The Voting Machine Jackpot

By Max Blumenthal, AlterNet. Posted August 26, 2004.

On August 24th, droves of state and county election officials converged on Washington, D.C. for a four day-long conference designed to help prepare them for the crucial task they will perform this November 2. The conference will allow them to chat with the four members of the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) appointed by President Bush to administer election standards, mingle with congressional members involved in recent election reforms, and finally, they will be presented with awards by the three major voting machine companies that wined, dined and lobbied them throughout the entire four days.

Though the notion that the voting machine industry would use a purportedly educational conference as its forum to lobby state and federal officials is startling, it is only the latest front in the industry's campaign to earn as much federal money as it can with as few complications as possible. By setting aside hundreds of millions of dollars each year to help states buy new voting equipment without mandating standards for that equipment, the 2002 Help America Vote Act's (HAVA) most enduring reform has been the establishment of a taxpayer-funded piggy bank for the voting machine industry. And with hundreds of millions of HAVA money still slated for distribution to the states, the industry is eager to sell them its new direct-recording-electronic touch screen voting systems (DRE's).

Unfortunately for the industry, during its roll to record profits, DRE's have been demonstrated as vulnerable to fraud by voting technology experts while the machines themselves have demonstrated a tendency to go haywire in numerous elections, including last spring's election in California in which many Diebold DRE's malfunctioned and may have disenfranchised thousands of voters. Events like the California crash have led scientists, lawmakers, and concerned citizens to argue for a paper trail system so voters can see their vote was cast properly and election officials can perform recounts if necessary. However, the industry apparently views the paper trail movement as an obstacle to widening its profit margin, and the paper trail itself as a risky proposition that could add to its public relations headache by providing further evidence of faultiness of the its technology. In the rush to send out its machines before November, the industry has identified the paper trail movement as the chief obstacle to widening its profit margin.

In a furious effort to prevent its cash cow from becoming a sacrificial lamb, the industry contracted the lobbying powerhouse, the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), to wage a bitter PR counter-offensive against its perceived enemies. The industry has also found a quiet but effective partner in Doug Lewis and the Election Center, a 501 c-3 non-profit that helps train and regulate election officials and certify voting machines which has nevertheless accepted donations from the industry while assisting ITAA to develop talking points and lobby the very officials it trains.

The groundwork for the voting machine industry's path toward a lucrative federal giveaway was laid in the immediate aftermath of the 2000 Florida recount debacle, when punch-card voting systems were blamed for throwing the results of the presidential election into doubt. With Americans of all political stripes disillusioned with their democracy and with congress under pressure to deliver voting reform legislation, ITAA's lobbyists gleaned a golden opportunity. As ITAA's senior VP of communications, Bob Cohen, said, ITAA's lobbyists arrived on Capitol Hill in 2001 to demonstrate DRE systems for members of congress and to push for a bill which would encourage states to replace their lever and punch-card systems with DRE's.

ITAA is America's premier information technology lobbying firm. On its website, it describes itself as "the only trade association representing the broad spectrum of the world-leading U.S. IT industry," an industry which, according to ITAA, represented over $800 billion in spending in 2001. ITAA has over 350 corporate clients including major defense contractors like Boeing and Silicon Valley giants such as EarthLink and Dell.

According to Bob Cohen, none of the major voting machine manufacturers were ITAA clients when it lobbied congress in 2001. Yet because ITAA is America's only major IT lobbying firm, by pressing for a bill that allotted states with federal money to buy new voting systems, ITAA ostensibly hoped to boost revenues for the voting machine companies that would inevitably become its clients – and thus reap a windfall profit.

In 2002, ITAA's agenda advanced with the passage of HAVA, which was ushered in by Representatives Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD), and Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Chris Dodd (D-CT). Though HAVA does not mandate that states replace punch-card systems with DRE's, it provides significant encouragement. For instance, HAVA requires that each polling place have a voting machine accessible to people with disabilities. Though there are various disability-accessible systems, many states found purchasing the easily available and aggressively marketed DRE's the easiest way to satisfy this requirement. But perhaps the best motivation state officials had to buy DRE's was HAVA's promise of heaps of federal money. This year alone, congress has earmarked $500 million under HAVA for states to buy new voting systems.

Max Blumenthal is a freelance journalist based in Los Angeles. Read his blog at maxblumenthal.blogspot.com.

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