Washington File

Smuggle on, Henry!

Come on USA

Get your act together on this

America is the home of the assembly line, they mechanize everything they possibly can. They like elaborate machines to execute their criminals, they're the land that made Ronco and Popeil gadgets famous, they are the biggest appliance queens in the world. It's no wonder they have such a fascination with mechanisms to record their votes.

I have no problem with a voting machine that is clear, easy to use, and above all, creates a paper trail that can authenticate the vote. You cannot claim to be a democracy without being able to prove your democratic intent, thus you must be able to prove the vote was fair, you need accountability. Lets put it in caps: ACCOUNTABILITY.

Where I live, we vote for school boards, city councilpersons, the mayor, and occasionally we answer a referendum. All of this is accomplished with one 8 x 11 card, where you fill in small boxes with a pencil to indicate your choice. Your ballot is given to you in a privacy sleeve. You remove it from the sleeve to mark your choices, put it back in the sleeve to keep your vote secret and then hand it to the returning officer who, right in front of your eyes, feeds your ballot face down into a scanner to record your vote. The machine is so smart it even flags ballots it cannot read, to be reviewed by hand.

Why can't they have a blended system? For the sake of transparency they could use a paper ballot for the most important choices, senators, congress, and of course president. Voters could then turn to their electronic touch screen to choose the dog catcher and their other local officials.

Given the pre-eminence of the President of the United States on the world stage, it boggles my mind that they don't work harder to standardize their process state to state, and also absolutely insist on a paper backup for each and every ballot cast in a presidential election. One wouldn't expect any less from the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The Republicans have been waging an intense campaign to get segments of the population that they believe will vote Democratic, barred from voting. For years now, this has been going on and since ACORN goes into neighbourhoods that are not Republican friendly, they too have been targeted. In Florida in 2000 the amount of disallowed votes far outnumbered the amount of votes that Bush won by. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast wrote a fairly good article in issue 1064 of the Rolling Stone. Yes, they are Democrats but their arguement is very compelling.

I 100% agree with you Mr. Champ. I think it's important that people re-read this part one more time.

"A joint federal and state investigation has determined that this scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting. Instead the defendants cheated their employer, ACORN, to get paid for work they did not actually perform. ACORN'S lax oversight of their own voter registration drive permitted this to happen ... It was hardly a sophisticated plan. The defendants simply realized that making up names was easier than actually canvassing the streets looking for unregistered voters ... ACORN is a victim of employee theft."

How can they bring up ACORN anymore after this?

I like the suggestion of a electronic voting system that prints out a clearly marked ballot (so that there a distinct and clear paper trail). It isn't perfect, but it would certainly be better than the present options.
The electronic coting machines are beyond questionable. A fourth rate hacker could easily turn the election if they got access.

Surely, after the debacle of 2004, there cannot be a possibility of another stolen election. On second thought, never mind, these are the Republicans we're talking about.

Given the importance of the main vote - choosing the President - why would the ballot be confused with so many lesser issues? A referendum regarding, for instance, whether you want your garbage picked up on Monday or Thursday should never be put alongside a Presidential election.

This volume of vote casting,seems to be the reason for the electronic voting system. And the electronic system is the reason for the fraud accusations, so it's really quite simple... STOP the practice.

Another issue that hasn't been mentioned... Could it be that this multiple-vote system is at least a partial cause for low voter turnout? If people have to go to a polling station and spend any more than one minute casting their vote, they probably think twice about going at all.

Seems to me that if the USA is truly serious about Presidential elections, they should do everything they can to make the process quick, easy and as efficient as possible.

Now come one Henry, you know exactly why the US does not have a simple paper ballot like we do here in Canada: US elections are like civic elections in Canada. You are not just voting for a President and Vice President. You may also be voting for a senator, congressman, mayor, councilor, sheriff, district attorney, judge, and the list goes on.
I like the ballots we have for civic elections in Vancouver: A ballot you fill in like a multiple choice test in high school. The ballot is then scanned into a computer. As far as I know, they keep the original ballot in case a hand recount is required. That would seem to make the most sense to me. Or at the very least, if you use a voting machine, there should be a printout of your ballot that you can confirm and then place in a secure box so that there is a paper trail to back up the computer tally.

I think Obama is going to make a great leader. He has already reached out to work with foreign interests. For example, his campaign has made it possible for me, a Canadian citizen, to obtain a ballot for next Tuesday's election. Like most American's though I don't plan to make the trip to the polls to cast the ballot.

Mr. Champ, absolutely spot on in your analysis of the ACORN issue being a total red herring.

Now to Aaron Blanche in Ottawa, who says:

" meanwhile they've had so many fraudulent votes, and everyone points the finger at everyone else. [...] stop putting dead people on the ballot. The day Ben Franklin shows up at a poll, put dead people on the ballot. It's kind of weird when total voters registered is greater than the number of US citizens eligible to vote."

