reform: v. to make better by removing faults and defects

Glenn Greenwald has a good rundown "Crushing the developing myths" after Election Day.

Good stuff, especially this:

All of the hurdles and problems that are unquestionably present and serious -- a dysfunctional and corrupt national media, apathy on the part of Americans, the potent use of propaganda by the Bush administration, voter suppression tactics, gerrymandering and fundraising games -- can all be overcome. They just were.

Yes. That's an accurate assessment of some of the "hurdles and problems." It's part of Greenwald's Point No. 5, which he notes "has generated substantial controversy and anger" from commenters.

That controversy likely stems from some of his earlier paragraphs on that point, which are worded a bit more emphatically and, I'm afraid, not quite as accurately:

Chronic defeatists and conspiracy theorists -- well-intentioned though they may be -- need to re-evaluate their defeatism and conspiracy theories in light of this rather compelling evidence which undermines them ...

Karl Rove isn't all-powerful; today, he is a rejected loser. Republicans don't possess the power to dictate the outcome of elections with secret Diebold software.

If by "chronic defeatists and conspiracy theorists" he means those who would say, "Don't bother voting/volunteering/GOTV-ing, it's all rigged," then fair enough, but he's painting with too broad a brush here to draw such fine lines. What he seems to end up suggesting, instead, is that those of us who are worried about Karl Rove and other dirty tricks practitioners, or who are worried about insecure, inscrutable and unverifiable election machines, are all "conspiracy theorists." And that's not controversial, it's just wrong.

Here is Joshua Green's Atlantic Monthly article, "Karl Rove in a Corner." It details the man's history as a sleazy, dishonest and fundamentally undemocratic campaigner. He is someone who has a long, documented history of planning and acting together with others secretly for unlawful and harmful purposes. A history, in other words, of the very definition of conspiracy. That word does not exist only as a dismissive epithet, it is also useful and necessary to describe a real thing. Pointing out, as Green does, that Rove is a skilled and habitual conspirator does not make one a part of some lunatic fringe. Nor does worrying that Rove's past behavior might be a useful predictor of his future behavior. That's simply prudence.

If all Greenwald wants to say is that Rove and his ilk must be regarded with vigilance, as "hurdles and problems" to be overcome, then fine. But characterizing such vigilance as the stuff of "conspiracy theories" says more than that, and that's not constructive.

Karl Rove seems to want us to think of him as an electoral Gaylord Perry: a likeable rogue with 300+ wins, 3,500+ strikeouts, and a twinkle in his eye at the Hall of Fame induction because nobody can prove he was a cheater. But doctoring elections is not the same as doctoring baseballs, and there's nothing roguishly charming about Rove's willingness to manipulate and misrepresent the will of the people or his acumen for disenfranchising voters.

Rove isn't a genius; he's a thug. That means, if you're an American who cares about the health of this democracy, you have to be vigilant, and vehement, against his thuggishness in any election in which he plays a part. It'd be nice to be able to point that out without being caricatured as believing that this thug is "all-powerful" and succumbing to "chronic defeatism."

Likewise, it's troubling that any voter should have the opposite of their intent recorded by a perverse voting machine. A functioning democracy needs a mechanism for casting votes that: A) reliably and accurately records the intent of the voter, and B) can be double-checked and verified if need be. The current generation of electronic voting machines seem to fail to meet either of these criteria. It'd be nice to be able to point that out without being dismissively caricatured as a "conspiracy theorist."

Foul play in American elections is nothing new (Netflix Gangs of New York if you need a reminder of this). It ought to be possible to recognize that fact, and to take steps to eliminate such foul play whenever possible, without such concerns getting pooh-poohed as conspiratorial lunacy and without the need for further reform being caricatured as the "defeatism" of those who believe an imperfect democracy is not a democracy at all.

This bit of (pre-election) satire from Acephalous is funny because it's over the top, but not too over the top: GOP fears elections 'not close enough to rig'."

Top Republican officials now believe that the margin of victory will be too high to rig the results. "A four- or five-percent margin, we can handle," said a GOP official from Connecticut. "But eight or higher? That's asking the implausible."

With Bush's approval ratings low and the war in Iraq unpopular, Republicans conceded that the Democrats would gain some seats in Congress, but secretly they believed some races would be close enough that the strategies which were so effective in recent elections could be used again.

"We did what we could ahead of time," said one key Kentucky Republican strategist. "Purged eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to process voter registration cards from Democratic GOTV drives, allocated fewer voting machines to predominantly Democratic districts. We even tried some new ones."

Party officials believe such mistakes may have cost them the chance to rig the election. According to Guy Kenner, a Republican strategist in Virginia, "You can only disenfranchise and discourage so many eligible voters."

Or, as Glenn Greenwald put it in the accurate part of his post:

All of the hurdles and problems that are unquestionably present and serious -- a dysfunctional and corrupt national media, apathy on the part of Americans, the potent use of propaganda by the Bush administration, voter suppression tactics, gerrymandering and fundraising games -- can all be overcome. They just were.

"Present and serious." Not insurmountable, yet still present and serious. I'd be happier if they were less present and less serious. If that makes me part of the lunatic, conspiratorial fringe, so be it.

