done now? My client conceded the race on the belief that the results were clear. The results are anything but clear, however, and American democratic legitimacy requires an honest reappraisal of the events in Florida and around the country. Three members of Congress have already requested that the General Accounting Office conduct an investigation into the troubling reports of problems with voting machines. The mainstream press must immediately realize that this issue rises above partisanship and demands attention. The time is now for voters from all states that used electronic voting machines to request an audit of results and a manual recount of ballots if possible.
We have a duty as Americans to fix these problems for the future and make sure there is a transparent and trustworthy voting system. What's at stake is not merely the outcome of a close election; what's at stake is our faith in democratic government and the rule of law.”
Original Letter of John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler, and Robert Wexler asking for GAO Investigation, November 5, 2004
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/gaoinvestvote2004ltr11504.pdf
Buzzflash reports that by Nov. 23rd, 14 Congresspersons were signing on to the letter urging an investigation
14 House Dems Demand GAO Election Probe
A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Matthew Cardinale
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/11/con04514.html
These included 14 included, John Conyers (D-MI), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Robert Wexler (D-FL),
Robert Scott (D-GA), Melvin Watt (D-NC), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
Louise Slaughter (D-NY), George Miller (D-CA), John Olver (D-MA), Bob Filner (D-CA), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Plus Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
Buzzflash reported the following concerns of these members:
Particular concerns brought up by these Congressional Members were:
“-The almost 4,000 votes awarded to Bush in Columbus, Ohio, reported by the AP, which was only noticeable because more votes were recorded in the precinct than there were registered voters.
-Votes lost on a local initiative in Florida because the computer could only store so many votes.
-Apx. 4,500 votes lost in one North Carolina county.
-A glitch in San Francisco computers which caused many votes to be uncounted.
-Florida's anomalous results where only districts with touch screen voting had disproportionate votes for Bush than expected. This analysis has since
been duplicated by a UC Berkeley professor and others.
-AP reports in Florida and Ohio of voters who stated when using touchscreens, when they selected "John Kerry," that instead "George Bush" would appear on the screen.
-Long lines in urban Ohio areas, to the point where voters left in frustration after 8 or so hours. But that's not all. The second letter, dated, November 8th, reported additional incidents.
-3,000 phantom votes were added by a Nebraska "vote tabulator" which doubled the votes.
-22,000 North Carolina votes which later had to be added because the computer initially discarded them due to system overload.
-21 voting machines in Broward County, Florida, malfunctioned, eliminating prior votes that had been cast on them in this most-Democratic county in the state.
-Warren County, Ohio's, bogus refusal allow independent monitoring of vote counting based on a terrorist incident which turned out later to not exist.
-Malfunctioning vote cassettes in Palm Beach, FL.
-Boxes of absentee votes discovered after the election in a Broward County election office.”
Fixing America's Broken Elections
Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Reporting on Staff Findings
February 08, 2005
http://www.tompaine.com/print/fixing_americas_broken_elections.php
From Article
Reprint
Of problems found, John Conyers cited the following:
“What they found indicated problems in multiple areas, from machine tampering and malfunction, to the intimidation and caging of minority voters in urban and rural areas, to the purposeful misallocation of voting machines and the unjustifiable restrictions that were placed on the use of provisional ballots……………..
My staff found substantial evidence, admitted by a Triad voting machine company employee—in public, videotaped testimony— that he developed documents and manipulated voting machines for the purposes of allowing county officials to forgo a legally required full hand recount of ballots. Other instances of inappropriate political advocacy by voting machine company officials are well known.”
AND MORE
A Point of View
From
What Really Happened, The History the Government Hopes You Don’t Learn
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/2004votefraud.html
From this point of view:
“On November 2, 2004 President Bush defied both public opinion and history to win the election 51 - 48.
How was this done? Simple...
Vote suppression/voter intimidation and deception. Shortages of voting locations and ballot forms. Foreign monitors barred from polls. Unmatched exit polls/actual results - actual results always skewed to Republicans. Masses of e-Voting "glitches". Computers lost votes. Presidential votes miscast on e-Voting machines throughout the US. More recorded votes than voters. Republicans gained 128.45% in Florida counties using optical scan voting machines while Democrats lost 21% - some districts showed gains of over 400% while one, Liberty County, gained over 700% for Republicans.Warren County officials locked down the county administration building on election night and blocked anyone from observing the vote count as the nation awaited Ohio's returns. Bush had 'incredible' vote tallies. 7% turnout reported in Cleveland precinct. In Cuyahoga County different towns had the exact same number of "extra" votes. And on, and on...
From De-mos
Continuing Failures in "Fail-Safe" Voting
A Preliminary Analysis of Provisional Voting Problems
December 6, 2004
Summary Statement
http://www.demos-usa.org/pub383.cfm
Conclusion
“Demos' preliminary analysis of one thousand provisional balloting incidents reported in the recent election suggests very serious problems. Poll workers in precincts around the nation were confused about the new HAVA-mandated procedure. Voters were either never apprised of the new “fail-safe” voting option, or offered provisional ballots when they were eligible to cast regular votes. At the time, poll workers offered them as an easy way to keep the lines moving at polling places rather than resolving issues that arose with individual voters.
