Voting, French Style -- An Op-Ed Piece in the Nashville Tennessean

[Fly by night]

This op-ed piece appeared yesterday (Sunday) in the Nashville Tennessean, and is reprinted here in its entirety with permission of the author. We have been very pleased that the Tennessean covered our National Election Reform Conference extensively, has run Bob Koehler's editorials and has continued to cover election reform issues. This latest op-ed piece is another reason to be thankful for thoughtful editors here in the Orange State. Enjoy.
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Vote in a French village not unlike election Nashville-style

By BILL HAYMES

Last Sunday night, I was sitting in a polling place in the village of Villeneuve-le-Roi, France. My friend, Jay, and I had been invited there by Laurent Gerome, a local resident and election observer for "Les Verts" (the Greens).

Through the large windows, I could see the rain falling sporadically outside and the branches of the trees waving, whipped about by blustery winds. Trite as it may be, I couldn't prevent the phrase "the winds of change" from running through my mind. All 25 countries of the European Union had to ratify the new constitution for it to take effect, and the polls predicted a "no" vote in France.

In most ways, this polling place was similar to many I've seen in Nashville. It was a converted schoolroom with four voting booths against one wall, brown curtains partially covering their entrances. There were four long tables and folding chairs around the room's perimeter.

An older gentlemen in a suit and tie, called le président, was in charge. Nearly everyone else was casually dressed, several wearing jeans and running shoes. They looked familiar; we could have been in Dubuque, Iowa. The atmosphere was hushed. But other aspects of this scene were quite different from most American polling places.

The voting was done using paper ballots. Each voter was given an earth-brown envelope, about 4" by 5", and two white pieces of paper — one saying "OUI" in large black letters, the other, "NON." In the voting booth, the voter placed one piece of paper in the envelope and threw the other away. The envelopes went into a clear plexiglass ballot box in everyone's full view.

Five political parties had observers at this election: UMP, UDF, PS (Socialist), PCF (Communist) and Les Verts. These observers attentively watched the voting process throughout the day and also the counting of the ballots. And, unlike here in Nashville, non-official observers were allowed to be present.

At 8 p.m., the polls closed. Shortly after, the total number of voters was tabulated, announced, challenged by an observer, recounted, then accepted by all. Le président unlocked the voting box, poured the envelopes onto a tabletop, and the five party observers stacked the envelopes into groups of 100. There were six stacks of 100 and one stack of 64. Each stack was put into a large manila envelope, which was sealed and signed by each of the five party observers.

Then, the five observers stepped away, and eight volunteers from the community — four men and four women — came forward to do the actual counting. The final tally was 64% non, 36% oui.

I felt tremendously privileged to be able to see this process, to be in a small polling place on such an historic night. And I felt a strong kinship to the French, voting in a fashion and a setting so familiar to me.

I thought about the similar histories of France and the United States — each modern nation born of a violent revolution in the late 1700s and each evolving into a form of representative democracy. And, in France, their history led to this event — regular people from a small town, quietly and peacefully voting on one of the largest issues ever for the Europeans. Voting with paper and counting the ballots by hand, much as they did in the very earliest days of their republic. A perfect portrait of what the peoples of many nations yearn and strive for: being able to safely and civilly come to a polling place and make independent decisions about their own fate.

[judy]

1. And this is not because France doesn't have the technology

for computerized voting. They do.
This just seems like the least tamper-prone way to vote.

[Internut]

2. Please explain how you would employ this

voting method when you have anywhere from 15 to 100 different races in the same election. A piece of paper with "Oui" and "Non" on it would hardly suffice.

[Peace Patriot]

3. That's the way they do it in Germany, too--paper ballots counted in...

...full view of all interested parties. And I think that it is no coincidence that both of these governments opposed the Iraq war. They were actually elected by their people!

[Peace Patriot]

4. Gee, internut, you don't have a lot of faith in peoples' native...

...intelligence and common sense, do you? You don't think people can figure out how to have an honest, verifiable election with multiple candidates and issues??? We've only done it for hundreds of years! It's only recently that Americans have become so stupid that we need "experts" and "professionals" to run our elections for us, with all their computer gobble-de-gook masking the nefarious schemes of Bush partisans???

I think we can figure it out, Internut!

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"Please explain how you would employ this voting method when you have anywhere from 15 to 100 different races in the same election. A piece of paper with 'Oui' and 'Non' on it would hardly suffice." --Internut (Post #2, above)

[Internut]

5. A hundred years ago we did not have

100 different choices to be made on the ballot. If you have a plan to get rid of that without the turnout for the "secondary" races dropping to single digits, you're welcome to present it.

By the way, FYI, the first "voting machine" (the "lever" kind) was introduced in United States in 1892. They were used in every major US city by 1930 and by 1960 more than half the country voted using them.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Internut, you keep ignoring the obvious! Germany and France--and...

Canada, for that matter (and many other modern democracies)--have complex ballots, and manage to use paper-based, verifiable election systems. Not all modern elections are simple "oui" or "non" choices (as was the recent French election on the EU Constitution). In fact, MOST modern elections in these countries are as complex as our own--with many candidates and issues. And all of their paper-based election systems seem to be much more efficient and reliable than ours--which has been plagued with computer breakdowns and both innocent and suspicious "malfunctions," not to mention secret, proprietary programming code, owned and controlled by Bush partisans.

