An old-fashioned clock-cleaning

Brad Friedman goes after attorney Larry Norden of the NYU Brennan Center for Justice's Task Force on Voting System Security. The venue: The Peter B. Collins radio show. The topic: Rush Holt's Election Reform Bill, HR811. Norden's fer it, and Brad's agin' it.

Why? Because the bill allows "un-verifiable, disenfranchising, easily hackable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems." Brad insists upon the pure paper approach, to which I can say only "Hear, hear!"

Though the Republican controlled House of Representatives and Senate in the state of Florida was able to pass precisely such a ban on DREs, under a Republican Governor, the unquestioned legend goes that such a ban could not pass in the Democratic U.S. House or U.S. Senate. That notion seems to come most directly --- if without evidence --- from both Holt's office, and their biggest supporters, People for the American Way (PFAW), who is on record as actually preferring DRE touch-screens to paper ballot systems.

Unfortunately, Norden is one of those folks who has bought into the "DRE ban can't pass" line. Even if he admits, however, when he was pressed during our spirited debate, that he is unable to name a single such Congress member that would vote against such a ban...

So how does Brad come off in his debate? I think the lawyer gets his clock cleaned. Judge for yourself. Give it a listen. And while you're at it, write your congressperson and tell him or her to take the paper route.