This first national experience with provisional balloting also highlights ongoing failures in voter registration and the preparation of voter lists. Counties lose valid registrations or delay the processing of registration applications such that eligible voters are deprived of their right to cast ballots…..” p.7
Continuing Failures in "Fail-Safe" Voting
A Preliminary Analysis of Provisional Voting Problems
December 6, 2004
Summary Statement
http://www.demos-usa.org/pub383.cfm
View the document (pdf)
”Demos finds that the right to provisional ballots was violated across the country on November 2, 2004.
In this preliminary analysis, Demos finds that the right to provisional ballots was violated across the country on November 2, 2004. While all the data on provisional balloting have yet to be collected and assessed, available evidence suggests that Congress and the states must revisit provisional ballot statutes, regulations and procedures if the original "fail-safe" voting mandate is to be fully realized.”
Demos - From the PDF File
Continuing Failures in “Fail-Safe” Voting: A Preliminary Analysis of Provisional Voting Problems in the 2004 Election, December 7, 2004
http://www.demos-usa.org/pubs/December%20PB%20Report%20Draft%2015.pdf
A provisional ballot offered to a new voter whose name was never entered into the registry of voters is a meaningless vote that will be discounted.
The definitive analysis of provisional voting in 2004 cannot yet be undertaken. Yet the data show that provisional voting and the entire system of election administration continue to suffer serious shortcomings. States, localities and the federal government must take stock of the thousands of voters whose attempts to vote were frustrated last November. Additional resources must be found to correct flaws in voter registration systems and improve poll worker performance. And to be truly “fail-safe,” provisional balloting must be improved. As the challenges of provisional voting become clear and states bring statewide computerized voter registration systems on-line, other proven remedies like Election Day Registration should be considered.
AND FROM “The Crisis Papers”
Reviews by Donna Jones, Partner, A Better Future for All
Review written by Donna Jones, Submitted, February 1, 2005
Partridge, Ernest, Co-Editor, “The Crisis Papers,” “Has the Case for Election Fraud been Refuted” January 25, 2005.
http://www.crisispapers.org/essays-p/fraud.htm
Response to the possibility of election fraud has been met with silence from the commercial media and taunting from the defenders of the election results.
In Florida, there were discrepancies between the number of registered voters and the number of actual voters for president. Optical scan machines used in counties with large Democratic majorities went overwhelmingly for Bush, meaning that unaffiliated voters went almost entirely to Bush. At the same time, the touch-screen machine votes were evenly split.
Explanations for the discrepancies came from a Harvard and Cornell study who blamed the differences on the “Dixiecrat effect” – the tendency of traditional rural Democrats to vote Republican. The study said that the counties where this occurred were in the Florida Panhandle, where Democrats had not bothered to change their registrations.
Though the Dixiecrat theory has been valid in the past, it was not valid this time as the study narrowed in on the Panhandle counties. Other studies have shown that these counties are rural with small populations that don’t have much effect on the totals. Elizabeth Liddle did several analyses of the Dixiecrat effect and concluded that the registration/voting discrepancies cannot be blamed on the Dixiecrat effect. Whatever conclusions are drawn regarding the Dixiecrat effect, this argument is confined to Florida and does not explain irregularities in the rest of the Country.
A Caltech/MIT study claims there is no evidence based on exit polls that the electronic voting machines were used to steal the election. Even if true, that does not mean that the election was not stolen.
“Black-box” voting could have been accomplished not necessarily by “retail hacking” but by the secret software issued by the private Republican-owned corporations who manufactured the voting machines. These were the companies who also compiled the votes as they came in. In the case of the optical scan method, which has a paper trail ballot, these paper ballots were not made available, so they may as well be paperless.
The coding systems that compile votes are owned by the same Republican-owned corporations and are highly susceptible to real-time hacking. These systems can be invaded, the totals changed, and no trace of the invasion is left.
Caltech/MIT used late exit polling as predictions of the election results. Early exit polling predicts the election, while late exit polling is adjusted by adding in the actual election returns. “They used data in which the count is assumed correct to prove that the count is correct.” This is called “circular argument.” The conclusions of the Caltech/MIT study falls apart because of the fallacy of the circular argument.
The Caltech/MIT study also fails by its comparison of opinion polls with exit polls. Opinion polls have a margin of error of several percentage points, while exit-polls have only a one-point margin of error.
Farhad Manjoo at Salon.com said that Kerry conceded when it was reported that the counting of provisional ballots would not change the outcome of the election in Ohio. Even if it were true, it did not prove that the Ohio election was not rigged. The election might have been stolen “through a multi-front campaign, including voter suppression, ‘lost’ ballots, and perhaps e-voting and compiling machines.” Others who side with Manjoo can’t fathom that a variety of electoral “shenanigans” could have brought about a stolen election in both 2000 and 2004.
Russ Baker tries to say that those who suspect a stolen election do so because people keep saying so. The truth is, however, that there is compelling evidence. Partridge then lists a number of scholars and their credentials who question the election results.
Mitofsky, chief of the exit-polling organization (MEP), faces the problem of the gap between the exit polling and the actual results. If the polls were correct, then there were problems with the polling in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida or there were problems with how the polling was administered or in the compiling of the data.
Mitofsky’s response was to blame the polling, saying Democrats were more willing to participate and that the people they hired to do the polling were young and inexperienced. A circular argument may be in play here again, however, these are not explanations and are not to be believed without supporting data. In fact, the explanations bring up more questions: “why are these discrepancies most notable in the ‘battleground states’” and “why are Bush supporters too shy to participate in the polling”?