Comments

[New Duane]

Here are some great ideas for election reform.

1. Paper/internet trail for voting - I should be able to leave my polling place with a piece of paper that shows how I voted. That paper should have a number unique to me that I can look up on the internets and see how my votes were recorded.

2. Same day voting registration - This is possible in some states. It should be possible everywhere and should be required by Federal law. No more worrying about meeting arbitrary deadlines so you can exercise your RIGHT to vote.

3. Make Election Day a Federally-recognized Holiday - Have it on Wednesday so people are less likely to combine it with the weekend for a mini-vacation.

And unrelated to how elections are run, but probably the most important thing a Democratic Senate and House can do, RESTORE THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE, via legislation if necessary. The airwaves belong to everyone but they are disproportionately cluttered up by corporate right-wing Republican shills.

[Kristin]

Here here (or is it hear hear?) on points one and half of three. I like Election Day as a Federal Holiday, but believe Tuesday is still fine, as long as people don't get Monday off too.

I'm not sure about same-day voter registration. Does it work in the places it's been done, or have any studies been done on voter fraud linked to same-day registration? I know that in 04, I was on the rolls twice in my home precinct. I could have gone back later and voted again. Imagine the problems that could occur if you had same day registration?

[Jesurgislac]

A nice sensible Republican (ie, one that voted Democrat on Tuesday) just told me that the Democratic Party should focus on picking an "elect-able candidate" for 2008.

He didn't respond when I pointed out that they already picked an "elect-able" candidate in 2000, and probably did again in 2004: what we need is to fix the dishonest elections that prevented the candidate most votes were cast for from winning the election.

Avedon Carol over at The Sideshow pointed out a while ago that Al Gore is top of most people's preference lists to be the 2008 candidate. Why not? He already won the Presidential election once...

[New Duane]

I'm partial to General Clark. I worked on his campaign in the 2004 primaries and I will again when he runs in 2008.

[cjmr]

And if we can't have same-day voter registration, can we at least have better publicity on what the last day to register to vote is? cjmr's husband has a co-worker that just became a citizen and we had a hard time finding out for him what the last day to register was.

[L]

Jesurgislac, neither Gore nor Kerry were really electable, and that was the sole reason for their defeats. (Accusations of election-stealing aside, which even if true is possible only in a really close election. The margin needn't have been so small.) This is especially obvious in Kerry's case. With his deadpan demeanor and monotonous voice he simply could not "work a crowd" as effectively as Bush. Gore came off as nerdy, which is never attractive to the electorate, and suffered by association with Clinton. (At least for the more intelligent of the morally offended -- yes, they exist -- who otherwise might have considered policy issues in a more balanced way.) In either case, a more electable candidate certainly would have won.

Gore could probably pull it off this time. He only really needs to point out the consequences of not electing him last time. He seems far less stiff in public recently than he was at the time he was running, and emotional reactions to the Clinton scandals have faded considerably. The folks who might shy away from him are the global-warming deniers, but they're mostly on the far right and would never vote for a Democrat anyway.

[John]

One problem with "leaving the ballot place with a paper trail in hand" is that this allows voter intimidation outside the voting booth.

"Show me that you voted my way or you're fired", for example.

[bulbul]

neither Gore nor Kerry were really electable, and that was the sole reason for their defeats
There were many reasons why those two were "defeated" and to speak of a "sole reason" in this context is beyond ridiculous. And on top of that, you seem to confuse "not very charming" with "electable". Bush ain't very charming either and sucks as a public speaker, and yet...

With his deadpan demeanor and monotonous voice he simply could not "work a crowd" as effectively as Bush.
Well, you are essentially claiming that Bush won because he was a charmer. Bullcrap. There are many reasons why Bush won (Republican electorate energized by homo nups, the aggressive anti-Kerry media frenzy, voter intimidation...), but Bush certainly did not win because of his personality. The guy
Admittedly, Dean would have been a better choice for the Democrats. But Kerry was definitely electable.

Gore came off as nerdy, which is never attractive to the electorate
Which speaks volumes about the American electorate and Americans in general (no offense). You are probably the only people on the entire planet who managed to put a negative spin on intelligence. If Dubya vs. Gore 2000 isn't the best goddamn example of this, I don't know what is.

[bulbul]

I'm partial to General Clark.
Forget Dean, Dems should have gone with Clark.

So who do you have for 2008? I'm going with Gore/Obama or perhaps H. Clinton/Obama.

[New Duane]

One problem with "leaving the ballot place with a paper trail in hand" is that this allows voter intimidation outside the voting booth.

"Show me that you voted my way or you're fired", for example.

Please. This has to be the dumbest refutation of paper trail voting I've seen. If you're scared someone will find out how you voted, throw away your paper (but memorize your number) before you leave the polling place. Better yet, learn how to defend yourself and punch someone in the goddamned face.

[New Duane]

So who do you have for 2008? I'm going with Gore/Obama or perhaps H. Clinton/Obama.

Well.. Clark.

But Clark aside, anyone from the South. But only cuz I want to win, not because I'm partial to Southerners. I think Edwards has the best shot at the nomination AND the win.

[New Duane]

"Show me that you voted my way or you're fired", for example.

