Jeb Gets Ready To Deliver Florida Again

[Dr Dave]

Warning: This is not a news story. It is an op-ed piece by that notorious lefty, Paul Krugman, writing in that notorious lefty paper, The New York Times. It seems worthy of attention, nonetheless:

July 27, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Fear of Fraud
By PAUL KRUGMAN

It's election night, and early returns suggest trouble for the incumbent. Then, mysteriously, the vote count stops and observers from the challenger's campaign see employees of a voting-machine company, one wearing a badge that identifies him as a county official, typing instructions at computers with access to the vote-tabulating software.

When the count resumes, the incumbent pulls ahead. The challenger demands an investigation. But there are no ballots to recount, and election officials allied with the incumbent refuse to release data that could shed light on whether there was tampering with the electronic records.

This isn't a paranoid fantasy. It's a true account of a recent election in Riverside County, Calif., reported by Andrew Gumbel of the British newspaper The Independent. Mr. Gumbel's full-length report, printed in Los Angeles City Beat, makes hair-raising reading not just because it reinforces concerns about touch-screen voting, but also because it shows how easily officials can stonewall after a suspect election.

Some states, worried about the potential for abuse with voting machines that leave no paper trail, have banned their use this November. But Florida, which may well decide the presidential race, is not among those states, and last month state officials rejected a request to allow independent audits of the machines' integrity. A spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush accused those seeking audits of trying to "undermine voters' confidence," and declared, "The governor has every confidence in the Department of State and the Division of Elections."

Should the public share that confidence? Consider the felon list.

Florida law denies the vote to convicted felons. In 2000 the state hired a firm to purge supposed felons from the list of registered voters; these voters were turned away from the polls. After the election, determined by 537 votes, it became clear that thousands of people had been wrongly disenfranchised. Since those misidentified as felons were disproportionately Democratic-leaning African-Americans, these errors may have put George W. Bush in the White House.

This year, Florida again hired a private company - Accenture, which recently got a homeland security contract worth up to $10 billion - to prepare a felon list. Remembering 2000, journalists sought copies. State officials stonewalled, but a judge eventually ordered the list released.

The Miami Herald quickly discovered that 2,100 citizens who had been granted clemency, restoring their voting rights, were nonetheless on the banned-voter list. Then The Sarasota Herald-Tribune discovered that only 61 of more than 47,000 supposed felons were Hispanic. So the list would have wrongly disenfranchised many legitimate African-American voters, while wrongly enfranchising many Hispanic felons. It escaped nobody's attention that in Florida, Hispanic voters tend to support Republicans.

After first denying any systematic problem, state officials declared it an innocent mistake. They told Accenture to match a list of registered voters to a list of felons, flagging anyone whose name, date of birth and race was the same on both lists. They didn't realize, they said, that this would automatically miss felons who identified themselves as Hispanic because that category exists on voter rolls but not in state criminal records.

But employees of a company that prepared earlier felon lists say that they repeatedly warned state election officials about that very problem.

Let's not be coy. Jeb Bush says he won't allow an independent examination of voting machines because he has "every confidence" in his handpicked election officials. Yet those officials have a history of slipshod performance on other matters related to voting and somehow their errors always end up favoring Republicans. Why should anyone trust their verdict on the integrity of voting machines, when another convenient mistake could deliver a Republican victory in a high-stakes national election?

This shouldn't be a partisan issue. Think about what a tainted election would do to America's sense of itself, and its role in the world. In the face of official stonewalling, doubters probably wouldn't be able to prove one way or the other whether the vote count was distorted - but if the result looked suspicious, most of the world and many Americans would believe the worst. I'll write soon about what can be done in the few weeks that remain, but here's a first step: if Governor Bush cares at all about the future of the nation, as well as his family's political fortunes, he will allow that independent audit.

-30-

I don' know about you, but I find this story makes me both nervous and angry. Is Jeb Bush really going to get away with this?

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

Warning: This is not a news story. It is an op-ed piece by that notorious lefty, Paul Krugman, writing in that notorious lefty paper, The New York Times. It seems worthy of attention, nonetheless:

July 27, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Fear of Fraud
By PAUL KRUGMAN

It's election night, and early returns suggest trouble for the incumbent. Then, mysteriously, the vote count stops and observers from the challenger's campaign see employees of a voting-machine company, one wearing a badge that identifies him as a county official, typing instructions at computers with access to the vote-tabulating software.