“Freeman calculates the odds against the discrepancies in the Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania polls occurring together and at random to be 662,000 to one. In effect, statistically impossible.” He urges academia, polling agencies and the public to investigate.
Braiman also concurs that “in a free and fair election,” the polling results prove that John Kerry would have won.
The conclusion is that the Republicans “have succeeded in framing” the issue to their advantage. The outcome for Democrats in future elections is dependent on fair elections. It is imperative that the critics not surrender.
There are many unanswered questions. “These are questions which, if persistently thrown against the barricades of “conventional wisdom,” may erode the foundations of the malignant Bush regime and eventually bring it down.”
Review by Donna Jones, Submitted February 10, 2005
Ernest Partridge: ''Shut up!,' they explain'
Posted on Wednesday, February 02 @ 10:00:29 EST By Ernest Partridge, The Crisis Papers
http://www.crisispapers.org/essays-p/shut-up.htm
Those who question the validity of the election have been ridiculed and ignored. If the election of 2004 was manipulated, then it deserves to be given attention, because it strikes at the heart of our democracy. If we can’t remove a government by an election, we are no longer ruled “with the consent of the governed.” The media no longer is the citizens’ defense against tyranny but itself serves the government.
There have been attempts at defending the results of the election, but, as was shown in an earlier crisis paper, the defenses lose credibility upon close inspection. When the skeptics press for answers, they are usually met with “Shut Up!”
Partridge suggests a different approach on this issue and comes up with several questions, questions that have been ignored by those who would profit from their not being asked. So we ask questions instead of making accusations.
The first question is whether accurate tallies were recorded on the paperless voting machines and the compiling machines. This question has not been answered as the machines were not designed to provide the answers. There are no paper records and the source code software is secret.
If required by law, voting results could be audited and validated as they are in the State of Nevada. Other indirect methods of validation could be done, such as selecting machines at random throughout the day and checking their input/output consistency. Another method would be to have both machine and paper ballots and comparing the two in the case of a question. These tests must be totally random and performed on election day.
There is still statistical analyses where there is no paper trail or other verification. These studies indicate election fraud. Media has totally ignored this possibility.
The next question is: “Why won’t the e-voting machines provide auditable paper records?”
Answers most given are that they would be too expensive or impractical. These answers go away in the light of the fact that the same corporations who build these machines also make ATM machines and gasoline pump credit card mechanisms, both of which provide paper records.
Other questions arise about the refusal of Diebold and ES&S corporations to publish their source codes. The corporations maintain that these codes are private property. There are, however, copyright laws that protect “intellectual property.” These properties are by their very nature public and not secret. Why can’t the source codes also be protected by copyright laws? In order to secure the accuracy of the compiling machines, two different compiling methods could be used and the results compared.
There are a number of other questions that concern attempts to introduce bills that would require paper records were killed in committees, led by Republicans. The polling companies who did the exit polling will not release the raw data from the Ohio election. The polling data in most states were accurate, but inaccurate in the contested states. The errors were almost always favored Bush, which statistically were impossible. Voting laws were broken; why were there no indictments? In Florida, Republican staff members from Washington were flown to Florida in 2000 to disrupt the recounting of ballots.
Is there “reasonable doubt” that the 2004 election was fair? Can the party that is in control of the unauditable machines and the software not be voted out of office? Can the government be a democracy in this case?
We must investigate these accusations and stop using voting machinery that bring spurious results. We have the right to have fair elections and to expect our government to guarantee that right.
The last and most important question:
Suppose you wanted to set up a fraudulent voting system that would assure victory for your party and yet con the public into believing the system was fair and accurate. How could you improve upon the e-voting systems in place – with its secret software and its unauditable and unverifiable “output,” combined with a totally incurious mass media?
AND MORE FROM: IN THESE TIMES
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1970/
Features February 15, 2005
A Corrupted Election
Despite what you may have heard, the exit polls were right
By Steve Freeman and Josh Mitteldorf
“The exit polls themselves are a strong indicator of a corrupted election. Moreover, the exit poll discrepancy must be interpreted in the context of more than 100,000 officially logged reports of irregularities during Election Day 2004. For many Americans, if not most, mass-scale fraud in a U.S. presidential election is an unthinkable possibility. But taken together, the allegations, the subsequently documented irregularities, systematic vulnerabilities, and implausible numbers suggest a coherent story of fraud and deceit.
What's more, the exit poll disparity doesn't tell the whole story. It doesn't count those voters who were disenfranchised before they even got to the polls. The voting machine shortages in Democratic districts, the fraudulent felony purges of voter rolls, the barriers to registration, and the unmailed, lost, or cavalierly rejected absentee ballots all represent distortions to the vote count above and beyond what is measured by the exit poll disparity. The exit polls, by design, sample only those voters who have already overcome these hurdles.”
AND FROM FREE PRESS
Kerry votes switched to Bush and ballots pre-punched for Bush
by Dr. Werner Lange
December 24, 2004
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1032
Excerpt
”Pre-punched ballots; touch-screen vote switching; more absentee votes than absentee voters; unfair provisional voter deletions; change of voting sites on Election Day; voter suppression; voter intimidation; double voting; malfunctioning machines; recalibrated machines; evidently rigged machines; and even 25 million negative votes registered in some races in Mahoning County!”
