(Some) New Yorkers Struggle for the Soul (and "Credibility ") of Democracy

[Wilms]

Eyes Wide Shut

An Imperative SOS

New Yorkers Struggle for the Soul of Democracy

New York State, the State Board of Elections and New York’s Attorney General are Preparing to Violate Our Constitutional Right to be Protected From Disenfranchisement -- Even as They Know Computerized Voting Systems Cannot Secure our Votes.

Saturday, July 5, 200

by Andi Novick

At a recent (June 19th 2008) meeting of the four commissioners of the State Board of Elections (SBOE) the discussion focused on the myriad problems New York State is having with the voting vendors who continue to sell the only product they offer – “crap.” As SBOE Co-Chair Douglas Kellner (D) stated:

“(T)he voting industry sells crap. And that's the problem.”

snip

Last week Nassau County wrote to the federal judge, who’d accepted the State’s shameful surrender of our constitutionally protected right to vote, justifiably complaining that “85% of the 156 BMDs received (so far) ... have substantial operational flaws that render them unusable or that require major repairs”. (see Nassau County's Letter to Judge Sharpe 6/27/08) Nassau blames the SBOE for certifying these machines and forcing them upon the counties. While there’s plenty of blame to go around, the bottom line is the machines are crap; the vendors have a captive consumer and they sell machines that don’t work because the forced consumer feels compelled to have the crap in place for the next election.

And so the state commissioners agreed (at the 6/19 mtg) to relax the rules regarding the BMDs- even as they found literally thousands of defects, because while they may be defective and not work, at least we’re not talking about how vulnerable they are to tampering since these BMDs aren’t being certified to count the votes (yet). But warned Commissioner Kellner, he’s not going to “get caught in this bargain with the devil” when it comes time to certify the scanners to count votes. So what is he going to do when it comes time to certify the counting function on the BMD?

snip

New York State’s Lever Voting System Is Secure, Supported by Most People in the State, and it Works

What is to be the fate of the great state of New York? That at this moment is in the hands of the electorate because our state government has turned against us. Unlike every other state in the nation, we are the only ones who have not yet computerized our electoral process. We are also the only ones with a functioning, secure, reliable and affordable electoral system. Why are we abandoning our levers when they have been described by one scholar studying the issue as “(O)ne of the most astonishing achievements of American technological genius.”

snip

Who supports New York’s lever voting system?

Just about all the county election commissioners in New York, in their personal capacity.

Just about all the state board of election commissioners in New York, in their personal capacity.

And I’d venture to say, most of the citizens of New York.

1) The County Boards of Elections

If you ask the county election commissioners, they will tell you that much as they would love to keep the levers and much as they know the nightmares of computerized voting and the excessive costs to taxpayers, “this ship has sailed.” They are beleaguered. New York State’s Legislature did not stand up and fight for the levers when they had the chance. The State caved- first passing state laws to replace the levers and then capitulating to the pressure of the feds in the litigation commenced by the corrupt Department of Justice agreeing to surrender your rights and the lever voting machine by 2009.

snip

2) The State Board of Elections

If you ask the SBOE commissioners responsible for certifying that these machines can accurately and securely count our votes, they will tell you:

Commissioner Evelyn Aquila (D) at the 6/19th SBOE meeting:

“I support the lever machines”

Newly appointed Commissioner Gregory Peterson (R) at the 6/19th SBOE meeting:

“If it doesn't work the way you said it was going to work (referring to software-driven systems)], we're better with a lever-just pushing down levers. And if the judge doesn't understand that (referring to the DoJ’s lawsuit) then he's going to have to be made to understand that.”

But the SBOE does what the State Legislature tells them to do - certify software, abandon the levers. The SBOE doesn’t have to follow orders. Certainly since the Nuremberg Trials this excuse has been explicitly rejected.

snip

Will Commissioner Kellner do what he said he’d do at the 6/19 SBOE meeting?

“I'm prepared to go back to Judge Sharp and to say: Judge, it would be unconstitutional to enforce the Help America Vote Act by requiring us to replace the lever voting machines with scanning equipment or DRE equipment or any equipment that does not comply with the current guidelines.”

3) The Good Citizens of New York

Ask most New Yorkers and they’ll tell you they are happy with their levers. That means for the most part they trust the results or they would not be happy with this system. They have good reason to trust the lever voting system and no reason to trust the computerized voting system the State plans on using to disenfranchise us.

But there are some who do not support the levers -- many of them are election activists who believe having a paper ballot is better regardless of how it’s counted: even if it’s counted on undetectably mutable software. Their argument: we know the optical scanners can be rigged without ever being detected, but we can hand-count some of the ballots to check against the computer results. It’s true -- we can do that, but we’re not. And even if we were -- why would we settle for an electoral system that is so insecure it requires us to vote on hackable software to deliver an unreliable result on election night, only to check that unknowable tally after the election, after the press has announced the winner, after the ongoing surveillance of the poll site has ended, when the opportunity for tampering with those paper ballots is at its highest.

Levers vs Optical Scanners

The lever voting machine:

• Is difficult to tamper with (as opposed to the ease of tampering with software);

• Can function well without the large numbers of failures we see with software (and for hundreds of years if properly maintained- won’t need to be continually upgraded like the way software is designed); and

• Is mechanically transparent (unlike software which is not knowable by regular people and even the few experts who get to see some of the source code aren’t allowed to tell us what they find because the State has agreed to surrender the public’s right to know to the vendor’s desire to hide the way in which the software is programmed).

• If tampered with (although it’s time-consuming to break into a lever), the limited number of votes on a single lever machine are compromised, containing the scale of the fraud. (as compared to software where a single person with access to a single computer can infect every voting machine in the county); and

• Reveals error or fraud, visible upon opening the back of the machine. Regular citizens can be readily taught to see the problem (unlike computerized voting systems which conceal errors or fraud amid the hundreds of thousands of lines of software code, or by allowing malicious code to disappear, and which error or fraud can never be seen by regular people);

• Was designed and in fact functions to deter theft (unlike computerized voting machines that enable theft on levels never before possible in American democracy).

snip

Testifying before the NYC Voter Assistance Commission in 2004, before the State agreed to install BMDs in every poll site, Commissioner Kellner attested to the lever voting machines’ compliance with HAVA.

“Our lever machines satisfy all but one of standards, that there be at least one machine at each poll site that is 'accessible for individuals with disabilities, including non-visual accessibility for the blind and visually impaired, in a manner that provides the same opportunity for access and participation (including privacy and independence) as for other voters.”

We have met the one standard lever machines could not satisfy. We bought the BMDs.

snip

As Nassau Election Commissioner William Biamonte (D) recently summed it up:

"All that's at stake is the credibility of representative democracy in New York State."

snip

More to follow soon alerting you to the actions needed to protect us before the State succeeds in disenfranchising each and every one of us.

snip

http://re-mediaetc.blogspot.com/2008/07/eyes-wide-shut.html


ER Discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x505159