And just for the record, one of the reasons I quit my last job is because the CEO of the company would spend the first 15 minutes of each week's staff meeting bashing Democrats. I listened quietly for awhile, then I started annoying him greatly by refuting everything he said when it was my turn to present.

Then it all became too much and I quit. There is no job more important than your principles.

[bulbul]

Better yet, learn how to defend yourself and punch someone in the goddamned face.
Or do it the American Way: sue them.

[cjmr]

I like Edwards, too. Edwards/Kerry might have had a better chance than Kerry/Edwards did.

[wintermute]

> "Show me that you voted my way or you're fired", for example.

Of course, this already happens. I don't know of any examples in America, but a couple of years ago in Britain, there were news reports (I can't find them now, so I'm not going to swear to their veracity) of Triads (Chinese organised crime gangs) were forcing people to use cameraphones to demonstrate that they'd voted a specific way.

The point being that if people want to do something like that, not having a piece of paper to take home with you isn't going to stop anyone.

[jw]

L -

Did you see Kerry in person? The crowds here were wildly enthusiastic, and he did just fine. But the media paints a portrait and sticks to it. And both Kerry and Gore listened too much to their handlers.

For the main point of the thread, in Oregon we do it by mail. It works. Prevents fraud, paper ballots, easy fixes of registration errors, vote when you're ready. Only thing not covered is same day registration. I recognize that there may be urban areas where lack of permanent addresses can create certain problems, but if you're registered, you can still get a ballot on election day, so GOTV can work too.

[Kevin]

Kerry didn't need to be more personable. He just needed a bigger spine.

[cjmr]

Did you see Kerry in person? The crowds here were wildly enthusiastic, and he did just fine.

Actually, I think his public appearances were part of his problem. There weren't enough of them. He didn't come to states where they felt certain he'd carry the state.

[hf]

Gore came off as nerdy, which is never attractive to the electorate

You appear to have the electorate confused with the media. See the Daily Howler, particularly this post.

[New Duane]

I don't mean to be argumentative but we are engaging in some pretty serious revisionism here. Kerry was a terrible candidate. He consistently polled 3rd, 4th and 5th among the Democratic contenders BEFORE the Iowa caucuses. I remember screaming at the television when he was giving a speech, "Just say it! Just fucking say what you fucking mean!"

That he came out of Iowa with the win is testament to the power of Skull & Bones.

He is a walking malapropism. He is a terrible public speaker. He may have liberal bonafides but he is completely out of touch with ordinary Americans and it is very painful to watch him try to act otherwise. He also lacks passion and charisma.

Now take all that and consider that his nomination automatically wrote off about 15 Southern states. Not fair, I know, but like my former boss used to say, It is what it is.

[Steve]

One of my first e-mails after the election results were clear was this...

Subject: Priorities for new Dem Congress

How about this for initial activities from the newly Dem congress:

1. A full investigation into election and vote supression shenanigans. Because every vote should count.

2. Rules requiring a paper trail backup on each voting machine. Because every vote should count.

3. Rules requiring each polling location to offer paper ballots as an alternative to machines for people who prefer paper ballots. Because every vote should count.

It would be the high road to seek these common sense reforms. Who says someday down the road some corrupt Democratic administration wouldn't also attempt election shenanigans. Power corrupts. This is modeling our method of voting after the checks and balances system of our government.

[Steve]

The "Al Gore was nerdy" line brought back to memory some thoughts on the Florida recount. Al Gore wanted people to recount the ballots by hand, and George Bush wanted to accept the machine totals because machines were neutral and people aren't. But what this showed was that Gore understood technology, and Bush did not. Those of us that are a bit geeky know that you ultimately cannot trust a machine. They lock up, they sometimes act mysteriously, they make mistakes. When it comes down to it, we know humans must remain in control of technology, not the other way around. (I hope Bush enjoyed using the google on the internets to check election results.)

So anyway, after 6 years of the Bush Administration, I'd be happy for some "elites" to run the country. People who, you know, may be a bit nerdy because, you know, they study stuff and are smart and do research and weigh alternatives before making decisions...rather then making decisions based on faith and gut instinct. I hope this election is the beginning of the end of valuing gut instinct and staying the course over someone willing to flip-flop on an issue after they become more enlightened on the issue. The Republicans certainly were good at up-is-downism...making good and honorable approaches look bad, and half-assed approaches look good. And now, Bush and Rove will end their careers (hopefully) as losers. Their approach has been massively rejected.

[Jane Doe]

Here is Oz we do it by pencil and paper. Elections held on Saturdays, although I like the idea of a public holiday, the problem is that if you elect every minor flunky in the place, there wouldn't be a lot of work going on!. Registration prior to election day, based on demestic residence. Whole shebang run by a non partisan outfit called the Australian Electoral Commission. No canvassers permitted past the entrance to the actual polling booths. Name ticked off electoral rolls. Postal and absentee voting for those who are away/sick or otherwise unable to attend.
Counting done by employees of AEC. Scrutineers for candidate permitted to watch, and challenge votes included/excluded. No touching of ballot papers allowed.
In the event of a challenge, Court decides, but the Court's job is to determine 'actual voter intention'
Whole system desigend to maximise voting by the whole polity. Once voting occurs, system wieghted to determination of actual voter intention.
Voting is compulsory.

