From: Bevharrismail@xxxxxxx
To: Bevharrismail@xxxxxxx
Subject: From Bev Harris, An upcoming editorial -- want input?
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 10:37:22 EDT
Bev Harris; http://www.blackboxvoting.org (note: The ".com" site is not
affiliated at all - use only ".org"). Bevharrismail@xxxxxxxx
I'll fomalize the following essay next week, and will send it to the
editorial boards of several major newspapers. I have been able to get them
to start
printing these editorials. It would be good if this editorial comes from a
coalition. Let me know if you support this and would like your organization
listed
in the tag line, or if you would require some tweaks to support it.
By the way, Black Box Voting is now a nonpartisan nonprofit, focusing in
the
immediate future on continuing an investigation into kickbacks and the
money
trail behind the procurement of electronic voting machines and, beginning
in
August and continuing for five months, mobilizing two thousand citizen
auditors
for the primaries and then the Nov. election. We'll be "coming out of the
box"
with announcements shortly.
===========
Editorial draft
===========
Voting on machines: It all boils down to this: Election procedures are not
computer security issues -- they are transparency issues, and we must
insist on
policies that keep the people involved in "We, the people." Citizens must
be
allowed to participate in their own voting system.
- We have stripped poll workers of their power, by not allowing them to
help
count the vote.
- We have stripped poll watchers of their power, by not allowing them to
observe the counting of the vote.
- We have stripped election judges of their power, by not allowing them to
participate in the counting of the vote, or even observe the counting of
the
vote.
- We have stripped the central count room of its security, by not allowing
citizens to observe it, forcing us to put full trust in the handful of
county
employees and vendor technicians with access.
- We have stripped our county supervisors of their power, by making them
reliant on vendor technicians, who are often temporary workers whose names
are
never provided to citizens.
- We are stripping elections of their checks and balances, by putting
audits
into the hands of just a few people and eliminating some audit measures
altogether. Touch screen machines have eliminated physical ballots; Diebold
has now
produced card encoders designed to eliminate the physical poll book, which
gives a human-verified record of how many people signed in to vote. Do we
really
want invisible ballots, invisible poll books, and invisible central
tallies?
- Even paper ballots (when there are any) have been stripped of a certain
level of integrity, because they are no longer counted immediately, and
usually
are not counted at all. Instead they are put into a central location for
storage, a room which is not observable by the citizenry. Counting paper
ballots
(when it takes place at all), is now done later, giving the ballots --
which have
at that point traveled in cars, been toted around in boxes, and secreted in
unobservable rooms -- less integrity than paper ballots counted immediately
at
the polling place.
Citizens should be allowed to participate in counting and observing the
counts. We, the People, will be more interested in voting if we are allowed
to
participate in the process.
County supervisors lament that it is hard to find enough people to help on
election days. And is it any wonder? What fun is it to sit there for 14
hours,
with a computer that doesn't always work, with minimal instruction, with
the
"help line" to the county tied up, when you can't even count the votes at
the
end of the day? It will help get people involved if we restore the poll
workers'
right to count votes, and citizens' rights to observe the counting.
We can vastly increase the number of citizens who get involved in
elections,
if we require employers to give poll workers and election judges the day
off,
with pay. Better yet, make election day a national holiday, and encourage
everyone to use this day to vote and to help watch, count, and monitor
local
elections.
By the way, technology has its place. We should consider an inexpensive
idea:
Add webcams and a live Internet feed so that citizens everywhere can watch
the counting of the vote. To protect voter privacy, cameras would be
activated
when the polling place closes. Webcams can transmit all phases of absentee
ballot counting and the central count room, 24 hours a day.
When computer scientists start focusing on ways to use technology to
increase
citizen participation and bring full transparency to the process, instead
of
advocating complicated encryption schemes and finding new ways to tinker
with
the black box, we'll know we're getting somewhere.
We'll restore trust in our elections procedures more quickly if we identify
the problem accurately: It is citizen participation and transparency, not
technological security, that best defines democracy.