The View from Right Field

Three Cheers for Virginia: They’re Dumping Touch-Screen Voting Machines

Three cheers for Virginia because the Virginia Board of Elections has ordered that electronic, touch-screen voting machines cannot be used in the statewide elections coming up in November.¹  Earlier this year, in a demonstration at DEF CON in Las Vegas, a touch-screen voting machine previously used in Virginia was hacked in less than two hours.  Instead of touch-screen voting, Virginia will use paper ballots counted by scanning machines in November.

This seems so logical, even before the reports of Russian hacking attempts in last year’s election, that the decision is an obvious one.  Touch-screen electronic voting has no paper backup.  You touch the screen, your vote is counted, and poof, any evidence of how you voted disappears.²  There is no way to recount the votes.  There is no way to know for sure that when you touch Candidate A, your vote wasn’t counted for Candidate B.

Oops, I Was Wrong On That One – And Electing the President By Popular Vote

Back on November 6, I made this comment about the election:

"According to CNN, as of this morning, approximately 120,558,000 votes had been cast for either Obama or McCain. In 2004 Bush and Kerry got slightly over 121,068,000 votes between them. While there are more votes to be counted, and the final vote total in 2008 will probably be more than the 2004 total, it looks like the percentage of the total eligible voters who actually voted will be down.(See Update below.)
----------
Update (11/06/08 8:35 a.m.): Stories in the media have indicated that the turnout was the highest in generations.  Maybe the count is going more slowly than I would have thought.  We will see."

Well, I was wrong – because the counting was going more slowly than I thought. As of this morning, CNN shows 125,016,000 votes for President. That number of votes is 3.3% higher than 2004, and the total could wind up being about 4% more than 2004 by the time they are done counting. That is a sizable increase, though it is just a little bit more than the increase in the overall population of the United States from 2004 to 2008. The population of the U.S. as of July 1, 2004, was estimated to be 294,655,000. As of October 22, 2008, it was estimated to be 305,468,000. Lowering the 2008 estimate to 304,500,000 so you have comparable numbers (i.e., July 1 to July 1) shows a 3.7% increase in population from 2004 to 2008. Obviously, these numbers are not eligible voters, but I think the increase would be about the same. So, there was a small increase in the percentage of voters participating, but not a big one. What probably happened was that Obama wound up increasing the percentage of people voting in certain categories (for example, maybe Blacks and young people), while unhappiness with the Republican candidates and/or unhappiness with the Bush Administration and the Republicans in Congress from 2001 through 2006, decreased participation among other groups.

One more comment: The slowness of the counting of the last 3% or 4% of the popular vote perhaps provides another reason why electing the President by a straight popular vote is not be a good idea. Think about he possibility of a really close contest in the popular vote – and then consider additional votes coming in over days and weeks after election day. It would be Florida 2000 (or the gubernatorial election in Washington state in 2004) writ large. They couldn’t recount the votes in just Florida on a timely basis in 2000. How could we recount all of the votes in the whole country? And what about ballot security and standards for counting the votes? Appalling as it is to say, those things don’t matter if the election isn’t close. If it’s 60-40 (or even 53-46), it doesn’t matter. When it’s Florida in 2000, it does matter. If it was that close nationally, every vote everywhere would matter. In the governor’s race in Washington state in 2004, the election authorities in Seattle were discovering additional uncounted ballots days and weeks after the election. That was a big problem, but it was just one state. A close popular vote, and a President elected by popular vote, would make that a national problem – and could de-legitimatize the election in a way that would make Florida 2000 look like the proverbial Sunday School picnic.

Electing the President by popular vote. I don’t think I want to go there.

Secret Ballot? What Secret Ballot?

One of the first posts I ever made on this blog was on the problem of ensuring secrecy in voting with the optical scan ballot they have been using recently in suburban Cook County, Illinois. (See here.)

Well, they had a couple of video screen voting machines at the polling place today, and it was amazing. There was absolutely no secrecy at all when you used one of them to vote. The voting booth, if that is what you want to call it, had three really low sides. The video screen was situated so it was above any of the sides. And there was nothing behind the voter. It would have been no problem at all to see how any person using one of these machines was voting. You had no more secrecy than if you had shouted out your choices in a public meeting.

Oh well, at least it is Cook County. It’s not like we have ever had any problems with fraud in voting in Cook County. We’re all honest people, and we only elect honest politicians.

