Sometimes we are able to forestall obvious
disasters. By now most everyone has heard of the election
debacle in Denver, Colorado, on November
7, 2006, that resulted from the dimwitted adoption of voting centers. As
is common for many issues, the Equal Justice Foundation has been speaking out
against vote centers for years now and I happened across a letter published in
January 2005 that, together with the help of a couple of volunteers on the
panel examining vote centers, helped forestall their adoption here. As a result
our 2006 elections were quite uneventful though we still need to do something
about our Diebold machines.
Too bad the Colorado Springs Gazette isn't read in Denver.
Voting centers threaten elections'
integrity
Apparently County Clerk Bob Balink
has never met a terrible idea for voting that he didn't like ("County
might eliminate traditional polling places," Metro, Dec. 31). Balink wants
to do away with one of the last few protections we have for our elections.
A basic function of precinct voting is to ensure that voters who don't reside
there don't vote there. And anyone who can't find their local precinct likely
isn't authorized to vote there anyway. But Balink wants to do away with that
time-tested method of maintaining election integrity and hide counting ballots
even deeper from public scrutiny in voting centers.
Citizen election judges in our local precinct are one of the last bulwarks
against election fraud. Balink wants to replace them with people he controls
and "trains." His Diebold black boxes have already eliminated any
oversight of the ballot count by poll watchers and even now election judges
have no idea what the Accu-Vote tabulator actually does with a ballot.
With more than 70 ballot styles in the last election, voting centers would make
it almost certain that at some point voters in Fountain would be voting on
issues in Monument.
The Diebold voting system used here has flunked security tests in Maryland and Ohio and
was decertified in California.
But that doesn't bother our county clerk, who simply ignores all warnings about
computer security. Voting centers would make it even harder for citizens to
discern the numerous problems with our Diebold voting machines. In turn, that
would help the clerk cover his backside. From that perspective, one can
understand why Balink thinks highly of voting centers. However, from the
perspective of election integrity and citizen oversight, such centers are a bad
idea that should die.
Charles
E. Corry
President, Equal Justice Foundation
Colorado Springs