Democracy in Distress
If the US Wants to Restore Confidence in its Voting System it Must Learn Lessons from the Recent Elections in Venezuela.
Philip James
Friday August 20, 2004
The GuardianThe recent recall election in Venezuela has given us a disturbing preview of what may be in store for the United States in November: an election result held in doubt by many of the voters that took part in it. A cloud hangs over Hugo Chavez's reaffirmation as Venezuela's president, despite a thumbs-up from international election observers. The source of the scepticism is a new technology that was supposed to take inaccuracies out of elections: touch-screen balloting.
Even though the electronic equipment used for Venezuela's election was designed to leave a paper trail that could be audited, the opposition suspects some kind of electoral foul play may have been written into the system's software, limiting the number of "yes" votes on the recall.
As far-fetched as this may sound, it underlines one thing: a democratic system is only as strong as its participants' belief in its validity. When voters' confidence in the accuracy or fairness of the system is eroded, the system itself is undermined.
Confidence in the democratic principles and practices of the US was severely tested, if not ruptured, in the elections four years ago. While there is an opportunity to restore that confidence this year, there is also a risk of further damage.
In the US, just as in Venezuela, the source of that danger is the very technology that was intended to provide cast-iron assurance - electronic balloting. Only here, in the one place that needs the biggest confidence boost, the new balloting system differs in one crucial way from the one-road tested in Venezuela.
In Florida the ballot on offer will be paperless. That means no auditable trail; no way of verifying that the information entered into the device will correspond to the information it spits out.
Florida has already had a dry run of one possible nightmare scenario US voters may be heading for in November. Last month state election officers quietly admitted that thousands of electronic voter records from gubernatorial primaries in 2002 disappeared when a massive computer crash wiped the databases of the new machines in use in Miami/ Dade County.
The data in question related to votes between the Democratic contenders vying to challenge Jeb Bush, Janet Reno and Bill McBride. In this case the overall vote was not close, but you can imagine the crisis that would ensue from a close presidential election, where the only way of verifying the actual count has suddenly vanished.
You might think that this ballot box debacle would have Florida scrambling to address the problem before the presidential contest by ensuring a paper back- up of all votes cast. But Jeb Bush has declined to consider such changes, declaring that he has confidence in the system. I'm glad someone in Florida does.
In other states where the margin of victory in November may be slim there have also been breathtaking examples of the leap of faith required by virtual voting. In North Carolina a software bug deleted hundreds of electronic votes from six paperless machines in two counties in the state's 2002 election for governor. The firm which built the terminals concluded that the machines mistakenly thought their memories were full and stopped counting, even though voters kept casting ballots.
In the aftermath of the hanging-chad fiasco of Florida 2000, Congress determined to find a way to fix a system that only works in elections that produce a clear majority. Cyber-balloting was hailed as the solution, but has become part of a much bigger problem, because of congressional inertia.
Lawmakers sat for two years before passing the Help America Vote Act, legislation that provides no real federal standards for balloting, leaving it up to individual states to decide their own.
The inevitable result is a system that is arbitrary and uneven. In California, the top election official, secretary of state Kevin Shelley, scrapped the use of paperless ballots after a recent election exposed serious software irregularities. He's required all electronic ballots to issue a paper receipt to each voter, similar to the one you get from an ATM machine. No one expects the presidential election to be close in California.
In Florida, however, where a repeat of the razor thin contest of 2000 is very much on the cards, secretary of state Glenda Hood has refused to consider a similar requirement, despite calls from both Democrats and Republicans to do just that. As it stands, 15 out of Florida's 67 counties have the new paperless machines, making the potential margin of error or mischief far greater than the margin of victory and defeat.
It's not as if Florida would have to look far for a machine that combines the ease of touch-screen voting with the assurance of a paper trail. The one used in Venezuela - and which passed muster with the Carter Center's election monitors - was developed and built in Boca Raton in Palm Beach County.