None of this is accurate. Henry mentions above that the US DoJ conducted a multi-year investigation into voter fraud and got less than 100 convictions (most quite minor). There is no evidence of any widespread voter fraud. Benjamin Franklin may show up on the voter's list, but unless he actually votes, it is really a moot issue.

Also, the US is a big country, and one conservative voter fraud theory pusher was embarassed last week after mocking a voter list that included a person by the name of "Duran Duran" to find that there was indeed a "Duran Duran" listed in the phone book of that state. There are people with weird names, and there may in fact be a "Mickey Mouse" or "Ben Franklin" who is a real citizen entitled to vote. Finding funny names on the list doesn't prove anything.

Here we go again!...

Mark my words, McCain will be named President and Palin will be the VP on November 4 or within a week thereafter of a massive multi-state vote recount. Obama and Biden, despite the better campaign, funding, grassroots support and suitability, will get shafted and it will show.

My prediction: Florida, Missouri, Nevada and Virginia will be recounted in McCain's favour despite Obama winning overall popular vote. It's the 2000 election all over again. The better man will NOT win.

Even if everything in a perfect world, and the sun, moon and stars are all aligned accordingly were to pass as it should, the Electoral College, not the voters, will install McCain in the White House in January.

Massive electoral reform in the U.S. is desperately needed. However, massive fraud is the order of the day. This sham makes Russian, Chinese, North Korean and Iraninan elections appear fain and unbiased, and that isn't saying much! Americans are now free to choose their chains and form of economic slavery.

Pity and pray for the U.S.. It's now a hospice patient in the final stages of cancer. The rot from within has now become the rot without for all to see.

Sad, truly sad...

Responding to Mike from Toronto, who said:

"If they used mark-an-X ballots, it would be days before they had election results. In my opinion, this isn't necessarily undesirable (considering the President isn't sworn in 'til January, it can't hurt to have him declared the winner a day or two "late"), but it's a major reason why paper ballots are a difficult sell south of the border."

Casting your vote(s) on a piece of paper doesn't mean that they must be counted by people, rather than a machine. A machine could easily do the counting. And, in fact, quite a lot of precincts in the U.S. of A. do use this system.

Henry, it is relatively simple to understand why they don't want paper voting, with security strips attached (this year's federal ballots). It would mean there IS a way to track the ballots, verify the electoral lists, and even have a simplified multi-ballot system.
Yes, it takes time to count the ballots, I did that with 9 candidates, yet I managed to find every ballot cast and get an accurate count.
So, in theory, it should be relatively simple to make separate ballots and likely far less confusing.
That type of voting does require manpower for each poll, and it does require that ballots are printed (meaning that some companies get a fairly large contract for that printing), but overall, it is actually more efficient. Remember the recount in Florida in 2000?
Hopefully some of the states will find this controversy enough reason to make some drastic changes in their proceedures.

The bottom line is that there is no real good reason to do anything other than a paper vote. The election may cost a little more (as long as legal costs regarding challenges to the validity of problems created by machine use are ignored), and may be counted a little slower (similar qualifier regarding legal challenges).

Paper votes can work just fine for multiple votes. In Calgary when we have multiple votes to caste, each one is on its own ballot and is placed into its own ballot box.

The reasons for using machines (other than our misguided belief that more technology is always better) is to try to save money (not having to pay people to count the votes) and to increase the speed of counting (a rather pointless reason since paper ballots in Canada are counted by the end of the night). The insidious thing about voting machines is the desire to improve the efficiency of the machines by having them each used by a maximum number of voters. The result can be that there are fewer polling stations with many voters being far away from a polling station (I have been able to walk to my polling station in Calgary in every election). With the machines, if anything goes wrong, and it does, multi-hour waits can be the result (and have been the result).

Most concerning is the lack of auditable proof of a vote.

Real fraud is scam machines 'recording' votes.
Easy to manipilate, impossible to control, flipping votes before the eyes of voters.
If I write voting machines maker's affiliation to foreign country, there is good chance this comment will not see light of day...

They call this voter fraud?

What about Bush stealing the election twice.

We choose one person from a maximum of 5 people running for the job. The last time I voted in the US (Oregon 1972) the ballot was ten pages long and included everything from county dog catcher to the president, no counting referendums. No wonder they have such messy elections.

Actually, the problem with paper ballots is that they take a long time to count: at least an hour, sometimes two.

In Canada, with very few exceptions, all provincial and federal elections are held for a single office. You're only voting for your MP or MPP/MLA/MNA.

In America, you're voting for your congressman, and your senator, and your governor, and your president, and your city councillor, and your mayor, and your judges, and your board of regents, and your chief of police, and your insurance commissioner, and your lieutenant-governor, and your board of supervisors, and your state assemblyperson, and your state senator, and your dog-catcher, and your waitress for this evening, and your mother, and a half-dozen ballot initiatives.

