An Opposing View on the Progressive Voting Machines Debate

By Brad Friedman, AlterNet. Posted March 23, 2007.

This article by Brad Friedman addresses some of the arguments on voting machines and election reform put forth in a recent AlterNet article by Steven Rosenfeld, "Are Voting Machine Purists Standing in the Way of Reform?".

The Saturday before last I was interviewed on Air America's Ring of Fire with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio concerning my call for the Election Reform Bill (HR811) by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) to be amended to include a full ban on Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems.

The interview was pre-taped, and an edited-for-time version was aired. The complete, unedited version of that 15 minute interview, along with a text-transcript is now posted here.

This past Saturday, Ralph Neas, the president of People for the American Way (PFAW), one of the groups supporting the Holt Bill as is, and fighting against a ban on DRE voting systems, was interviewed on Ring of Fire. I had been critical of PFAW's unwaivering support of the bill during my interview the week before (as I have been in many articles here and elsewhere), so Bobby Kennedy asked Neas, a number of times, to answer directly to some of my criticisms.

The audio of that interview as well as a text-transcript, is also now posted here.

Now before I get to a huge number of concerns about the Neas interview and what I see as the dangerous PFAW position, and not to stack the deck (but I will anyway), Papantonio concluded his interview with me as follows, which I then promised to quote on the blog, so here it is ...

PAPANTONIO: Brad, would you do me a favor?

BRAD: Yeah...

PAPANTONIO: I have followed your career, and I followed you on these issues, from day one almost. I am involved in litigation as you know. If I'm betting on anybody to be right, it's you. Now what I want you to do is let your people know that. Somehow --- your blog is incredible, I think it's the most incredible blog out there on this issue --- let 'em know that people that are actually involved in the litigation, that we think you're right. We think you're right.

There is no way...it is meaningless to create a "paper trail" if the "paper trail" can't be recovered inside the machine, inside the mechanism and we can't see something that's left a mark, if it has not left a mark in that machine, forget it. It's GOP thuggery politics as usual.

Brad, I want to thank you for joining us as usual...Ya know, every time I talk to you, you have the information. My bet is on you on this one. Thanks a lot.

BRAD: Thank you, brother. I'll quote ya on the blog.

PAPANTONIO: Alright, appreciate it.

With that promise kept, on to the extraordinarily troubling Neas interview.

First, let me be clear: While I appreciate Neas and PFAW's advocacy for Election Reform in America, the bottom line is that they are drop dead wrong on the issue of whether we should allow dangerous, disenfranchising DREs for use in our electoral system.

So are the other large public-advocacy groups who are marching behind PFAW on this, including Common Cause, MoveOn, VoteTrustUSA and others.

That PFAW is actually advocating in favor of DRE use in our electoral system --- as you'll see in Neas' interview --- is simply astounding and beyond my capacity, thus far, to understand. But I have tried.

I have worked long and hard, quietly in the background, with people from all of the above named groups in hopes of finding common ground. I don't like public rifts between "the good guys", which I consider all of those folks to be, especially since such a fight only tends to serve the true bad guys in this fight (voting machines companies, elections officials who won't admit they screwed up by buying into the voting machine company lies, etc.). But I have been unsuccessful. All of those groups named above are still sticking with Holt, it seems, come hell, highwater, scientific evidence, reasoned argument, common sense and even against what most of them actually know to be the right thing.

I've had a number of lengthy telephone and email conversations with both Neas and their lead election policy attorney, David Becker, as well as others at PFAW on this matter, in order to try and find out why they continue to support a technology which mountains of scientific evidence has shown to be an unmitigatable menace to democracy. In all such conversations with them, productive and cordial as they were, they have time and again failed to offer any actual science or empirical study to back up their position. They've offered little more than anecdotal evidence, at best, to support their continued assertions that "DREs better serve the blind, disabled and language minority communities."

Further, in Neas' RoF interview last Saturday, he actually indicated that he might like to see Los Angeles (where I live!) convert from our current paper-based ballot system to an all-DRE system!

To say the least, I'm greatly troubled by that.

I'm further troubled by the fact that Neas also, whether purposely or not (I know that Holt's office has been putting out a great deal of misinformation about their bill, and yes, I can prove it) misrepresented a number of the provisions of the Holt bill on national radio. Big time.

See more stories tagged with: voting machines, election reform, holt bill

Brad Friedman runs the election reform focused site Brad Blog.

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