Excerpt
“One pattern that has been documented based on the experience of voters in Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, and elsewhere (especially in swing states) is the machines appear to have been set with a default to Bush. Then if the voter successfully punched the ballot for another candidate, Bush was replaced by that candidate.”
AND FROM VOTERS UNITE
From Myth Breakers: Facts about Electronic Elections by Ellen Theisen
Voters Unite www.votersunite.org
E-Voting Problems in Recent Elections
Ten Common Electronic Election Problems
1) Electronic Voting Machines Lose Ballots
2) Electronic Election Equipment Inexplicably Adds Ballots
3) Tabulation Software Reaches 32,767 Votes and Counts Backwards
4) Votes Jump to the Opponent on the Screen
5) DREs Provide Incorrect Ballots
6) Election-Specific Programming Miscounts Votes
7) DREs Break Down During the Election
8) Electronic Voting Machines Fail to Start Up
9) Registration Data Transmission Fails
10) Memory Cards and Smart Card Encoders Fail
Facts About Electronic Voting
http://www.votersunite.org/info/flyers.asp
Overview
“Election transparency is the fundamental basis of election integrity.
In transparent elections, all the processes of handling and counting ballots are completely
open to public view. Nothing is hidden, nothing is secret – except, of course, each
individual's voting choices.
Election fraud and miscounts have occurred throughout history, and they will continue to
occur. Transparency is the only way to minimize them, but with electronic voting,
transparency is removed. Electronic processes that record and count the votes are not open to public scrutiny. Courts have ruled that election software is a trade secret, so even a losing candidate with a computer consultant cannot view it.
With electronic voting, the most important and vulnerable election processes – recording
and tallying the votes – are performed in secret, without public oversight. These processes were not developed by government officials charged with ensuring election integrity, but by anonymous software engineers, hired by vendors and not accountable to the public for the quality of their work.”
One would expect overwhelming benefits to accompany this sacrifice of transparency and the resulting loss of public control over election processes. That's the myth. Ironically, overwhelming disadvantages accompany the sacrifice. The logical question is "Why make the sacrifice?" It's a question more and more people are asking.
The facts and examples presented in this document are intended to dispel some of the
myths surrounding electronic voting. We must lay these myths to rest quickly, for as long
as they are believed by decision-makers, our democracy is at risk.”
AND STILL MORE EVIDENCE
March 1, 2005
Florida League of Conservation Voters
Outline of Incidents of Vote Suppression, Vote Machine Fraud, Dirty Tricks in 22 states, prepared by Florida League of Conservation Voters
The Florida League of Conservation Voters has prepared a very useful outline. organized by state and subject matter, detailing incident reports in 22 states, including Ohio, Florida, and New Mexico, relating to vote machine fraud, "dirty tricks", and minority voter suppression, at: http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html
http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html
Widespread systematic vote machine fraud, and dirty tricks and suppression of minority registration and voting in many states in 2004 Election
Although it was thought that voting inTouchscreen machine counties produces no paper trail, this was not the case this year since the widespread problems found in the 2000 election resulted in 60 non-partisan organizations interested in fair elections forming a consortium in 2004 to provide an election incident reporting system(EIRS) for reporting election irregularities. Thousands of such irregularities were reported in several swing states, especially in touchscreen counties, thus providing a paper trail for election irregularities down to the precinct and even machine level in many cases. From this and other investigations, including the Ohio recount effort, vote machine fraud and systematic dirty tricks and suppression to reduce minority votes has been documented in most states investigated. It is also clear that this was a systematic effort, not isolated local events.
AND EVEN FROM A BUSH ALLY
Ohio's Odd Numbers
By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Are the stories of vote suppression and rigged machines to be believed? Here is "non-wacko" evidence that something went seriously awry in the Buckeye State on Election Day 2004
http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/050214roco05
“I am not any sort of statistician or technologist, and (like many Democrats in private) I did not think that John Kerry should have been president of any country at any time. But I have been reviewing books on history and politics all my life, making notes in the margin when I come across a wrong date, or any other factual blunder, or a missing point in the evidence. No book is ever free from this. But if all the mistakes and omissions occur in such a way as to be consistent, to support or attack only one position, then you give the author a lousy review. The Federal Election Commission, which has been a risible body for far too long, ought to make Ohio its business. The Diebold company, which also manufactures A.T.M.s, should not receive another dime until it can produce a voting system that is similarly reliable. And Americans should cease to be treated like serfs or extras when they present themselves to exercise their franchise.”
RECOMMENDATIONS OF KEY ELECTORAL REFORM ADVOCATES
IS THERE ANY DOUBT THAT SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE?
NATIONAL COMMISSION ON FEDERAL ELECTION REFORM
http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/elecref/ch3.htm
Election Reform: An Analysis of Proposals and the Commission’s Recommendations for Improving America’s Election System
From Chapter III
National Election Reform Research and Recommendations
NATIONAL COMMISSION ON FEDERAL ELECTION REFORM
Overview
“Out of the irregularities in the 2000 election came a call for national election reform and the creation of the National Commission on Federal Election Reform (NCFER). NCFER was chaired by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford and became known as the Carter/Ford Commission. After months of task force meetings and public forums, NCFER released goals and recommendations for how the voting system in the United States could be improved.[1] According to NCFER, the goals for an efficient democratic process are fairly straightforward. Government at all levels should provide a process that:
• maintains accurate voter registration lists of all eligible citizens;
• encourages every eligible voter to participate effectively;
• uses equipment that reliably clarifies and registers the voter’s choices;
• handles close elections in a foreseeable and fair way;
• operates with equal effectiveness for every citizen and every community; and
• reflects limited but responsible federal participation.
