Every Vote Counts, Huh?

By: The Sceptic | 19November2000

Why so Close? The Demopublican Party's strategy was to provide two test-marketed, focus-grouped candidates as indistinguishable from each other as possible while managing to maintain the fiction of choice. It was more successful than they imagined. With a few minor policy differences (one arm of the Party tends to oppress economic rights; the other goes after personal rights), the candidates did such a good job of looking like each other, they split the vote nearly evenly. One hundred million Americans would have gotten the same results if they had all flipped coins. Algore took 49% of the popular vote; Dubya took 48%. As nearly every US citizen realizes by now, of course, the popular vote doesn't mean much. The electoral college decides. Electoral College As always happens in the US when it appears a president will be elected without winning the popular vote, people start questioning the utility and wisdom of the electoral college. While it may not be perfect, one would hope that a few people, at least, would understand how it actually works -- and how it increases the value of each citizen's vote -- before they try to abolish it. If presidents are ever elected by popular vote, you can bet that future candidates will have absolutely no interest in issues that are specific to citizens of Wyoming, the Dakotas, Alaska and Montana. Racism at the Polls Perhaps it is prejudiced (ironically) for me to believe it, but I don't have a bit of trouble visualizing the police setting up election day roadblocks in black neighborhoods, but not in white neighborhoods. I can see poll workers asking for identification from black voters, but not from white voters. It seems more likely than not that the stories of poll workers turning away black voters, claiming there weren't enough ballots for them, and closing their polls early are accurate. I do not wish to impugn the good people of Florida (just the others). I spent a few years in the military and worked closely with people from many regions of the US. Based on my experiences with some of the whites who hailed from Florida, any allegation that blacks were intimidated or turned away seems credible. The Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution has been around since President Ulysses S. Grant. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was supposed to make the Fifteenth Amendment work. Nevertheless, in every election, voting is sabotaged by racists who controlling access to the voting booth, not just in Florida, or in states that once belonged to the Confederacy, but everywhere. "Butterfly Ballot" To the right you'll see a picture of the so-called butterfly ballot that has confused some citizens of Palm Beach County, Florida. If you were asked, right now, to use this ballot to vote, would it confuse you? Could you figure out that you should punch the second hole from the the top if you're voting for Buchanan and the third hole if you are voting for Gore? Of course it doesn't confuse you, but is it possible that you are perceiving it differently than you normally might have? Is it possible that it is clear as an Arizona sunrise because you already know it has confused others? Did you also catch the doubled the in the last sentence of the previous paragraph? If not, you will now because you know to look for it. In Palm Beach County, Pat Buchanan got over 3000 votes, more than he got anywhere else in the state. The Republicans, eager to keep their microscopic majority, claimed that Palm Beach County was a Reform Party stronghold. (What the hell?!) Even Buchanan said he didn't think those votes belonged to him. Chad Who? On Monday, 06Nov2000, to most US citizens, Chad was either a country in Central Africa or some annoying little snot with whom they attended grade school. A week later, everybody knew chad to be those little chunks that are generated by poking holes in ballots. Computer card-era geeks also call them perfs, selvage and chaff. [Chad is probably a backronym from the Chadless keypunch (some guy name Chadless invented it) which didn't create debris when punching holes. If so, the debris from other kinds of perforators -- not being 'chadless' -- was called 'chad'.] When Princeton computer scientists Howard Strauss and Jon Edwards reviewed the most common computer vote-tallying system (EL-80, which runs the Votomatic system that dominates the market), they found the software so poorly designed that it was virtually impossible to guarantee its functions. Another computer scientist has called EL-80 "a bucket of worms," referring to its over 4.000 confusing, badly written instructions, all of which must work perfectly for the election results to be properly tallied and reported. -- Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility newsletter, Fall 1988 The problem in several counties in Florida (and elsewhere, but the focus is Florida) is that the voting was performed by poking through pre-scored holes in cards with a stylus. Then the cards are counted by machines that ignore ballots with less-than-perfect holes. Even older mainframe computers that used cards or paper tape for storage (mostly found in museums), holes were accurately punched