HR-811 Opponents: If You Can't Stand the Sausage-making...
It's unfortunate for the cause of quality democracy in America that some think a DRE ban is feasible within the next decade to come without the hard evidence of unreliable and unsecure DREs that HR-811 would provide. They display a stunning lack of awareness of how any legislation is created, forged and passed in this country.
A DRE ban from our influence-drenched US Congress is simply not feasible without widespread, hard auditing evidence that the press and public couldn't ignore. That's exactly what we would have with a VVPAT. That's why Holt's HR-811 is savvy and effective.
Holt, like Kucinich, would love to see DREs go away. Rush, however, realizes that the light of universal auditing is the very best way to get there. Is his bill being pummeled by special interests in House Administration Committee sessions? Of couse it is. He's keeping his 'eye on the prize', however, and the Light of Auditing in HR-811 still stands. The bill deserves our support.
What about all the stuff I read on the Web about HR-811?
No publicly known authors have credibly suggested that HR-811 auditing will fail to uncover bad tallies. They rail against the fact that the paper trail is not up front the vote of record, and of course, lash out at EAC, vendor protections and technology maturity issues (odd to hear about technology hurdles from purists...), but I haven't seen a single credible case that the with all the 'voters glazing over their VVPAT moments' and everything else, in the end, audits will fail to uncover bad vote-counts.
As for it's 'flaws', why would anyone think HR-811 would be a "final word" on American elections? FEC and HAVA legislation were not the final words. Sadly, even the Campaign Financing bill has been half-gutted by the Supreme Court.
Why would anyone think Kucinch's bill would be any less vulnerable to the onslaught of interests? Do they think corporations and lobbyists will shrink in shame at the beauty and shining elegance of Canadian-style paper-only/hand-count voting?
Let's Get Real
Without HR-811's hard evidence, many opponents' pet peeves about companies, commissions and political operatives are back to Zero --- back to the nightmare we're living in now --- black-box-voting, with no proof of bad computerized voting behavior.
Without paper evidence, influential as leading bloggers may seem, voting integrity activists will always seem like the 'aluminum hat' crowd, as likely to fight for a ban on DREs as to fend of the silent black helicopters from reading their brain waves.
HR-811, with all it lacks regarding what grass roots activist think about commissions and corporations, is the very best thing Canadian-style paper-only/hand-count voting could ever, ever hope for.
Life under HR-811
Journalists and every jurisdiction in the nation will have a paper record of every vote to plow into -- whether a precinct is selected for auditing or not -- to prove the very points HR-811's opponents make about equipment, vendors and political game-playing.
No matter which way a computerized voting machine screws up, it'll be flagged. If they record the wrong vote both inside the computer and on the VVPAT, while some citizens may not 'check the paper' for accuracy when they vote, many will, and they'll be flagged by HR-811's voter verification provision. (Note that in those cases, the rejected paper ballots are available for counting...) If they always produce a correct VVPAT, but flip votes inside the computer, they'll also be flagged by the HR-811 audit.
Those bad audits can then be correlated to particular vendors, software and releases. If the commissions and companies involved in voting machines are a house of cards, they'll come tumbling down.
Shine a bright light on DRE inaccuracies!
Let the Auditing Begin!
A DRE ban from our influence-drenched US Congress is simply not feasible without widespread, hard auditing evidence that the press and public couldn't ignore. That's exactly what we would have with a VVPAT. That's why Holt's HR-811 is savvy and effective.
Holt, like Kucinich, would love to see DREs go away. Rush, however, realizes that the light of universal auditing is the very best way to get there. Is his bill being pummeled by special interests in House Administration Committee sessions? Of couse it is. He's keeping his 'eye on the prize', however, and the Light of Auditing in HR-811 still stands. The bill deserves our support.
What about all the stuff I read on the Web about HR-811?
No publicly known authors have credibly suggested that HR-811 auditing will fail to uncover bad tallies. They rail against the fact that the paper trail is not up front the vote of record, and of course, lash out at EAC, vendor protections and technology maturity issues (odd to hear about technology hurdles from purists...), but I haven't seen a single credible case that the with all the 'voters glazing over their VVPAT moments' and everything else, in the end, audits will fail to uncover bad vote-counts.