Meeting these goals, according to NCFER, requires the precise balancing of federal and state responsibilities. NCFER agreed that state governments should continue to have a primary role in the conduct of elections because there are “widely varying conditions” across states that influence how elections should be run.[2] To that end, NCFER recommended that state governments do far more to accept a lead responsibility for improving the conduct of elections.”
Conclusions of NCFER
NCFER’s 13 recommendations are as follows:
1. Every state should adopt a system of statewide voter registration.
2. Every state should permit provisional voting by any voter who claims to be qualified to vote in that state.
3. Congress should enact legislation to hold presidential and congressional elections on a national holiday.
4. Congress should adopt legislation that simplifies and facilitates absentee voting by uniformed and overseas citizens.
5. Each state should allow for restoration of voting rights to otherwise eligible citizens who have been convicted of a felony once they have fully served their sentence, including any term of probation or parole.
6. State and federal governments should take additional steps to assure the voting rights of all citizens and to enforce the principle of one person, one vote.
7. Each state should set a benchmark for voting system performance, uniform in each local jurisdiction that conducts elections. The benchmark should be expressed as a percentage of residual vote (the combination of overvotes, spoiled votes, and undervotes) in the contest at the top of the ballot and should take account of deliberate decisions of voters not to make a choice.
8. The federal government should develop a comprehensive set of voting equipment system standards for the benefit of state and local election administration.
9. Each state should adopt uniform statewide standards for defining what will constitute a vote on each category of voting equipment certified for use in that state. Statewide recount, election certification, and contest procedures should take account of the timelines for selection of presidential electors.
10. News organizations should not project any presidential election results in any state so long as polls remain open elsewhere in the 48 contiguous states. If necessary, Congress and the states should consider legislation, within First Amendment limits, to protect the integrity of the election process.
11. The federal government, on a matching basis with the governments of the 50 states, should provide funds that will add another $300–400 million to annual spending on election administration in the United States. The federal share will require a contribution totaling $1–2 billion spread out over two or three years to help capitalize state revolving funds that will provide long-term assistance.
12. The federal responsibilities envisioned should be assigned to a new agency, an Election Administration Commission (EAC).
13. Congress should enact legislation that includes federal assistance for election administration, setting forth policy objectives for the states while leaving the choice of strategies to the discretion of the states.”
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?list=type&type=43#federal
Verified Voting
January 30, 2005
“One thing is undeniable: in order to have even the opportunity for an auditableelection, you must have something meaningful to audit. A permanent paper record of the vote, verified by the voter, is essential. Paperless electronic voting machines fail to provide this very basic and essential capability, because they deny voters the opportunity to verify that their votes have been accurately recorded.
In May 2004, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) introduced the Voting Integrity andVerification Act (VIVA) of 2004 (S.2437 in the 108th Session). Its minimallanguage, though limited in scope, addresses the heart of the issue, ensuring that any newly-purchased electronic voting machine produces a voter-verifiable paper record, and that the paper record takes precedence in case of any discrepancy, recount, or audit. During the last session, it was the only Senate bill dealing with this issue that achieved bipartisan support.
In the coming weeks and months, states and jurisdictions will be using nearly$1 billion in HAVA funds to acquire new voting systems in order to meet the January 1, 2006 deadline for compliance with the standards mandated by HAVA.
It is essential that any new voting systems acquired with these funds provide avoter-verifiable paper record to enable all voters to verify that their votes have been accurately recorded and to enable elections officials to conduct meaningful manual recounts and audits of election results. Accessible voting technologies, including ballot marking devices, now enable voters with disabilities (including voters who are blind) to mark their ballots and to verify the paper record with privacy and independence.
Sen. Ensign will soon be introducing the Voting Integrity and Verification Act of2005, which has identical language to VIVA 2004 / S.2437. Swift passage of this legislation will ensure that states and jurisdictions make appropriate purchasing decisions with regard to new voting systems and that those systems produce results that are verifiable by all voters and auditable by election officials.
We call in the strongest possible terms for every Senator, Republican, Democrat, and Independent, to support this bill with cosponsorship.”
Fixing America's Broken Elections
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
February 08, 2005
http://www.tompaine.com/print/fixing_americas_broken_elections.php
Excerpts Reprinted from Article
“One does not have to agree that such tampering has been proven, however, to believe that it must be fixed. The unfettered access for voting machine companies and election officials to voting machines and the lack of security of those machines against hacking has convinced me—and should provide sufficient justification to anyone—that we must have a voter verified paper ballot for voting machines.
To some, a voter-verified paper ballot is only acceptable means of creating an auditable record of votes. They are rightly concerned that any form of verification that is not written as ink on paper may be tampered with in the same manner as the original machine vote. However, disabled voters have strongly argued for different and accessible modalities of verification, such as audio ballots. In the last Congress, this dilemma helped prevent the passage of any legislation. Besides being the right thing to do, unless we reach a satisfactory solution for disabled voters, no bill will pass in this Congress either.