ยท Philip James is a former senior Democratic party strategist
Philip James
Friday August 20, 2004
The GuardianThe recent recall election in Venezuela has given us a disturbing preview of what may be in store for the United States in November: an election result held in doubt by many of the voters that took part in it. A cloud hangs over Hugo Chavez's reaffirmation as Venezuela's president, despite a thumbs-up from international election observers. The source of the scepticism is a new technology that was supposed to take inaccuracies out of elections: touch-screen balloting.
Even though the electronic equipment used for Venezuela's election was designed to leave a paper trail that could be audited, the opposition suspects some kind of electoral foul play may have been written into the system's software, limiting the number of "yes" votes on the recall.
As far-fetched as this may sound, it underlines one thing: a democratic system is only as strong as its participants' belief in its validity. When voters' confidence in the accuracy or fairness of the system is eroded, the system itself is undermined.
Confidence in the democratic principles and practices of the US was severely tested, if not ruptured, in the elections four years ago. While there is an opportunity to restore that confidence this year, there is also a risk of further damage.
In the US, just as in Venezuela, the source of that danger is the very technology that was intended to provide cast-iron assurance - electronic balloting. Only here, in the one place that needs the biggest confidence boost, the new balloting system differs in one crucial way from the one-road tested in Venezuela.
In Florida the ballot on offer will be paperless. That means no auditable trail; no way of verifying that the information entered into the device will correspond to the information it spits out.
Florida has already had a dry run of one possible nightmare scenario US voters may be heading for in November. Last month state election officers quietly admitted that thousands of electronic voter records from gubernatorial primaries in 2002 disappeared when a massive computer crash wiped the databases of the new machines in use in Miami/ Dade County.
The data in question related to votes between the Democratic contenders vying to challenge Jeb Bush, Janet Reno and Bill McBride. In this case the overall vote was not close, but you can imagine the crisis that would ensue from a close presidential election, where the only way of verifying the actual count has suddenly vanished.
You might think that this ballot box debacle would have Florida scrambling to address the problem before the presidential contest by ensuring a paper back- up of all votes cast. But Jeb Bush has declined to consider such changes, declaring that he has confidence in the system. I'm glad someone in Florida does.
In other states where the margin of victory in November may be slim there have also been breathtaking examples of the leap of faith required by virtual voting. In North Carolina a software bug deleted hundreds of electronic votes from six paperless machines in two counties in the state's 2002 election for governor. The firm which built the terminals concluded that the machines mistakenly thought their memories were full and stopped counting, even though voters kept casting ballots.
In the aftermath of the hanging-chad fiasco of Florida 2000, Congress determined to find a way to fix a system that only works in elections that produce a clear majority. Cyber-balloting was hailed as the solution, but has become part of a much bigger problem, because of congressional inertia.
Lawmakers sat for two years before passing the Help America Vote Act, legislation that provides no real federal standards for balloting, leaving it up to individual states to decide their own.
The inevitable result is a system that is arbitrary and uneven. In California, the top election official, secretary of state Kevin Shelley, scrapped the use of paperless ballots after a recent election exposed serious software irregularities. He's required all electronic ballots to issue a paper receipt to each voter, similar to the one you get from an ATM machine. No one expects the presidential election to be close in California.
In Florida, however, where a repeat of the razor thin contest of 2000 is very much on the cards, secretary of state Glenda Hood has refused to consider a similar requirement, despite calls from both Democrats and Republicans to do just that. As it stands, 15 out of Florida's 67 counties have the new paperless machines, making the potential margin of error or mischief far greater than the margin of victory and defeat.
It's not as if Florida would have to look far for a machine that combines the ease of touch-screen voting with the assurance of a paper trail. The one used in Venezuela - and which passed muster with the Carter Center's election monitors - was developed and built in Boca Raton in Palm Beach County.
ยท Philip James is a former senior Democratic party strategist
posted by BLONDIE at 11:10 AM
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