As for it's 'flaws', why would anyone think HR-811 would be a "final word" on American elections? FEC and HAVA legislation were not the final words. Sadly, even the Campaign Financing bill has been half-gutted by the Supreme Court.
Why would anyone think Kucinch's bill would be any less vulnerable to the onslaught of interests? Do they think corporations and lobbyists will shrink in shame at the beauty and shining elegance of Canadian-style paper-only/hand-count voting?
Let's Get Real
Without HR-811's hard evidence, many opponents' pet peeves about companies, commissions and political operatives are back to Zero --- back to the nightmare we're living in now --- black-box-voting, with no proof of bad computerized voting behavior.
Without paper evidence, influential as leading bloggers may seem, voting integrity activists will always seem like the 'aluminum hat' crowd, as likely to fight for a ban on DREs as to fend of the silent black helicopters from reading their brain waves.
HR-811, with all it lacks regarding what grass roots activist think about commissions and corporations, is the very best thing Canadian-style paper-only/hand-count voting could ever, ever hope for.
Life under HR-811
Journalists and every jurisdiction in the nation will have a paper record of every vote to plow into -- whether a precinct is selected for auditing or not -- to prove the very points HR-811's opponents make about equipment, vendors and political game-playing.
No matter which way a computerized voting machine screws up, it'll be flagged. If they record the wrong vote both inside the computer and on the VVPAT, while some citizens may not 'check the paper' for accuracy when they vote, many will, and they'll be flagged by HR-811's voter verification provision. (Note that in those cases, the rejected paper ballots are available for counting...) If they always produce a correct VVPAT, but flip votes inside the computer, they'll also be flagged by the HR-811 audit.
Those bad audits can then be correlated to particular vendors, software and releases. If the commissions and companies involved in voting machines are a house of cards, they'll come tumbling down.
Shine a bright light on DRE inaccuracies!
Let the Auditing Begin!
posted by Mark MyWords at
9:29 PM
2 Comments:
The DRE companies are getting help to stay in business from an unlikely camp: that of their sworn political adversaries, e-voting activists.
I’m on the emailing list of dozens of election-related web sites. Two recent alerts caught my attention. First there was the request that folks not only ask their representatives to vote against HR 811, but shun People for the American Way for their support of the bill.
Then today Rob, (or someone) at OpEd news sent a little blurb announcing that HR 811 may have been brought to a screeching halt, and wasn’t this good news?
And of course, the Kucinich/Pelosi letter...
What I find amusing (once I’ve stopped crying) is that these activists seem to be totally unaware of how beneficial their actions are to the very DRE companies they decry.
I wonder that any of the DRE companies (known as the collective ETC since 2003) even bother to keep lobbyists on retainer. E-voting activists are doing such a good job of curbing legislation that might actually change laws and raise the standards for voting machines, why would DRE companies ever need to lobby again?
But of course they will, and they have.
[Check out the letter sent by ETC-regarding HR 811 http://gop.cha.house.gov/fl13/ETCJULY17LETTER.pdf ]
It is easier to kill a bill than to get one passed. So, although, there are some bills that are a challenge to kill (like Voter ID bills spreading the country like wildfire) HR 811 was never a sure thing. The money and lobbying behind Electronic Voting is substantial—and clearly the efforts of those lobbyists are paying off.
And as E-Voting activists attempt to Kill Bill (HR 811), sadly they offer in its place, little more than words and conjecture. There are no alternative bills of this nature, being considered in Congress. Certainly none that activists can agree on. So basically the plan seems to be to kill HR 811 and any bill like it, and keep on voting as we have been. Or hope that Kucinich can get support for a new version of his bill HR 6200. If Kucinch's past success with this bill is any example...the prospects look glum.
One day, rather than bickering and whining so much, maybe we as election activists can curtail the debate and actually get something done. Wouldn’t that be nice?
I mean, with enemies like those in the e-voting movement, helping to keep election laws exactly as they are, the DRE companies hardly have a need for friends in Congress.
By
Kate, at 6:41 PM
I'm saying this here just in case you don't get back to my place to see it there.
Thanks for the kind words about my post on HR811. You're right that HR811 doesn't seek to fix all the problems with e-voting but to fix one serious problem, the lack of a verifiable paper trail. I agree that it's probably as good as we can get right now and that its benefits outweigh its drawbacks.
By
LarryE, at 4:42 PM
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