10.26.07
140,000+ ballots tossed in UK due to ‘avoidable errors’
The scale of the disenfranchisement in recent elections in Scotland is breathtaking … 146,000 voters had their ballots discarded because of errors in marking the paper. To put this into perspective, this is the equivalent of the entire population of a mid-sized American city. The number of voters in Scotland whose ballots were simply tossed is roughly equal to the residents of Pasadena, CA, Hollywood, FL, Kansas City, KS or Eugene, OR. It’s a truly amazing perspective that the dry figures alone don’t begin to express. [Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108676.html]
And there is no real apology from the architect of the disaster, just some remarks about lessons learned. [Note: the complete story can be found at http://tinyurl.com/2gcxsf]
“I really am sorry if people were denied their vote because of decisions that people made and because of any failure of administration …
“I acknowledge the Scotland Office’s role in the overall process and can say now that we have lessons to be learned from the systemic failures that occurred.”
said Scottish Secretary Des Browne, representing the British Labor Party government of Gordon Brown. But members of the two leading opposition parties saw it somewhat differently.
David Mundell, the shadow Scottish Secretary, said: “This is an election that saw more than 146,000 rejected ballots as a result of a catalogue of avoidable errors, failures of oversight and a fragmented approach to the management of the elections.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Nicol Stephen added: “Organising the Scottish Parliament elections was one of the few significant tasks that the generously resourced Scotland Office has had to do over the last few years and yet the majority of the failures highlighted in this report were its remit.”
One would think that a do-over would be called for — having a new election so that more than 146,000 would have the opportunity to make their voices heard. But, sadly, no, that is not the outcome. There was an official investigation and an official report on what went wrong but the results of the flawed election stand. Just as in the U.S., when there is blatant error and proven disenfranchisement, the results of the election are allowed to stand. At least the Scots got an official government inquiry with recommendations for changes — this is more than Ohio voters in 2004 got — or Florida voters in Palm Beach with the infamous “butterfly” ballot in 2000. And then there were the 18,000 “undervotes” in the Jennings-Buchanan race in 2006 in Florida.
It seems that bad ballot design leading to voter confusion is something that is found on both sides of the Atlantic. The difference is that in the UK there is an official government inquiry and a list of changes to be adopted that would prevent future problems. This is far better than the “blame the voter” approach and lack of official investigation on this side of the pond.
But it still would have been better to have had a re-vote.
For those inclined to read the original report, the results of the UK government inquiry can be found here: Official Report on Scottish Election
10.24.07
Parallel universes — the public vs. “public officials”
Voters in Maryland want to fund a switch to paper ballots by more than two to one, according to a poll by Gonzales Research and Marketing Strategies. This is an interesting result since Maryland was the first state to switch to paperless DRE’s and therefore voters in that state have the most experience with having their votes counted on non-auditable non-recountable less-than-transparent computers (although the Director of Elections in MD seems to be unaware that a machine that runs the Windows operating system like the Diebold voting machines used in her state are really computers). Now with a 95 percent confidence level and a 3.5 percent margin of error the views of Marylanders are known: dump the Diebold boat anchors and buy optical scan machines. Then the voters will be able to fill out their own ballot using pen an paper and verify their selections before putting it in the ballot box. You can find the survey results in the attached Word doc.Maryland Poll Report
Maryland will be following the lead of Florida (notorious for hanging, pregnant and dangling chads in 2000) , with recently moved to replace their DRE’s with optical scan systems under the leadership of Republican Governor Charlie Crist. This is a bi-partisan movement toward paper since Democrat O’Malley is the resident of the statehouse in Maryland. Read the rest of this entry »
10.21.07
Why all the red herrings about no-excuse absentee voting?
The House Committee on Administration held a hearing about no-excuse absentee voting and did not mention Oregon, the state where everyone votes absentee. I find it peculiar that no one with experience with the Oregon system was asked to offer testimony to the committee. There was testimony from Vermont — and speculation from a member of the committee that absentee voting might provide fraud and intimidation.
But no evidence was offered that there fraud and intimidation is more prevalent in mail voting systems than in polling place voting. A Republican member of the committee exhibited typical GOP paranoia about voter ID requirements. The so-called Real ID for voting is a solution in search of a problem. In recent elections the number of cases of voter fraud, in which a person casts a ballot that they are not entitled to cast, can be numbered on the fingers of one hand. However, the risk of disenfranchisement to legitimate voters who do not meet stringent ID requirements is high: the poor, the young, the elderly and victims of disasters like Katrina would all face difficult obstacles to obtaining ID to ensure their right to vote.
I wonder why voter preferences and convenience are not directly addressed at hearings like this. There are reasons why voter participation rates are greater with no-excuse absentee voting is that it really makes it easier for citizens to vote when they don’t have to squeeze it into a work day. The scheduling of elections on Tuesdays is an artifact of a prior age. Until election day is moved to a weekend, voters will continue to vote absentee in ever greater numbers whenever the option is available.