My bill proposes a simple solution: Let the voter decide. Under my bill, before casting a ballot, a voter could obtain a paper version of the ballot that reflects the voter's selections for each office. That ballot will be kept in a secure manner at the polling place. In the alternative, a voter could obtain another modality of verification and have it retained in a secure manner. Others have suggested that a disabled voter be given access to his or her preferred modality of verification and the machine should produce a paper record duplicating that. I am open to considering any and all means that simultaneously produce a voter verified ballot and protect the rights of the disabled.
But that right to a voter-verified paper ballot is meaningless unless the paper ballot is used. My bill requires election- day audits of voting machines and, if discrepancies are found between paper and machine totals, the use of paper ballots for the official count. In addition, paper ballots would be used for audits and recounts.
For some, fixing or getting rid of machines would end all the problems. This would be a terrible mistake. A machine with a voter-verified paper ballot is useless if you are denied access to that machine by deception, negligence or accident. In the words of Steve Rosenfeld, senior producer at Air America Radio, who testified at my December 5 Ohio hearing, what we saw in election 2004 was a mix of "old school and new school" tactics for disenfranchising voters. If we only combat the "new school" tactics, and leave in place the "old school" thuggery, we will continue to have elections that disenfranchise minority voters and have results which do not reflect the voters' intent.
In Ohio, voters were denied the exercise of their voting rights because of long lines at polling stations—as long as 10 hours—that made it impracticable for many to vote. The intense investigative efforts of my staff revealed that Democratic and urban areas were purposely shortchanged voting machines. It is not random or coincidental that in vote-rich Franklin County, 27 of the 30 wards with the most machines per registered voter showed majorities for Bush, while six of the seven wards with the fewest machines delivered large margins for Kerry. Under my bill, we will have federal standards that require a fair distribution of voting machines.
In Ohio and throughout the nation, voters were deprived of their voting rights by trickery, and many of these actions were officially sanctioned "on high." To be sure, we have no idea whether official-looking letters giving erroneous information about election day and voting qualifications were approved by Republican officials. However, the most egregious and widespread examples of such activities, the use of "caging" tactics and partisan "challengers," were initiatives of the Ohio Republican Party. Through my investigation of Ohio, we also discovered that an out-of-state group that called themselves the "Texas Strike Force" made intimidating calls to minority voters and had its accommodations paid for by the Ohio Republican Party. Under my bill, there will be stronger laws with stiffer penalties—including a new prohibition on unfair and deceptive practices affecting federal elections.
In Ohio and throughout the nation, voters encountered an overly complex system of registration and onerous deadline that placed undue burdens on working families. Secretary Blackwell's decision to restrict the use of provisional ballots was not minimal. In one county, more than 1,000 votes were discarded as a result of this directive. Similar edicts, issued by Blackwell, as to a required 80-lb paper weight for voter registration forms created confusion, according to the New York Times , even though Blackwell withdrew the requirement. Indeed, two weeks after the election and more than a month after this edict was withdrawn, at least one county still had it on its website, and it remained on the website of the Secretary of State. Under my bill, every voter would be entitled to register on election day, and to cast a ballot by mail.”
CURRENT BILLS
February 28, 2005
VerifiedVoting.org’s Statement on the “Count Every Vote Act of 2005”
http://verifiedvoting.org/downloads/VVOs_comments_on_S450.pdf
“On February 17, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) introduced the "Count Every Vote Act of 2005" (S. 450) in the Senate, and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) introduced a companion bill (H.R. 939) in the House. These bills propose a large number of electoral reforms, such as
establishing uniform standards for counting provisional ballots, requiring all States to provide early voting and election day registration, and making Election Day a Federal holiday.
More relevant to our mission, S. 450 also has several highly-desirable provisions similar to those in Rep. Holt's bill (H.R. 550), including requirements that:
1) all voting systems provide a voter-verified paper ballot (VVPB),
2) the VVPB is the official ballot of record for use in all recounts or audits, and
3) mandatory, manual recounts of the VVPBs be performed in a randomly-selected set of 2% of all precincts nationwide.
S. 450 also creates new requirements for audio and pictorial-based methods for verifying the VVPBs. Those requirements will be difficult to meet by the specified deadlines and they have unintended consequences for the continued use of precinct-count optical scan systems and ballot
marking devices (those devices make optical scan ballots accessible to voters with disabilities).
As a result, these new requirements would limit the options available for meeting the needs of voters with disabilities. One of our priorities is that optical scan voting systems and ballot marking devices remain viable options, since they provide a more verifiable solution than direct
recording electronic (DRE) voting machines with VVPB printers attached.
S. 450 represents a good start and a very sincere and authentic movement forward. We appreciate and applaud the support this bill gives to VVPB and to mandatory manual audits.
These provisions provide a significant improvement over the current gap in federal voting standards. The technology for audio and pictorial-based methods for verifying the VVPB is rapidly evolving, and the new and emerging legislative language that deals with these mechanisms
would benefit from additional attention and clarification. We look forward to further national discussion and enhancement of those provisions of the bill during committee and floor consideration.”
From De-Mos
http://www.demos-usa.org/democracydispatches/dispatches54.htm#oped
OPINION/EDITORIAL
Getting Elections Right
By Miles Rapoport, March 6, 2005
The passage of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was an important first step. For the first time, Congress appropriated funding for improving elections in the states. HAVA required states to have computerized voter lists, to have accessible polling places for the disabled, and to offer provisional ballots -- all tentative steps toward ensuring that voters' rights are preserved.