Your position seems to be that the complexity of the ballot requires electronic voting systems; you seem unable to grasp that our extremely unreliable, insecure, hackable, electronic voting systems, owned and controlled by Bush partisans, INVALIDATE our elections. They are the height of non-transparency! And, frankly, I wouldn't care if our elections took weeks for the voting and counting, IF WE CAN RELY ON THE RESULTS. But in fact these other democracies demonstrate that reliable, transparent, paper-based systems are quite efficient as well.

[Internut]

7. I have a feeling that you really don't know it but

are making assumption. French/German/British election systems differ greatly from US because their governmental systems differ.

Prove it. Show me some kind of backup to your statement that they have elections "as complex as our own" - with many candidates and issues. Every time I see their elections reported I see two-three races on the ballot at most.

Show me something, a ballot picture, a newspaper report - anything that would show that they have a dozen or more races on the ballot - and I will concede the point.

[Pooka Fey]

8. No of course those silly little Europeans don't have complex elections !

:sarcasm:

If you were inclined to poke your head out of your American bubble for a couple of minutes, I believe you would find the same layers of bureaucracy and governmental complexity in Europe that we have here, and maybe more. The French and most other European countries have several political parties running candidates in every election - as mentioned in the OP -- a fundamental difference which all by itself evidences greater complexity in their elections. Both Republicans and Democrats oppose a viable 3rd party choice here in the states; although it is GREATLY needed.

Nothing, NOTHING speaks towards the absolute impenetrable lock-down of the human mind more than the phrase "prove it". If you really want to understand European politics, you'll do the research yourself. Your facile argument against paper ballots is exactly the sort of post that makes me cringe when I think about the numerous European DUer's who will read it and shake their heads about how provincial and egotistical Americans are.

On edit: You wrote: "French/German/British election systems differ greatly from US because their governmental systems differ."

On this point you are right on the money !!! The French/German/British countries practice DEMOCRACY, which is a system which was abandoned/overthrown by those in power in the U.S. in 2000, in favor of theocratic totalitarianism.

[Internut]

9. Ok here are the ballots I found:

German: 2 races on the ballot

http://www.kv-wsf.de/wahlen/ LT2002/stimmzettel.html
http://klickrufmichanan.de/spasspartei/lw_sa_020421stats.html



New Zealand ballot: 2 races on the ballot

http://tinyurl.com/b7c6x


Italian ballot: 1 race on the ballot

http://www.castelfranco.dsmodena.it/archives/facsimileeuropee.html


British Euro elections: they say that this one is complicated because this is not like the General elections, where you have to have only one choice, and this has five choices.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3704899.stm

1999 elections for Euro Parliament in UK: one race per ballot

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3704899.stm

2000 London Mayoral Elections: one race per ballot

http://www.londonelects.org.uk/pdf/Mayoral_ballotpaper_2000.pdf

South Africa: one race per ballot

http://www.pomexport.com/O%20-%20RSA%20voting%20ballot%20packaged/POC%20-%20RSA%20voting%20ballot%20packaged_1x.html

If you would like to show me a paper ballot from any country that is intended to be marked with a pen and hand-counted, that contains a dozen races or more, go ahead. I could not find anything even close.

[Pooka Fey]

10. How about a choice between 1,685 candidates?

Is that sufficiently complicated? I would argue that it is.

2004 Canadian elections

<snip>
Elections Canada has approved 1685 candidates for the 2004 elections, which is a drop from the 1808 candidates in the 2000 elections.

Politics Watch has an interesting and fun Vote Selector Quiz to help you decide whom to vote for. You answer a series of questions about particular issues, and at the end you will get a score card to show you how closely each of the major party's leaders come to your positions. See the 2000 Selector Quiz for the 2000 election.

The best way to discover what each political party stands for overall, or what it has to say on a particular issue, is to visit their web site and see what that have to say. Here are links to all the registered parties and, where available, to their leaders, lists of candidates, and main election platform:
<snip>

http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/parties.html

This is getting to be too stupid though. The reason America votes with unverifiable touch-screen voting machines owned by partisan Republicans, rather than on paper ballots is because the Republican party wishes to maintain the illusion of counting votes. Your argument that our elections are too complicated to be held on paper is a typical smoke-screen against the real issue. Independently verifiable paper ballots. Is it too much to ask??????

[Internut]

11. You're being disingenuous

each voter in Canadian elections did not choose between 1685 candidates. Each voter had 3 or 4, maybe 6 choices and only one race n his ballot. That's compared to each voter in the US having anywhere from 60 to 300 choices in 15 to 100 races on his ballot. Which is more complicated?

[Fly by night]

12. Where on earth do you live?

Here in Tennessee, I have never had a ballot with fifteen different contests on it (and I have voted 35+ years). In my area, a crowded ballot has 7-8 races/referenda items on it.

How many of the rest of you are not typified by i-n's repetitive point? That is, how many of us vote in elections where the number of contests would be imminently "doable" in a paper ballot, hand-cast and hand-counted system. I know I do.

Have any of you ever faced a ballot with 300 items on it -- ever??

