Man oh man, today was the one and only debate between the current Secretary of State of California, Bruce McPherson, and his Democratic challenger (and netroots all-star) State Senator Debra Bowen and she kicked some serious ass.
The debate was held in the context of a meeting with the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle and was aired over the web. The debate will apparently largely influence which candidate the paper chooses to endorse.
The debate is up HERE or you can read my liveblog of it over at The Courage Campaign.
More on the debate over the flip.
My overall impression is that Debra Bowen simply outclassed and outperformed Bruce McPherson on every level. She spoke passionately and knowledgeably about everything from the widespread problems we've seen with Diebold machines to her opposition to voter ID laws to providing systems that allow disabled and blind voters to vote privately and independently. She was on message, calling for transparency of the election systems including open source software for all electronic voting systems and repeated her mantra of "security, accuracy and transparency" several times. McPherson on the other hand had no message to be on, he simply adopted a defensive crouch (figuratively, of course) and remained there for most of the debate, which was beautiful to behold.
The debate itself was quite good in that it made clear, largely due to Bowen's message discipline, just how starkly different the two candidates are on issues that are so important to us all.
Before I get into the specifics of the debate, I wanted to urge everyone to show Senator Bowen some love at her website and to please vote for her at Russ Feingold's latest Progressive Patriot contest.
1. Electronic Voting
Bruce McPherson certified Diebold machines for use in California in the 2006 elections despite a report by his own office that there were serious flaws in the software. His certification was suposedly "contingent" on their fixing these problems yet the only proof that he's presented that they have done so is his own reassurance: "I wouldn't have certified them if I didn't think they were secure." He points to the two elections we've had so far in 2006, the special primary down in CA-50 in April and then the statewide primary in June as evidence that the systems are secure and accurate. Yet again he provided no evidence for this claim.
Bowen hammered back:
The security measures are only as good as the least effective person who implements them.
With this she segued nicely into the lack of security of many of the voting machines used in our primary elections, especially down in CA-50. There, pollworkers were instructed to take the machines home with them, in some cases for several days before the election, without any security system in place to ensure that nobody messed with them.
She brought up the Princeton report that demonstrated just how easily a Diebold machine can be hacked. And to hit home her point, and this was a stroke of genius, Bowen whipped out a small key as an example of all that one would need to hack into one of the machines.
To be fair, McPherson challenged this with the fact that he certified Diebold TSX machines and the Princeton report looked at a TS machine, but once again, McPherson would have us merely take his word for it that the difference between these two models is the difference between an insecure election and a secure one.
This leads us nicely into another one of Bowen's stengths, her call for
2. Transparency and openness in elections
A central part of Bowen's message is that any electronic voting system we use needs to be open and transparent and that includes using open source software, which McPherson opposes.
While McPherson did accuse Bowen of spreading "conspiracy theories" once in the debate, the thing about Senator Bowen is that she comes across as so down to earth and knowledgeable that the label "conspiracy theorist" just drops to the floor with a thud. In addition, Bowen even offered up some electronic voting systems that she would be fine with, including one where the computer prints a paper ballot, which then serves as the final record of the vote cast that the voter can look at and verify before submitting. Far from being a luddite, Debra Bowen has been on the forefront of digitizing and opening up government. She simply wants to make sure the systems are fair, secure and accurate and not hastily certified before systems can be put in place to ensure confidence that our votes are counted.
Which leads us to a third part of her platform:
3. Returning confidence in our voting systems
Senator Bowen cites the lack of confidence people have that their votes will be counted as a reason for plummeting turn out. In the debate, she mentioned that California saw only 33% turnout in our primary election in June. That is pitiful. The more confidence voters have in elections, the more they will want to participate.
Which Bowen smartly tied into public financing of elections, which she supports. She mentioned that where there are publicly financed elections, such as Maine and Arizona, participation has risen because there isn't the sense that elections are bought and paid for by special interests.
California has a clean money initiative on the ballot this November, Proposition 89, which we hope passes so California can be added to that list.
4. Voter ID Laws
This was another area where the two candidates were at odds. Bruce McPherson said he's not necessarily in favor of laws that would require voters to show photo ID at the polls but he said there are any number of forms of identification that would serve the purpose. This, McPherson said, would give voters back the confidence in our elections. Well, so goes the right wing talking point. He even trotted out this puppy...literally, when asked if there was any evidence of voter fraud in California this year:
We have seen some, you hear about it every election. One person put his dog on the voting roll.
That claim was met with the incredulity that it deserved by the questioner and Bowen hammered back that there were only 15 instances where claims of voter fraud were actually prosecuted...15 in the whole country. She explained that there's no evidence that this is a widespread problem and voter ID laws would disenfranchise ethnic and poorer voters disproportionately and that until every single voter has a photo ID, she is adamantly opposed to voter ID laws. Not to mention the fact that courts all over the country have found them unconstitutional.
The most dramatic moment in the debate came when they were discussing systems that would allow blind and disabled voters to vote privately and independently, which is something that electronic voting has enabled. McPherson went on the attack stating with absolute certainty that Bowen's policies would disenfranchise blind and disabled voters. In response, Bowen countered strongly that she has proposed systems that would allow disabled voters to vote privately and independently but that McPherson wouldn't certify them.
But she didn't stop there:
You are scaring people in a way that is really shameful. For you to assert that if I were to win...when I do win...that I would disenfranchise disabled voters is really shameful. Bruce, you and I have been friends for a long time, this is not your finest hour.
Ka-blam!
I wasn't kidding about winning by knock out.
But seriously, to get a feel for what a great candidate Senator Bowen is and what a great Secretary of State she will be, go watch at least some of the debate HERE.
It's not an overstatement to say that the Secretary of State race is the most important statewide race we have in California this year. We're lucky to have such a champion for election integrity in Debra Bowen.
Thanks, Senator and we'll be working hard for you.
Update [2006-10-18 21:38:0 by ollieb]: Juls in the comments reminds us that Senator Bowen has a 2-1 money disadvantage and she needs our help. Please give what you can via the Calitics Act Blue page.