California Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s decision to decertify electronic voting machines manufactured by Sequoia and Diebold is a welcome one. There are serious security concerns associated with these machines that the manufacturers have not addressed, forcing Bowen to take this action. Among other things, it has been demonstrated that the machines can easily be hacked, employees of the manufacturers can gain access to the machines, and they provide no paper trail for each voter for a hand count in case of breakdown.
Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters Jesse Durazo’s reaction to Bowen’s decision has been absurd. For more than 150 years, right up until three years ago, residents of our county voted by making a mark on paper followed by a smoothly operating system of—heaven forbid—human counting and verification. There have been just two or three recent elections in which we have had these voting machines; but now, according to Durazo, his department—which only has to operate one or two days of elections every year—will barely be able to deal with paper ballots. He warns of three-hour lines to vote and waits of 18 hours or more before results are known, even though as recently as three years ago, this would not have been the case with the paper voting that we had then.
Durazo is also complaining about having to buy optical scanning machines and how more poll workers will have to be hired and work longer hours to tally the vote. So what? It is his responsibility to do whatever it takes to prepare for and operate the upcoming elections, not complain about doing it. E-voting on the Sequoia machines his department bought—despite the known problems they had and over the objections of many voters who didn’t want them—can’t be trusted and we will have to use paper ballots in the next election cycle. Just get it done! The cost of paper and secure certified optical scanners will surely be less than the useless machines, and, most importantly, this action will protect the democratic process.
Seventy-five percent of voters in California still use paper ballots. In the counties effected by Bowen’s decision, 5 million prospective voters will have to return to paper ballots. (Counties that have machines manufactured by Elections Systems and Software, such as San Francisco and Contra Costa, will be able to continue to use them as they have been certified by the Secretary of State.) At least 50 percent of our county’s voters use absentee ballots these days anyway, so this is no big deal, and it’s much better to have a verifiable paper trail to maintain voter confidence in the system.
Durazo plans to use the decertified machines in the November local elections (for some reason, decertification of the machines requires six months’ notice by the state, allowing him to use them on a technicality). Why? And if the machines don’t measure up to the security and other requirements, then the manufacturers should take them back and refund the taxpayers’ money.
The most important civic duty of an American is voting. The maintenance of this essential democratic process is too important to leave to machines of questionable integrity. Citizens must have confidence that every vote will be correctly counted. Until we can come up with something better and more secure than an indelible X on a piece of paper counted and verified by human beings, Durazo and the other registrars in our state should junk or return the suspect machines and get busy organizing paper ballots and people to count and verify the vote for the February primary election. And the same thing should happen in the rest of the country.
Democracy is dumb. America made a huge mistake by breaking away from the British Empire. Britain made a huge mistake by going to a parliamentary form of government. A benevolent monarchy is a much better form of government. Democracy is about compromise, monarchies have vision and get things done.
Great news! I’m sure someone will try to turn this into a partisan issue, but this is good for everyone.
Look at decertifying electronic voting machines as an opportunity to have increased voter participation through greater use of absentee ballots, reduced influence of last minute negative campaigning, increase early discussion of issues since candidates can not depend on last minute get out vote and attack TV and mailers to win
Personally I prefer the IBM punch card system.
I like the click-click sound it makes when you push down the handle that punches the hole.
I always check the back side for any “hanging chaff”.
Jack,
I definitely agree with you on this subject. I too wondered what the Hades Jesse Durazo was complaining about since, as you say, the electronic systems have only been used for a few years. If he had just said that switching back at this late date might possibly cause some convenience issues then he would have made more sense.
Also, I like Pete Kutras, but the last thing we need to be doing is suing the State of California over this issue. If he wants to sue anyone he can sue the Supreme Court for imposing Fearless Leader on our country.
Personally, I prefer the punch card system. Although I have been in high-tech all my adult life, at this time, I do not trust these systems, and a successful democracy requires that the citizens have trust in the voting process.
I also have mixed feelings about absentee voting since many send their ballot in before election day, and a person’s feeling towards a candidate can change at the last minute.
I also give kudos to you, Jack, on this timely topic. I am living in an area which uses e-voting machines and may be affected by the decertification.