When the count resumes, the incumbent pulls ahead. The challenger demands an investigation. But there are no ballots to recount, and election officials allied with the incumbent refuse to release data that could shed light on whether there was tampering with the electronic records.

This isn't a paranoid fantasy. It's a true account of a recent election in Riverside County, Calif., reported by Andrew Gumbel of the British newspaper The Independent. Mr. Gumbel's full-length report, printed in Los Angeles City Beat, makes hair-raising reading not just because it reinforces concerns about touch-screen voting, but also because it shows how easily officials can stonewall after a suspect election.

Some states, worried about the potential for abuse with voting machines that leave no paper trail, have banned their use this November. But Florida, which may well decide the presidential race, is not among those states, and last month state officials rejected a request to allow independent audits of the machines' integrity. A spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush accused those seeking audits of trying to "undermine voters' confidence," and declared, "The governor has every confidence in the Department of State and the Division of Elections."

Should the public share that confidence? Consider the felon list.

Florida law denies the vote to convicted felons. In 2000 the state hired a firm to purge supposed felons from the list of registered voters; these voters were turned away from the polls. After the election, determined by 537 votes, it became clear that thousands of people had been wrongly disenfranchised. Since those misidentified as felons were disproportionately Democratic-leaning African-Americans, these errors may have put George W. Bush in the White House.

This year, Florida again hired a private company - Accenture, which recently got a homeland security contract worth up to $10 billion - to prepare a felon list. Remembering 2000, journalists sought copies. State officials stonewalled, but a judge eventually ordered the list released.

The Miami Herald quickly discovered that 2,100 citizens who had been granted clemency, restoring their voting rights, were nonetheless on the banned-voter list. Then The Sarasota Herald-Tribune discovered that only 61 of more than 47,000 supposed felons were Hispanic. So the list would have wrongly disenfranchised many legitimate African-American voters, while wrongly enfranchising many Hispanic felons. It escaped nobody's attention that in Florida, Hispanic voters tend to support Republicans.

After first denying any systematic problem, state officials declared it an innocent mistake. They told Accenture to match a list of registered voters to a list of felons, flagging anyone whose name, date of birth and race was the same on both lists. They didn't realize, they said, that this would automatically miss felons who identified themselves as Hispanic because that category exists on voter rolls but not in state criminal records.

But employees of a company that prepared earlier felon lists say that they repeatedly warned state election officials about that very problem.

Let's not be coy. Jeb Bush says he won't allow an independent examination of voting machines because he has "every confidence" in his handpicked election officials. Yet those officials have a history of slipshod performance on other matters related to voting and somehow their errors always end up favoring Republicans. Why should anyone trust their verdict on the integrity of voting machines, when another convenient mistake could deliver a Republican victory in a high-stakes national election?

This shouldn't be a partisan issue. Think about what a tainted election would do to America's sense of itself, and its role in the world. In the face of official stonewalling, doubters probably wouldn't be able to prove one way or the other whether the vote count was distorted - but if the result looked suspicious, most of the world and many Americans would believe the worst. I'll write soon about what can be done in the few weeks that remain, but here's a first step: if Governor Bush cares at all about the future of the nation, as well as his family's political fortunes, he will allow that independent audit.

-30-

I don' know about you, but I find this story makes me both nervous and angry. Is Jeb Bush really going to get away with this?

My suggestion?? This won't be implimented, but I'll make the suggestion anyway. In light of the last Presidential Election controversy and the recent information regarding the skulduggery involving the super-sophistocated ballot machines, the machines are already suspect. Diebold, three of four of their company's heads being Republican supporters, is fox/henhouse.

Why not use PAPER BALLOTS? Other countries, all over the world do it. Canada still uses paper ballots, their use overseen by a neutral body and they work fine. At the end of election day, the results take a few hours to count and are announced immediately. Recounts, if necessary, are completed within a few days. Why depend on machines, just because they exist?? This is too important an election to be embarrassed about the reliability of the voting equipment. Paper works fine, though it may be low-tech.
The U.S. sends people to other countries to monitor the fairness of their election process. Why not have this election use paper ballots and have it overseen by the U.N. or some other world body representative??
Since the results will have an effect, worldwide, I don't think that that is a frivolous suggestion.
The expense of unused voting machines already purchased is tiny, compared to the expense of the war, ongoing. Use the machines, modified by then with a paper trail in 2008.

[groover]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

if Governor Bush cares at all about the future of the nation...

I doubt Jeb's losing much sleep over this.