I know that the last bit would be unacceptable in the US but the rest should appeal to anybody who really wants to ensure that every citizen has an equal chance to participate in about the one and only democratic ritual left these days. I would be absolutley opposed to any attempt to introduce machine voting of any kind in my counrty. I see no reason whatsoever for changing from a paper trail that is there from the get go, to one where you have to generate two records, one electronic, and one paper. Too much room for error.

[Beth]

1. Paper/internet trail for voting - I should be able to leave my polling place with a piece of paper that shows how I voted. That paper should have a number unique to me that I can look up on the internets and see how my votes were recorded.

More importantly, we need paper ballots. We need ballots that are human-readable, which can be confirmed by the voter and collected at the polling place. We need reliable, verifiable, countable proof of our votes, and receipts don't fill that bill. They're too easily falsifiable.

We also need regular, random spot checks in which these paper ballots are counted and compared to the machine totals for the precincts. If problems turn up, a state-wide manual recount would follow.

Finally, any programs that run voting machines should be open source. Citizen programmers could check the code and suggest improvements to increase safety and stability and to deter hackers. It would make it easier to verify the code installed on the machines and to uncover and if necessary correct for, bugs and hacks. And anyway, it just doesn't seem right that we're not allowed to know how our votes are counted. That knowledge shouldn't be the closely guarded, legally protected secret of a single company.

3. Make Election Day a Federally-recognized Holiday - Have it on Wednesday so people are less likely to combine it with the weekend for a mini-vacation.

Some people work on Federally-recognized Holidays. I agree that everyone should have the opportunity to vote, but I'm hoping we can do even better than that. Does anyone know how it's done in countries where voting is required?

Here's a funny/scary article on the subject. Key graf:

Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer science professor who has examined Diebold's source code, agreed that such offerings "might be possible," but said that he also believes the site [fixavote.com] is satire.

"I suppose it depends on whether they know something about the way the machines were programmed that I don't know," he said via e-mail. "The fact that it's impossible to know whether such a thing is possible is really the big problem."

Maybe no machines were fixed in these past few elections. Maybe the recent divergence of exit polls from official results is purely a stastical anomoly. Maybe none of the bugs, gliches, or crashes that have occurred across the country affected the outcome of a single election. Maybe none of these things ever will happen. But the fact remains that with black box voting we have no way of knowing whether they happened or not, and we never will.

neither Gore nor Kerry were really electable, and that was the sole reason for their defeats.

No. The sole reason for Gore's defeat was the lack of equal protection in Florida. Thousands upon thousands of black citizens were unjustly denied the right to vote. That alone was more than enough for Gore to win. The voting machines in strongly Democratic counties counted a smaller percentage of votes cast. That too, was more than enough to swing the election.

[Laertes]

The bit about not being able to prove you voted a given way is important, cheap tricks with cellphone cameras notwithstanding. There are obvious ways to defeat that. The cell phone camera trick, for instance, would only show how you marked one ballot. It says nothing about how you actually voted.

[the other michael]

If I truly wanted to derail, or at least wonk out, the discussion, I would point out that true reform in our voting system would make room for innovations like Instant Runoff Voting and Proportional Representation -- ways to introduce greater actual Democracy to America. I might even point out that the USA is, compared to many of our allies, democratically backward.

But I won't do that.

I'll just say that Gore won in '00, and the fact that even someone like Glenn Greenwald can forget that is remarkable.

[Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little]

While I am in favor of paper ballots forever, the thing that typically doesn't come up in the discussions of paper versus machines is the Help America Vote Act, which specifies that accommodations must be made for the disabled to vote independently. How do you do that with only paper? Is that in fact a supportable goal? Or is it preferable to have a poll worker or relative take dictation from a voter who can't fill in the bubbles him/herself due to being blind or being unable due to arthritis or paraplegia to wield a pencil?

Here in Boulder County, where the paper ballot continues to be prized, what they came up with was one single electronic booth per precinct as an alternative, not a replacement, for paper ballots. It was emphasized as disabled voter accommodation, but of course the choice was up to each individual voter. (Us poll workers were expressly forbidden to push one or the other method on anyone, neither by assuming a blind voter would want the machine nor by assuming a "normal" voter should only trust paper. In both the primary and the general elections this year, I did have to gently smack down a fellow poll worker who didn't quite get that. Oddly enough, "It all depends on whether you trust the machine" is NOT considered an acceptably unbiased answer to "Which one do you recommend?" The acceptable answer is "I'm not allowed to comment on that.")

Our single electronic booth per precinct was not Diebold, thank goodness. It was Hart-InterCivic's eSlate, which worked like this: You had a SELECT wheel that moved a highlight splotch around, and an ENTER button that committed the highlighted choice. When you were done making your selections, you hit CAST BALLOT. This brought you to an on-screen confirmation of your selections, at which point you could go back and change anything. If you were satisfied, you hit CAST BALLOT one more time to confirm. And this caused a scrolling paper print-out to appear inside a locked, sealed box; you looked at each page through the transparent plastic window and selected either "Accept Page" or "Make Changes". (At this point, a choice to make changes would be treated like a spoiled paper ballot: you get 3 paper printouts before you have to accept it. Except that after your third printout, you could decide to hell with this machine thing anyway, ask the poll worker to cancel your ballot, and be issued your first paper ballot, of which you could spoil two and be issued a third before there was no going back.) When you hit CAST BALLOT for the third and final time, the paper printout scrolled out of sight so that the next voter wouldn't see how you voted, and an animation of an American flag signaled that you were done. The gal running the machine at our precinct would ask people how they felt about it, and pretty much everyone said they were satisfied with the interface and reliability of the machine.