The Act also created the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which has begun to fulfill its mandates. The EAC was appointed a year late and not funded properly for months. Only this past year has it begun to have the staff and resources to start its research, to monitor the states’ spending on HAVA, and to hold hearings on key electoral issues. The four Commissioners -- two Republicans, two Democrats -- have acted in a serious and bipartisan manner in undertaking their responsibilities. They have established good working relationships with a number of election officials, both secretaries of state and county and municipal officials.
So it was surprising and disturbing when the National Association of Secretaries of State rushed through a resolution calling upon Congress to de-fund and de-authorize the EAC at the end of 2006. The resolution is ill-conceived in its fundamental premise, and designed to disrupt the relationships necessary to carry out reform with success.
Underlying the resolution is the principle of states rights: states and localities know best when it comes to fixing their election systems. All that is needed is for the federal government to give the states money -- and then butt out. As a former Secretary of the State, I can understand the sentiment behind this position. But this election was riddled with inconsistencies. Identification requirements differed from state to state. Provisional ballot rules differed from state to state, and sometimes from county to county. Voter registration rules, including deadlines and standards for the acceptance of registration forms, varied from state to state. Standards for purging lists were almost non-existent. This situation is untenable. It is also ripe for a blizzard of lawsuits seeking clarification and uniform standards.
The federal government should not impose a “one size fits all” straitjacket for the states. But it should absolutely create a set of reasonable standards with rights of the voter as the central focus. Election reform advocates, state legislators, and Congress should demand nothing less. All this will require ongoing funding, attention and commitment from Congress. It will also require cooperation between election officials at all levels, voting rights organizations, and elected officials in order to reach consensus about what kinds of flexibility or uniformity should be built into the system.
NASS would do well to rescind its resolution, shed its “just leave us alone” posture, and dedicate itself to the hard and collaborative work of getting this right.
John Conyers
Conyers Forces Election Reform on House Floor
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Thursday 03 March 2005
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/030305Y.shtml
On this date, Mr. William Rivers Pitt, who has written so extensively on the topic of Election Problems of 2004, reported on a clever maneuver John Conyers used in Congress on March 3, 2005, to bring in the topic of real Election Reform. He used the occasion of a discussion in congress on a bill that hypothetically considers strategy for ensuring representative continuity in the event that Congress should get wiped out by a Terroist Attack. On the afternoon of March 3rd, 2005, then, Conyers addressed the House with these words:
“Mr. Speaker, for a measure that purports to protect our democracy, I have to admit the manner by which this legislation has been brought before us today considerably undermines those very principles.
On the substance, this bill - the subject of so much concern - falls for short of fixing what is wrong with our democracy.
When it comes to elections, this is not even close to our biggest concern. Why are we worrying so much about hypothetical problems about a hypothetical election when we have had two consecutive elections in this country where ACTUAL VOTERS were disenfranchised?
On those issues, this House remains silent. It remains silent about the ten hour lines that disenfranchised minority voters in Ohio. It remains silent about the 4,000 votes lost in North Carolina because of a faulty voting machines. It remains silent about the intimidating tactics, fake letters and fliers, and other illegal acts designed to disenfranchise minority voters that have been used by one political party to bolster their electoral fortunes.
Will it help the inner-city voter in Franklin County, Ohio who waited ten hours in the pouring rain, while suburban voters in that county had no appreciable wait times?
What will this bill do to correct the problems that occurred in the most recent presidential election?
Will it help the elderly voter in Lucas County who requested an absentee ballot that never showed up and then on election day was refused a provisional ballot?
Will it do anything for the Hispanic voter in Hamilton County who was directed to the wrong voting table, and had their ballot thrown out because of a decision by the Secretary of State to throw out all ballots cast at the right polling place but the wrong precinct?
I'm afraid the answer to all of these questions is undoubtedly, "NO."
In addition, I'm afraid it will do nothing to offer an explanation for the numerous machines in Mahoning County that recorded Kerry votes for Bush; the improper purging that took place in Cuyhaoga County; the machine tampering that occurred in Hocking County; or the 99% turnout that took place in Miami County.
But here we are. In an end run around the legislative process, HR 841was introduced a mere 4 legislative business days ago on February 16th. On the following day, a hasty markup of the bill was held by the House Administration Committee. One legislative day later, the bill was taken before rules. And today, just four days after its introduction, here we are.
But we don't have time for real election reform. For the House leadership, that can wait for another day. The American people deserve more.”
Proposal
for a
A Better Future for All Electoral Reform Agenda
After a thorough review of election problems over the last three national elections and from before, and with a review of the literature regarding reforms, and from their own experience, the authors of this report are submitting the following recommendations:
1. End the Electoral College (A Bill has been submitted by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren)
2. Make election day a national holiday (in Clinton-Boxer Bill)
3. Facilitate early voting for a week prior to the election
4. Standardize registration and enable registration on election day (in Clinton-Boxer bill), both throughout the country
5. Standardize the counting of provisional ballots (in Clinton-Boxer bill)
6. Reinstate voting rights for ex-felons and standardize this reinstatement across the country
7. Stiffen penalties for vote tampering and make such offenses a federal crime
8. Make voter suppression a federal crime
9. The right to vote should become a constitutional right – as Jesse Jackson, Jr. asserts
10. Insist on Voter Verified Paper Ballots, with such provisions as recommended in bills submitted by Congressman Rush Holt (H.R. 550) and Senators Clinton and Boxer (S.450), and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH)( H. R. 930) their bill’s provisions being
a. all voting systems provide a voter-verified paper ballot (VVPB),
b. the VVPB is the official ballot of record for use in all recounts or audits, and
c. mandatory, manual recounts of the VVPBs be performed in a randomly-selected set of 2% of all precincts nationwide.