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

Is Jeb Bush really going to get away with this?

Probably, unless there's some other government body (that's not pro-Republican) that has the power to interfere. Maybe Kerry can win without Florida.

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by groover

Probably, unless there's some other government body (that's not pro-Republican) that has the power to interfere. Maybe Kerry can win without Florida.

Monte? Willy? Scott? Do you care whether your guy wins fair or foul?

[Al in NYC]

Is Jeb Bush really going to get away with this?

Probably, unless there's some other government body (that's not pro-Republican) that has the power to interfere.

Well, I guess that sneaky little parenthetical note leaves out the Supreme Court. Maybe the U.N. can send in Jimmy Carter.

What's amazing is that they have the arrogance to put in the fix in in damn near plain sight. I'm not necessarily a big direct action kinda guy, but if the election is jobbed again I think it'll definitely be time for some serious civil insurrection action.

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

Monte? Willy? Scott? Do you care whether your guy wins fair or foul?

Having fully accepted the Bush people's election tampering in 2000, there is no reason to believe that these lemmings aren't going to embrace an encore.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Chris A. makes a good point. After the 2000 debacle the political elite (Dems and Reps) seemed to have made the decison to not make too big a deal about the election. "It would be bad for the country".

When you think about it, the 2000 election was the first baby step in de-legitimizing America's moral voice internationally. How can the US criticize corrupt elections in countries like Zimbabwe or Venezuela when the governments of thse countires can use our own Presidential election as an example?

How can the US criticize other countries for violating international agreements when one of the first steps this government made was to void all the international treaties it didn't like?

How can the US criticize other governments for human rights violations after Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay?

The 2000 election merely set the tone.

[clinthopson]

I think the Jebstar won;t be able to get away with it again this year. He'll be under a microscope.

It's ironic that he pulled his stunt in 2000. Just 40 years earlier Lyndon Johnson and Richard Daley did the same favor for JFK.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by clinthopson

I think the Jebstar won;t be able to get away with it again this year. He'll be under a microscope.

It's ironic that he pulled his stunt in 2000. Just 40 years earlier Lyndon Johnson and Richard Daley did the same favor for JFK.

Again my suggestion. PAPER BALLOTS with a neutral international monitor would be, IMO, the only sure way to reassure the world that the U.S. has not become a banana republic when it comes to honesty in their election process.
Do they have the balls to do that?? Probably not. The blatant dishonesty of the 2000 Election should have been a wake-up call..............but wasn't.

"Oh well, I guess the Supreme Court knows what's best for us" is no consolation to those who were disenfranchized, particularly with the evidence of an emerging agenda which is evident now to the rest of the world. Total honesty, from now on is the only way in which the U.S. can hope to begin to regain their position as an example of democracy to the rest of the world. Their reputation has been severely damaged, in the last four years, globally. Do they care?? Is being the mightiest military and economic force enough?? Perhaps they should be looking at the strengthening influence of China and re-thinking their priorities.

[Dr Dave]

Darryl, that's one of the most depressing observations I've read in a long time. We've really, really, really got to get these bastards out of office.

[Dr Dave]

This IS a news story:

The New York Times July 28, 2004
Lost Record of Vote in '02 Florida Race Raises '04 Concern
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

MIAMI, July 27 - Almost all the electronic records from the first widespread use of touch-screen voting in Miami-Dade County have been lost, stoking concerns that the machines are unreliable as the presidential election draws near.

The records disappeared after two computer system crashes last year, county elections officials said, leaving no audit trail for the 2002 gubernatorial primary. A citizens group uncovered the loss this month after requesting all audit data from that election.

A county official said a new backup system would prevent electronic voting data from being lost in the future. But members of the citizens group, the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, said the malfunction underscored the vulnerability of electronic voting records and wiped out data that might have shed light on what problems, if any, still existed with touch-screen machines here. The group supplied the results of its request to The New York Times.

"This shows that unless we do something now - or it may very well be too late - Florida is headed toward being the next Florida," said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, a lawyer who is the chairwoman of the coalition.

After the disputed 2000 presidential election eroded confidence in voting machines nationwide, and in South Florida in particular, the state moved quickly to adopt new technology, and in many places touch-screen machines. Voters in 15 Florida counties - covering more than half the state's electorate - will use the machines in November, but reports of mishaps and lost votes in smaller elections over the last two years have cast doubt on their reliability.

