House Dems Ask GAO To Investigate Voting Machines
House Dems ask GAO to investigate voting machines
November 5, 2004
The Honorable David M. Walker
Comptroller General of the United States
U.S. General Accountability Office
441 G Street, NWWashington, DC 20548
Dear Mr. Walker:
We write with an urgent request that the Government Accountability Office immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration.
In particular, we are extremely troubled by the following reports, which we would also request that you review and evaluate for us:
In Columbus, Ohio, an electronic voting system gave President Bush nearly 4,000 extra votes. "Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," Associated Press, November 5.
An electronic tally of a South Florida gambling ballot initiative failed to record thousands of votes. "South Florida OKs Slot Machines Proposal," Id.
In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots could hold more data that it did. "Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," Id.
In San Francisco, a glitch occurred with voting machines software that resulted in some votes being left uncounted. Id.
In Florida, there was a substantial drop off in Democratic votes in proportion to voter registration in counties utilizing optical scan machines that was apparently not present in counties using other mechanisms. http://ustogether.org/election04/florida_vote_patt.htm
The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received numerous reports from Youngstown, Ohio that voters who attempted to cast a vote for John Kerry on electronic voting machines saw that their votes were instead recorded as votes for George W. Bush. In South Florida, Congressman Wexler's staff received numerous reports from voters in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade Counties that they attempted to select John Kerry but George Bush appeared on the screen. CNN has reported that a dozen voters in six states, particularly Democrats in Florida, reported similar problems. This was among over one thousand such problems reported. "Touchscreen Voting Problems Reported," Associated Press, November 5.
Excessively long lines were a frequent problem throughout the nation in Democratic precincts, particularly in Florida and Ohio. In one Ohio voting precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required to wait more than eight hours to vote. "All Eyes on Ohio," Dan Lothian, CNN, November 3, http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/blog/1...blog/index...
We are literally receiving additional reports every minute and will transmit additional information as it comes available. The essence of democracy is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this inquiry.
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member House Judiciary Committee
Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member Subcommittee on the Constitution
Robert Wexler, Member of Congress
cc Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner Chairman
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/gaoinvestvote2004ltr11504.pdf
November 5, 2004
The Honorable David M. Walker
Comptroller General of the United States
U.S. General Accountability Office
441 G Street, NWWashington, DC 20548
Dear Mr. Walker:
We write with an urgent request that the Government Accountability Office immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration.
In particular, we are extremely troubled by the following reports, which we would also request that you review and evaluate for us:
In Columbus, Ohio, an electronic voting system gave President Bush nearly 4,000 extra votes. "Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," Associated Press, November 5.
An electronic tally of a South Florida gambling ballot initiative failed to record thousands of votes. "South Florida OKs Slot Machines Proposal," Id.
In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots could hold more data that it did. "Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," Id.
In San Francisco, a glitch occurred with voting machines software that resulted in some votes being left uncounted. Id.
In Florida, there was a substantial drop off in Democratic votes in proportion to voter registration in counties utilizing optical scan machines that was apparently not present in counties using other mechanisms. http://ustogether.org/election04/florida_vote_patt.htm
The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received numerous reports from Youngstown, Ohio that voters who attempted to cast a vote for John Kerry on electronic voting machines saw that their votes were instead recorded as votes for George W. Bush. In South Florida, Congressman Wexler's staff received numerous reports from voters in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade Counties that they attempted to select John Kerry but George Bush appeared on the screen. CNN has reported that a dozen voters in six states, particularly Democrats in Florida, reported similar problems. This was among over one thousand such problems reported. "Touchscreen Voting Problems Reported," Associated Press, November 5.
Excessively long lines were a frequent problem throughout the nation in Democratic precincts, particularly in Florida and Ohio. In one Ohio voting precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required to wait more than eight hours to vote. "All Eyes on Ohio," Dan Lothian, CNN, November 3, http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/blog/1...blog/index...
We are literally receiving additional reports every minute and will transmit additional information as it comes available. The essence of democracy is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this inquiry.
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member House Judiciary Committee
Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member Subcommittee on the Constitution
Robert Wexler, Member of Congress
cc Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner Chairman
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/gaoinvestvote2004ltr11504.pdf
posted by Pamela J. Leavey at 10:30 PM
6 Comments:
Am I Blue?
I apologize for everything I believe in. May I go now?