The machine was equipped with headphones to read out the screen to those blind or visually impaired. It could also be fitted with big round "jelly buttons" for use by those who didn't have sufficient physical precision to command the select wheel, or "sip and puff" controls for use by paraplegics.

At the end of the night, a paper trail of every machine-cast vote was inside that locked box. The electronic record of the vote was on a flash card on the ballot controller machine (which we liked to call "the mothership"), and the paper trail would be used in case of a recount. Both the controller with its flash card and the eSlate with its printout were treated with all the security ceremony of the voted paper ballots in their sealed red transfer case. Just covering the Chain Of Custody log, on which every single seal number was recorded (5 for the controller and another 3 for the eSlate) took a good half hour of the 4-hour poll worker training session.

Now, the process could still be made better. My personal ideal would be an electronic voting booth that simly printed out a replica of the exact same ballots issued to those who requested paper; the only difference being that paper voters filled it out with a pen and machine voters filled it out with a computer printer. Users of the electronic voting booth could see that the right bubbles were filled in, and the printed ballots would be deposited in the same ballot box as the regular paper ballots, and all ballots would get counted by the same system at the County Clerk Election Division: feed 'em to the Scantron, and eyeball any that the Scantron chokes on (such as any that people put Xs or checkmarks in, instead of filling out the whole bubble).

That would be my ideal compromise between paper ballot reliability and electronic accommodations enabling disabled voters to vote independently and privately. But what we got here in Boulder County was not, as electronic voting machines go, half-bad. And there are no plans in the works to replace paper ballots at any time in the near future, because Boulder County, that bastion of liberal thought, wouldn't stand for it.

[Jesurgislac]

L: Jesurgislac, neither Gore nor Kerry were really electable, and that was the sole reason for their defeats.

Except that Gore definitely won in 2000: we know, now, that more people cast their vote for him in Florida than cast their vote for Bush, once all the votes were totalled. Add in the voter suppression, and Gore won pretty handily.

We don't know for sure who won in 2004: the prevalence of voting machines without paper trails (the important paper trail, by the way, is one that's locked inside the machine and absolutely unchangeable and can be checked against the electronic totals - not one that individual voters walk out with).

What I will grant you is that neither Gore nor Kerry could produce the landslide win they needed to have to compete with election-riggers. But that's very far from claiming they were "defeated" or they weren't "electable". With media biased strongly against them, Gore still fought his way to a narrow win, and Kerry's win or lose was close enough for the Bush election-rigging to work - win or lose.

[Jim]

OK, you want to make electronic voting machines better? Here's how you do it: when the voter pushes the "vote" button, the machine prints out a slip with the voter's vote. If the receipt is correct, the voter pushes the "vote" button a second time, which actually records the vote in the machine. The voter then takes his official receipt (which is printed on a specially watermarked paper), thumb prints it, with his/her right thumb, on a special square of chemically prepared paper on the receipt, and deposits it in a regular old-fashioned voting box.

Then, if there are questions about the totals recorded by the machines at any location, the physical ballots can be counted and their totals compared to the totals of the actual physical ballots. If the voter is not happy with the vote as recorded on the receipt, he hits a second button marked "cancel". This second button activates a blinking light over the voter's booth. A poll worker then brings a paper shredder to the booth and verifies that the voter's receipt is destroyed. As soon as this is verified, the voter can close the curtains and re-enter his vote.

Note that this is just off the top of my head. I'm sure that there are a number of ways to ensure that the vote is both secret and secure when using electronic voting machines. However, any method is going to have to include the production and preservation of a physical record of each voter's vote. As I think about it, I would add the requirement that each voting machine have a scanner which would scan the voter's thumb print upon entry and which would store those scans on a PC at the poll. If the physical ballots needed to be counted, the first thing to do would be to compare the thumb prints on the ballot to the thumb prints of those who voted at that polling place. That would ensure that the receipts are legitimate.

I totally agree that the voting process must be sacrosanct and completely above reproach. Voting is the bedrock cornerstone of our democracy, and we cannot allow it to have even the most tenuous taint of corruption.

[cjmr]

The only problem with the thumb print idea is that there are many people who don't like/don't trust biometrics even more than they don't like/don't trust computers. You could do pretty much the same thing with a signature capture device attached to each machine, since most states already require you to sign something as you enter to vote anyway.

Although now that I think about it further, both the thumb print and signature methods eliminate the anonymity assumption that Americans take for granted in the elections--to wit, that although it should be my right to know that how I voted was recorded correctly (and the goverment's right to know how many people voted for each candidate) it is absolutely not the government's right to know how I, specifically, voted.

