[Announce-DAN] Fw: From Ronnie, "Democracy Under Stress"

["Emilie F. Nichols" <emilie@ix.netcom.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: RDugger123@aol.com <RDugger123@aol.com>
Date: Tuesday, November 21, 2000 4:57 PM
Subject: From Ronnie, "Democracy Under Stress"


>"Democracy Under Stress:  Have butterly ballots and chads undermined the
>credibility of how we elect our leaders?"
>    In the Los Angeles Times Opinion Section Sunday, November 19, 2000
>
>                            By Ronnie Dugger
>
>    Ronnie Dugger is the author of biographies of Lyndon B. Johnson and
>Ronald Reagan, founding editor of the Texas Observer and founder of the
>Alliance for Democracy, a national populist organization. He has been
>reporting on the history of elections and the dangers of computerized vote
>counting since 1987 and is writing a book on the subject.
>
>                                                    SOMERVILLE, MASS.
>
>    Never before November 2000 has a major political party contended that
>computers' votecounts are more accurate than those of people looking at the
>ballots and at each other looking at the ballots.
>    James A. Baker III, leading the charge of the George W. Bush campaign
to
>stop people's recounting of their own ballots in Florida, righteously
>exclaimed that the ''precision machinery'' that counted and recounted the
>votes for president in the state was more accurate than the recounts by
>people provided for in Florida law. ''Manual counting,'' Baker said,
entailed
>''subjective decisions, human error and politics.'' Rejecting the idea of
the
>people of Florida recounting all the votes they cast for president, which
>would take about a week, Baker said that would just be ''extending a flawed
>process statewide.''
>        The vote-counting systems in Florida are not precision machinery,
>such as adding machines. They are computers, which are machines that obey
>orders. The antique Votomatic punch-card voting systems in use in Broward
and
>Palm Beach counties, where the canvassing boards are recounting their
>ballots, have been associated for 25 years with inaccuracies caused by
>slipping card feeds and ''hanging chads,'' which are tiny scraps of
>punched-out vote holes that do not fully detach from the vote card. In
>effect, the Bush campaign has declared that computer vote counting
precludes
>citizens'  recounting their own ballots in the third of the country where
the
>rickety, error-prone Votomatic machines are used in elections.
>    Last week, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR),
which
>has been studying Votomatic-type counting systems for 10 years, said that
the
>Votomatic system ''has inherent accuracy limitations'' and that ''careful
>manual counting of Votomatic ballots should always be more accurate than
>machine counts.''
>    In this system, voters punch out holes beside candidates' names on a
>card, and the card is passed through a card reader that shoots light
through
>the holes and counts up the votes, that is, the points of light coming
>through the holes, for each candidate. Sometimes, CPSR said, two ballot
cards
>are sucked into the system's card reader at one time. ''Hanging chad can
flip
>open and close. Detached chad can become stuck in the feed path, increasing
>double-feeds and misfeeds. ... Detached chad can jam over the light or
>sensor, causing holes [that is, votes] to not be read until the chad blows
>out of the way. ... A human count of Votomatic cards should almost always
>produce a significantly more accurate result than automated reading.''
>    Peter Neumann, a senior computer scientist at SRI International and one
>of the leading authorities on computerized vote counting in the country,
was
>similarly skeptical of precision vote-counting machinery. ''The Votomatic
is
>not accurate enough, there's hanging and floating chad and so on," he said.
>But the hand counting is substantially more accurate in reporting the true
>intent of the voters.''
>      More in point, Neumann says, is the comparability of what happened to
>Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay of Florida in his 1988 race for the U.S. Senate,
which
>he lost by 35,000 votes out of more than 4 million cast.
>     ''Undervotes," the failure of votes to register on a voted ballot,
>occurred on about 10,000 ballots this year in Palm Beach County, where Vice
>President Al Gore has strong support. In 1988, in MacKay's four Democratic
>strong-hold counties, there were 210,000 people who voted for president but
>did not vote in the U.S. Senate race. In a comparable U.S. Senate race
during
>a presidential year, 1980, in the same four counties, three of 100
>presidential voters did not vote for senator; in 1988, 14 of every 100 did
>not. In the entire state of Florida, excluding the four MacKay counties,
>fewer than one of 100 presidential voters, 25,000, were not recorded as
also
>voting in the Senate race. Three of the MacKay counties in 1988 are among
>Gore's big four recount counties.
>    MacKay believed "very strongly" that the Senate election was stolen
from
>him. He suspected, as a reason for the dropoff, the use, in the questioned
>counties, of a ballot layout that crowded the Senate race onto the bottom
of
>the same page with the Presidential race.  The voting electorate for
>President dropped to 86% for the Senate and then jumped back up to 97% for
>Secretary of State.  Suspecting, too, "a problem in the [computerized
>votecounting] software," MacKay asked that his campaign be permitted to
>examine it in five counties, but was refused on grounds that it was the