By Michael Kinsley
Sunday, November 7, 2004; Page B07
The election campaign made it official. These are the Disunited States. There is "Red" America: conservative, Republican, religious. And there is "Blue" America: liberal, Democratic, secular. Everybody's message from the election results is that Red America won, and Blue America must change or die.
It's a terrible exaggeration, of course. People have different mixes of values, and states have different mixes of people. Just for example, more than 50 million, or 44 percent, of the 115 million citizens who voted for either George W. Bush or John Kerry on Tuesday live in states that went for the other guy. These misfits live publicly, mingle with others and often are treated like normal human beings. (For the half-million who voted for Ralph Nader, it may be a different story.) A moment of surprising resonance in the campaign was Jon Stewart's Oct. 15 appearance on "Crossfire." Taking just a tad too seriously his recent appointment by acclamation as the Walter Cronkite of our time, Stewart begged the show's hosts to "stop hurting America" with their divisiveness. I used to work on that show, and I still think the robust, even raucous, and ideologically undisguised hammering of politicians on "Crossfire" is more intellectually honest than more decorous shows where journalists either pretend to neutrality or pontificate as if somebody had voted them into office.
Still, recognizing that the mood has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, I have been erratically and unsuccessfully pitching a different approach. CNN is not interested. Nor are the other news networks. If anyone reading this wants it, it's yours. Free. The idea: "Cease-fire." You get your politicians or your experts or your interest-group representatives, and instead of poking them with a stick to widen their disagreement, you nudge and bully and cajole them toward some kind of common ground. It sounds goody-goody, I know, but the intention would be more Judge Judy than Bill Moyers.
At the moment, though, one side of the great divide is being called upon for something closer to abjection than mere reconciliation.
So, yes, okay, fine. I'm a terrible person -- barely a person at all, really, and certainly not a real American -- because I voted for the losing candidate on Tuesday. If you insist -- and you do -- I will rethink my fundamental beliefs from scratch because they are shared by only 47 percent of the electorate.
And please let me, or any other liberal, know if there is anything else we can do to abase ourselves. Abandon our core values? Pander to yours? Not a problem. Happy to do it. Anything, anything at all, to stop this shower of helpful advice.
There's just one little request I have. If it's not too much trouble, of course. Call me profoundly misguided if you want. Call me immoral if you must. But could you please stop calling me arrogant and elitist?
I mean, look at it this way. (If you don't mind, that is.) It's true that people on my side of the divide want to live in a society where women are free to choose abortion and where gay relationships have full civil equality with straight ones. And you want to live in a society where the opposite is true. These are some of those conflicting values everyone is talking about. But at least my values -- as deplorable as I'm sure they are -- don't involve any direct imposition on you. We don't want to force you to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same gender, whereas you do want to close out those possibilities for us. Which is more arrogant?
We on my side of the great divide don't, for the most part, believe that our values are direct orders from God. We don't claim that they are immutable and beyond argument. We are, if anything, crippled by reason and open-mindedness, by a desire to persuade rather than insist. Which philosophy is more elitist? Which is more contemptuous of people who disagree?
As many conservative voices have noted, American society suffers from a cult of grievance. To put it crudely, everyone wants some of what blacks got from the civil rights movement: sympathy, publicity, occasional preferred treatment and a general ability to put everybody else on the defensive. No doubt liberals are responsible for this deplorable situation, and I apologize. Again and again. As a softheaded liberal, I even like the idea that our competitive culture has a built-in consolation prize.
But be fair! (A liberal whine, I know. Sorry.) Don't assert the prerogatives of victory and then claim the compensations of defeat as well. You can't oppress us and simultaneously complain that we are oppressing you.
Well of course you can do this, if you want. Who's to stop you? I just kinda wish you wouldn't. If you don't mind my asking. Thanks. Sorry.
The writer is editorial and opinion editor of the Los Angeles Times.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29470-2004Nov5.html
A Few Rights, Please
By Gordon P. Phelps
Sunday, November 7, 2004; Page B07
Dear America:
Now that you've had a chance to catch your breath, we really need to take a moment and reflect on what has occurred.
I'm sorry to say this, but you've been lied to about who I am and what exactly I am about. You were told some mistruths, such as that I, a gay citizen, want to change your laws and religious definitions of marriage and force churches to marry same-sex couples. Also, that I am assaulting the very fabric of our nation, that I want to marry two, three or more persons or even an animal or two.
