Corporate control of elections

[grinninfoole]

I saw this link: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1013-01.htm on mycrofth's LJ. It outlines the astonishing fact that the state of Georgia has ceded control of its elections to a for-profit private firm, and how this may have led to outright rigging of their recent gubernatorial and senatorial elections (and why no one outside the company could ever know for sure.)

That, in turn, led me to an article about Ohio doing the same thing. Just read the first couple of paragraphs:

Published on Thursday, August 28, 2003 by the Cleveland Plain Dealer
Voting Machine Controversy
by Julie Carr Smyth

COLUMBUS - The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.

O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.


I'm not sure exactly what to do about this right now, but we sure as hell have to do something.

Comments

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

It's worth noting that computerized voting, without some kind of paper trail to refer to record the votes, is regarded as a bad, bad idea by most experts on electoins and computer security. (The RISKS digest has plenty of stuff on this, and has been talking about it for years (http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/2.13.html#subj2.1), with more and more emphasis since the 2000 election (http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/21.51.html#subj14.1), which has led to a rush to replace punch-card ballots with electronic systems which have a higher failure rate and much more potential for fraud).

The CA recall was also affected (http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/22.95.html#subj7), though the issues there would not have changed the result of the election.

I really think that there needs to be a severe revamp of how elections are run: I like the idea of election day being moved to a national holiday, for instance (or, alternatively, to the first weekend in November, with voting on Saturday and Sunday, so those with religious objections to voting on one day could vote on the other), and I think that going to "e-voting" is nuts.

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

I like those ideas. I also like Instant Runoff Voting.

re: paper trails. Oh god, yes, I believe in them, especially for something this important. Frankly, I think that the best technology for the job is pen and paper ballots, something most people don't understand, because most people don't really understand how to evaluate technology.

On a related note, when I went to the Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley, AZ (if you haven't been there, GO), that the computer tape with the actual target coordinates for the ICBM in the launch control center was a paper punch tape. The DOD went for this system because the missileers could instantly visually verify the integrity of the tape.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

IRV might deal with the legitimacy issue: no one has won a majority in a Presidential election since 1988, and denouncing the winner as illegitimate because he didn't win a majority was a poltical issue for Clinton after 1992 (though it didn't get aired much after 1996, even though he got a plurality again then) even before it was an issue for Bush in 2000. I suspect that we might have a similar event in 2004, though it will depend heavily on whoever emerges from the Democrats and whether Raplh Nader runs again. (Whoever wins the Libertarian nomination might be an issue, too, if they nominate someone who is semi-coherent..for a change.)

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

One more thing: Florida has had problems in pretty much every electoin since 1988 (http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/21.11.html#subj2.1).

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

The state that brought us Elian Gonzales has a history weird electoral shenanigans??? Say it aint so!