So maybe the best system would be to modify New Duane's unique number system--have each voting machine generate a unique number for each ballot cast, which is recorded with the electronic vote on the machine and printed both on a paper-trail ballot to be checked by the voter and placed in a box at the polling place, and a receipt that just has the number on it for the voter to take home and check on the internet later if they so desired.

-----

After voting on the Diebolds this time, I'm feeling very nostalgic for the old lever-pull machines that we used in our district as late as the 2002 mid-terms. It was easy to tell at a glace who you'd voted for, you could change votes quickly and easily right up to the time you pulled the final lever to cast the votes, they actually had curtains around them so that people couldn't come up behind you and look at the 'screen' while you were voting...

[Matt McIrvin]

I've heard some bad things about the accuracy with which those lever-pull machines actually tallied the votes, though. They were electromechanical devices full of moving parts; maintained properly, they worked like a charm, but if not, there would be trouble. They had the same problem some of the touch-screen machines do, that there's no paper ballot that you can look at before leaving the polling place, and that will be counted in a hand recount.

I liked Greenwald's essay--I read it more sympathetically, and to my mind, the only problem with it is that "conspiracy theorist" is an over-broad phrase that's been abused and debased by defenders of the status quo who use it to attack all critics who allege malice. I don't believe, as some otherwise sensible people have alleged recently, that we need to abandon our suspicion of the paranoid style. I think that Matthew Yglesias got it about right a while back: theorizing about conspiracies is perfectly OK because there are obviously real conspiracies, but what's not OK is the type of conspiracy theory that always uses the conspiracy itself as the explanation for a lack of confirming evidence. Conspiracies are often real, but the conspiracist mindset is still a bad way to engage the world.

[twig]

Specifically for presidential elections, in order to ensure that every citizen's vote counts...

Why do we even have the electoral college anymore? Doesn't it just keep any third-party from any chance of competing fairly? What purpose does it have besides maintaining the status quo and causing confusion and anger?

[Matt McIrvin]

Because the Constitution is really hard to amend, and amending it to eliminate the Electoral College would require the assent of states that stand to lose political power.

(The push to effectively neutralize the Electoral College through state laws that would award all of a state's electoral votes to the national popular-vote winner, taking effect only when enough states have adopted the law to get a majority of electoral votes, is a clever way around this--but I wonder if it would hold up to a serious court challenge.)

[Jesurgislac]

Reading all this commentary, I'm deeply grateful that in the UK we use the state-of-the-art voting system that's utterly reliable:

A paper ballot. (Sometimes three, and once four, but usually just one.)
A pencil. (Or a pen, but a pencil is supplied in the booth, and kept sharp.)

That's it. Completed ballots are dropped into a locked ballot box which can only be unlocked after the polls close, by a non-partisan electoral employee, and in the presence either of the candidates themselves or of appointed representatives.

Ballots are handcounted, starting after the polls close, and any candidate can demand up to three recounts.

If Tony Blair proposes introduces fancy electronic machines to count votes, I will visit the House of Commons on purpose to throw a bag of flour in his general direction.

[Ray]

In Ireland, the government tried to introduce electronic voting machines (and trialled them in some constituencies) but were forced to abandon them because of security concerns.
Not that I vote.

[LL]

RE voting: people have already mentioned my preference, electronic machines with printouts (like receipts). If I and Target can both get a receipt when I shop there, why shouldn't voting machines be able to do it? And hear hear to getting rid of the Electoral College. It's effing stupid and pointless. We should get a new president with popular vote only, whoever gets the majority, none of this winner-take-all-in-each-state crap. People in "solid Republican" or "solid Democrat" states might actually feel like voting is important if they didn't know that if they vote counter to how most people in their state do, their vote essentially doesn't "count" towards their candidate. The way it is now, if you vote Democrat in TX for president for example, it may make the Democratic candidate feel good that he got 45% of the TX popular vote, but it doesn't do him very much good if it means every one of TX's electoral votes go to the Republican, since the Democrat didn't get the majority of the state's votes. It's a stupid system and inherently unfair to both candidates and voters.

RE Gore/Kerry: The media's dereliction of duty in the past few election cycles is pretty well-documented. However you feel about Gore or Kerry (or Bush), it doesn't help that the media (esp TV) rushes headlong towards any whiff of scandal or "controversy", because that's more "fun" for them to report on than actual facts. And easier. Easier to sit there and ask some idiot pundit what he/she thinks of the latest scandal than to report on substantive issues. Of course, it would be nice if the public would actually pay more attention to facts than unproven accusations. By any reasonable and objective standard, neither Gore nor Kerry were "unelectable." Bush barely won both those elections, esp. the first (or didn't win, according to some observers, and there's a case to be made for that). I'm not sure any other Democratic candidates could have done better. The slime campaigns against both Gore and Kerry were shameful, and anybody who was persuaded by them should feel like an idiot. You can not care for either Gore or Kerry based on what you feel are their merits or lack thereof, but if you didn't vote for Gore because the media said he was a stiff and unmanly and he claimed he invented the internet or didn't vote for Kerry because people said he was a big coward in Vietnam and his wife is an elitist bitch, you're just as dumb as Karl Rove thinks you are.