All on the same ballot.

If they used mark-an-X ballots, it would be days before they had election results. In my opinion, this isn't necessarily undesirable (considering the President isn't sworn in 'til January, it can't hurt to have him declared the winner a day or two "late"), but it's a major reason why paper ballots are a difficult sell south of the border.

Its pretty clear to anyone paying attention that the reason the US hasn't done anything about fixing their voting system is because it is working just fine to keep the corrupt politicians who run it in power.

Its no surprise that the biggest problems happen in the states that are key to who wins the election. In 2000, the Republicans fixed the election in Florida so Bush would win. In 2004, they did the same thing in Ohio.

No one actually thinks the election in Florida in 2000 was fair, do they? Or that the fact that virtually all of the problems that came up were things that went in Bush's favour?

People watching the polls and thinking that Obama has this election locked up need to consider the fact that the Republicans are going to cheat, and cheat big time. If Obama is going to win this election he will have to win by a large enough margin that he can not only overcome McCain, but also the giant Republican vote-fixing machine behind him.

Mike

I don't know anything about US electoral practices and/or methods of voting. However, from what I read here it sounds like a dog's breakfast has inherently more organization.

With all due respect stringent new verification process have cropped up all over the US
These often disqualifying voters from being allowed to vote because of typos.
In many cases a passport is'nt accepted as valid ID at the polling booth.
The acorn thing is a complete farce because acorn itself has to hand in all voter application forms invalid or not to be verified by election officials.Interestingly all of the new verification requirements i could find were sponsored by republicans.

I think it's just so disgraceful that the international policy (if you want to even call it that, they haven't really had one in a while) of the US is all about spreading democracy... meanwhile they've had so many fraudulent votes, and everyone points the finger at everyone else.

I've got a suggestion. Stop putting dead people on the ballot. The day Ben Franklin shows up at a poll, put dead people on the ballot. It's kind of weird when total voters registered is greater than the number of US citizens eligible to vote.

It's not the ballot Henry; it's the partisan system of electoral administration. And while the states having ownership of elections makes it more challenging, there's nothing preventing the US from creating its own non-partisan electoral commissions to run elections--including voter registration. Like most modern democracies have.

To Richard Pearce in Calgary:

If people are voting for more than one position, it's simple. Have more than one ballot. That's exactly what happens here come municipal election time, where one votes for mayor, town councillors and school board trustees, all at one poll. It works just fine. I've never been able to figure out why the US seems to favour these Rube Goldberg methods that can be so easily circumvented. I think Henry Champ's post is spot on.

The problem with the US using paper ballots is that they stick everything on one ballot. Besides your choices for president, the ballot will often contain choices for congress, senate, state government, judges, police chiefs, dog catchers, etc., followed by the numerous proposals by single interest groups that have collected enough signatures. And the rules call for all of these to appear on a single sheet. And like the boundaries of thier electoral districts, the layout of these is in the hands of those who were successful the last time around, who prefer the system that got them in power to one that might not. Just look at the lack of interest in proportional representation in our major political parties here in Canada.

The "problem" with paper and pencil ballots is that it makes it harder to rig the election.

I wouldn't call it "smug nationalism" Henry - I'd call it COMMON SENSE! They're choosing the leader of what is (arguably) the most powerful person on the planet - and they don't even have a "national" voting system? What a farce...

I just wanted to remind everyone that Canada has just 1/10th of the USA population and while we do have a larger territory, the actual portion of it that is inhabited is much smaller. That being said, we are talking about isolated incidents here. At most, we are talking about a few thousand voters whose votes are unaccounted/shifted and this all over a country of 150milions registered voters. As long as we don't see another hyper-close race a la Florida 2000, they should be fine.

However, I do agree that the way the public votes in the USA need an upheaval. What worked in the pre-information age doesn't anymore. What I think the USA need the most is a unified election system where all the federal election rules are the same across the country. What the states do for their own elections are their business, but when it comes to federal elections it should be the same everywhere else it become unfair.

For example, a convict can vote in Maine but not in Florida. Also having one national election scheme would mean more stability and security. Having the same ballot type everywhere secures the system by making it easier to teach to local workers and to find flaws (and correct them).

Also implement a true unified, country-wide (as in Canada), electoral list where every voters in the country is registered by state and county. That makes it easier to update the same way we do by tracking address changes (Via Driver Permit and other States/Federal IDs like Medicare in Canada), prune the dead and add the births. New Citizens would automatically be included and those who lose citizenship removed. All of this would cost a pretty penny and would be a pain to implement at first but afterward you would have no use for organization like ACORN and would prevent complains about dead people voting, illegal immigrants votes ect.

I'm not holding my breath of any of this though, would probably be seen as socialist and would have privacy defenders up in arms.