Like "black boxes" on airplanes, the electronic voting records on touch-screen machines list everything that happens from boot-up to shutdown, documenting in an "event log" when every ballot was cast. The records also include "vote image reports" that show for whom each ballot was cast. Elections officials have said that using this data for recounts is unnecessary because touch-screen machines do not allow human error. But several studies have suggested the machines themselves might err - for instance, by failing to record some votes.

After the 2002 primary, between Democratic candidates Janet Reno and Bill McBride, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida conducted a study that found that 8 percent of votes, or 1,544, were lost on touch-screen machines in 31 precincts in Miami-Dade County. The group considered that rate of what it called "lost votes" unusually high.

Voting problems plagued Miami-Dade and Broward Counties on that day, when touch-screen machines took much longer than expected to boot up, dozens of polling places opened late and poorly trained poll workers turned on and shut down the machines incorrectly. A final vote tally - which narrowed the margin first reported between the two candidates by more than 3,000 votes - was delayed for a week.

Ms. Reno, who ultimately lost to Mr. McBride by just 4,794 votes statewide, considered requesting a recount at the time but decided against it.

Seth Kaplan, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade elections division, said on Tuesday that the office had put in place a daily backup procedure so that computer crashes would not wipe out audit records in the future.

The news of the lost data comes two months after Miami-Dade elections officials acknowledged a malfunction in the audit logs of touch-screen machines. The elections office first noticed the problem in spring 2003, but did not publicly discuss it until this past May.

The company that makes Miami-Dade's machines, Election Systems and Software of Omaha, Neb., has provided corrective software to all nine Florida counties that use its machines. One flaw occurred when the machines' batteries ran low and an error in the program that reported the problem caused corruption in the machine's event log, said Douglas W. Jones, a computer science professor at the University of Iowa whom Miami-Dade County hired to help solve the problem.

In a second flaw, the county's election system software was misreading the serial numbers of the voting machines whose batteries had run low, he said.

The flaws would not have affected vote counts, he said - only the backup data used for audits after an election. And because a new state rule prohibits manual recounts in counties that use touch-screen voting machines except in the event of a natural disaster, there would likely be no use for the data anyway.

State officials have said that they created the rule because under state law, the only reason for a manual recount is to determine "voter intent" in close races when, for example, a voter appears to choose two presidential candidates or none.

Touch-screen machines, officials say, are programmed not to record two votes, and if no vote is recorded, they say, it means the voter did not cast one.

But The Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, in a recent analysis of the March presidential primary, reported that voters in counties using touch-screen machines were six times as likely to record no vote as were voters in counties using optical-scan machines, which read markings on paper ballots.

The A.C.L.U. of Florida and several other voting rights groups have sued to overturn the recount rule, saying it creates unequal treatment of voters. Counties that use optical-scan machines can conduct recounts, though only in extremely close races.

Mr. Kaplan says that the system crashes had erased data from other elections besides Ms. Reno's, the most recent being municipal elections in November 2003. Under Florida law, ballot records from elections for state and local office need be kept for only a year. For federal races, the records must be kept for 22 months after an election is certified. It was not immediately clear what the consequences might be of breaching that law.

Mr. Kaplan said the backup system was added last December.

An August 2002 report from Miami-Dade County auditors to David Leahy, then the county elections supervisor, recommended that all data from touch-screen machines be backed up on CD's or elsewhere. Professor Jones said it was an obvious practice long considered essential in the corporate world.

"Any naïve observer who knows about computer system management and who knows there is a requirement that all the records be stored for a period of months," Professor Jones said, "would say you should obviously do that with computerized voting systems."

Buddy Johnson, the elections supervisor in Hillsborough County, which is one of the state's largest counties and which also uses touch-screen machines, said his office still had its data from the 2002 elections on separate hard drives.

Mr. Kaplan of the Miami-Dade elections office could not immediately explain on Tuesday afternoon the system crashes in 2003.

Martha Mahoney, a University of Miami law professor and member of the election reform group, said she requested the 2002 audit data because she had never heard an explanation of the supposedly lost votes that the A.C.L.U. documented after the Reno-McBride election.

"People can never be sure their vote was recorded the way it was cast, but these are the best records we've got," she said. "And now they're not there."

-30-

Note that it took a citizen's group headed by a law professor to even find out about the problem.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

This IS a news story:

The New York Times July 28, 2004
Lost Record of Vote in '02 Florida Race Raises '04 Concern
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

MIAMI, July 27 - Almost all the electronic records from the first widespread use of touch-screen voting in Miami-Dade County have been lost, stoking concerns that the machines are unreliable as the presidential election draws near.