If so, then you have issues. But we certainly don't in middle Tennessee. Even the major metropolitan area nearby (Nashville) would push to have 12-15 contests on the ballot. These are all very doable numbers to deal with in any typical election (which routinely would have fewer contests than the examples I cited above.) So please enlighten me on the locales where they would have to kill one tree per paper ballot to get all the races on paper. That ain't the Orange State (and most of our states).

Really, the key isn't the number of races (except in the extreme and unrealistic examples that i-n describes) but in the number of voters assigned to each voting precinct that would determine how quickly votes would be cast and counted. Keeping the number of voters per precinct at a reasonable size is the key to VVPB/MRMR systems, I would think.

[Internut]

14. Here is an example:

http://www.oc.ca.gov/election/Polling/PPlace05/ballots/bt000020.pdf

has 45 different races and 145 choices. And this is an off-year election, so it didn't even have presidential choices.

http://www.co.larimer.co.us/elections/ballots/sample_ballot.pdf

has 50 races and and 124 choices.

These are only a couple from a 5 minute google search. I have seen someone post a link to a ballot that had 112 races on it last November.

[Pooka Fey]

15. Holding up the qualities of maximum speed and efficiency

as being superior to the qualities of accuracy, reliability and auditability is an example of undemocratic, corporate American values at their worst.

When it comes to choosing the most powerful leader in the world, the individual who can nuke the entire planet into oblivion, - most of the world will argue, "TAKE ALL THE DAMN TIME YOU NEED and count the paper ballots!!! Then count them again. We'll wait!!!"

You want your instant answers, then watch the exit polls (the unaltered results); that's how they do it in Germany.

Let me for a moment suggest a compromise between our two positions --MANY people who go to the polls don't bother to vote on anything other than the Presidential and the Congressional races. How about each voter receives two ballots at the polls? Presidential and Congressional races go on hand-countable paper ballots, and the secondary races, i.e. judges, school board, ballot propositions; these will go on a separate machine readable ballot.

You know why people spouting your argument won't accept this compromise??? Because the power lies in the Presidency and in the Congress -- those are the races that need to be controlled by fraudulent means -i.e. BBV and suppression of minority and young voters who tend to support the democratic candidates.

This isn't about what we can and can't do. This is about ELECTION FRAUD. There's simply no reasonable argument against verifiable paper ballots in American elections. One of our European DUers mentioned right after Nov '04 that anyone even suggesting BBV in the EU would be laughed out of office. AGAIN - he lives in a country with a DEMOCRATIC form of government.

[Internut]

17. You're being confrontational for no reason whatsoever

all I ever did was state facts. The way elections are done now is not conducive to paper ballots - at least in the (many) places that have that many contests on the same ballot.

Since the election process in the United States is not, constitutionally, under the control of the Federal government, but is locally decided, any State (or even county) that wants to do it your way can do it today. It would not even require passing laws in most cases - just changing regulations. And, by the way, you are very wrong about the idea that "power lies in the Presidency and in the Congress". That is not how this country was founded, and although Federal powers are a lot more now than they were supposed to be (as we saw just yesterday in that SC decision) a lot of power is still local.

You don't have to talk to me about the compromise. Sure, I agree, it is a good one - does that help you? I don't decide how the elections are conducted. The local authorities decide that. Those are the ones that need to be approached with the need to switch to this arrangement.

As for European view of our elections - they would find a lot of things to object to. They would find the fact that the Senate is not democratic (in the sense that one Senator may be elected by 20 million people and another by 1 million) objectionable. They may find the idea of electoral college and Presidents being elected even if losing popular vote objectionable. They may find the idea that the President is elected for exactly four years and elections' dates are set in stone and cannot be advanced objectionable. But then, we are not Europe. They have their system, with their weaknesses, and we have ours.

[truckin]

19. Why do you think a DRE machine would handle a complex

ballot better than a paper ballot? In my state, CT, we have a requirement that a DRE must provide a full faced ballot if we purchase the DREs. How would we comply with this regulation if we have a lengthly complex ballot that you describe? Also, how long do you think it would take each person to vote on a DRE with that many choices to make? 15 minutes, 1/2 half hour? If it takes each person 15 minutes one DRE machine would only be able to handle 56 voters in a 14 hour voting day. At $3,000 - $4,000 per machine this is a big cost for local municipalities to handle. Also, each machine must be programmed to handle the complex ballot you describe by the voting machine company. This is another considerable cost that will recur every election. What if the machines malfunction, break down or there is a loss of power? These problems have happenned over and over with DREs. You could have lines the length of the ones in Ohio in November 2004 or worse not be able to have the election on the planned day. Now you've added even more cost and inconvenienced the voters who tend to vote at a pathetically low rate already. I could continue but I fail to see how DREs will handle a complex ballot any better than a paper ballot and they are less accurate, more costly and much more prone to hacking and tampering.

[Internut]

20. All the issues you raise are correct -

but I assure you that DREs, when properly programmed, can count the votes a lot more reliably than people can when there are 50 to 100 races on the ballot. I cannot even imagine the process of counting 50 races on the ballot manually. You said the machines are costly - want to do a calculation on how much it would cost to count by hand?

For a county 300,000 ballots * 50 contests * 10 seconds to count/record each contest = 41666 man/hours (with no breaks etc). Consider that it takes at least two counters for each ballot so that no cheating is going on - that's 83,333 man/hours. At $15/hr (and you would have to pay this much to get qualified people to do the incredibly boring work) that's $1.25M. That's a lot of money for a county. To do this in a week, working 8-hour days, you would need more than 2,000 people.

