About 2-3 weeks ago, I received a letter in the mail from the Kansas City Election Board informing me that my polling place has moved. I used to vote at the church at the end of the block, which was awfully convenient. Now I'm voting at a different church about a mile down the road. No big deal*.
Oh, and by the way, the letter added at the bottom. You'll be given a choice of voting by optical scan or touch screen. Just one or two paragraphs at the bottom of the page, in case you were still reading.
A few days ago I get a nice, full-color brochure from the Board. It's got some nice pictures and instructions on how to use the new equipment, blah blah blah. But it doesn't mention the name of the company providing the equipment.
I checked the
board's website and it doesn't mention it either, although it does have a page dedicated to the
new equipment. That page features this blurb:
On October 29, 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, which is a federal election reform bill that provides funding to the states for the improvement of elections.
How does this affect the registered voters in Kansas City? For the first time in 30 years, on August 8, 2006, voters in Kansas City will use a "blended" system of voting. Each poll site will have one (1) optical scan voting device, which uses paper ballots similar to those used in standardized tests, and one touch screen voting system, which is similar to an A TM machine.
Both of these systems provide voters with second chance voting, which means voters will have the chance to examine their ballot before casting their vote and the machines will alert them if an office or an issue has been over voted.
Use of the optical scan machine, which is intended for use by most, will allow voters to quickly cast a ballot and complete the voting process. Voting on the touch screen, which is provided for voters with disabilities, will require more time.
The touch screen is equipped with headphones and a keypad and may be set for black and white contrast and/or larger text. Although this equipment is specifically provided for voters with disabilities, other voters may use this system as well.
Both machines feature a paper trail, which was required by the Missouri Secretary of State [Robin Carnahan, which is reassuring--nb] prior to being certified for use in Missouri.
Again, no mention of the company responsible for the equipment.
A quick call to the board (816-842-4820) confirmed my suspicion: yes indeed, the Diebold people have come to town.
A few simple questions: what was wrong with the old system of voting? What's so nifty about the new system? Why is Diebold trusted? Why not another company? Why was this significant change in the basic mechanism of Kansas City democracy introduced without any open discussion or consultation with the electorate?
Now, I don't suspect Diebold of actively engaging in voter fraud. But it makes me wonder, why the need for the change? If it wasn't broke (and there's no indication it was), why fix it? Especially since Diebold's system has been shown to be vulnerable to outside meddling.
For completeness' sake, here's the dkosopedia entry for Diebold, and here's the Wikipedia entry for Diebold's election division. Glancing through the dkosopedia entry, I notice there are different systems. I'm running out of time for this diary but I'll call the EB back tomorrow and see if I can get some more information.
Anyway....the primary is August 8th. I've been thinking about posting links to sample ballots and maybe I can even get a round-up on local candidates and ballot issues. I was surprised in 2004--I was so gung-ho to vote against Bush that I'd completely forgotten about everything else on the ballot....there was a major stadium question on that ballot that I had not given one iota of thought to.
Damn, this democracy thing is hard....
* (although I live in a majority-black neighborhood, so anything like this makes me wonder; FWIW I've never seen any Vote This Wednesday! fliers around here, or anything like that)