>secret property of the election-buisiness companies. "A damned outrage," he
>said of this.
>    Had Bush accepted Gore's offer to consent to and abide by a manual
>recount of the entire state of Florida, such a recount would also have
>provided a statewide test of the computer codes used to tally Floridians'
>votes, and any vote-counting codes that came into question would have
become
>primary evidence in the fight for the presidency. Neither side has sought
to
>impound the codes, even though they are part of the evidence of how the
votes
>were counted and should be protected from tampering, just as the ballots
are.
>Perhaps especially in Miami/Dade County, where the canvassing board has
voted
>not to conduct a hand recount of all the votes, the vote-counting codes
>should be sequestered for testing.
>     Never before in this century have Americans been so mesmerized by vote
>counting. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Charles
>Schumer (D-N.Y.) are all calling for a study or investigation of
computerized
>voting machines. This is indeed the time for a thorough reconsiderationof
the
>whole U.S. voting landscape, which has grown wild in the shadows as 10,500
>local election boards have selected their vote-counting equipment from a
>fast-changing variety of private vote-counting companies in what is called
>''the election business,'' a minuscule, but politically important
subdivision
>of the computer industry.
>    About one-third of Americans still must cast their votes on the
Votomatic
>punch-card system. The only reason it's still in place in so many
>jurisdictions is the cost and trouble of replacing it.  Election officials
>well know that it is an inaccurate system--some of them speak laughingly of
>"chadology''--but some states have required mandatory recounts in close
>elections, and the ballots are always available to recount. As many
Americans
>probably would agree now, the use of this system should be outlawed.
>      ''Mark sense,'' ''optical-scan'' systems are, in effect, the
Votomatic
>without the punch card. The voter is given a paper ballot and votes with
>pencil or pen; the ballot is run through a card reader, which tabulates the
>marks. One important question about these systems is the error rate:  how
>many ballots are misread or disqualified because the card readers don't
like
>the way the voters marked them or because of stray marks on them? In any
>event, though, the retained ballots are available for manual recounts.
About
>27% of Americans now vote on such systems.
>      Old 1,000-pound mechanical-lever machines are still used in some
>jurisdictions, including New York City, where board of elections leader
Doug
>Kellner estimates that 1.5% of the voters lose their votes because they
don't
>know they are supposed to leave down all the levers they press until they
>pull down the red handle to record their vote. But in the mid-1980s, New
York
>City embarked on a misbegotten scheme to replace the mechanical machines
with
>the very latest thing in vote-counting equipment.
>      That is the ''direct-recording electronic'' (DRE) systems in which
the
>voter literally votes on a computer and all tabulation and audit trails are
>contained within the computer. The voter marks no ballot; there is no audit
>trail outside the computer. With officious bureaucratic and political
>fanfare, the city signed a $60-million contract with Sequoia Pacific
Systems
>in 1993 for the system. But attorney Kellner, Neumann and others refused to
>believe the system could be made secure. This summer, for a variety of
>reasons, the city canceled its contract, sustaining a loss of $17 million.
>    This was an enormous setback for DRE systems, but they are now reported
>to be voted on by 9% of the American people. Wherever they are in place,
>citizens are voting blind and accepting insiders' announced vote counts
while
>having no way of double-checking them with manual recounts.
>        With New York City facing the question of what to do now, Kellner
has
>called for a new study of the technologies available. He warns that
>electronic vote counting ''is almost completely unverifiable because of the
>technical complexity. Electronic machines are the equivalent of having a
pair
>of computer technicians take a paper ballot box into a sealed room and then
>telling us the vote totals without anyone able to observe the count.'' But
he
>indicates his tentative preference for ''a scannable paper system where the
>ballot is scanned at the poll site and retained by the
>  scanning machine for subsequent verification and hand recount if
>necessary,'' a system of decentralized computerized vote counting.
>    I am wondering, myself, about vote counting, what the hell is the
hurry?
>The media demand instant results, but that has nothing to do with good
>government. The last line of the official, back-to-the-wall defense of
>computerized vote counting is, ''Trust us.'' But in vote counting, we
should
>trust no one. That is why we watched each other counting the votes in the
old
>days. Computerized vote counting is simply an inappropriate use of
technology
>in democracy. I suggest that people throw out Votomatics and DREs and
>consider going back to counting their own paper ballots. Let's have a
revolt
>in some of our precincts. Tell the politicians and the election companies,
>Hey!--We are going to count our own ballots together. Election night, we
>bring in coffee and doughnuts, pizza, and have a party, as if we can still
>enjoy democracy with our neighbors. Will they put us in jail for counting
our
>own ballots? Let's find out.
>
>(End)
>


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