[wintermute]

Re: Electoral colleges

Don't Maine and Nebraska distribute their electoral votes according to the proportion of popular votes cast within the state?

I'm not sure that this has ever actually lead to either state splitting their votes between different candidates, but if other states adopted this system, wouldn't it be pretty much equivalent to abolishing the electoral college system?

[Beth]

Steve,
Al Gore wanted people to recount the ballots by hand, and George Bush wanted to accept the machine totals because machines were neutral and people aren't.

I wish this were the case -- it would be nice to think the Bush gang was merely being naive -- but that's not what happened. The "Florida recount" was not actually a recount, not in the sense you mean. It was not, for the most part, about hand counting votes that the machines had already counted, but about counting the votes that the machines did not. For instance, in the case of punch cards, the machines sometimes clearly punched a hole, but failed to completely separate the 'hole' part from the rest of the ballot (the infamous 'hanging chads'). The machines would reject such ballots, and so they were not initially counted. The Republicans knew that if every vote was counted they would probably lose, so they did everything in their power to prevent it.

Nicole,
Interesting, thanks. And when combined with the other protections I mentioned before, exactly the way electronic voting should be done. The only thing I would add is that if a voting machine is seen to be 'acting up' -- e.g. not producing an accurate paper ballot -- it should be taken offline immediately. I don't actually have strong feelings one way or another about electronic voting when it's done correctly, but the way it's done in many places -- without voter confirmation, paper ballots, or a low-tech back-up/alternative -- seems totally insane.

[Lever-pull machines] had the same problem some of the touch-screen machines do, that there's no paper ballot that you can look at before leaving the polling place, and that will be counted in a hand recount.

That's true, but there are also big differences. Lever pull machines could be tested for accuracy before the voting began. It's trivial to program touch-screens to work properly for X number of initial votes -- thus passing the test with flying colors -- and then miscount all subsequent ones. Also, the lever-pull machines, themselves could be examined both before and after voting, the former to ensure they would work properly, and the latter to determine exactly what problems, if any, occurred. This means we can prevent problems, and also learn if any had slipped through. The touch-screens use legally protected proprietary code. Not only are tests unreliable, the code itself cannot be examined either before or after the election (hense, "black box voting"). Finally, and perhaps most chillingly, is how much easier it is to 'fix' an election (and fix it undetectably) with touchscreens. With the lever machines, you have to alter each machine individually, which is hard to do, and impossible to do without leaving evidence of the fixing. With electronic voting, you simply adjust the program which is installed on all the machines and the state-wide, undetectable fix is in.

[Jeff]

Re Gore and Kerry:
I'd like to see every Dem state flat-out that if anyone knowingly lies about him/her in an election, they will be sued for slander. Watch the media suddenly find fact-checkers when the Swift Boaters appear!

I'd like a Constitutional Amendment that states "Money is not Speech and a Corporation is not a Person". Anyone who wants to vote against can argue exactly how Money is speech, or a corporation is a person. (As it stands, neither statement is law, but is the default position for some reason.)

[Beth]

wintermute,
Don't Maine and Nebraska distribute their electoral votes according to the proportion of popular votes cast within the state?

I'm not sure that this has ever actually lead to either state splitting their votes between different candidates, but if other states adopted this system, wouldn't it be pretty much equivalent to abolishing the electoral college system?

Not entirely. It would certainly be a step in the right direction and make it much more difficult for something like the Florida debacle to swing an election, but it wouldn't eliminate the disproportionate voting that the electoral college system creates For example, California, has about 70 times the population of Wyoming, but only about 18 times the electoral votes (55 to 3). Even with vote splitting, an individual Wyoming vote would still count for almost 4 times as much as a California vote.

[12xu]

I don't see what good the "unique number/check your vote on the internet" would do. Suppose you do that, and notice a discrepancy. Then what? Can you go back the next day and change your vote? What proof do you have that you actually voted a certain way? What proof do you have that that is your unique number?

As someone has already stated, the important paper document is the one that is filled out in the booth and filed.

[Bugmaster]

Regarding voting machines:

I shop at Amazon.com about once a month. Why can't we make eVoting at least this secure ? This is almost a rethorical question, really. SSL has been around for a while, RSA has been around even longer.

Regarding voting:

We need Instant Runoff Voting, or a parliamentary system, or both. Otherwise, we'll keep drifting closer and closer to USSR; we have about 1.5 parties right now, vs. their one Party, so we don't even have that much further to go.

Unfortunately, I don't see IRV happening any time soon -- at least, not within my lifetime.

[bulbul]

A paper ballot. (Sometimes three, and once four, but usually just one.)
Since we have a proportional representation system (i.e. you vote for parties, not candidates), in general election, there are as many ballots as there are parties which managed to satisfy the conditions set by the law. On the election day, you come in, the election comittee checks your name against the voter record (essentially the same as the record of permanent residence) or you hand them an absentee voting voucher and they give you the ballots plus an envelope.
You pick out the ballot with the name of your party, optionally circle the name of a preferred candidate (not more than 4 names), put the ballot in the envelope and shove it into the ballot box. You throw the remaining ballots into a waste-basket (I usually tear mine in half, just to be on the safe side) and you're done.
Once the polls close, the election committee (which usually consists of representatives of every party active in the election district, though the number rarely exceeds 9) opens the ballot box, counts the votes - EACH AND EVERY ONE, prepares a report and signs and seals it. It then selects one or more representatives who - escorted by the police, if required - deliver the ballots and the report to the county election committee. Counties then report to the central election committee. As every type of election takes place on Saturday, the official and final results are usually announced on Sunday afternoon. Neat, ey?
Oh and all the leftover paper gets recycled. Not sure about the ballots, I think there is a 5-year mandatory storage period...