by machines, to minimize possible errors. Under most circumstances, the margin of error with Votomatic or the less-common Datavote card system doesn't seem to make an impact because errors are generally random. When properly configured and operated, errors don't respect one party or candidate over another. But when the difference in votes between two candidates is less than the margin of error (one-tenth of 1% for the Votomatic reader, in its best condition), and the identity of the next Leader of the Free World hinges on a few hundred votes (less than a tenth of 1% of the votes cast), then there's a problem. Computerized Vote Counting When voting machines mysteriously nullify a much higher percentage of ballots in Democratic areas than in neighboring Republican strongholds, then perhaps certain kinds of errors can be induced, and are partisan after all. "One thing is clear: one company in the United States should not have as big an impact on elections as this company has got ... The right to vote is too sacred." -- Jim Mattox, Texas attorney general, on the distributor of the Votomatic pre-scored punch card system Although citizens tend to trust election results, there are potential problems with all current computerized vote-counting methods as Dallas County, Texas learned in 1985. The Dallas city limits had changed since the precincts were drawn, resulting in a situation called a split precinct -- where some precincts contained both city and non-city residents. There was a power glitch on election night, which interrupted the vote-counting computer. Before the glitch, one candidate for mayor was leading. Afterword, he was mysteriously trailing. Incorrect software didn't take into account the split precincts and the official vote count included three separate totals for the votes cast. A recount was ordered and 161 of the 250 precincts showed significant shifts one way or the other. Because Dallas County used pre-punched ballots, the changes in votes was blamed on hanging chad, but there was no physical evidence to support it. The number of ballots counted was different from all three previous totals. There were allegations that the results of the mayor's race had been partially, or completely fabricated -- allegations that were never disproved. Dallas County ultimately changed vote-counting systems but the same system is used in other Texas counties. Banking computers and software are subject to design and source code inspections by independent auditors. Election computers and software are not! Which is more important to a democracy? A 1988 National Bureau of Standards report Accuracy, Integrity and Security in Computerized Vote-Tallying pointed out many of these problems. It even cited a messy election in Palm Beach County Florida in 1984. Computerized counting is used because it is cheaper and faster than manual labor, but -- for any system currently being used -- their use doesn't guarantee accurate results. They have to be configured for each election, often by people without computer experience or who might have other agendas. On many systems, the built-in vote audit can be disabled. Some jurisdictions even allow the software vender to modify the vote-counting program during an election. Computerized vote-counting problems persist because... Officials who could pass laws that require better systems don't normally question the reliability of a system that got them elected. If they do, they aren't likely to say a system as allegedly important as voting -- for which they are responsible -- is unreliable. More than anything else, computer science isn't a required course in law school. Politicians don't usually have the expertise to make informed decisions about these devices. Venders of vote-counting systems could provide better systems. Why don't they? After IBM got out of the market (an indirect result of voter fraud allegations in a 1970 Los Angeles election), most vendors are small firms with little money budgeted for developing better products. If they did, they would have difficulty marketing them to counties that aren't asking for better products, without pointing out deficiencies in their older systems -- which would open them up to lawsuits. Hand-counting Katherine Harris, next ambassador to Wherevershewants Even though people are imperfect, the margin of error is significantly reduced when ballots are counted by hand, as long as the counting is observed by representatives by all political parties involved. Yes, hanging chad, pregnant chad, votes marked with a pen rather than punched out, et cetera makes interpretations of the almighty voter's intentions difficult. However, as long as the same criteria is applied to all the ballots that one counter goes through (which his/her observers should ensure), political persuasions don't matter. [Unfortunately, if there are a few ballot handlers like Democratic county commissioner Carol Roberts of Palm Beach County who allegedly twisted ballots and poked her finger into holes, the voter's intentions are going to end up in some unrecoverable black hole of partisan injustice. If these allegations are true, Carol Roberts has proved herself unworthy of residency in a democracy, let alone holding office in one.] So