Exit Polls

I don’t know if there will be any big controversies with exit polls this year. If Obama sweeps the election, then we won’t need to worry about them. It will be unlike 2004 when some of the early exit polls indicated John Kerry was going to win. Some Kerry staffers even took to calling Senator Kerry "Mr. President". But that only lasted for a couple of hours – until the voting ended and results from the real polls started coming in.

And then the controversy started. How could this have happened? The exit polls showed Kerry leading. What went wrong? Jesse Jackson (Sr.) called for an investigation to find out what the problem was – with the real polls. There must have been fraud in the counting. The Republicans were cheating again.

In case that happens this year, or at least for the next time it does happen, I wanted to relate my experience with exit polls. It was in 1988. I was a Republican precinct captain in Oak Park, Illinois. My precinct was 64. On election day precinct 64 voted in the same polling place as the neighboring precinct, precinct 66. Precinct 66 leaned Republican and had more Republican voters than precinct 64. (This will be important later.)

The people running the exit poll project in Illinois that year picked precinct 66 as one of the precincts they would sample. Precinct 66 and a number of other precincts across Illinois were carefully picked to accurately reflect the voting patterns in Illinois.

So, throughout election day, there was a person in the polling place asking people, as they left, to vote in her exit poll. And some of them did. The problem was that it was almost impossible for the person collecting the votes to only get people from precinct 66 to vote in her exit poll. It was hard for her to tell, as people left the polling place, who voted in which precinct. And she didn’t do a good job of asking people which precinct they were in before letting them vote.

Eventually, she was able to get the number of votes that they wanted for the exit poll. But among the votes in her mini-ballot box were a large number of ballots cast by people from precinct 64. And this was a problem because, as I said, precinct 64 was more Democratic than precinct 66.

That meant that the results from what was supposed to precinct 66 were really from a combination of precincts 64 and 66. Since precinct 64 was more Democratic than precinct 66, the results were more Democratic than they would have been if the exit poll had only included voters from precinct 66, like it was supposed to.

I didn’t think much about it during the day. But then, after I got home and turned on the TV, I saw the networks were calling Illinois for Michael Dukakis – based on the exit polls. Illinois Governor Jim Thompson, a Republican and a big supporter of soon-to-be-President George H.W. Bush, was upset. He kept saying Illinois was going to go for Bush, but the exit polls said it was Dukakis.

Illinois did eventually go for Bush. (In 1988 Illinois was still a two-party state.) As the argument was going on, I thought of that exit poll in precinct 66. Those results were off, and they would have moved the state average off a little. By themselves, they would not have made a difference. But how many more precincts like that were there? I would imagine normally those kinds of things average out, but maybe they didn’t in Illinois in 1988. Maybe there was a statistical blip and most of the mistakes went one way. If so, that could have made the difference.

And so, when the media talks about exit polls, especially on election night, I always think back on the exit poll that day in precinct 66 – and precinct 64.

It's Not Vote Fraud; It's Just Voter Registration Fraud

Unbelievable as it may seem, this is basically the reason one person gave as why we shouldn’t be too worried about reports from across the country about problems with fraudulent voter registration forms being submitted to local election authorities by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or Acorn, as it is called for short).

Here is a short list of just some of what has come up in the last couple of weeks:

On October 7 a Nevada voter-fraud task raided Acorn’s state headquarters in Las Vegas. According to the Associated Press, "Secretary of State Ross Miller said the raid was part of a monthslong voter fraud investigation of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which he said submitted fraudulent registrations, including forms for the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboy football team." (Miller is a Democrat.)

According to CNN, "in Lake County [Indiana], home to the long-depressed steel town of Gary, the bipartisan Elections Broad has stopped processing a stack of about 5,000 applications delivered just before the October 6 registration deadline after the first 2,100 turned out to be phony. … The forms included registrations submitted in the names of the dead – and in one case, the name of a fast-food restaurant, Jimmy Johns. Sally LaSota, a Democrat on the board, called the forms fraudulent and said whoever filed them broke the law."

An editorial in today’s San Diego Herald-Tribune talked about the problems with Acorn’s efforts there.

And it is not just this year. As the Washington Times noted, in 2006 Acorn entered into "a consent decree in Washington state to refrain from improper voter registration activities or else fact criminal prosecution."

While election officials are complaining, some people are not concerned. This isn’t vote fraud, they say. There is no real problem unless somebody tries to use one of those phony registrations to actually vote. So "Tony Romo" registered in Nevada. So what? It’s not fraud unless "Tony Romo" tries to vote, and nobody is going to let anybody do that, so there is no problem.

Acorn officials have even claimed these charges are just an attempt by Republicans to hold down voting, to keep people disenfranchised.