The records disappeared after two computer system crashes last year, county elections officials said, leaving no audit trail for the 2002 gubernatorial primary. A citizens group uncovered the loss this month after requesting all audit data from that election.

A county official said a new backup system would prevent electronic voting data from being lost in the future. But members of the citizens group, the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, said the malfunction underscored the vulnerability of electronic voting records and wiped out data that might have shed light on what problems, if any, still existed with touch-screen machines here. The group supplied the results of its request to The New York Times.

"This shows that unless we do something now - or it may very well be too late - Florida is headed toward being the next Florida," said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, a lawyer who is the chairwoman of the coalition.

After the disputed 2000 presidential election eroded confidence in voting machines nationwide, and in South Florida in particular, the state moved quickly to adopt new technology, and in many places touch-screen machines. Voters in 15 Florida counties - covering more than half the state's electorate - will use the machines in November, but reports of mishaps and lost votes in smaller elections over the last two years have cast doubt on their reliability.

Like "black boxes" on airplanes, the electronic voting records on touch-screen machines list everything that happens from boot-up to shutdown, documenting in an "event log" when every ballot was cast. The records also include "vote image reports" that show for whom each ballot was cast. Elections officials have said that using this data for recounts is unnecessary because touch-screen machines do not allow human error. But several studies have suggested the machines themselves might err - for instance, by failing to record some votes.

After the 2002 primary, between Democratic candidates Janet Reno and Bill McBride, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida conducted a study that found that 8 percent of votes, or 1,544, were lost on touch-screen machines in 31 precincts in Miami-Dade County. The group considered that rate of what it called "lost votes" unusually high.

Voting problems plagued Miami-Dade and Broward Counties on that day, when touch-screen machines took much longer than expected to boot up, dozens of polling places opened late and poorly trained poll workers turned on and shut down the machines incorrectly. A final vote tally - which narrowed the margin first reported between the two candidates by more than 3,000 votes - was delayed for a week.

Ms. Reno, who ultimately lost to Mr. McBride by just 4,794 votes statewide, considered requesting a recount at the time but decided against it.

Seth Kaplan, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade elections division, said on Tuesday that the office had put in place a daily backup procedure so that computer crashes would not wipe out audit records in the future.

The news of the lost data comes two months after Miami-Dade elections officials acknowledged a malfunction in the audit logs of touch-screen machines. The elections office first noticed the problem in spring 2003, but did not publicly discuss it until this past May.

The company that makes Miami-Dade's machines, Election Systems and Software of Omaha, Neb., has provided corrective software to all nine Florida counties that use its machines. One flaw occurred when the machines' batteries ran low and an error in the program that reported the problem caused corruption in the machine's event log, said Douglas W. Jones, a computer science professor at the University of Iowa whom Miami-Dade County hired to help solve the problem.

In a second flaw, the county's election system software was misreading the serial numbers of the voting machines whose batteries had run low, he said.

The flaws would not have affected vote counts, he said - only the backup data used for audits after an election. And because a new state rule prohibits manual recounts in counties that use touch-screen voting machines except in the event of a natural disaster, there would likely be no use for the data anyway.

State officials have said that they created the rule because under state law, the only reason for a manual recount is to determine "voter intent" in close races when, for example, a voter appears to choose two presidential candidates or none.

Touch-screen machines, officials say, are programmed not to record two votes, and if no vote is recorded, they say, it means the voter did not cast one.

But The Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, in a recent analysis of the March presidential primary, reported that voters in counties using touch-screen machines were six times as likely to record no vote as were voters in counties using optical-scan machines, which read markings on paper ballots.

The A.C.L.U. of Florida and several other voting rights groups have sued to overturn the recount rule, saying it creates unequal treatment of voters. Counties that use optical-scan machines can conduct recounts, though only in extremely close races.

Mr. Kaplan says that the system crashes had erased data from other elections besides Ms. Reno's, the most recent being municipal elections in November 2003. Under Florida law, ballot records from elections for state and local office need be kept for only a year. For federal races, the records must be kept for 22 months after an election is certified. It was not immediately clear what the consequences might be of breaching that law.

Mr. Kaplan said the backup system was added last December.

An August 2002 report from Miami-Dade County auditors to David Leahy, then the county elections supervisor, recommended that all data from touch-screen machines be backed up on CD's or elsewhere. Professor Jones said it was an obvious practice long considered essential in the corporate world.