far, nobody has proved more capable of exerting partisan influence as has Florida's Secretary of State, Katherine Harris (a co-chairperson on Dubya's Florida campaign). Before the Florida Supreme Court blocked final certification of the vote (Harris' responsibility), she had three options: (1) allowing (as opposed to being forced) manual recount to continue to get a more accurate count; (2) stick with the machine count, regardless of the known error rate; or (3) recuse herself from the decision because of her all-too-obvious conflict of interest. Harris went with the machine. After all, Dubya was narrowly ahead by fewer votes than the known margin of error. "So here is the difference between us. My opponent builds bureaucracies. I trust local people." -- George W. Bush Suddenly, the campaign for the candidate who trusts local people -- and comes from a state that favors manual recounts over machine recounts -- didn't trust Floridians to manually count their own votes. Manually counting more than once -- especially of punch card ballots -- has its own risks, of course, as the ballots are mangled a little more with each handling. Fair and accurate election The only ground upon which exclusion from the right of voting is consistent with justice would be to inflict it as a punishment for a certain time upon those who should propose to take away that right from others. The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected.... In a political view of the case, the strength and permanent security of government is in proportion to the number of people interested in supporting it. The true policy therefore is to interest the whole by an equality of rights, for the danger arises from exclusions. It is possible to exclude men from the right of voting, but it is impossible to exclude them from the right of rebelling against that exclusion; and when all other rights are taken away the right of rebellion is made perfect. -- Dissertation on First Principles of Government, Thomas Paine There's one lesson that every voting American has learned from this incredibly close election and the litigium of attorneys that have descended on the Florida peninsula -- but will they do anything with this knowledge? The most educated person in the world can choose to spend his/her days putting left-handed lugnuts on Chryslers and evenings watching the bowling channel. The aphorism is that every vote counts. It's hard enough to find candidates worth voting for but the whole voting concept becomes a farce if every vote cast isn't accurately counted. After having had their collective noses rubbed in the fact that every vote, in fact, does NOT count, the next question for Americans is what are they going to do about it? Punch cards -- technology originally developed for the 1890 census -- were used by nearly 35% of American voters. As Americans have finally figured out from Florida, they are prone to inaccuracy. Mark-Sense ballots (where votes are taken by blacking out little circles) have an error rate too. Yet, every day in America, billions of dollars are electronically moved from one institution to another, fully accounted for, to the penny. A fair and accurate polling system could be created using off-the-shelf parts for hardware. Either inexpensive computers acting as terminals, or ubiquitous ATM machines could be re-purposed for one day. (What connection to a network is more secure than an ATM machine?) The Open Source community (producers of the most popular web server, Apache and operating systems such as NetBSD and Linux) would be the best people to develop the software for this system. The project and results could be monitored by organizations like EPIC, one of the groups that has forced the FBI to reveal that it has been lying about Carnivore's capabilities. Proprietary software, with its secret source code owned by one company, is not appropriate for voting. (Given how Microsoft will probably benefit from a Republican administration, would you trust them to write a program to record your vote?) Voting software, easily customizable for any particular district's election, would have to be user-friendly and bullet-proof. It would employ some mechanism that can register a positive identification of the voter to ensure that s/he is a qualified citizen, yet drop this identification before sending his/her 'ballot' to the county offices over an encrypted connection or -- better -- a secure network protocol designed specifically for voting. Reliable voting software would assist the election auditing process by maintaining more audit trails than are currently available (and manageable) with manual systems. The old system is mostly understandable, and employs human checks and balances to try to prevent problems. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. A better system, using available hardware and designed using the Open Source model, could accurately account for every single vote, but would require monitors who were more technically inclined. Fortunately, there are computer scientists and geeks of all political persuasions across the country that would fill in, if they were asked to participate in the system, rather than being demonized for knowing things politicians don't.