Basically, we have to stop having all these contests on the same ballot. All the other countries that are given as examples have separate elections for all these contests, and they do not have the "propositions" system that we have, and (I think) do not have as many elected positions - I don't think judges are elected in most countries, and all the little dog catcher/commissioners etc. positions are just appointed.

[truckin]

21. According to Miami-Dade County Elections Supervisor, Lester

Sola, elections with paper ballots are 3 times less expensive than with DREs. Miami-Dade has recently conducted elections using both methods and have found DREs to be so much more expensive that they are scrapping $24.5 million of them. Here is a link to an article that gives more details about their experience with DREs.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/miami/sfl-delections28may28,0,6680437.story

[Internut]

22. Note that he did not suggest to hand-count

those ballots. Sure, paper with optical scanning to count is cheap, and, I think, is the optimal solution - but that is not what we were talking about upthread. What people are all fired up about is hand-counting, and it is just not feasible. See my calculation above, but for Miami-Dade do the calc using 34 contests and 778K total ballots

http://www.citydebate.com/florida/miamibeach/stories/0110240403.htm

[Fly by night]

23. "All other counties ... have separate elections for all these contests."

That's not the case at all. In the half dozen states I have lived in, we handle everything put before the voters in the same number of elections as most counties -- every other year, primaries and general elections. While some states stagger their state and local elections with national ones, very few do. So the typical election is not at all what you postulate in your arguments.

Now I agree that states that allow every numb-nuts to put an issue on the ballot might consider staggering their elections to make them less cumbersome, and that would be a good idea (with 300 measures to vote on) whether the election used paper ballots, DREs or a show of hands.

But we could find vote counters for free in my county IF we could get back to an election system that everyone trusts. I still think high school honor societies would do the counting just for the honor and recognition of it. If not them, we middle Tennesseans are neither more lazy, less intelligent or less patriotic than the French people. So we could work it out and we would work it out to protect our vote and save our democracy if given a chance.

VVPB and MRMR -- that's the ticket.

[Internut]

24. Notice I did not say "all other counties" -

I said "all other countries". There is a difference.

[Fly by night]

25. Sorry I misread it. But the number of races in most US counties ...

... in all elections is still doable in a VVPB/MRMR system.

And by the way, under a "mandatory random manual recount (MRMR) system, we would start by only randomly counting precincts that contain 5-10% of the ballots for the initial recount. If the optical scanner or the DREs correctly counted the votes in those precincts that were randomly selected for a manual recount, then we would not have to count the rest of the ballots.

BUT, and this is a big BUT, if the 5-10% MRMR finds significant discrepencies between the MRMR and the reported vote by the machines, THEN (and only then) would we recount all the ballots.

Then if we continue to find major discrepencies, we would accept the hand count as accurate and we would proceed to send the machine manufacturers and any officials who facilitated their attempted election fraud to prison for 20 years.

Now how's that for a plan?

[Internut]

26. Ok - but the costs will still be pretty high

unless you recount only certain contests. I think that anything that costs taxpayers more money will be pretty hard to push through in most places.

[Fly by night]

28. Cost is not an issue, particularly compared to wasting $$ on DREs.

Here in Tennessee, we have $56 million in HAVA $$ to spend and if we were to turn our entire state into an optical scan voting system, that would cost us only $13 million. That would leave $43 million to help subsidize MRMR which (again) I don't think would cost anything in my county. That's because enough of us would volunteer our time to count 5-10% of the ballots in every contest to make sure our equipment works and to imprison anyone trying to manipulate the voting system illegally. We could also recoup money spent on fraudulent or manipulated voting systems if any malfeasance is discovered in the MRMR.

BTW, our county's poll watchers in the Orange State make $25 for the entire day, so your $15/hour to count a sample of the ballots has no place in our "reality-based" world.

The recent Miami experience, where they are prepared to make an artificial reef out of the $25+ million they wasted in DREs (because they NEVER functioned properly in the past three years) should be ample proof that your persistent support for DREs has no foundation in cost-based evidence. Other studies already cited on the cost inefficiencies of the DRE systems compared with other, more verifiable systems lets the air out of your argument. I don't expect you to stop, because there may be other financial incentives at work here on this thread.

Besides, the proliferation of non-verifiable systems would be a bad idea if they were given away free, which they decidedly are not. The Open Voting Consortium's analysis of the costs for creating a verifiable DRE system with off-the-shelf (and top-of-the-line) components indicates that this could be done for only about one-third of the cost that Diebold and ES$S are charging for their systems. And that's without the additional costs for maintaining their equipment and for "staffing" elections.

Any way you look at it, non-verifiable DREs provided and maintained by partisan companies using proprietary software are a bad investment, no matter what the cost. On the other hand, being able to protect our votes and save our democracy is priceless.

It's a "no brainer" decision for someone who believes in a governmental system that derives its legitimacy from the "consent of the governed." What is it you believe in anyway?

[Internut]

34. More red herrings

"your persistent support for DREs" - can you show me one post of mine where I supported DREs over other methods of voting?

The only point I am making (and which you seem to be conceding with the "optical scanning" and MRMR) is that "paper ballots, hand counted" is not feasible in the United States. How you can twist this into "persistent support for DREs" I have no idea.