You were told this by partisan politicians who unfortunately were not interested in your well-being, nor mine, nor anyone's but their own. Many different parties debated anxiously over this issue: the media, politicians, judicial bodies, to name a few.
Yet strangely, during all of this, no one asked me: "Gay Citizen, what exactly is it that you want?"
As after the fact as it may be, I think you really deserve to hear the truth. The truth is: I don't want to change your or anyone else's religion. What your faith believes in and promotes is between you and your congregation and your God/Yahweh/Allah/etc. Yes, even if that includes condemning homosexuality and refusing to "marry" same-sex couples. I am saddened to say you were manipulated into believing otherwise, and politicians used your religious faith to do so.
The truth is: The only things I want are the same simple legal -- not religious -- responsibilities and rights that the rest of you get to enjoy without question. The right to share my life responsibilities with the person of my choosing without interference. Joint ownership of property. The ability to make a will that cannot be contested or nullified. The right to designate legal and medical powers of attorney. The right to purchase health insurance for a partner at no different cost than that required for a spouse. And yes, just like you, the responsibility to pay no more than my fair share of income tax when in a committed relationship with one other person. The list of rights and responsibilities that mixed-gender couples have that I am denied is actually much longer; I'd just rather not belabor the point here.
So, does that sound like I want to "change the fabric of the nation"? Does wanting these responsibilities make me the "greatest threat to the United States since communism?" I've served 13 years in the military and five years as a law enforcement officer in my community. Exactly what type of threat to our nation am I? But you were told I was a threat, and somehow you believed it.
Now that you've heard from me, and not some politician, what it is I actually desire, do you really feel that threatened? And would granting me the same responsibilities you and yours enjoy without question truly rend the fabric of our nation asunder?
I believe deep inside you know what the answer is, and, yes, I'd be angry too if I'd been manipulated like that. That manipulation is a greater threat to your faith and our nation than I ever could be. Thanks for listening.
The writer is a resident of Falls Church.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31101-2004Nov6.html
EDITORIAL
New Standards for Elections
Published: November 7, 2004
The 2004 election may not have an asterisk next to it the way the 2000 election does, but the mechanics of our democracy remained badly flawed. From untrustworthy electronic voting machines, to partisan secretaries of state, to outrageously long lines at the polls, the election system was far from what voters are entitled to.
It's patently obvious that presidential elections, at least, should be conducted under uniform rules. Voters in Alaska and Texas should not have different levels of protection when it comes to their right to cast a ballot and have it counted. It's ridiculous that citizens who vote in one place have to show picture ID while others do not, that a person who accidentally walks into the wrong polling place can cast a provisional ballot that will be counted in one state but thrown out in another. States may have the right to set their own standards for local elections, but picking the president is a national enterprise.
This is obviously a job for Congress, and it deserves the same kind of persistent, intense lobbying effort that reformers have given the issue of campaign finance. But improvements by the states may be easier to achieve, and will clearly help prod Congress by their good example. Advocates should push every level of government to be part of the solution:
1. A holiday for voting. It's wrong for working people to be forced to choose between standing in a long line to vote and being on time for work. Election Day should be a holiday, to underscore the significance of the event, to give all voters time to cast ballots and to free up more qualified people to serve as poll workers.
2. Early voting. In states that permit it, early voting encourages people to turn out by letting them vote at times that are convenient for them. And it gives election officials and outside groups more time to react to voting problems ranging from faulty voting machines to voter intimidation.
3. Improved electronic voting. For voters to trust electronic voting, there must be a voter-verified paper record of every vote cast, and mandatory recounts of a reasonable percentage of the votes. The computer code should be provided to election officials, and made public so it can be widely reviewed. There should be spot-checks of the software being used on Election Day, as there are of slot machines in Nevada, to ensure that the software in use matches what is on file with election officials.
4. Shorter lines at the polls. Forcing voters to wait five hours, as some did this year, is unreasonable, and it disenfranchises those who cannot afford the wait. There should be standards for the number of voting machines and poll workers per 100 voters, to ensure that waiting times are reasonable and uniform from precinct to precinct.
5. Impartial election administrators. Partisan secretaries of state routinely issued rulings this year that favored their parties and themselves. Decisions about who can vote and how votes will be counted should be made by officials who are not running for higher office or supporting any candidates. Voting machine manufacturers and their employees, and companies that handle ballots, should not endorse or contribute to political candidates.
