Seeing the Danger of Voting Machines: A Message from San Diego to the Nation

Sometimes I wonder about Democrats. We don't know whether the elections were stolen in Florida, 2000, Georgia, 2002, and Ohio, 2004. Think about that. We DON'T KNOW. Other elections around the country, including a couple in San Diego, California, have had suspicious outcomes and flaws.

One concern are voting machines. America, after 2000, decided it needs to upgrade its voting machines. Fine. That sounds good. But ONLY if it improves the efficiency and accuracy of our voting system.

Today in NYC and around the nation we are faced with a choice: upgrade to DRE machines where the vote is all done on a touch screen, or PBOS machines where the vote is done in Scantron fashion with a real paper ballot, but computer tabulation. These are the only choices being offered by manufacturers.

Democrats got burned potentially in three election years in a row. And part of the problem are these new machines. Both DRE and PBOS machines have had problems. The difference is that if an election board wants to completely check the accuracy of an election, it can be done with PBOS machines. It can't with DRE machines.

With PBOS, as a last resort, a non-partisan or bi-partisan election board can fairly and accurately count the paper ballots that are left as a record of the vote. In fact, the voter him or herself can check before leaving the voting booth to see that the vote is properly cast. With DRE machines it is all in the computer and the software is a company secret. That means, with DRE machines we will never and can never know how the votes are recorded and tabulated. Only the company knows. That puts private companies in charge of our vote, and puts oversight of the accuracy of an election in the hands of the companies that are selling us the machines.

With DRE, the potential for corruption is nearly endless. And DRE companies are mostly owned by vocal Republican supporters. This is NOT proof of anything, but it is a situation that is NOT acceptable in a democracy.

I should note that DRE machines have also been found to be notoriously unreliable, hackable and inaccurate as well as costing much more to buy and maintain. PBOS are cheaper to buy, cheaper to maintain, last longer and, though they have their own flaws, as a last resort a complete recount is possible without having to rely on the integrity of a private company. I think Enron shows us how companies are not always srtictly honorable.

Many Democrats, including my City Councilman, David Yassky, don't care about this issue. David Yassky has even said this in public. They are afraid to care. They deny the irregularities that the DRE machines in particular have been shown to have and they rely on the company reps' word regarding the machines. These company reps want to sell NYC (and the entire nation, ideally) DRE machines because they are more expensive and require the city to hire company workers to oversee elections. It is a GOLDMINE for the companies, so they tell our State and local electeds that DREs are the way to go and too often our electeds don't care enough about voter integrity or financial responsibility enough to realize they are being lied to by the company reps. In my field, if a company rep tells me something about a product, I don't take that rep's word for it. I compare price and reliability. Our electeds are trusting company reps. Not smart!

Many Democrats, including David Yassky, DON'T CARE about the integrity of our voting system or the cost effectiveness of what the city purchases. THEY DON'T GET IT!

But some people get it. San Diego bought some of the unreliable machines and you know what? They have had problems. And the people who are noticing aren't always Democrats. From Democracy for NYC:

Right-wing radio host in San Diego concerned about voting machines:

Roger Hedgecock, right-wing host on San Diego's KOGO and also a frequent fill-in for Rush Limbaugh, has also stated his concerns about the electronic voting machines in California's special election being sent home with poll workers:

"[W]e now have allowed a system of counting our votes to be presented to us as a system that does it accurately, when it has manifestly been proven that it can be monkeyed with…and the results tampered! . . It seems to me if we have any bedrock notion in this country it ought to be that the votes ought to be fully and fairly counted. . . "

- Roger Hedgecock, right-wing radio host, when Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com went on his show

I used to live in San Diego. What isn't mentioned here is that Roger Hedgecock used to be MAYOR of San Diego. He was mayor when I lived there and was indicted for corruption. Oddly, we all voted for him anyway because, despite being Republican and despite being corrupt, he was the best candidate on a non-partisan ballot. Go figure. He won, but later had to resign when he was convicted. He ultimately was acquitted on a technicality and went on to become a right wing nut of a talk show host. He wasn't bad as mayor, for a Republican.

Former San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock, Republican, is sounding the alarm regarding San Diego's voting machines. And Democrats like David Yassky DON'T CARE to learn from San Diego's mistake and make a better choice. And Yassky's supporters claim he is the best candidate to send to Congress? When he is the candidate for CD-11 who cares the least about the integrity and cost of our voting system?

When people like Roger Hedgecock (and, for that matter, Lou Dobbs) start saying the machines are a problem, and in county after county across the nation election boards are regretting shelling out huge amounts of cash for machines that don't work well, why do Democrats not care?

David Yassky and the entire Democratic Party and, for that matter, members of all Parties in America who care about democracy: YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT VOTING MACHINES!

Write your state and local electeds and tell them to get off their asses and GET INFORMED! Write your local media and tell them to follow the lead of Roger Hedgecock and Lou Dobbs (ever think I'd say that???) and speak out against over-priced, unreliable voting machines and advocate for PBOS machines and non-partisan or bi-partisan election boards. That is the ONLY way we can be sure of our vote.

And please, write David Yassky in particular and tell him he BETTER care and be informed about voting machines: yassky@council.nyc.ny.us

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