[Wilms]

29. So it's about the money?

I've been following this thread wondering what is the problem.

I recently voted in an election that had a pile of races and initiatives. Three separate color-coded ballots were handed to me.

I marked them with a felt-tipped pen.

No problem.

What's your concern?

[Internut]

32. Ok -

1. How many different contests in that election on those ballots?

2. Were those counted by hand or by optical scanners?

[Wilms]

33. I'm guessing...

But somewhere between 25-30 issues were involved.

They where to be OpScanned at a central location, not at the precinct.

I have little doubt that hand-counting would be possible. In fact, I discussed that with the the poll workers, who suggested hand-counts would be time consuming but possible.

Also, when I told them some of the vulnerabilities of OpScans, they seemed alarmed, not having considered it before.

[Internut]

35. I keep hearing "it is possible" but I never once have

seen an example of it being done. Not in the US, and not anywhere else. Can you show me one example of hand-counting ballots that have 25-30 contests on them? Anywhere?

[Wilms]

38. What's the point? Costs?

It can be done. It's done in Canada if I'm not mistaken.

The counties in white, on this map, use paper ballots that aren't OpScanned, so I take that to mean hand-counted.


more-

http://www.electiondataservices.com/EDSInc_DREoverview.pdf

more, here-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x373950

Are you saying there is a problem with HandCounts? What? (Not knowing of any examples is not a reason.)

[Internut]

39. Once again, for the nth time -

Canada is not a good example because there is only one contest on the ballot. Canadians take one day to count their ballots. Extrapolate that to your county's 25-30 contests.

Look at your map. "Paper" does not mean that it is hand-counted, it could easily be optically scanned. But even if it does - look where those paper counties are located. Deeply rural areas, where they may have 4 or 5 contests, and a couple of dozen ballots per precinct.

[Wilms]

40. .

Re: Paper" does not mean that it is hand-counted, it could easily be optically scanned."

On the map, there is a separate category for "OpScan", so I'm not keen on assuming the "Paper" category means OpScan.

As far as Canada running one race, I'll settle for one race for a start. The Presidency.

So your point is time consumption?

Just trying to see where your concern lies.

[Internut]

41. In order to have only one race on the ballot, you would

have to change a lot of laws in a lot of states, and revamp the whole system of voting for the Senate and the House. Good luck doing that.

Why do you think every state and every locality try to attach its elections to the elections for the federal offices? It is because people turn out to vote for federal offices, and a lot fewer would do so for local-only elections. Even in the federal elections in off-years (that is, the years in between presidential elections) the turnouts are significantly lower than in the presidential elections (see the graphs at http://mwhodges.home.att.net/voting.htm ). If you start having local-only elections, the turnout will probably drop to single digits.

[Wilms]

55. Who said you would need to hold a separate election? n/t

Are there laws saying you can't have a single race on a ballot.

What's going on, man?

I feel like I'm missing your point.

[Internut]

56. You will have to clarify your question.

Senators and Congressmen are traditionally elected on the same day that the Presidential elections take place, and I don't think that will ever change, since there are "coattails" to be ridden etc. As I pointed out, the states and localities choose to hold other elections on the same day as well, because of the "coattails" and turnouts.

Are there laws that forbid a single race on a ballot? No. Just because it is not forbidden does not mean it will happen.

[Wilms]

57. I'll pass on that.

Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round and Round.

[Fly by night]

18. There are 3,017 counties and you've shown us only two examples.

Once again, my guess is that most ballots in most elections have many fewer races/referenda (under ten) on them than your two examples. That certainly is the case in every state where I have voted (Tennessee, Mississippi, New Mexico, Georgia, Texas, Wyoming and Maryland).

I also agree with Pooka Fey above that I'm in absolutely no hurry when it comes to determining accurately and conclusively (and in a trustworthy manner) the "consent of the governed". In fact, the pro-"vapor trails" advocates like yourself have used election "speed" as an argument almost as much as the Hitler apologists who minimized his "excesses" by continually repeating that at least he made the trains run on time. Slower trains and verifiable elections -- that's the ticket.

Electronic voting is the "astroturf" of our election process -- fancy, flashy, fast AND expensive -- and very likely to seriously injure the people (e.g., voters) who use it. We spent millions in the 70s and 80s installing astroturf in our football stadiums, and millions more in the 90s removing it. Sometimes "improvements" are anything but. (Think thalidomide. It successfully reduced morning sickness in pregnant women, but at a horrendous cost.)

And the 2004 election where over 90% of the electronic "glitches" favored Bush provides all the evidence I need to see that this system is corruptible and insufficient for the important task of transferring power from the people to the politicians. Thus, the "vapor trails" advocates' arguments are specious and their motives transparent.

[Fly by night]

13. Let's all be French for a moment and thank the editor who ran this piece.

Sandra Roberts, the Editorial Page Editor of the Nashville Tennessean, is representing (with her decision to run the OP) what print journalism should look like around this issue. The Tennessean has covered many of our local gatherings, including running a big article before the 1/2/05 gathering that significantly increased our crowd there. This newspaper also sent a reporter to attend most of our three day "Nash-ional" conference and to write several excellent articles on it. In addition, Ms. Roberts has run two of Robert Koehler's columns and has published several election reform-related LTTE. The decision to run this piece on the French election was another strong sign of that newspaper's -- and Sandra's -- equally strong desire to protect our votes and save our democracy.

