Last night I wrote a diary which merely documented my Republican Representative's position on
H.R. 550 (pdf). After the lukewarm reception to possibly
the lamest diary ever, I realized I had offered this community nothing substantive; instead I asked you all to do the work for me. It makes for a crappy diary process, but after the fact I did my homework on HAVA & H.R. 550 and came up with a rebuttal. I know this is tired territory around here, but I thought it would be helpful to show how the GOP is trying to frame this.
So I'm back, and I've deleted the old, unhelpful diary, and replaced it with this:
Is there really no need for H.R. 550 because HAVA already covers it??
I received a reply from my House Representative about H.R. 550. The gist of her letter was that there's no reason for it, because HAVA already covers everything my little heart desires.
Quotes from The Evil One:
HAVA created requirements for voting registration and administration, and authorized $3.86 billion to fund grant programs for the accelerated improvement of voting systems across the nation. For example, HAVA requires states to provide a practical and effective means for voters with disabilities to cast a secret ballot and to retain a paper record that can be used for the manual auditing of the voting system.
Here my Representative claims HAVA = helping people with disabilities and keeping paper records.
One of the benefits of HAVA is that security and error concerns associated with electronic voting machines were anticipated by Congress when this legislation was written. To address these issues, HAVA created a Technical Guidelines Development Committee to assist the new Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in developing guidelines and standards to ensure the reliability of the computer technologies being employed in voting systems. These standards will focus not only on the security of computer and network hardware, software and data storage, but also on the detection and prevention of fraud and the protection of voter privacy. The EAC will provide a continual re-evaluation of security standards as new tampering threats and vulnerabilities are discovered. snip\
... the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act - seeks to amend HAVA by including the requirement that all electronic voting machines have a paper audit trail. H.R. 550 also requires the EAC to test and develop procedures to enhance the accessibility of voter-verification mechanisms for persons with disabilities.
And here my Representative implies that H.R. 550 is superfluous and merely duplicates HAVA. For the math inclined, note the implied use of distribution:
paper audit trail x (helping disabled + voter verification) = enhancements to HAVA
for the non-math inclined, this means that she's trying to convince the reader that the enhancement of voter verification mechanisms for persons with disabilities means that voter verification already applies to the entire paper trail audit process. Voter-verification, as now defined by HAVA, only needs to be available to the disabled.
With the mechanisms for strengthening computer-based voting systems already in place with the passage of HAVA, I have reservations about legislation mandating paper trails for voting machines.
Nothing to see here, people. Move along now.
There are many well-documented instances where computerized machines have failed, from recording more votes than voters, to losing votes, to having recorded all votes in advance of election day. HAVA was written with safeguards in mind, but it allows for large loopholes in the system.
H.R. 550 is an amendment to HAVA. Those in opposition to H.R. 550 claim that HAVA already requires a paper audit system for voting machines. This is distinctly different from a Voter Verified paper record of each vote. The way HAVA was written, a faulty machine which keeps a printed record of its faulty tabulations is under compliance. Moreover, in the event of a discrepancy between the printed record and the electronic one, HAVA doesn't ensure that the printed votes are the ones that count.
Opponents of H.R. 550 also say that there's no need for oversight, because HAVA provides for a Technical Guidelines Development Committee, and an Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to recommend changes to voting standards. Last June, the EAC released its Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) for public comment. Voluntary standards cannot be enforced. HAVA has no teeth. The Bush administration's position is that citizens do not have the right to sue in order to enforce the provisions of HAVA. And here in Kentucky, the State Senate is considering SB 236, which would also ban citizens from seeking redress for voting-related grievances.
Some of the things which HR 550 would ensure:
- No software certification shall be conducted by companies who are affiliated with the software's developer, or have financial ties to the software developer.
- That no voting machine be connected to the internet, have wireless or concealed communications devices.
- No voting machine shall operate with software which has not been certified, or has not been handled by a documented chain of custody.
- All voting systems would undergo random, unannounced hand counts in at least 1 precinct per county, and 2% of precincts in the State.
- In the event of a recount, it will be the voter verified paper records which will be the source for the final tally.
Opponents to H.R. 550 are making it look like an unnecessary piece of legislation. But is there a single provision of H.R. 550 that you wouldn't want included? Why would politicians oppose a bill that merely bolsters an existing law (or is redundant, as they claim), unless it contained something that they specifically didn't want fixed?
Instead of giving voting contracts to companies who hide their software code and its well documented failings, we should advocate an open source voting standard. Open source means that the developers make their code available to the public, and implement the public's improvements. The linux computer operating system is a fine example of the robust security that results from thousands, if not millions of people working together on open source software code.
Las Vegas slot machines have their software code inspected by gaming officials. Shouldn't we demand the same level of enforcement when it comes to our democracy?