[A. Kennedy]

We need Instant Runoff Voting, or a parliamentary system, or both.

Bugmaster, I think you probably intended this, but IRV does not work very well unless you have more than two parties (or, at least, more than two candidates). You'd have to solve the problem of a two-party democracy before you could use it. Also, a parliamentary system is not impossible with only two parties, but it does not work at all. In my humble and not-professionally informed opinion, the parliamentary system up here (Canada) has worked the best and the most effectively when we've had minority governments (ignoring the influence of votes of non-confidence). For example, Stephen Harper ran as a Bush-style neo-conservative, but because of his government's minority status, he has had to pass reasonable policies and we still have, e.g., gay marriage.

[LL]

RE candidates suing for slander: the legal standard for slander/libel of a public figure (if I'm remembering my media law class correctly and if it hasn't changed significantly since then) is extremely high. It's just not worth the time and effort and money most of the time to go after everyone who says or repeats something negative about you. Theoretically, you could do it, but most candidates, I imagine, would rather spend their time talking about their stuff than rehashing lies their opponents tell about them. What would be nice is if news organizations function more like news outlets than Wonkette or Drudge Report. They bitch about the lack of accountability of the Internet, but they're no better, and they have no excuse. They have tons of money and personnel to do simple things like asking somebody who accuses a candidate of something heinous if they have actual proof. When I was in J school, we were told not to run anything that couldn't be proven by official documents or two independent sources willing to go on the record. Nowadays, apparently, all you have to do is say, "Sources say..." or somesuch BS to make it OK to disseminate unproven bullshit accusations.

RE vote splitting: maybe I'm stupid, but I don't see the problem. I guess we mean where one state has 20 candidates for president and a small-pop state only has 2 or 3. Whether a Wyoming vote is "worth" more than a CA vote or not seems irrelevant to me. It would still be fairer and make more sense than the Electoral College. With the EC, vastly more votes are "worth" nothing if a simple majority of the total vote for that state sends all the state's EC votes to one candidate. When I voted for Kerry in 2004, I figured it wouldn't do much good (Electoral College-wise), but I voted anyway. A lot of people wouldn't have bothered voting for someone they thought was going to lose in that state anyway. But if we had a simple count of the popular vote, all of a sudden, votes for president count no matter you live. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Of course the two major parties love the EC because then they can focus all their money and effort on big swing states like OH and PA and not bother wasting money in safe states or states they know they're not gonna get a majority in no matter how much money they spend. The only anti-Kerry ads I saw in 2004 (as a resident of TX) were on the Internet. Not that I want to see campaign ads, but the RNC didn't even bother trying to convince me because they already knew they had TX.

[Bugmaster]

@A. Kennedy:

Well, as I see it, IRV (or it's statistically-enhanced cousin, the Condorcet method) actually solves the problem of a two-party democracy, because it allows people to vote for Nth-party canditates (where N>2) without fear of throwing their votes away. In other words, under IRV Nader would have a chance.

Although, sometimes I wonder. Most people I know treat their political affiliation as a religion, not as a rational choice. They will stick with their party (mostly Republican, I happen to live in a suburb) regardless of what policies it makes, or how badly it screws them over, because it's the "Right Thing To Do". With a mentality like that, IRV or democracy of any other kind is impossible.

[Jeff]

IRV, the Condorcet method, the Kobiyashi Miru -- whetever it's called, it would have eased three votes I made this year: Dem for Gov (I would have gone Green, then Dem), Green for Insurance Commissioner (Green, then Peace and Freedom, then [uck] Dem) and Green for Senator (Green, then Dem).

I hated Angelides campaign. All he had to do was show the three Arnie's (Mr Recall, Mt Special Election, Mr Post Special Election) and show we can't trust Arnie to govern consistantly.

I detest Bustamonte. He's scum of the Republican order. Yuck.

I wanted to send a message to Feinstein that she's drifted to far to the right (she's always been a bit right of center -- from her SF days). But I didn't want her to lose!

[Jeff]

BTW, the results show that Howard Dean was right on the money (again) when he encouraged the Dems to "run every race". The DNC would have lost a lot of the seats we gained by just running.

[cjmr's husband]

I don't know Dean's thought process, but it was pretty obvious that with the level of corruption involved, some of the incumbents would implode -- but there was no way to predict which one. (The Hammer??? There's one freshman Dem who has no chance of getting a second term!) Thus, run in every district.

BTW, any conservatives out there: suffer through this point over the next two years:

Steny Hoyer was unopposed.

[cjmr]

Steny Hoyer was unopposed.

No, he wasn't. He just didn't have any Republican running against him. He had a Green Party opponent who got 18-ish percent of the vote.