Please take a minute to thank Sandra for running the OP and encourage her to editorialize about VVPB and MRMR often. There is a big meeting happening in Memphis June 19-22 where the county election administrators and commissioners will hear about DREs. We will be there en masse so they will HEAR about DREs-NOT also. That would be a great meeting for the Tennessean to cover and then to editorialize about thereafter. Just a suggestion to all you quick letter writers.

Sandra's email is [e-mail] Thanks kindly.

[Pooka Fey]

16. Done. Vive la France!

Thanks for posting the link to Ms. Roberts' email, and the gentle reminder that we need to support those few journalists who still take their 4th estate responsibilities seriously.
:toast:

[Peace Patriot]

31. Done! Thank you, Sandra Roberts and The Tennessean! n/t

[Peace Patriot]

27. In further answer to Internut...

I think electronic voting could conceivably be honest, transparent and verifiable--it seems to have worked in Venezuela (open source code; voter receipt; and fingerprinting)--but this is very much NOT THE CASE in electronic voting in the U.S. NOW.

And we have to ask WHY!

If the Bush Cartel had wanted a verifiable election, why didn't we have one?

Why did they blockade a paper trail in Congress (one third of the country voted with no paper trail whatsoever--let alone a paper ballot)? Why did they underfund the federal election monitoring commission (EAC)? Why did they permit secret, proprietary programming code in electronic voting machines and central tabulators? Why did they permit voting machine companies with Bush partisans and major Bush donors as CEOs or owners to become major providers of election machinery?

We are NOT in a neutral position here, trying to decide the best way to hold elections! Our election system has been DECIDED FOR US, with all of the above featured non-transparency and partisan control. And there is overwhelming evidence that this INHERENTLY FRAUDULENT election system produced a fraudulent result.

Ergo, do we judge Diebold & brethren dispassionately--as if they had a clean slate?

No!

We must revolt against them! Throw them out of every state in the union! REJECT electronic voting COMPLETELY, to clean this filthy election system up, and start over!

There is no redeeming Diebold or ES&S.

Furthermore, vote counting should be done in a way that every voter understands. It's my conviction that MOST voters have no idea what happens to their vote after it leaves the polling place and gets shot at the speed of light into Diebold's central tabulators. (I don't like the Venezuelan system for this reason--do all the poor peasants really understand how their vote is counted--and if they don't, can't it be taken over and manipulated in the future?). Electronic voting happens too fast, and too obscurely!

Give me a long table. Give me citizen observers, and a handcount of every vote--and upon completion, immediate posting at the polling place and on the internet for all to see, before that vote goes anywhere else.

I think that's the only way, right now. Until everyone is computer literate--and programming literate--and until we have rock solid security in electronic voting, and open programming code with machines and tabulation run by non-partisan entities, and a paper ballot backup, we are extremely vulnerable to election fraud--and have already been victimized by it.

I don't care how long it takes! Days, weeks! And, frankly, I don't care how much it costs--although the evidence strongly demonstrates that electronic voting is, in addition to everything else, far, far more expensive than older systems, and includes many hidden costs such as the permanent need for servicing by PRIVATE COMPANIES (yet more insecurity), and constant re-training.

Paper ballots, hand-counted by volunteers--the way it has always been done.

The complexity of the ballot is a RED HERRING. It is a NON-ISSUE. I wouldn't care if there were a thousand choices. (And Internut's highly selective choices of complex ballots does NOT establish that over-complex ballots are common OR a problem.)

One other comment on Internut: ONLY the Federal government can send your son or daughter to be killed or maimed in an unjust, never-ending war! ONLY the Federal government can slaughter over 100,000 innocent people in a foreign land without your consent. ONLY the Federal government can bankrupt the country. ONLY the Federal government can write laws and promulgate directives that become the law of the land (with the one exception of state legislative power to pass amendments to the Constitution, in addition to Congressional power to do so). ONLY the Federal government can perpetrate the Patriot Act. So, it is the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT that the people need to regain control over. The Bush Cartel is out-of-control and ruining the country in every way imaginable.

For that reason, I would agree to separate the election of federal officials from local elections, IF complexity of the ballot WERE a problem (which has not been established). I wouldn't push it myself, because I don't care how long elections take. Time is irrelevant. ACCURACY is the ONLY criterion that should be applied to election procedures.

(Canada conducts paper ballot elections in ONE DAY. As has been proven time and again, centralization and computerization often REDUCES efficiency, and furthermore destroys what may be first priority values: HUMAN values. The more local, the more personal, the more efficient things are, in many cases. I think this is true of vote counting, voter registration and voter verification--concerning which centralization and computerization makes it EASIER to unfairly purge voters and manipulate the vote.)

[Internut]

30. "Canada conducts paper ballot elections in ONE DAY"

is a red herring. Time and time again I tell you that Canadian (and other countries') parliamentary elections have one race on the ballot. Of course it takes only one day to count. You say my examples of 50 races are extreme? Why don't you go to your own county's BOE and ask for the ballot they used on Nov 2. Come back and tell us how many different contests there were on that ballot. I bet it will be more than one. If it is 15, you will be at the low end of the scale.

