Holt Election Reform Bill in Meltdown...Again

Republicans 'Chortle' as House Democrats Wrangle in an Attempt to Bring Real Election Reform to a Crumbling System of Democracy...

By Brad Friedman from Richfield, UT...

As we reported from a source late last night, today's scheduled hearing in the House Rules Committee for Rush Holt's Election Reform Bill (HR 811) has been canceled. The same source had also said that if the hearing was canceled, it could mean an "indefinite hold" for the controversial legislation.

Today, Republicans are predictably enjoying what has been termed as a Democratic "split", by The Hill, and a Democratic "revolt", by Politico, in the majority-led Rules Committee, once known as "The Speakers Committee" since it's generally the last stop before legislation hits the House Floor. It's also the place where the leadership determines whether amendments will be allowed to be brought for such legislation.

Of course, what Republicans seem to find most amusing is that Democrats in Congress don't necessarily march in lock-step, as they do. Instead, the Democrats seem to have this crazy idea that in a democracy, there should be actual, responsible debate, care, and attention to details for an Election Reform bill which would have enormous national consequences to every local, state and federal race in the union for decades to come. Go figure.

"Democrats believe in democracy, unlike that monolith we had before," committee chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) told The Hill.

Nonetheless, the Republicans are attempting to make partisan hay from the situation. Minority Leader John Boehner's website described the situation as a "House Committee Meltdown" yesterday. A spokesperson for David Drier (R-CA), the ranking member on the House Committee described the situation as "chaos".

They're all right. Democracy is chaos. Though the Holt bill has been largely dysfunctional from the get-go as its lead author, Rush Holt (D-NJ) began with a very open process, inviting many voices (including our own) into the bill's drafting process, but then shut down the process in favor of both fear and agenda-driven interests...



People for the America (PFAW), for example, was allowed to keep a ban on Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting machines off the table, under the unevidenced notion that there was no support in Congress for such a ban. That, despite virtually every computer scientist and voting system expert in the world arguing that DRE's cannot be used safely -- with or without a so-called "paper trail" -- in American democracy. Recent calls for a DRE ban from members of Congress and even the New York Times would counter that notion. But, of course, PFAW actually prefers DREs to paper-ballot systems as we've tried to alert folks in the past.

Corporate behemoth, Microsoft, did the dirty work on behalf of the the voting machine vendors, and leveraged their considerable lobbying power to shut down one of the best provisions in the originally introduced bill which would have required full disclosure, to any member of the pubic, of the currently-secret source-code which runs the machinery of our democracy. Their lobbying forced a change to keep the source-code a trade secret, available only to so-called "experts" and only in the event of a post-Election challenge. Republicans watching out for corporate interests, rather than government of the people, by the people and for the people, were undoubtedly pleased.

The overhaul to the source-code provisions, led even Holt to decry the affect of Microsoft on the bill as it was amended months ago in the House Administration Committee. "Unfortunately, the committee that made this change heard from Microsoft. They heard that voice...It wasn't just Microsoft...it was software -- the software industry."

Previously, Holt's legislative aide on the bill, Michelle Mulder, wrote to a large group of Election Integrity advocates, including NYU's Media Professor and author, Mark Crispin Miller, declaring "you can take up your concerns with Microsoft and others in the proprietary software industry."

Mulder, however, went on to blame Election Integrity advocates -- presumably including The BRAD BLOG -- who had opposed the bill as written on a number of grounds. She said it was our fault that one of the original bill's best provisions was watered down. "During Committee proceedings they [Microsoft] lobbied very heavily against the language that was in the bill as introduced," Mulder wrote, "and none of you lobbied in favor of the language that was in the bill as introduced, and thus, the software industry won. It's very simple, really."

Mulder failed to note that many in the Election Integrity community -- the largest and most powerful groups, in fact -- had been in favor of the bill and had lobbied strongly for it. Others in the community had worked hard to amend it to include a number of "Essential Revisions" deemed imperative for such a monumentally important piece of legislation.

Ultimately, some EI advocates would go on to describe the bill as "Microsoft 811" and Democratic members of the Rules Committee this week had concerns that the bill either went too far, or didn't go far enough.

But it was the powerful state elections officials who may have ruled the day. As usual, they want no Federal interference in "their" elections, and -- more notably -- don't wish to have any mandates placed on them for either the type of voting machinery they choose to use, or the way in which they use it.

Most such officials around the country continue to buy into the voting machine company propaganda that their voting systems are safe for use any way they decide to use them. That, despite them having been found vulnerable to hacking time and again, prone to failure time and again, and completely lacking in transparency to the public for whom confidence in elections and the right to vote -- and have that vote counted accurately -- is the very bedrock of democracy.