11. Ensure that Software Codes for Voting Programs are disclosed by devising ways to obtain such information legally, e.g. creating federal law to prohibit Election Departments from contracting with companies that do not disclose their Software Codes for Voting Programs
12. Foster collaboration between Federal and State election officials to ensure fair and universal standards for the protection of voting rights.
13. State Election Officers at the highest level should not be in a dual relationship, overseeing elections and holding positions in their respective parties.
14. Ensure adequate funding for elections and designate strict standards for access to proper working voting equipment. (e.g. designated standards for the ratio of equipment to voting population.)
Action Plan/Campaign Strategy for Electoral Reform
If we are to restore faith in democracy here in our own country, if we are indeed ever to have fair elections again and a level playing field for our candidates, we must work for electoral reform. We simply have no choice. It is up to us as citizens to insist that the promise of democracy is realized for once and for all. Election reform at it its core is about Civil Rights, and with it, Martin Luther King’s dream for America can come true. It will not happen without us and so, it is up to us to pull out all the stops to achieve the end of secure, verified, reliable and accessible voting systems.
To advance the cause of electoral reform, then, we must be willing to become vigilant activists – passionate, progressive, patriots, if you will - in the electoral process from top to bottom.
Toward that end, we recommend that advocates for fair elections aim their efforts at every level of government and, as necessary, in every precinct and neighborhood – wherever decisions are made that affect election systems policy.
And we have no time to lose. Though some redress for past election abuses might still come to pass, our best hopes are for the future. This is not about past elections, then; this is about future elections. With 2006 looming large, we have our work cut out for us.
ACTION IDEAS FOR DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA
ENSURING VOTING RIGHTS AT THE BALLOT BOX, WHERE IT COUNTS
1. Educate
a. Stay informed
i. Follow the links to Congressional Heroes:
1. Congressman John Conyers http://www.house.gov/conyers/
2. Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones http://www.house.gov/tubbsjones/index.shtm
3. Senator Barbara Boxer http://boxer.senate.gov/
4. Senator Hillary Clinton http://clinton.senate.gov/
5. Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. http://www.jessejacksonjr.org/
6. Congressman Rush Holt http://holt.house.gov/
7. Senator John Ensign http://ensign.senate.gov/
8. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren http://www.house.gov/lofgren/about.shtml
ii. Follow Links to Important Voting Advocates
1. Ohio Election Fraud Site by Ray Beckerman http://www.fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com/
2. Open Voting Consortium http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/
3. Voters Unite http://www.votersunite.org/
4. People for the American Way http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=114
5. Common Cause http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=191150
6. De-mos http://search.netscape.com/ns/boomframe.jsp?query=De-Mos&page=1&offset=0&result_url=redir%3Fsrc%3Dwebsearch%26requestId%3Dd9b15d35c4878966%26clickedItemRank%3D2%26userQuery%3DDe-Mos%26clickedItemURN%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.demos-usa.org%252F%26invocationType%3D-%26fromPage%3DNSCPToolbarNS%26amp%3BampTest%3D1&remove_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.demos-usa.org%2F
7. CASE Citizens' Alliance for Secure Elections (CASE)
8. Alliance for Democracy http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/html/eng/2138-AA.shtml
9. Verified Voting http://www.verifiedvoting.org/
10. 51 Capital March http://www.51capitalmarch.com/index.html
11. US Voting Integrity Project http://www.usvip.org/
12. Velvet Revolution http://www.velvetrevolution.us/
13. Mad Dog Videos http://www.madogmusic.com/sites/ranch/html/fra_menu_election.htm
b. Educate the Public with Facts
i. Write letters to the Editor in support of election reform. The Media was blind to election irregularities and abuses in the 2004 election (that’s another story for another day). But Election Reform is on the table, and we can get their attention now – by looking forward. Educate the public with facts
ii. Circulate flyers on election reform
iii. Speak up at Town Halls and other forums and organizations
iv. Show Videos
2. Persuade and Advocate
a. Write your Senators and Congress people
b. Keep local politicians appraised of your concern and advocacy
c. Contact Party representatives or better yet become active in the party itself, to directly push election reform
3. Volunteer for election reform
a. Circulate Petitions
b. Register Voters
c. Volunteer to work at a polling station
4. Donate for election reform; donate to your favorite election reform organization – now!
5. Join the Velvet Revolution in their effort to hold the voting machine companies accountable for fair and open election systems and procedures. Join them in writing the CEO’s of major voting machine and tabulation companies, urging compliance with procedures for ensuring transparency in elections and short of that, calling for divestiture by investors in those same companies. They call it the Velvet Revolution! http://velvetrevolution.us/
With real democracy at the ballot box we can begin to realize the promises of the Social Contract as embodied in the Preamble of our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence!
Word/A Better Future/Voting Position Paper.doc
