Here's the prequel to a previous diary.
By "impending disaster" I mean to say that if we don't take some seriously proactive measures we COULD have a major disaster on our hands come November 4 - the disenfranchisement of thousands, if not millions, of voters. Thereby resulting in yet another lost/stolen election.
Back in July, a good pal turned me on to the issues, and we soon had a website up and running. We've tried to inform folks about the potential issues - from the non-partisan (our royally screwed up election system), to the partisan (deliberate efforts to sabotage our electoral process). All in the name of staving off a potential disaster.
Some find my rhetoric over the top, encouraging hysteria, or too negative. If it results in people confirming their registration info, voting early and getting more involved in the process - fine by me. I will gladly eat crow when Obama is elected, and you can bask in the glory of being right and telling me that my concerns were all for naught.
But if you're so inclined, please keep reading. I've tried to lay out some of the primary issues, and why I think there is cause for concern.
I will elaborate more, but based on the following, eligible voters could find themselves unable to vote altogether, forced to submit a provisional ballot, or held up in long lines as other voters try to resolve their issues.
- Requisite eDatabases - rife with errors, which could result in massive purging or requiring eligible voters to submit provisional ballots when their information doesn't match.
- Voter Purges - eligible voters gone from the lists, and don't find out until they turn up at the polls.
- eVoting machines - notoriously unreliable, from breakdowns to tampering.
- Unprecedented turnout - both registered and first time voters.
- Deliberate subterfuge - voter intimidation, suppression, caging, etc.
There are some well-intentioned culprits: the 2002 Help America Vote Act has thus far done nothing to "help." Talk about a disaster waiting to happen.
From Wired's, Voter Database Glitches Could Disenfranchise Thousands:
"Electronic voting machines have been the focus of much controversy the last few years. But another election technology has received little scrutiny yet could create numerous problems and disenfranchise thousands of voters in November, election experts say.
...the databases, some created by the same companies that make electronic voting machines, aren't federally tested or certified and some have been plagued by missed deadlines, rushed production schedules, cost overruns, security problems, and design and reliability issues.
...databases are prone to errors such as misspellings and transposed numbers, and applicants are prone to make mistakes or write illegibly on applications. The Social Security Administration has acknowledged that matches between its database and voter-registration records have yielded a 28.5 percent error rate."
NYU's Brennan Center for Justice recently completed a report on Voter Purges - a systematic examination of voter purges in twelve states. From their primary findings:
- Purges rely on error-ridden lists.
- Voters are purged secretly and without notice.
- Bad “matching” criteria leaves voters vulnerable to manipulated purges.
- Insufficient oversight leaves voters vulnerable to manipulated purges.
Just how many people might be affected?
From the NYTs, States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal:
"Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law.
...In Michigan, some 33,000 voters were removed from the rolls in August, a figure that is far higher than the number of deaths in the state during the same period — about 7,100 — or the number of people who moved out of the state — about 4,400, according to data from the Postal Service.
...In Colorado, some 37,000 people were removed from the rolls in the three weeks after July 21. During that time, about 5,100 people moved out of the state and about 2,400 died, according to postal data and death records.
...In Louisiana, at least 18,000 people were dropped from the rolls in the five weeks after July 23. Over the same period, at least 1,600 people moved out of state and at least 3,300 died."
Imagine if states relied soley on the veracity of these databases and used them to turn away voters, or forced them to submit provisional ballots?
Also from the NYT article:
"In the year ending Sept. 30, election officials in Nevada, for example, used the Social Security database more than 740,000 times to check voter files or registration applications and found more than 715,000 nonmatches, federal records show."
Not convinced that eVoting lays the groundwork for voting "irregularities?" or that there is deliberate chicanery going on? Check out organizations such as Black Box Voting and the Verified Voting Foundation - "Electronic Miscounts of Votes are a Fact - Not a Theory" as well as documentaries like Uncounted, Hacking Democracy, and Stealing America: Vote by Vote and pages of journalists such as Greg Palast and Brad Friedman.
Voters Unite provides daily updates (sometimes multiple times a day). From today's "Daily Update" alone:
Vote Flipping in Davidson County, Tennessee - "My wife, Patricia Earnhardt, had an early voting experience here in Nashville, Tennessee, where she saw her vote momentarily flip from Barack Obama to Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney. She voted on a touch-screen paperless machine."
Early-voting problems in Putnam (West VA) - "Two more Putnam County voters - Martha Louise Harrington and Michael K. Koon - have come forward about problems they experienced on early-voting electronic machines at the Winfield courthouse."
Leon County (FL) overcomes voting snag - "Finicky machines that wouldn't accept legal-size ballots led representatives at two Leon County polling stations to resort to backup plans to properly record votes, Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho said Monday."
If anyone has evidence that we won't have an unprecedented number of registered and newly registered voters, I'd love to see it! Even with all the calls for early voting, November 4 could see snafus and long lines unlike anything we've seen before.
From the Washington Post's, High Turnout, New Procedures May Mean an Election Day Mess:
"Faced with a surge in voter registrations leading up to Nov. 4, election officials across the country are bracing for long lines, equipment failures and confusion over polling procedures that could cost thousands the chance to cast a ballot.
The crush of voters will strain a system already in the midst of transformation, with jurisdictions introducing new machines and rules to avoid the catastrophe of the deadlocked 2000 election and the lingering controversy over the 2004 outcome. Even within the past few months, cities and counties have revamped their processes: Nine million voters, including many in the battleground states of Ohio, Florida and Colorado, will use equipment that has changed since March."
I know that every voter has a right to cast a provisional ballot, but this should be done as an absolute last resort. From ElectionProtection, a great resource that also has a toll free number - 1.866.OUR.VOTE - to report voting irregularities or simply ask questions:
"Provisional balloting allows voters to meaningfully exercise their right to vote on Election Day, but there are problems. First, many poll workers are not trained properly with regards to provisional balloting. They frequently fail to inform voters of their right to cast a provisional ballot, give voters incorrect ballots, and misinform voters about how to use provisional ballots or whether and under what circumstances their provisional ballot will count. Second, there is a lack of clear and uniform standards for counting provisional ballots, especially on the issue of whether or not to count provisional ballots cast outside a voter’s assigned precinct. Twenty-seven states do not count provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct, while seventeen states count provisional ballots as long as they are cast in the correct county. The issue of whether to count provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct has a tremendous effect on election results. A study conducted after the 2004 election indicates that jurisdictions that count provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct count almost 72% of provisional ballots cast in the jurisdiction, while jurisdictions that only count provisional ballots cast in the right precinct count only half of all provisional ballots cast."
Like all you, I just want us to have a "fair" election and want everyone to have their vote count and be heard in this general election. We've got 2 weeks to go, and I know Obama is way ahead in the polls, and everyone is predicting landslide. But now is not the time to get complacent and until John McCain officially concedes I will continue to sound the warning bells and hope everyone else does the same.