The Democrats then, for the most part, ever fearful of taking bold measures, even when in their heart they know it's the right thing to do, buckled to all of the above. And so we find ourselves where we are today.

Where will it all go from here? Stay tuned. Your guess is as good as ours at the moment. But there's one thing we believe to be the case no matter what happens with this particular bill. Advocates of the Holt bill have long argued in it's favor by admitting that it's flawed, but stating (as fact) that either the Holt bill gets passed, or nothing will get passed. That false dichotomy, as we reported many moons ago, is and was little more than a desperate, divisive fear-tactic and a canard.

If HR 811 dies in committee, or even on the floor of the House, should it ever get there, the alternative is not "nothing", as the nearly-universal belief that our system of democracy is dysfunctional and crumbling is more present now than ever. Both state legislation -- as well as new, so-far un-introduced federal legislation -- will likely fill the vacuum should the Holt bill find its way into the dust bin of history.

As we've said, stay tuned...

==
Brad Friedman is an investigative journalist and the creator and publisher of The BRAD BLOG.

Comments

[BradF]

"I appreciate the polling information you've cited. It does make a decent case for the possibility of a hand-count paper ballot having enough public support to pass"

None of the polling info I posted was meant to make the case for hand-counted paper ballots, but rather for paper ballots. No matter how they are counted.

"I'm not sure which Brennan Center report you're refering to. There have been two Brennan Center studies commenting on the general effectiveness of VVPAT over the past year or so, one released in June 2006, and one March of this year. The only concern voiced by both of those reports is that many states passed a VVPAT requirement, but not an audit requirement."

My reference is to the first Brennan Center report, and it's that one which gives the example of how a DRE election can be hacked both internally and on the paper trails. And Larry Norden, and others involved with the study, have admitted that the Holt audits, as currently written, would not protect against that hack.

The result is that a hacked DRE election can be show by the audits to be accurate, while an unhacked paper based election can be shown to be inaccurate.

"Were the random precinct selection method predictable, yes, a hacker could simply restrict incorrect tallies to precincts that are known to be safe from auditing."

No. In the Brennan Center hack that I refer to, you may "audit" 100% of the DRE paper trails and NEVER discover the hack.

"Folks think more open source code and better testing would pretty much close the door on faultiness and fraud."

Not me. But they do make common sense, don't they?

Brad

[MarkMyWordsUS]

BradF,

Thanks for your feedback.

I appreciate the polling information you've cited. It does make a decent case for the possibility of a hand-count paper ballot having enough public support to pass, should legislative leadership have the fortitude to show some - well - leadership.

I'd like to address other points you've made, just to be thorough.

I'm not sure which Brennan Center report you're refering to. There have been two Brennan Center studies commenting on the general effectiveness of VVPAT over the past year or so, one released in June 2006, and one March of this year. The only concern voiced by both of those reports is that many states passed a VVPAT requirement, but not an audit requirement. They both state clearly that you need both to be effective. (HR-811, of course, requires auditing.) Another study released just last month discusses the importance of quality random precinct selection in VVPAT auditing. Were the random precinct selection method predictable, yes, a hacker could simply restrict incorrect tallies to precincts that are known to be safe from auditing. Since the process would be completely open under HR-811, we expect only a legitimate randomization method, understandable to an average citizen, to be put in place without what would be a huge backlash.

Finally, for the record, we may be in "violent agreement" about my gaming commission comment. (Gee, that usually happens when I'm conversing with a New Yorker... '-) I completely agree that the elimination of electronic tabulation makes such expensive oversight unneccessary. I only point out the regulatory costs in order to address the often cited criticism that HR-811 should do a "better job of keeping 'DREs' from reporting incorrect tallies". Folks think more open source code and better testing would pretty much close the door on faultiness and fraud. Only a huge oversight infrastructure, however, would do that, and with no associated 'revenue' in voting, such a regime would be a rat-hole I know the American people aren't ready to pay taxes for!

[BradF]

Okay, let's try this again...MarkMyWordsUS said:

"Consider this:
* "Solving" faulty voting machine results would take the equivalent of a very expensive state gaming/gambling commission"s worth of electronic monitoring and regulatory oversight."

Nonsense. If you remove the DREs from the equation, no "gaming commission" is necessary. The PEOPLE can monitor their balloting by actually COUNTING the ballots as cast, and as needed.

"* Eliminating "DREs" (or a true hand-count paper ballot system) isn"t remotely politically feasible right now, because not enough of the public is behind it."