"Any naïve observer who knows about computer system management and who knows there is a requirement that all the records be stored for a period of months," Professor Jones said, "would say you should obviously do that with computerized voting systems."

Buddy Johnson, the elections supervisor in Hillsborough County, which is one of the state's largest counties and which also uses touch-screen machines, said his office still had its data from the 2002 elections on separate hard drives.

Mr. Kaplan of the Miami-Dade elections office could not immediately explain on Tuesday afternoon the system crashes in 2003.

Martha Mahoney, a University of Miami law professor and member of the election reform group, said she requested the 2002 audit data because she had never heard an explanation of the supposedly lost votes that the A.C.L.U. documented after the Reno-McBride election.

"People can never be sure their vote was recorded the way it was cast, but these are the best records we've got," she said. "And now they're not there."

-30-

Note that it took a citizen's group headed by a law professor to even find out about the problem.

It's Elections 2000 all over again, except that there are no ballots to take ridiculous pictures of people peering at them this time. There will be pictures, instead of bewildered people, wandering around, wondering what they can do. I guess that's something...................isn't it??
Even if it's later discovered that the vote was tampered with, what then??

Also, if you recall, in Florida, many potential voters had been taken off the voter's list, erroneously in 2000 because they were designated as felons. It turned out, AFTER THE ELECTION that they were entitled to vote. Although the "error" was corrected, apparently, they still didn't get to vote in the 2000 election. I smell something fishy AGAIN in Florida.

Can't Jeb Bush bring in the Florida vote for his brother by campaigning? Again, it doesn't look as if that would work. Why are people not concerned enough to start a groundswell movement to turn the voting machines into lovely planters, much like those whimsical old toilets that one sees, in which flowers have been planted??

[lynn]

Another story from AP

Touchscreen Vote Records Lost in Florida
July 28, 2004 08:56 AM EDT

MIAMI - A computer crash erased detailed records from Miami-Dade County's first widespread use of touchscreen voting machines, raising again the specter of elections troubles in Florida, where the new technology was supposed to put an end to such problems.

The crashes occurred in May and November of 2003, erasing information from the September 2002 gubernatorial primaries and other elections, elections officials said Tuesday.

The malfunction was made public after the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, a citizen's group, requested all data from the 2002 gubernatorial primary between Democratic candidates Janet Reno and Bill McBride.

In December, officials began backing up the data daily, to help avoid similar data wipeouts in the future, said Seth Kaplan, spokesman for the county's elections supervisor, Constance Kaplan.

The loss of data underscores problems with the touchscreen voting machines, the citizen's group said. "This is a disaster waiting to happen," said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, chairwoman of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition. "Of course it's worrisome."

The group is concerned about the machines' effectiveness, following revelations about other problems with the system. Last month, state officials said the touchscreen systems used by 11 counties had a bug that would make a manual recount impossible. Earlier this month, a newspaper study indicated touchscreen machines did not perform as well as those that scanned paper ballots.

Also Tuesday, election reform groups asked a judge to strike down a state rule preventing counties that use the machines from conducting manual recounts from them.

State election officers say manual recounts are not needed since the machines tell each voter if they are skipping a race, known as an undervote, and will not let them vote twice for the same race, known as an overvote. The officials also maintain that the computer systems running the machines can be trusted to count the votes accurately as they're cast, and give the final numbers when needed.

But lawyers representing the ACLU and other groups said the state should require a paper trail in case a physical recount is needed, as it was in the 2000 presidential race in Florida.

"I have concern about votes that are cast but not recorded," said Howard Simon, executive director for ACLU of Florida.

Election supervisors from some of the 15 counties using touchscreens had asked the state if they would need to go through the laborious process of printing screen images of each ballot during a recount.

The Division of Elections then ruled that state law only requires a recount to determine voters' intent, and that it is impossible to question voter intent with touchscreen ballots.

Florida counties without the touchscreen machines use optiscan technology, in which computers read voters' pencil marks on paper ballots, and would be able to do physical recounts in tight races.

Administrative Law Judge Susan B. Kirkland has 30 days to make her decision after receiving the hearing transcript, which is due back in 10 working days.

Florida's voting system has been under scrutiny since the 2000 debacle, when it took five weeks of legal maneuvering and some recounting before Republican George W. Bush was declared president.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 2004 Associated Press.

[Dr Dave]

I've brought this back up as a companion to Patricia's thread on the Florida elections. We're not making this up, jmj.