6. Uniform and inclusive voter registration standards. Registration forms should be simplified, so no one is again disenfranchised for failing to check a superfluous box, as occurred this year in Florida, or for not using heavy enough paper, as occurred in Ohio. The rules should be geared to getting as many qualified voters as possible on the rolls.
7. Accurate and transparent voting roll purges. This year, Florida once again conducted a flawed and apparently partisan purge of its rolls, and went to court to try to keep it secret. There should be clear standards for how purges are done that are made public in advance. Names that are due to be removed should be published, and posted online, well in advance of Election Day.
8. Uniform and voter-friendly standards for counting provisional ballots. A large number of provisional ballots cast by registered voters were thrown out this year because they were handed in at the wrong precinct. There should be a uniform national rule that such ballots count.
9. Upgraded voting machines and improved ballot design. Incredibly, more than 70 percent of the Ohio vote was cast on the infamous punch card ballots, which produce chads and have a high error rate. States should shift to better machines, ideally optical scans, which combine the efficiency of computers and the reliability of a voter-verified paper record. Election officials should get professional help to design ballots that are intuitive and clear, and minimize voter error.
10. Fair and uniform voter ID rules. No voter should lose his right to vote because he is required to produce identification he does not have. ID requirements should allow for an expansive array of acceptable identification. The rules should be posted at every polling place, and poll workers should be carefully trained so no one is turned away, as happened repeatedly this year, for not having ID that was not legally required.
11. An end to minority vote suppression. Protections need to be put in place to prevent Election Day challengers from turning away qualified minority voters or slowing down voting in minority precincts. More must be done to stop the sort of dirty tricks that are aimed at minority voters every year, like fliers distributed in poor neighborhoods warning that people with outstanding traffic tickets are ineligible to vote. Laws barring former felons from voting, which disproportionately disenfranchise minorities, should be rescinded.
12. Improved absentee ballot procedures. Voters outside of their states, including military voters, have a right to receive absentee ballots in a timely fashion, which did not always happen this year. Absentee ballots should be widely available for downloading over the Internet. Voters should not be asked, as military voters were this year, to send their ballots by fax lines or e-mail, denying them a secret ballot.
This year's election, thankfully, did not end in the kind of breakdown we witnessed in 2000. But that was because of luck. There were many places in the country where, if the vote had been closer, scrutiny of the election process would have produced the same sort of consternation. In a closely divided political world, we cannot depend on a margin for error when it comes to counting votes. We have four years now to make things right.
Making Votes Count: Editorials in this series remain online at nytimes.com/makingvotescount.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/opinion/07sun1.html
GLOBE EDITORIAL
The great divide
November 7, 2004
IT IS easy to see how blue-state residents may be feeling out of touch with the rest of the country: the great red-state heartland that carried President Bush to a second term. All those pro-Bush voters saying they were concerned about "values" issues that include opposition to abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research can feel like a punch in the gut -- a repudiation of blue-state values.
But even in the shadow of defeat, blue states have reason to be proud. In a country where cultural identities can be claustrophobic, blue states are home to great cities where people find freedom in the streets of Boston or New York or Chicago to transcend conventional expectations and become most fully themselves.
"A black guy, a gay guy, and a painter walk into a bar . . " -- it sounds like the opening of a mocking joke about political correctness or big-city liberals or the ridiculous permissiveness of East and West Coast elites. But the blue heart of America thrives in such bars, where the door opens wide for all comers.
Massachusetts and other blue states are places where people come for vacations, educations, and new lives. Blue places brim with the drive to investigate and understand, to push through the walls of who we think we are to what we dream of becoming.
In Illinois, the state's new senator, Barack Obama, is interracial, son of a white American mother and a Kenyan father. More fascinating is his mix of red and blue sensibilities, the ways that his life embodies the best ideals of American freedom and opportunity and what this could mean for the nation's political future.
To assume that moral conviction is missing in blue states, eclipsed by academia, liberal permissiveness, and seemingly evil Hollywood values, is intellectually lazy. In fact, blue states have a profound moral core that reaches back to abolition and forward to international peace and justice. Creativity, innovation, and technology thrive while people of good will debate how best to balance this progress against the ethical and physical needs of human beings.
