Opinions

Kerry ignored e-voting problems

In print | November 11, 2004

You may be sick of hearing about me, electronic voting and Diebold’s insecure, buggy voting machines. To be honest, I’m a little tired of it myself, but unfortunately that doesn’t make the problem go away. The fact is that the electronic voting machines we used in the recent presidential election might have produced inaccurate or fraudulent results, especially in swing states such as Florida and Ohio, which use Diebold e-voting machines. I’m not yet convinced that there was election fraud this November, but the problem with these “Direct recording electronic” voting machines that leave no paper trail is that it would be very difficult to notice or prove that there were voting “irregularities.”

BlackBoxVoting.org, the home of Bev Harris (the reporter who originally found the Diebold memos), says that “fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud.” Whether the fraud was significant enough to swing the election, or whether it exists at all, is unclear to me, but anyone who followed the e-voting controversy should be suspicious when voting machine manufacturers produce creepy quotes such as “The machines performed beautifully … Instead of theories about catastrophes, the simple reality is that the machines produce accurate results and the voters love them.” Exit polls predicted Kerry victories in some states that ended up going to Bush, and when the final results of an election conflict with the exit polls, it is sometimes considered to be a sign of election fraud in other countries. Why was that implication not given sufficient attention, if only to be discounted?

Once again, I’m not convinced that the election was “stolen,” and even if it was, it seems likely that Bush still won the popular vote; Kerry would not have a clear mandate as president any more than Bush did in 2000. But Kerry and his advisors seem to have ignored completely the warnings of voting transparency activists around the country, as well as the warnings of prominent members of his own party, including Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich. Howard Dean wrote an article where he said, “To the governments of the 50 states, Republican or Democrat, I ask you to put paperless e-voting machines on the shelf until 2006 or until they are reliable and will allow recounts. In a democracy you always count the votes no matter who wins.” Dennis Kucinich actually mirrored the Diebold memos on his Web site, and said, “Electronic voting machines with meager security and significant technical flaws threaten to undermine our voting rights and thus the reliability of the election process.” Why did Kerry concede so quickly, instead of waiting for every vote to be counted as he originally promised? If my vote were still uncounted when Kerry conceded, I would feel disenfranchised. If my vote were recorded on a Diebold electronic voting machine, and Kerry didn’t wait to see if any irregularies were unearthed, I would feel disenfranchised. I don’t care so much whether Kerry won or not, as I voted Libertarian, but I do want the election to be won fair and square, and I don’t believe that Kerry and his crew paid adequate attention to the e-voting issue.