[Deke]

I gotta tell you, Patricia is right. Going to a booth with a piece of paper and marking your vote on it, then dropping it into a sealed box which isn't opened until it reaches the count, which can be viewed by anyone who's interested, the whole thing overseen by the police, is the only foolproof method.

During the recent Euro elections Blair experimented with alternatives and it's astounding the number of reports of foul play that came up, both before and after the election. There were at least two hackers offering to fix the result of the computer voting, for a price, there was someone offering their voting paper for sale on ebay in the post-in election. Machinery can be sabotaged, electric communications can be intercepted. That one little piece of paper that you take into an empty room to fill in is the only corruption proof means of voting that I can think of.

[patricia]

Thank you guys. I know that my suggestion seems primitive, compared to the super-sophistocated voting machines which have been developed in the last few years. Unfortunately, as we all know, computers do not think. The programmers install the software which enables them to do calculations and data-organization much faster than people could do manually. That is the voting machine's value.
However, to use an example of skulduggery, there are several cases of bank fraud in which millions of dollars have been diverted to a sham account, by one person. This person simply transferred the "cents" on inactive and small savings accounts, simply because the computor made it possible. It was not discovered until long after the fact. How many of you check the "cents" on your savings accounts?? This fraud would not have been easily possible, had the person had to do it manually, because it would be too labour-intensive. But, as it was, a simple instruction did the trick over just a short time.
How that relates to this situation is that ONE vote adjustment per district would have involved one person per district, if done manually. One vote per district, if done by hacking, can be done by one person, in just a few minutes.

So, I say, PAPER BALLOTS, NATIONALLY. Use the voting machines in 2008, if they have had paper trails, or backup discs installed by then.
The cost?? Whatever the printing, distributing, overseeing and counting of ballots costs. Why not??

[Dr Dave]

By the way, the House, in a foreign trade bill, passed a law preventing any member of the House or Senate from asking the UN to certify the US election. Ah, DC--where every day is the Silly Season.

[crawjo]

Patricia,

What do you mean by paper ballots? The last time I voted in the state of Maryland, I voted by drawing a line next to the name of the candidate I was supporting. This was in 1996. I assume these paper ballots were then fed through a machine that counted them.

[jesus marion joseph]

Do you guys stuff your money inside your mattresses? Because you can't trust those bank statements, you know!

Just kidding. FWIW, my locality uses a paper ballot, on which you connect the two ends of the arrow that points toward your choice, but it's then read by an optical scanner. I'm not sure why these aren't used in Florida, or anywhere else, for that matter, since I've never heard any suggestion that the votes are inherently unreliable.

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by jesus marion joseph

Do you guys stuff your money inside your mattresses? Because you can't trust those bank statements, you know!

I understand what you're saying. But understand what I'm saying: George W. Bush was elected by a minority of the popular vote, and Florida, where his brother is governor, was the state that swung it for him. I say circumstances not only allow but demand that I be totally paranoid about what might happen this time around. I don't see any falling out between Jeb and little brother that might make me think the same thing won't happen again. They DID get away with it last time, you know.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by jesus marion joseph

Do you guys stuff your money inside your mattresses? Because you can't trust those bank statements, you know!

Just kidding. FWIW, my locality uses a paper ballot, on which you connect the two ends of the arrow that points toward your choice, but it's then read by an optical scanner. I'm not sure why these aren't used in Florida, or anywhere else, for that matter, since I've never heard any suggestion that the votes are inherently unreliable.

Nah.

I stuff my mattress with all the MILIONS I make as a teacher because I can't trust the lawyers who will take it from me.

As to hearing about votes being unreliable...maybe you need to get out more, eh?

[crawjo]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

I understand what you're saying. But understand what I'm saying: George W. Bush was elected by a minority of the popular vote, and Florida, where his brother is governor, was the state that swung it for him. I say circumstances not only allow but demand that I be totally paranoid about what might happen this time around. I don't see any falling out between Jeb and little brother that might make me think the same thing won't happen again. They DID get away with it last time, you know.

Dr. Dave,

If Bush wins Florida again, is there any scenario in which you would accept that the result was legitimate, if it was close (as in, the candidates are within 50,000 votes of each other)?

[patricia]

Originally Posted by crawjo

Patricia,

What do you mean by paper ballots? The last time I voted in the state of Maryland, I voted by drawing a line next to the name of the candidate I was supporting. This was in 1996. I assume these paper ballots were then fed through a machine that counted them.

