Electronic Voting: A Solution in Search of a Problem
Why electronic voting? Seriously why? Faster vote count for a larger population? Except that votes were counted in time enough up to Y2K election, who knew the disaster people expected was coming in the form of an election, but I digress. And even since there are still paper ballots, so it’s not as if paper voting can’t be managed. Then why?
More accurate than the hanging chad catastrophe? (Or chadastrophe) That was a few counties in one state in a 50 state election. And the problems in state elections that we have seen in Georgia and Missouri with video evidence of vote switching immediately outweigh the concerns of some chads not completely punched through. So why?
Well the enthusiasm with which Georgia (which like Delaware adopts voting requirements on a state level) and some counties in Pennsylvania have adopted not only electronic voting machines, but specifically ones without any papertrail, precluding any opportunity at all for a meaningful audit or recount suggest a motive. Specifically that to preclude a recount. If you wanted to steal an election, having no way to double check the results would be a godsend. It’s hard to imagine why you wouldn’t want the possibility of a recount for any purpose that is not corrupt or nefarious. But feel free to suggest one in the comments or email to me. Explain in small words how God hates recounts or something.
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Let’s talk about Georgia, an early adopter of electronic voting. Now I like Georgia. I went through basic training in Fort Benning there, saw Chain lightning for the first time, had a buddy bitten by a brown recluse…good times. But its electoral policies are corrupt as hell. The Help America Vote act was passed after the 2000 election fiasco which pumped a lot of federal money into states and counties to update their voting systems from the pre scored punch card technology. You might think this would have been used for more accurate paper ballots. You’d be mistaken. Where there is money there are lobbyists, and where there are lobbyists there’s corruption.
In 2002 Georgia signed legislation eliminating the requirement for a paper backup. Then the secretary of state signed a 54 million dollar deal for these unrecountable voting machines. Who was lobbying for the Diebold monstrosity? The former Georgia secretary of state. In 2006 after a challenge to the Diebold voting machines trying to require a paper trail opposed by the head of Georgia’s Election Security and eventually defeated. Said head of election security went on to work for E.S. & S. a provider of electronic voting machines, basically son of Diebold. And just to take a further stroll down memory lane courtesy of the wayback machine, remember Dibold was the voting machine vending company whose president promised to do anything possible to deliver the election to George W Bush (the at the time most corrupt and least qualified president). Skipping a few more exemplars of corruption and the revolving door between Georgia politicians and E.S. & S. employment, Aug 15, 2019 a judge ordered the state to use paper voting machines in 2020 and to fix errors in its voter registration database. That’s a positive step, but it happened after several controversial elections including the 2018 governorship which went to, wait for it, the former (and at the time current) Georgia secretary of state Brian Kemp, who was in charge of election security up until his campaign. Nothing to see here folks, move along. (Except for the evidence that a judge saw persuading the court to issue an injunction requiring Georgia to get its act together.)
So that brings us back to the original thesis. Why electronic voting machines? Well the less sinister reason, is there is money in government contracts, and companies like E.S. & S. have the money to lobby and the ability to bring in former politicians and election officials to lobby for those contracts. Paper ballots read by humans are less expensive but don’t have lobbyists dangling sweet lobbying jobs to current politicians and election officials. Greed and ambition is a thing.
Sadly that’s the less sinister interpretation. The other is that the insecurities are a feature not a bug. That’s harder to prove. However the fact that Diebold and E.S. & S fought so hard to avoid a requirement for a paper trail and auditable machines, successfully and rewarded their devotees in the Georgian election security offices with lobbying positions has some meaning. Corporations rarely devote a large amount of resources and rewards without something important to gain. If you think otherwise try asking any corporation of your choice, maybe your cable or cell phone provider for any special consideration. Let me know how that goes. Or ask your city council to change a law for you. When laws get changed or legislation gets spiked, it tells you there was a considerable amount of resources and lobbying brought to bear. In this case to avoid accountability. Again be sure to tell me that has a benign objective. I’ll be waiting with bated breath.
