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October 31, 2006
E-Voting or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Technology
Say the right things when electioneering. I trust I can rely on your vote
As Democrats, we are usually the party of science, technology, and forward-thinking. Look at Stem Cells, Global Warming, Alternate Energy, and The Solid Flavor Injector. And yet the moment we begin discussing e-voting, people start grabbing pitchforks and torches (for my British reader, I'm referring to the burning kind not the battery kind).
Let's take a step back, and look at why people are so distrusting of electronic voting. First of all, people seem to object to any form of e-voting - not just machines made by Diebold. So I'm not going to talk about the creepy factor of Diebold's CEO being a big Republican donor - people would still be distrustful regardless. Instead we'll look at the technology itself, and what makes people uncomfortable. I'm also going to address how our penchant to vilify the infrastructure does a major disservice to our electoral process as a whole, as well as our turnout as Democrats.
I must warn you now that this post is going to get both geeky and wonkish at points, so please brace yourself.
There are two major complaints about e-voting - data integrity (hack-ability) and the absence of a paper trail. Yes these are computers which contain software which can be abused by people with dishonest intentions - but so are optical scan tabulators or just about any other electronic device. At least at the places I've gone to vote, you're not completely behind a curtain but rather a privacy divider. This difference means that no matter how much you want to, opening up a voting machine to load malicious software & then rebooting it will not be possible without arousing some suspicion from the poll workers. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I don't feel that it's any easier than stuffing the ballot box by more traditional methods.
Secondly, there is the absence of a paper trail. This irks me more - I feel that the system could print each vote onto a tape so that you can ensure the electronic tally matches the day's printout. One proposed method that would allay everyone's fears would be the electronic machine both tabulates AND prints out an optical scan ballot that the voter would verify and then run through an optical tabulator and be collected in case of recount. This has 3 fail-safes in it - and there'd never be any question about the integrity of the data.
But even with the ideal not being there, I still feel that a computerized voting machine is no more susceptible to failure than any of the previous hardware. Furthermore, speaking as someone who has worked on a recount involving a heavy number of optical scan machines, I have greater confidence in the computerized machines than the optical scanners that have the slightest bit of trouble if a person marks their ballot wrong. And the reliance on a hand recount is foolhardy - when we did the AG recount last year, all we got to recount was the Tabulator's tapes, not the ballots themselves. I'll take my chances that the computerized machines get it right the first time.
There have been some recent news blurbs about machines displaying the wrong voter - this piece from the Miami Herald goes into this in detail. There is a very simple reason for this - the touchscreen was not correctly calibrated. Not the software was overriding the voter's preference. Occam's Razor people! There's a reason it's my license plate.
It is good to be vigilant about our Democratic process, and the infrastructure involved. It is bad to make people that "the fix is in", and no matter what they do the evil voting machine will override their vote. If you thought your vote wasn't going to be recorded correctly, why would you bother to show up? Our party has continually scape-goated the infrastructure instead of addressing the real issues why we've lost elections. And this demonizing of the process stifles our own turnout - and it's a self-defeating circle. We don't vote because the machines will make us lose anyways - see we didnt' vote and we lost - therefore it must be the machines. There are many far more insidious ways to suppress votes than rigging the machines - challenges, not enough machines, disinformation. We've seen it happen all over the country, especially in heavily African American areas - if we add "And the machine is rigged anyways" into the mix, why would they bother to show up? Why would anyone bother to show up?
There are plenty of things we can do to win elections. Focusing on the infrastructure isn't one of them.
Posted by MikeSager at October 31, 2006 12:30 PM
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Comments
I say, old chap--ta for the English/American translation, eh wot?
I think the root of the Democratic suspicion about voting isn't simply paranoia; it's Florida 2000. The idea that the Republicans could be, as a matter of policy, against recounts--plus the rather cynical way in which they disrupted attempts to recount--plus the even more cynical way in which they struck as many minority voters off the rolls as possible-- made it clear that (at least among the current leadership) an election is a means to an end, rather than a sacred rite of the (small-d) democratic process.
I don't think there's an official, central policy from the top to steal elections. But just as a callous attitude towards torture from the top can filter down, so too can a cynical attitude towards elections. It seems likely that, across the entire country, there is a wide range of attitudes among local party chairs about far they can go to tilt an election. And in a close election, a few local glitches can change the outcome for the entire country.
I agree that it's best not to be paranoid, and that discouraging people from voting is hugely counterproductive. But I think it's important to keep agitating for the fail-safe system you describe, or something like it. In the long rung, that will greatly increase voter confidence, and (I suspect) turnout as well.
Posted by: Jacob Sager Weinstein at November 1, 2006 3:12 AM
Hi Michael Thought I'd throw in a comment or two, regarding vote integrity . My son (your cousin) Damon is extremely knowledgeable regarding computer systems. (It's what he does for a living, after all.) One of the first things he pointed out to me was that an ATM is an extremely complicated device. It must network with banks around the globe, perform transactions accurately--to the penny--and print out a receipt. In contrast, a voting machine is extremely simple--it counts things. And yet, Diebold officials initially claimed (with straight faces) that despite their stellar track record producing ATM's, they could not produce voting machines that produce paper trails. This, and Wally O'Dell's comment about "delivering Ohio's electoral votes to the President", suggests more than innocent malfunction.
Then there is the question of election exit polls. One study from the University of Pennsylvania looked at the 2004 election, and the discrepancies between exit polls and the official tallies. (The media, incuding CNN, "updated" their exit poll data so that it conformed with the official results. It was outright fraud.) In every case, where there was a variance between the real exit poll data and the official results, the official results favored Bush. Kerry, as you may recall, initially thought he had won the election, based on the exit poll data. The U. Penn analysis found that the probability of every discrepancy favoring Bush was one in over 600,000. (You read that right--one in over six hundred thousand.) Other statisticians have put the probability at over one in 900,000 against.
So we have a good prima facie case for massive vote fraud, just from these stats.
And regarding the relative merrits of paper ballots vs. electronic voting, elections have always been subject to fraud, of course. But with paper ballots, the fraud is local, and "retail". A ballot box is stuffed here, "lost" there. But with electronic voting, massive, "wholesale" fraud is quite possible. I think optically scanned paper ballots--such as we have here in Oregon--are a reasonable compromise. Routine statistical sampling would also be a good idea.
And while we're on the subject, our vote-by-mail system has resulted in exceptionally high voter turnout. No problems with waiting in lines, etc. And higher voter turnout generally helps the Dems. No wonder the Repubs are always worried about it, claiming it's subject to fraud!
Posted by: Gordon Kaswell at November 1, 2006 4:39 AM
Torches - sticks on fire, not flashlights.
Posted by: Mike Sager at November 1, 2006 7:58 AM
"Ta"= "Thanks," and "eh wot" is just a meaningless intensifier. So, I was thanking you for your translation--not requesting a further one!
Two countries separated by a common language, indeed.
Posted by: Jacob Sager Weinstein at November 1, 2006 11:28 AM
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