Your post is full of "I". "I don't care how much it costs". "I don't care how long it takes.". The world does not run according to your whims and you do have to take what other people think into consideration. Part of that consideration is that taxpayers in general do care how much something that their taxes pay for costs, and voters probably do want to know the results of the election within a couple of days.

And as for "Paper ballots, hand-counted by volunteers--the way it has always been done." - certainly not for the last 70 years or so. You have a funny definition of "always".

[Peace Patriot]

36. You are ignoring the obvious, Internut:

Secret, proprietary programming code, owned and controlled by Bush partisans--one of them a Bush-Cheney campaign chair!
No paper backup in one third of the country.
One third of the country was unauditable and unrecountable.
And the rest of it was inadequately audited, and almost none of it recounted.
Numerous machine "malfunctions--most if it suspicious (such as touchscreens changing Kerry votes to Bush votes in 86 of 88 reported incidents).
Billions of dollars infused into the states for purchse of shoddy, unreliable, and extremely hackable voting systems--and a whole new layer of "experts" and "professionals" between people and their government.

You're so concerned about the cost of government? What about Bush's astronomical federal deficit, and the squandering of unaccountable billions in Iraq? Why aren't you advocating against that--instead of wasting your time here trying to convince defrauded voters that verifiable elections are too expensive?

How do you answer these things, Internut? We don't trust these companies, and never will. How would you make it right? What would do to make this fraudulent election system honest and transparent?

[Internut]

37. You and I object to ballots being counted

without any paper record that can be audited afterwards.

The "proprietary code" has nothing to do with it. If there is a way to audit the "proprietary code"'s counts by using hard copy, then the fact that the code is not open is irrelevant.

You somehow make the jump from the above to "only paper ballots hand counted are reliable". I disagree, and have not seen any support from anyone that "paper ballots, hand counted" is even feasible in the US election system.

[Pooka Fey]

42. Paper ballots, hand counted -- READ THE ORIGINAL POST

The original post lays out a lovely transparent PROCEDURE for conducting an election - using paper ballots, hand counted. It was not only FEASIBLE for one of the most modern and technologically advanced countries in Europe, IT WAS CARRIED OUT.

THERE'S YOUR FUCKING EVIDENCE THAT IT IS A FEASIBLE SYSTEM.

Your relentless and strident contention has been "It won't work in the U.S.". You present this contention as if it were an unquestionable FACT. It is not a fact, it is YOUR OPINION.

Your arguments against paper ballots, hand counted:

1) U.S. elections are too complicated with too many races and issues on the ballot for hand counting.
---------------------answer: 1) Your argument wasn't sufficiently supported to make this assertion. 2) Separate the Federal elections from the local elections and measures, using two separate ballots--the Federal races on paper to be hand-counted, all the other issues can be fed into cyberspace and God knows what will happen to them.

2) Paper ballots hand counted is too expensive.
---------------------answer: See above posts regarding astronomical costs associated with machine technology. The "it's too expensive" argument is just not true.

3) The voters won't tolerate the increased expense.
-----------------------answer: Two answers - 1st: It will not be more expensive. 2nd: American voters have been financially raped by the ** administration with barely a peep out of them (with the notable exception of DUers and other progressives). See above posts regarding the rapidly approaching bankruptcy of the U.S. government.

4) It's too time consuming to hand-count votes.
-----------------------answer: See numerous posts up thread; see original post. See statements that we'd rather know that our votes were counted properly than that they were counted quickly. See historical accuracy of exit polling to determine the winner of elections and to corroborate election results.

SEE VIDEO OF OHIO VOTERS WAITING IN THE RAIN IN LONG LINES FOR UP TO AND OVER TEN HOURS IN ORDER TO EXERCISE THEIR RIGHT TO VOTE.

If people will stand in line for an entire day, as long as it takes to cast their vote; why would you put forth the opinion that people will be unwilling to wait to discover the results??????
-----------------------------------------------------

You need to educate yourself on this issue. Most of us who post in here have been reading up on the 2004 election for months. Don't tell us that we can choose what voting system we want until you can write me an essay about Kenneth Blackwell, the allocation of voting machines in Ohio, the lines, the lock-down of one precinct due to a false "Homeland Security" alert, the utter disregard for Ohio election laws during the Green/Libertarian launched recount which DUers and others raised a hell of a lot of money to finance (so the taxpayers weren't affected at all - and who remembers how much money we raised? Was it $200K ?) Put in a paragraph about how the 2004 election results were challenged for the first time in over 100 years by Barbara Boxer and Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, with nary a peep about it in the mainstream media.

If you write us that essay, then you can come and argue in 04 Election Results that if I and others want a different system than the current system, all we have to do is say so. There are numerous compilation threads, which I can't link for you, unfortunately - but probably someone else can. The tone of your posts suggests that you have a lot of catching up to do on this issue.

[Internut]

44. Your whole premise rests on this:

"Separate the Federal elections from the local elections and measures, using two separate ballots--the Federal races on paper to be hand-counted, all the other issues can be fed into cyberspace and God knows what will happen to them."

