The Holt Bill, HR 811, designed to improve transparency and accountability in elections, will keep vote-counting opaque and secretive with its new provisions. The bill would legalize vote counting by Touchscreen DRE's, with severely restricted access to voting software.
Well-intentioned organizations, such as VoteTrustUSA, Common Cause, MoveOn and People for the American Way, who have supported the bill, may be promoting, albeit unwittingly, a poison pill which will kill our last chance for clean elections.
Mary Ann Gould of Coalition for Voting Integrity and host of the radio/internet broadcast, Voice of the Voters (which airs on Wednesdays at 8 PM EDT) has invited supporters of HR 811 to debate with opponents on her weekly show.
So far, none has accepted.
In a video, Mark Crispin Miller, a NYU professor of media studies and author of Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Elections, articulates the most serious problem with the bill. DRE touchscreen voting machines, with secret, proprietary software, may be examined only by specially-appointed computer experts, who must sign non-disclosure agreements. Why must our vote-counting be kept secret? How do we ever find out if our votes are actually counted?
Some may argue that the paper receipts, printed by the DRE's, are a solution to the accountability problem. Well, how do we know that the voter's paper result matches his electronic result? A Cal Tech/ MIT study suggests that people rarely find errors even when they actually check the paper.
Under what circumstances will the paper receipts be counted? When the election is close? If the DRE can control how close the election is, couldn't some programmer simply make the margin of victory beyond the paper count "trigger point"?
Why not simply count all the paper ballots in the first place and not bother with the DRE's?
It would seem that an issue with such importance for the future of our democracy would warrant a debate- a debate: a public pro-con discussion between those who support the Holt Bill and those who oppose it. Do Holt supporters lack the time to debate, or do they simply lack supporting arguments?
As an alternative to HR 811 (as it now stands), voting rights activists have proposed a stripped-down bill, which covers short-term measures for hand-counted paper ballots for the 2008 election. A long-term, more deliberated bill can be passed once computer experts, voting experts and activists of all stripes have an opportunity to participate in the discussion. What's the rush to pass Holt?
Most Americans are opposed to secret vote-counting. A Zogby poll shows overwhelming (92%) support for public oversight of vote counting. Touchscreen DRE's, with secret proprietary software cannot provide this. Given a choice between keeping the DRE's and assuring accurate elections, I suggest that we ban DRE's. A CNN poll conducted this week, shows a strong (94%) preference for paper ballots. Why are we making a fool's choice between supporting bad legislation (HR 811) and no legislation at all?
Can we at least debate?