That is, of course, hooey. This has nothing to do with disenfranchising people. It has to do with having an honest voter list so we can have an honest election. Clearly, people aren’t going to be able to claim they are Tony Romo and vote. But what about other names on the list, names that aren’t famous. Is somebody going to try to vote for them? I don’t know.

Actually, we have no idea what anybody was planning on doing with these registrations. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just a matter of Acorn employees trying to meet some kind of quota so they could get paid. Maybe they get paid piece-rate, so many cents per registration. It doesn’t matter. Fraud is fraud, and this is a fraud on the election system. Even if those people never vote, it takes time for the officials to go through these forms and throw out the bad ones, time that could be spent doing something more important, like getting ready for the election coming up. And maybe it was part of something bigger; we don’t know.

But we do know this: If we want honest elections, the whole process needs to be honest, from registering to voting to counting. If people cannot trust the process, the whole process, will they accept the result? We don’t want to find out. We need to protect our whole election process. It may finish with the counting, but it starts with voter registration. We need to keep our voter registration process honest, and if groups like Acorn can’t do it that way, maybe they shouldn’t be doing it at all.

Chicago's Oldest Voter Dies

An article in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune said that the oldest voter in Chicago had died. The article did not say when she was expected to stop voting.

John Kerry Shows Us Again Why He Deserved to Lose

I was away for the Labor Day weekend and did not get a chance to comment on this before, but better late than never:

Last week it was reported that, in an e-mail John Kerry sent out supporting the Democratic candidate for governor in Ohio, Kerry claimed Ken Blackwell, the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio and current Ohio Secretary of State, "used the power of his state office to try to intimidate Ohioans and suppress the Democratic vote" in 2004.

Our democracy, any democracy, depends on honest elections and the people’s faith in honest elections. There have been instances where legitimate questions about election results have been raised. When this happens, they need to be answered. But just as important as addressing legitimate questions is not wrongly attacking the legitimacy of our election system for mere personal interest.

Personal ambition must not come before the best interests of our country. Richard Nixon understood that in 1960 when he told his supporters to halt efforts to challenge the results in Texas and Illinois. There were legitimate questions about the results in these states, but it was a dangerous time, and Nixon felt the United States could not afford the uncertainty of an election challenge. So he put personal ambition aside for the good of our country.

It appears John Kerry has decided this question differently. In bringing up these phony claims yet again (he did, after all, lose Ohio by more than Nixon lost the entire country), Senator Kerry is telling us he believes attacking the legitimacy of our electoral system is just another tactic he can use to gain chits for when he runs for President in 2008.

We all make choices, and these choices say a lot about us. Richard Nixon made his choice in 1960. John Kerry is making his today.

[Title revised: September 6, 2006]

Honest Elections Need Photo IDs

Following up on my post of June 13, 2006, "If You Liked Florida in 2000, You Will Love This," let me call your attention to John Fund’s article, "How to Run a Clean Election," in OpinionJournal (July 10, 2006).

I honestly believe that the need to insure honest, credible elections is one of our most important domestic issues. And honest, credible elections start with requiring photo IDs to vote. As John Fund notes, countries all over the world require photo IDs. You cannot say that places such as Canada, Germany, and Britain are not democracies.

To those who object to photo IDs on the grounds they are discriminatory or too hard for some people to get, I say, "Baloney." A photo ID requirement is not going to stop minorities from voting. Minorities are just as smart and competent as anybody else. They’ll do fine.

Beyond that, let me say what no politician is willing to say, but what is true: "If somebody is too lazy or too dumb or doesn’t care enough to get a photo ID to vote, then we are probably better off if they don’t vote."

Voting is a right and a privilege. To protect both the right and the privilege, we need to make sure our elections are honest. One important part of honest elections is requiring a photo ID to vote.

If You Liked Florida In 2000, You Will Love This

On May 24 every Democratic Senator voted against an amendment proposed by Senator Mitch McConnell (R, KY) to the immigration bill then being debated in the Senate, an amendment which would have required a photo ID to vote at the polls in federal elections. According to John Fund in OpinionJournal’s Political Diary, Barack Obama (D, IL), for one, said that the proposal was not necessary because voter fraud was not a problem in the United States. (Somebody needs to explain to Barack, trusting person that he is, that "vote early, vote often" did not originate with computer voting for baseball's All Star Game.)

An aside: Democrats oppose the photo ID requirement because, they say, it imposes too much of a burden on voters, especially, apparently, their voters. I can never understand why people continue to vote Democratic when the Democrats in Washington are saying they are too dumb or too lazy or too unmotivated to even get a photo ID to vote. But back to my main point.

