Electile Disfunction

It is amazing that we, The United States of America, the beacon of democracy across the world, the country that goes to other countries to validate their elections, that is supposedly bringing democracy and elections to former totalitarian states in the Middle East are still unable to get our own election process correct, six years after the biggest voting debacle since Rutherford B Hayes election in 1876.

Yes that is correct, I am talking about the voting process and the machines that will be used across the country in a few weeks for the mid-term elections. I am sure we all remember in 2000 when Fidel Castro offered to come to Miami to help validate the presidential elections before W needed his brother, (the governor), his brother’s secretary of state, his father (a former president and former head of the CIA) his fathers old cronies and the entire Supreme Court of the United States to hand him the presidency?

Some states, including my home stated of Connecticut, have started to implement touch screen voting booths that leave no paper trail, which does not allow a recount, or give the voter a chance to review their selections before the process is complete. These systems have been shown to be not secure by significant non-partisans experts, who believe that they are susceptible to hackers and cheats and could call close election results into question. The country is currently divided enough, and Congress is paralyzed by partisan politics that little or nothing was actually done that past two years, and we the people run the risk of having another ineffective group sent to Washington if we don’t feel our vote was counted.

I recall in 2004, the president of one these companies that manufacture and code these touch screens voting booths being a big republican supporter, saying that he would do what he could to put (or keep) a republican president into the White House. Now anyone who knows anything about computers and programming, knows that it is possible (I am not saying this was or was not done just possible) to over or under the value of each vote that is cast by a small fraction that could ultimately tilt the election one way or another.

For example, and to keep it simple and stay with the Republican supporter above, they could program the electronic voting booth so every vote cast for a Republican is worth 1.08 and each Democratic vote is only worth 0.92 votes. The program would then automatically round to the near full value, since voters don’t vote in percentages, with each 50 votes, the Republicans would gain one vote and the Democrats could conceivable lose 1 vote. This opposite would work if the machines were tilted in the Democrats favor as well.

The way to counter this tactic is to have the machine print a paper copy, which the voter would then drop into a box, to be used in case of a need a recount. Right now, with any machine, there is no such concept as a recount. The database will show x votes for one person and y votes for another, and you can query as many times as you feel necessary, but the results will always be the same. If the voter drops a p iece of paper in an old fashion ballot box, then at least the voter can validate they voted correctly, and those ballots can be used to validate the results and ensure the machines are working properly. Once we have 10-20 years of good results, then maybe we can move away from the paper. Any by the way, if we grow to reliant on machines, how far are we from a Terminator scenario?

This brings me to another issue, why is it so difficult for over 50% of the American population not to vote on Election Day? This is one of the basic rights we have fought for over 230 years, and are trying to encourage overseas. However, many citizens don’t bother to register, and if they are registered they cannot be bothered to get out on November 7 and actually vote. Most Americans are very good at complaining about government, about taxes, about national security, about civil liberties vs. the war on terror, about the War in Iraq and about everything else imaginable, yet when they actually have an opportunity to do something to affect those things they complain about, they stay away in droves.

I realize my one vote for president in 2008, won’t mean much in the greater scheme of who ultimately wins, but I have still had my say. This year, my congressional district is a very close contest between Rep. Christopher Shays and Diane Farrell and could determine which party controls the House for the next two years. The polls show a dead heat, so you can bet I am going to vote, and I know that my vote will count, and who is elected will help determine my taxes and how safe we really are (but that is a discussion for another day)