Also nonsense. As a Nov. '06 Zogby poll revealed, an astonishing 92% of the public believes they ought to be able to see how their votes are counted. That is strictly impossible to do on a DRE system.

A more recent poll (just a few weeks ago) revealed that some 62% of the public prefers paper-based balloting systems. There is simply no evidence for the claim you make above. None.

"Auditing is always a good thing. Whether some voters sleep through their VVPAT moment or not, the audit will prove a voting machine"s (and typially the software release, equipment model and vendor"s) erroneous counts."

Wrong. Completely. At least as long as DREs are in the equation. Apparently you're unaware of the NYU Brennan Center study which showed precisely how to easily hack an election such that both the internal numbers on the DREs and the paper trails would match up accurately. Even though the election had been hacked. You could "audit" 100% of the so-called paper trails, and still NEVER discover this hack.

Thus, auditing of DREs is meaningless and just one of the many reasons why they are so dangerous and antithetical to our democracy and should be banned 100% by 2008, just as the NYTimes (finally!) called for in an editorial last Thursday.

If you're unaware of the hack mentioned above, btw, then you have bought into the pro-Holt propagandist talking points, plain and simple.

[BradF]

MarkMyWordsUS said:

>>Consider this:
* "Solving" faulty voting machine results would take the equivalent of a very expensive state gaming/gambling commission"s worth of electronic monitoring and regulatory oversight.Auditing is always a good thing. Whether some voters sleep through their VVPAT moment or not, the audit will prove a voting machine"s (and typially the software release, equipment model and vendor"s) erroneous counts.

[MarkMyWordsUS]

I find the issue of supporting HR-811 a shoe-in when you understand what the bill actually does target and successfully accomplish, and take a realistic look at the political viability of sweeping election reform today.
Many activists, and apparently some congressfolk such as Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter, would like to see HR-811 "solve" the problem of faulty voting machines, or eliminating them. Consider this:
* "Solving" faulty voting machine results would take the equivalent of a very expensive state gaming/gambling commission"s worth of electronic monitoring and regulatory oversight.
* Eliminating "DREs" (or a true hand-count paper ballot system) isn"t remotely politically feasible right now, because not enough of the public is behind it. (You can just imagine Florida 2000 "hanging chad" videos being played over & over¦)
HR-811, however, isn"t about "fixing" for now. It"s about simple, relatively inexpensive "auditing". Auditing is always a good thing. Whether some voters sleep through their VVPAT moment or not, the audit will prove a voting machine"s (and typially the software release, equipment model and vendor"s) erroneous counts.
With auditing, if these voting machines are as bad (and perhaps as vulnerable to fraud) as they surely seem to be, 2008 will be a watershed year in public awareness of a horrific corruption of our democracy.
Then more comprehensive reforms such as a DRE ban and re-structuring/eliliminating the EAC will become politically viable.

[jeffmorgan]

Seriously, Microsoft. I'm not surprised.

[TheIndependenceParty]

Another National Election for President and Vice President without a confidence in the process will, I fear result in a new American Civil War!
~
How can our military families stand by and have their votes be purposefully discounted, ... "caged" by the Fourth Reich? Every serving Service Woman and Man overseas MUST BE ALLOWED TO VOTE! Any effort to prevent that must be stopped this time, in contrast to 2004! Stand up and be counted!
~
Don't you see that they have driven you overseas in service, and out of your home state of Louisiana? They spread you as far and wide as they can, ... and they will call you "felons", and "deadbeats", and "absentees", ... but you are our brothers and sisters and you MUST VOTE, no matter where you find yourselves.
~
Do not misunderstand how serious this is. Karl Rove is not gone. He still wants your vote to be trashed. He will find a way to do that unless you prevent him! What does it matter whether he lives in Texas and controls Washington? None. He has placed attorneys and judges to restrict you from voting, and from having a right to speak. NOW is the time for us all to tell him to BACK DOWN from ruining America!
~
Please!

[kimk3]

You're doing such great work on this most important issue. When moveon sent out that stupid, misleading email about the Holt bill a couple of days ago, I went right to bradblog to get the real 411.

The main issue is how did our elections get to be privatized in the first place????

Kim
Los Angeles

[TomR]

Brad, it's good to see you on HuffPo too.

Folks, if you haven't been visiting Bradblog every day, you're simply not paying attention.

Our democratic republic, if we can keep it, can no longer tolerate election fraud, voter caging, secret software tallying our votes whenever we carry out our civic duty, Republican dirty tricks to disenfranchise American voters, hacked/rigged/privatized/corporatized elections, and an uninformed public regarding these critical, sensitive and moral issues staring us in the face.

http://www.bradblog.com

- Tom