This morning, I read (in this morning’s San Jose Mercury) that, in the Senate, Diane Feinstein will be leading an effort to scrutinize e-voting.
Democrats had braced for Republican funny-business during the last election—especially e-voting skullduggery—but when the election turned out well for them, the issue seemed to disappear.
Obviously, the country can't afford to lose sight of it. Perhaps Feinstein's on the ball. Sure hope so.
The Mercury article mentions an organization, founded by a Stanford computer science prof, that is devoted to e-voting reform. According to the Verified Voting Foundation [VVF] website,
The Verified Voting Foundation is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization championing reliable and publicly verifiable elections…[T]he organization supports a requirement for voter-verified paper ballots…on electronic voting machines allowing voters to verify individual permanent records of their ballots and election officials to conduct meaningful recounts….Please check it out. (See also Voter's rights advocacy organizations--Wiki.)
HAVA
As you know, after the 2000 Florida election debacle, citizens fretted about the integrity of vote counting, and that led to legislation called the “Help America Vote Act” (HAVA). HAVA is widely understood as having mandated the use of e-voting (i.e., electronic voting) systems. That has produced a windfall for electronic voting systems vendors such as Diebold.
Mighty suspicious, I’d say.
Oddly, HAVA mandated the use of e-voting, but it also permitted the use of record-less e-voting machines. Since the 2000 election, many states have moved toward e-voting, but they have not insisted upon e-voting systems that leave records.
One might say, then, that HAVA has produced CRAPPA, or worse.
Hence the creation of VVF and similar organizations.
EAC? —P.U.
Naturally, HAVA created a commission, namely, the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC), which is advised by two boards, the smaller of which is the EAC Board of Advisors. EAC and its boards have been busy bees. They're buzzing right now. Hear 'em?
When, back in May, conservative Republican J.C. Watts left EAC's Board of Advisors, Speaker Dennis Hastert (yes, that guy) nominated our own TOM FUENTES to replace Watts. Bush then appointed Fuentes. (See More on Fuentes’ appointment.) Naturally, it was a slam-dunk.
DtB duly reported Fuentes’ nomination, which yielded an appreciative posting on Matt Coker’s Clockwork Orange (5/23/06):
Our buddies at Dissent the Blog are following up an announcement made at the most recent SOCCCD Board of Trustees‘ meeting that former Orange County Republican Party chairman Tom Fuentes has been appointed to the agency that “certifies” electronic-voting systems. As DtB [Dissent the Blog] so eloquently put it:Sadly, Matt’s blog is now defunct, evidently.
“Uh-oh.”
[Matt then mentions HAVA.]…The main goal of that act is to replace paper voting with electronic voting. As DtB so eloquently put it:
“Yikes!”
Joining the U.S. Election Assistance Commission is apparently a more plum (plumer? Plumber? Dick Nixon? Hello?) appointment than the National Dog Catcher Commission board or whatever the hell that lowly agency was that Bush appointed Fuentes to after the 2000 stolen presidential election.
INSTA-ADDENDUM: Say, who was that Orange County Republican Party chairman who in 1988 approved the use of poll guards to intimidate Latinos going to vote? And he’s now gonna help oversee national elections at a time when anti-immigrant fever is spreading like lube at a Young Republicans circle jerk? Good times!
OK, so here’s my point. HAVA is a DISASTA. And when the likes of TOM FUENTES become our election watchdogs, well, THINGS SUCK BIGTIME.
So let’s support Feinstein’s efforts and the efforts of such organizations as VVF!
3 comments:
You're paranoid, dude. You can trust your government. Absolutely. And Tom Fuentes is obviously righteous.
He's good and wholesome. I met him once at a party out in Coto.
Please follow the lawsuits in Florida's still contested 13th Congressional District. My son, Colin is the chief of staff and campaign manager for Christine Jennings, Dem. She was left hanging and declared a loser in the race with 18,000 unrecorded e-votes in Sarasota County which is heavily Democratic.
Greg:
The Mercury article that I alluded to discusses the Sarasota race:
"In that election, almost 18,000 people in Sarasota County who voted in various races did not vote in the hotly contested congressional contest between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings. That rate of 15 percent ``no votes'' was four to five times higher than the rate in surrounding counties.
Dozens of Sarasota voters reported problems with the touch-screen machines. Some said they voted for a congressional candidate, though the summary page at the end of the process informed them they had not voted. Florida does not require a paper trail that voters can check.
State officials certified that Buchanan won by 369 votes out of 238,000 cast. But the state agreed to conduct an audit next week of the county's touch-screen machines, with outside experts present, to look for problems. Jennings is suing, seeking a new election...
Chapin, a former counsel to the Senate Rules Committee, said two weeks after the election: ``At first I thought there were lots of fender-benders on Election Day but no major pile-ups. But Sarasota is a pile-up.''
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