House subcommittee debates expanded absentee vote
Partisan divide over access, security remains strong
By Evan Smith
www.electionline.orgOn October 16, the House Administration Subcommittee on Elections held a hearing on “Expanding and Improving Opportunities to Vote by Mail or Absentee.” The focus of the hearing was H.R. 281, “The Universal Right to Vote by Mail Act of 2007,” introduced by Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.), which would require all states provide no-excuse absentee voting in federal elections beginning in 2008. Read the rest of this entry »
More details on cybercrime threats to U.S. elections
Cybercrimes may have occurred in recent elections. There have been frequent suspicions but no conclusive proof. Now it is possible that ever more sophisticated schemes may be used to skew election results. This should be required reading for all candidates and their staff. But the focus is usually more on creating a new direct-mail piece or tv commercial.
Hackers could skew US elections
- 13:38 09 October 2007
- NewScientist.com news service
- Jessica Marshall
http://tinyurl.com/2gkro8
The web may not deserve its reputation as a great democratic tool, security experts say. They predict voters will increasingly be targeted by internet-based dirty tricks campaigns, and that the perpetrators will find it easier to cover their tracks.
While politicians have been quick to embrace the internet as an enabler for democracy, established security threats like spam emails and botnets – collections of “zombie” computers remotely controlled by hackers – all open new avenues for fraudulent campaigning. So said experts at an e-crime summit at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania last week.
Dirty tricks are not new. On US election day in 2002, the lines of a “get-out-the-voters” phone campaign sponsored by the New Hampshire Democratic Party were clogged by prank calls. In the 2006 election, 14000 Latino voters in Orange County, California, received letters telling them it was illegal for immigrants to vote.
Cybercrime — something every candidate should worry about
The harsh reality is that computers can do more untraceable damage to election campaigns — and most candidates and their high-priced consultants are oblivious to the threats and therefore do nothing to protect themselves from cybercrime. The article below focuses on federal elections but the same kinds of dirty tricks can impact any political campaign — from proverbial dogcatcher on up to those with aspirations of occupying the Oval Office. Some of these threats are so insidious that it would be hard to prove that they ever happened. But others like “typosquatting” should be addressed by every campaign that uses the internet.
Cybercrime Threats to the 2008 Federal Elections
http://blog.ironkey.com/?p=227
Oliver Friedrichs of Symantec chaired a panel at last week’s APWG e-Crime Research Summit in Pittsburgh. He has now published much of his work in a chapter from the forthcoming “Crimeware” book.
Here is Oliver’s summary of what is covered:
Abuse of Candidates’ Internet Domain Names and Typo Squatting - In order
to determine the current level of domain name speculation and typo
squatting in the 2008 federal U.S. election, we performed an analysis of
17 well known candidate domain names in order to seek out domain
speculators and typo squatters. Our results were interesting to say the
least. Candidates have not done a good job at protecting themselves.
Some of the examples of infringement are quite interesting and humorous.
Blaming the victims — no compassion from DOJ Civil Rights chief
It used to be that the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ was interested in helping eligible American citizens exercise the franchise. Now the message is just “a shame”.
VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: DoJ Voting Rights Chief Says ‘It’s a Shame’ Elderly May be Disenfranchised by Photo ID Laws, But Minority Voters ‘Don’t Become Elderly, They Die First’
Incredibly, John Tanner Argues Restrictive Photo ID Laws at the Polls Actually Give Minorities a Greater Voice!
Rest of Panel, Audience Members at 2007 National Latino Congresso in Los Angeles Strongly Disagree…
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5145
Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer with additional reporting by Brad Friedman
Unbelievably, the Chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, John Tanner, contends that while it’s “a shame” that elderly voters may be disenfranchised by new Photo ID restrictions at the polls because many don’t have driver’s licenses, minorities don’t have to worry quite as much. Why? Because “minorities don’t become elderly the way white people do. They die first.”
Von Spakovsky — a fox to guard the chickens?
Von Spakovsky should be in jail for his crimes against voting rights — I agree with Obama that this guy has done nothing to earn a 6-year appointment to the FEC. After turning the concepts of voting rights protection on its head while working in the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ and after being sneaked into his current position via a “recess appointment”, the Senate Dems should show some spine and send him back to whatever rock he crawled out from under. Note what Barack Obama has to say about why he is putting a Senate “hold” on this appointment.
Bush’s FEC nominee undermined voting rights
http://www.louisianaweekly.com/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20071015j
By U. S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.l), NNPA Guest Commentary
October 15, 2007More than 40 years ago, John Lewis and Hosea Williams, along with hundreds of everyday Americans, left their homes and churches to brave the blows of Billy clubs and join a march for freedom across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Thousands of anonymous foot soldiers - Blacks and Whites, the young and the elderly - summoned the courage to march for justice and demand freedom. A few months later, the Voting Rights Act was signed into law.
It’s because of the sacrifice of these American heroes that we’ve come so far today. But there’s more work to be done. Recent elections have shown unprecedented intimidation of African-American, Native American, low income and elderly voters at the polls. We’ve seen political operatives purge voters from registration rolls for no legitimate reason, distribute polling equipment unevenly, and deceive voters about the time, location and rules of elections.