While I think a photo ID requirement is an excellent idea (especially since the motor voter rules were pushed through by President Clinton and the Democrats in the 1990s), there is an even bigger concern coming down the road: the huge increase in voting by mail and voting in advance of election day. It used to be it was just people who were going to be out of town on election day or who physically could not get to the polls who voted absentee. Now, however, it is just a matter of voting early for convenience.

There are several problems with this trend. First, if you vote early, you do not have the value of the full campaign before you vote. While you might say that this should be the individual voter's choice, I think it may be appropriate for government to say that it has an interest in making sure people hear the whole campaign before voting, except where it cannot be avoided. Also, if it is the voter's choice, why cannot I be allowed to sign up to vote Republican in every election until I say otherwise? It is what I am going to do, so why not let me cast advance votes right now for a whole bunch of elections?

Second, proponents of advance voting claim that it will increase turnout, but I doubt that is true. Oregon does all of its voting by mail, and the turnout there has not seemed to increase. In fact, there is something to be said for the excitement of a single big day for voting to get people out to vote. Also, there is the unifying effect of everybody nationwide voting on the same day

The main problem with advance voting, however, is the damage it can do to the legitimacy of our election process. When you vote on election day at a polling place, the process is pretty simple and the procedure is fairly secure. (See, however, my concerns about ballot secrecy even in a polling place.) You vote and at the end of the day the election judges count the ballots cast there, with possibly a few absentee votes thrown in. Advance votes, on the other hand, have to be handled many more times. You fill out your ballot and mail it in. All of the advance votes have to be collected and stored. Then, just before election day, they must be divided up by precinct and on election day sent to the right precinct to be counted. At every point in this process, there is a chance for mistakes or incompetence (or fraud) to lose ballots or misplace them. Then, once the absentee ballots and advance votes are at the precinct, they require special handling after the polls have closed and the judges are tired from a long day. A few absentee or advance votes are not a big deal at your average polling place. But if you start increasing the number of them significantly, there is a big increase in the burden on election judges who are already overburdened. Being an election judge is not an easy job. It is a long day, and with all the new rules and procedures for things such as provisional ballots, etc., it is getting increasingly complicated. With so few people able or willing to serve as election judges, asking even more of those who are willing to do the job is not a good idea. The possibilities for mistakes increase with every new procedure or complication that is added. The potential for fraud increases even more. No longer is it just places like Illinois (you really do need to read up on the history of Chicago elections, Barack) where you have to be concerned. Election laws are now being violated all over, in places where you would have previously thought people were more honest.

In other words, if you think Florida was bad in 2000, take Florida with all of the bitterness and distrust it generated and add to it the incompetence or fraud, or both, in King County during the Washington gubernatorial race in 2004, where uncounted ballots were being found here, there, and everywhere until finally all the votes were counted or the Democrat won (depending on your point of view). Take the sum of those two elections and multiply them by the partisanship and divisiveness evidenced by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s article in Rolling Stone claiming that Bush stole Ohio in 2004, and you can get an idea of what our elections could turn into. (Another aside: I find it fascinating that in 1960 Richard Nixon lost to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s uncle by fewer votes nationwide than Kerry lost to Bush in just Ohio, and yet it is Kennedy who is claiming the election was stolen.)

This is not the direction we should be going. Instead of making fraud easier, mistakes more likely, and refusal to accept results more frequent, we need to be moving toward a system that is simple, secure, and clearly honest, a system that will give us results that are accepted and respected. Advance voting will do none of these.

Real Voter Suppression

Four Democratic campaign workers, including the son of a Democratic congresswoman, were sentenced to jail for from four to six months in Milwaukee on Wednesday after pleading no contest to slashing the tires of 25 vans that Wisconsin Republicans planned to use on Election Day 2004 to transport voters to the polls.

The judge imposed the sentence, even though the prosecutor had recommended probation, saying, "Voter suppression has no place in our country. Your crime took away that right to vote for some citizens."

Hmmm. Party workers interfering with people trying to vote. Sounds like the very kind of thing Jesse Jackson and Howard Dean and the House Democrats claimed to be so upset about in Ohio in November of 2004 (where the biggest complaint they could ultimately come up with seemed to be that minority voters had to wait in long lines to vote – in districts run by Democrats).

I wonder how long it will be before Jesse or Howard or any of them say something about this situation, where a real crime was committed. I certainly would not think that all their complaining about Ohio was just baseless partisan politics, would you?