How the long green bought some long lines

Earlier today, Brad Friedman -- who has gone after the vote-theft story the way my mutt goes after a tennis ball (and whose fine site loads far too slowly) -- appeared on KPFK here in Los Angeles. He did a terrific job. When dealing with a story of this nature, the alternative press can be just as difficult as the mainstreamers, so let's encourage Pacifica to devote more airtime to these matters.

Friedman focuses on "funky" vote results -- e.g., counties with more votes than voters. But perhaps we should pay more attention to other methods of disenfranchisement.

One of the little-known problems with electronic voting is that the expense of the machines resulted in fewer polling booths and, thus, longer lines. And how did we get ourselves into that sorry situation? Good, old-fashioned corruption.

Earlier today, we noted Daniel Hopsicker's contention that, although felons may not be able to vote in certain states, they can still run the engines of our democracy. A reader has directed my attention to this fascinating older story in the Los Angeles Times which fleshes out the details.

The Times concluded that we got into this e-voting mess because of bribes and kickbacks:

Gary L. Greenhalgh, a former Federal Election Commission official turned vote-machine salesman, has said influence is more important than a quality product in his industry, because local election officials don't know how to assess equipment.

He told an audience in 1993 that, in writing bids for almost 30 government contracts over two years as national sales director for the MicroVote firm, not one election director asked about protecting ballots from tampering or about how to audit vote counts...

An important quote, that. Keep it in mind as you read everything else in this column.

In the Boston Phoenix, David Bernstein offers an important story on the suppressed Kerry vote in Ohio and elsewhere:

FOR AMERICANS, it’s bad enough that the 2000 election was such a fiasco that our government felt compelled to bring in international election monitors from Vienna, as though we were some Third World banana republic rather than the world’s oldest democracy. Worse, the monitoring group — the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) — left unimpressed.

The OSCE won’t issue a final report for another six weeks, but its preliminary findings (available at http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2004/11/3779_en.pdf) are a litany of "questions of possible conflict of interest," "widespread ... allegations of electoral fraud and voter suppression," "significant delays ... [that] may restrict the right to vote," "considerable confusion ... regarding the use of provisional ballots," "occasional faults and breakdowns of DRE [direct-recording equipment] machines," "concerns ... regarding the secrecy of the vote." Not only that, but "it was not clear that poll workers had generally received sufficient training to perform their functions."

Kerry would have won Ohio if all those who intended to vote for him had managed to cast a ballot.

Almost certainly, long lines disproportionately disenfranchise poorer, working-class voters, who tend to live in high-density city precincts, and have less flexibility in their schedules. "We heard of folks who were told by their bosses they have to get back to work instead of stay and vote," says Britton.

LoParo of the Secretary of State’s office dismisses the concern, saying that "we have heard anecdotally" that only a few people showed up but didn’t vote. But Ohio newspapers were filled with anecdotes to the contrary. And many people probably didn’t bother to show up, as word about the long waits spread. "People were in line on their cell phones telling their friends not to try to take one hour to vote — everybody was in line doing that when I went," Trevas says.

HERE’S THE rub: a Phoenix analysis shows that the precinct reductions disproportionately hurt Ohio’s Democratic turnout.

Of Ohio’s 88 counties, 20 suffered a significant reduction — shutting at least 20 percent (or at least 30) of their precincts. Most of those counties have Republicans serving as Board of Elections director, including the four biggest: Cuyahoga, Montgomery, Summit, and Lucas.

Happenstance or design? That is the question.

Salon's Farhad Manjoo, in his latest, seems to vote for happenstance:

Indeed, for all the high-minded rhetoric you often hear from politicians regarding the importance of your vote, the American election system is essentially designed "to function well only with low turnout," Rodriguez-Taseff says. In the elections business, a low turnout is not a bad thing -- it's part of the plan. American elections work well only when some of us vote. "The system is intended to be limited," Rodriguez-Taseff says. "If you're an elections official you actually want fewer voters, because if you have fewer voters you need fewer resources. We created a system that has so many barriers to voting that the system functions best when few people vote. And when few people vote, the system functions beautifully."

The problem is more pronounced, Rodriguez-Taseff says, in jurisdictions that use electronic voting machines. "You have incredibly expensive technology, so you cannot possibly buy enough machines for everyone," she notes.

Yes, yes -- but why do we have such incredibly expensive technology -- as opposed to the low-tech, cost-efficient method of placing an X on a paper ballot?

Go back to that vintage L.A. Times story, quoted earlier. The machines are there because of bribes and kickbacks. This mess did not happen by accident.

For further insights on the Ohio debacle, read this column by Harvey Wasserman:

The principle overt method of vote suppression was to short-change inner city precincts of sufficient voting machines to allow a timely balloting. In precinct after precinct, virtually all of them predominantly black, poor, young and Democratic, the lines stretched for two, five, eight, even eleven hours. The elderly and infirm were forced to stand in the rain while city officials threatened to tow their cars. No chairs or shelter were provided. Crucial signage was mysteriously missing. Thousands came to vote, saw the long lines and left.

How many thousands? Enough to turn the election? Almost definitely.

None of this was accidental. This was a well-planned GOP attack on the right to vote, and on Democratic candidacies.

Wasserman goes on to diss Kerry and the DNC for not speaking up on these problems. I think he should cut Kerry some slack -- the man still has a senate career and a possible 2008 run. But other mainstream Democrats need to speak out.

Even those who won't allow themselves to consider computerized vote tampering must agree that democracy cannot function under these circumstances. The long green purchased long lines.

Some say electronic voting can work if the machines have a paper trail, but even if receipts become a mandatory part of the process, we would still have the problems of expensive equipment, breakdowns, and disgruntled voters. Besides, that paper trail comes into play only if the candidate asks for, and funds, a recount. (That's why we'll never know if Bush's popular vote totals were padded in Nevada and Texas.)

Stop asking for paper receipts. Junk the damn machines -- period.