One thing I plan to do from now on: have a written record of how I voted (absentee, of course) that’s scanned in to an Adobe Acrobat PDF document. This way, if there’s e-voter hacking requiring a recount, I have a written, legal record of how I voted.
As someone who works in IT, anything connected to a network is vulnerable to being hacked. Even with personal or corporate firewalls, all it takes is a dishonest employee on the inside to undo the security measures taken. To that end Durazo needs to take responsibility, junk the decertified machines, and get the necessary optical equipment and poll workers to ensure a secure, honest November election.
One must question why Durazo wants to use decertified e-voting machines to tabulate votes in an upcoming election. Could he be getting any $$$ “under the table” from Sequoia and/or Diebold?
I do not want to read news headlines the day after Election Day on how the Valley’s e-voting machines were hacked into and votes miscounted. Such an incident would make the Valley appear to be the opposite of the “smartest place on earth” label our leaders sell it as to others.
As #6 points out, it has been reported today in the Mercury News that County Executive Pete Kutras is contemplating suing the secretary of state over the decertification, calling his judgement into question. This would be an incredibly stupid move. The result is, not only will we, the taxpayers, have to pick up the tab for the change back to paper voting (where I hope we stay), but we’ll have to pay for lawyers and court costs too. No matter who wins that lawsuit, the people lose. Kutras should be suing the companies that sold us voting machines that do not perform as required, and he should wonder why, with all the known problems and objections, the county made the mistake of buying the damn things in the first place.
#6, your reference to “Fearless Leader” reminded me that it was the owner of Diebold who said that he would do anything he could to make sure that Fearless Leader would be reelected in 2004. Diebold is a very large financial and vocal backer of the GOP and our glorious leader. Isn’t this a huge conflict of interest? You might also remember that it was the Diebold machines in use in Ohio and other closely contested states in 2004 that allegedly were tampered with in order to make Bush the winner in those states. You can google this subject and find plenty of eye-opening stories about it, especially in relation to Ohio and Florida. Whatever the truth of those allegations, there is plenty of other evidence to support Debra Bowen’s decision. I hope other states are courageous enough to follow suit. Otherwise, how can we be confident in next year’s crucial national elections. Our survival as a country may depend on that vote.
Oregon has a better solution: everyone votes by mail using absentee ballots.
Greatly reduces the number of polling stations, volunteers and number of machines to count ballots. (Not to mention the budget & headcount of the Registrar’s Office.)
The other option is for a citizen to petition the Registrar weeks in advance for in-person voting on election day.
In general, it is hoped in the future, young whippersnappers who have not lived more than a few decades (JACK VAN ZANDT, JOHN MICHAEL O’CONNOR and TOM MCENERY) will think and reflect before they criticize President George W. Bush. Base opinion on fact, not fantasy!!!
I just don’t get what all you conspiracy theorists see wrong with electronic voting. Is there really a CREDIBLE threat that some hacker will affect the outcome of an election where the voters use electronic voting machines?
I’m far more scared of the incompetent voters like those in Florida who can’t figure out a paper system than I am of some uber-hacker throwing an election into turmoil.
This whole thing seems to me to be a solution in search of a demonstrable problem.
And then there remains the problem our forefathers knew existed when they did not allow every idiot who had a pulse to vote. But it’s not politically correct to point out that a huge plurality of our population should definitely not be allowed to vote.
GREAT topic Jack! Very well said. I agree with you 100%.
#10-George, while I deeply respect your right to your opinions, your posts are frightening! I’m not sure if you really mean what you write, or if you just write these things to shock us.
After having inspected and investigated the County Registrar Of Voters with an August body of peers I came to the determination that polling places are a thing of the past for me and I will vote absentee permanently from now on.
Jack,
Very good topic today. This is very important to keep our elections honest and credible.
Durazo is a very new person to the elections process. He came here from the L.A. area where he retired from the post office. I really don’t know how that qualified him for the office that he now holds. Some researchers from Stanford University have been very publicly advising that the electronic voting machines are vulnerable for years. I am very
glad that it has come to fruition at last