Blue state residents can say with grace that they are parents, workers, neighbors, and also proud Americans. They can and must say that they, too, have a passion to do what is fair and just.
There is nothing like losing a major political contest to reveal the potential that outsiders and underdogs have to push and prod the country forward, refusing to settle, offering new ideas and compelling alternatives to the status quo.
Are some blue state residents out of touch with most of the country? Yes. But this can be a virtue. It helps make substantial contributions to the great and enduring American tradition of change.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/11/07/the_great_divide/
THOMAS OLIPHANT
The gay marriage deception
By Thomas Oliphant, Globe Columnist | November 7, 2004
WASHINGTON
THE NEWS media have grossly misreported the contents of state referendum questions targeting Americans who are apparently seen as more dangerous to national security than John Kerry -- gay people.
Using unthinking shorthand that carries out the hidden agendas of the people who want gays banished to the fringes of society, the press has over and over again referred to these measures as banning gay marriage. In fact that is only accurate regarding three of the 11 initiatives passed last week.
In state after state -- most prominently in Ohio (which Bush barely won) and in Michigan (which he nearly did) -- these referendums went far beyond the question of who gets to be formally married. They also banned legal and other conventions incidental to marriage, which are central to the evolving institutions of civil unions and domestic partnerships.
For political reasons, it was central to the hidden agendas of the groups pushing these restrictions (the target is homosexuality, not relationships between homosexuals) that they not become the focus of the debate.
Therefore marriage was used as the cover for the far more consequential effort to strip contractual rights from gay couples who have formed hundreds of thousands of families in recent years across the United States.
That is why proponents described them repeatedly as efforts to ban gay or same-sex marriage, a formulation the press has mindlessly repeated. It reminds me of the success of groups who spent nearly a decade on behalf of banning a rare pregnancy procedure, the name for which was invented solely for political and shock-value purposes -- partial-birth abortion. Again, the press's lazy penchant for a catch phrase, unexamined for accuracy, led reporters and editors to mindlessly repeat the phrase.
The point about that phony campaign -- already rejected once by federal judges of all stripes, including the Supreme Court, and back in the courts now -- was to use the shock value of the procedure to create a ban written to cover all three trimesters of pregnancy without an exception to preserve a woman's health, in other words to challenge Roe v. Wade and abortion rights themselves.
Just for the record, the three states whose initiatives last week refer only to the granting of marriage licenses are Montana, Oregon (the one place where the vote was very close), and Mississippi. The states that used marriage as a cover to mount an assault on contractual relationships of all kinds were Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Utah.
In pivotal Ohio, for example, the voters may not have realized it but they voted to strip people of the right to contractually arrange distribution of assets, child custody, pensions, and other employment benefits. They most definitely were not "protecting" marriage; they were attacking gay people. That is why the political and business establishment there, including Republicans, opposed the measure.
The evidence is that the voters who approved it also opposed its actual contents. In the official exit poll Tuesday night, 27 percent of the voters said they support full marriage rights, 35 percent supported civil unions, and only 27 percent oppose any legal rights for same-sex couples. In other words, to underline the importance of artifice and deception in our sound-bite culture, the voters approved a measure opposed substantively by 62 percent of the very same voters.
President Bush embodies this incoherence while he manipulates the sentiments cynically. Just before the election he tried to say he supports the rights of states to have civil unions, though he would have opposed them as governor of Texas. He also supports a federal constitutional amendment that would both limit "marriage" to man-woman couples and permit states to ban civil unions.
The incoherence was tactical. Bush knew fair-minded supporters of civil unions were going to vote for him (according to the exit polls, up to half did); but he also knew he needed to keep his base of bigots happy, too -- hence his campaign's alliance with them at the grass roots in places like Ohio.
The irony is that a federal amendment is probably necessary for the pro-discrimination forces to succeed.
Many states have laws to keep groups from putting two issues in the same referendum, in order to avoid exactly the kind of deception that has occurred. In fact, injunctive relief on that ground has already been granted in states that passed such initiatives earlier. In addition, they directly challenge both the contract and the equal protection clauses of the US Constitution.
The federal amendment does not have the votes, even in the new Congress, and my hunch is that Bush doesn't have the stomach to truly fight for discrimination. He was, however, willing to benefit from the deception this year, and a lazy news media played right into the hands of those who would officially sanction discrimination.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/11/07/the_gay_marriage_deception/
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