By paper ballots I mean PAPER BALLOTS. Ballots made of paper. The ballot has boxes next to the names of the candidates. The candidate's names and political party are in a single list, from top to bottom of the ballot, which avoids the confusion caused by the so-called "butterfly ballot".
The voter takes this ballot into the voting booth. They draw an "X" next to the candidate for whom they wish to vote.
The voter then takes his/her ballot to the locked ballot box, folds the ballot in half and drops into the box. There are people watching you do this, sitting at each ballot box. There are also observers watching the people watching the ballot boxes.
When the polls close, the ballots are counted, MANUALLY, in full view of anyone who cares to watch, at the polling places, the results given to the official who oversees the entire process. Those results are then added to the results of all the other polling places in the "riding" and the total is given to the media, who are waiting anxiously for them. Whoever gets the most votes wins. [This is Canada, so there is no Electoral College. Majority wins.]

The entire process is completed the same day as the election takes place and the original ballots are kept, in case there is a close race and a request for a recount.
Simple, yet quite effective.

[crawjo]

I think it certainly would be more simple that way, but I wonder if the number of voters at many polling places in the U.S. might make the counting process take much longer. Not that I would be opposed to a longer counting process. I thought it was funny that, the night of the 2000 election, as it became clear that the race in Florida was just way too close to be able to call it one way or the other, one of the analysts said, "It looks like they are going to have to count all the votes." He said this with a tone of amazement, as if this was an incredible thing that was happening. What he meant, of course, was that the network couldn't "call" the election based on randomly sampled polling data...that they would actually have to COUNT the votes. I think that is what they should do for every election.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by crawjo

I think it certainly would be more simple that way, but I wonder if the number of voters at many polling places in the U.S. might make the counting process take much longer. Not that I would be opposed to a longer counting process. I thought it was funny that, the night of the 2000 election, as it became clear that the race in Florida was just way too close to be able to call it one way or the other, one of the analysts said, "It looks like they are going to have to count all the votes." He said this with a tone of amazement, as if this was an incredible thing that was happening. What he meant, of course, was that the network couldn't "call" the election based on randomly sampled polling data...that they would actually have to COUNT the votes. I think that is what they should do for every election.

I remember hearing that and wondering the same thing. Of course, you have to remember that we do actually COUNT the votes.
I smiled at the time, until the result indicated only about a 500 vote difference between the candidates, coupled with the buzz that thousands had either not had their votes counted, or been turned away certainly gave me pause and it turned out, rightly so.
I wonder if there were any consequences for the people who, unjustly, disallowed voting by those who had been wrongly designated as "convicted felons". Isn't preventing an eligible person from voting a crime of some kind??

[crawjo]

It's against the law. A handful of people did sue the state of Florida because they were unfairly denied the right to vote. I can't remember how many people it was...not more than a handful, though.

[patricia]

IMO there should have been a class action suit, if what I've read about the numbers is anywhere near how many were disenfranchised.

[crawjo]

Someone who is a lawyer could provide more details and correct me if I'm wrong, but in order to get in on that, you would probably need to demonstrate somehow that you tried to vote but were barred from doing so because you were on "the list." I don't know how many people this actually happened to. It happened to a few, but I have not seen any stories indicating that lots of people have come forward and said they tried to vote but weren't allowed to. It seems to me that if these people were out there, the Democrats would have found them by now and made a big story out of it.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by crawjo

Someone who is a lawyer could provide more details and correct me if I'm wrong, but in order to get in on that, you would probably need to demonstrate somehow that you tried to vote but were barred from doing so because you were on "the list." I don't know how many people this actually happened to. It happened to a few, but I have not seen any stories indicating that lots of people have come forward and said they tried to vote but weren't allowed to. It seems to me that if these people were out there, the Democrats would have found them by now and made a big story out of it.

I get the impression that the Dems walked away from the election, holding up their pantlegs, much the same way that city folks would, when exiting a particularly crap-strewn barnyard. I guess they must have reasoned that they were beating a dead horse. Once the Supreme Court decided the election, the issue was dead. I also found it interesting that the Supreme Court went to great lengths to declare that no precedent was set. Isn't what they did the very definition of precedent??

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by crawjo

Dr. Dave,

If Bush wins Florida again, is there any scenario in which you would accept that the result was legitimate, if it was close (as in, the candidates are within 50,000 votes of each other)?

I'd demand a recount, which anybody in their right mind would do. Bush wins the recount, he's won it fair and square. I am mildly insulted that you would think I'd have any other response.