I wouldn't mind seeing that, and yes, if they were separated, it would be possible to hand-count those ballots. Realistically, this is just NOT going to happen. As I pointed out to you before, the voting system in the United States is completely decentralized. The Constitution does not specify exactly how the states are supposed to select the electors for President, and it would take changing the Constitution to allow the federal government to set voting standards such as separate ballots for federal races. Lacking federal control, this would have to be implemented on the local level, county by county and state by state, and you already have seen in the Ohio case just how open the local BOEs are to entertaining "outside meddlers'" ideas.

[Pooka Fey]

48. So now that you've acknowledged that paper ballots hand counted WILL WORK

in the U.S. --- in other words - YOU STAND CORRECTED....You have seamlessly shifted your contention to the next roadblock towards increased transparency and accountability in U.S. elections:

(Internut writes): "Realistically, this is just NOT going to happen. ...it would take changing the Constitution to allow the federal government to set voting standards such as separate ballots for federal races."

Has the Constitution ever been changed in the history of the U.S. to set national voting standards ???
1) the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the civil war era, ensuring that African-Americans could vote in U.S. elections.
2) the 20th amendment to the Constitution of 1920, ensuring that women could vote in U.S. elections.

And has a federal law ever been enacted which dictated to individual states how they would run their own elections?

3) the Voting Rights Act of 1965, (blatantly ignored and unenforced in the 2004 election), a federal law to ensure that individual states (i.e. Southern states) would not be permitted to turn minority voters away from the polls.

So your newest assertion of impossibility, that we can never change the Constitution to ensure uniform voting standards, IS ALSO FALSE. I await with bated breath to read what your next insurmountable roadblock would be. The fact that we already have a totalitarian system in place, therefore everything is hopeless? We may be in agreement there.

However, we've changed the constitution to establish national standards for elections, and set federal law mandating state's election procedures before; and we can do it again. Our democratic congressional heroes such as Barbara Boxer, Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, and John Conyers are working on a constitutional amendment to guarantee all Americans the right to vote, and moreover, HAVE CONFIDENCE THAT THEIR VOTES WERE FAIRLY COUNTED, as we speak.

Your closing sentence: "...you already have seen in the Ohio case just how open the local BOEs are to entertaining "outside meddlers'" ideas."

"OUTSIDE MEDDLERS???" Which specific "outside meddlers", (so petty and unfair as to upset a state's prerogative to conduct a fraudulent election), are you speaking of??? The Cobb, LaMarche, and the Kerry/Edwards campaigns--the 2004 democratic, green, and libertarian candidates? The citizens of Ohio? Citizens of the U.S. ?? OMFG.

[Internut]

49. This is silly

of course if you have one or two contests per ballot paper ballots hand counted would work. I never once said that was not true. Your "gotcha" style of argument is ridiculous.

We don't live in fantasy world. In real world, there are dozens of contests on ballts in the US, as I have demonstrated. You refuse to acknowledge that.

I never said it is "impossible" to change the Constitution in order to change the voting system. I just said it's not going to happen. Your opinion on it may vary.

As for your last paragraph - save your outrage. Yes, the BOEs considered the Democratic, Green and Libertarian observers who descended on them "outside meddlers". You disagree that they did?

[Pooka Fey]

50. Consider this my deleted post in response to an overload of sanctimonious

self-inflated rhetoric. I've pointed out your relentless negativism up and down the thread is unjustified, and you reply by calling my careful rebuttals "silly", and that they are the musings of someone living in a "fantasy world."

Exactly what is your reason for posting in 2004 Election Results and Discussion? Which, since you're new here, is where we discuss HOW TO MAKE IMPROVEMENTS TO THE CURRENT U.S. ELECTION SYSTEM?

[Internut]

51. The rebuttal was "silly" because you "carefully"

managed to accuse me of saying things that I never did, as I pointed out to you (and you ignored).

US system does need improvement. There are ways to improve it that are realistic (such as requiring partial audits, requiring auditable paper trail etc). and there are ways to improve it that are unrealistic (such as the Constitution amendment process, where you expect 3/4 of the states to vote for something that takes their power away).

[claudiajean]

52. Thank you, Internut, for some very reasoned comments.

You are absolutely right, and there are many seasoned election reform activists who agree with you.

As someone who has been actively involved in progressive election reform since 1995, VVPB and robust auditing are the keys to true election system reform in the US with our state and local structure.

BALLOTS! HAnd! COOUNTED! ALL THE TIME! ALL 750 RACES! FOR DAYS AND DAYS! WITH NO END IN SIGHT! is neither a sensible nor a responsible approach to elections systems to ensure accuracy, transparency, and efficacy.

[Fly by night]

43. In my precinct, in November 2004, there were seven contests on the ballot.

[Internut]

45. Ok - so it was more than one.

Why do you keep trying to compare that to the "one contest on the ballot" Canadian system?

[Fly by night]

46. They don't have one race at a time, just one race on each ballot

I imagine you could do "paper ballots, hand-counted" several different ways. You could print each contect on a separate ballot and then sort and count the separate contests separately; or you could print all the contests on a single ballot and then count that same ballot as many times as there are races on it.

Either way, "paper ballots, hand-counted" is not complicated. And it works for 90%+ of the democracies on the planet.

But once again, with any system that provides a VVPB and for which MRMR is conducted, fraud would be able to be detected and the evildoers put in prison. That system works without counting every ballot UNLESS some hanky-panky is uncovered with the MRMR.

What's wrong with VVPB + MRMR? Though you've been on this thread all day, I haven't seen you address that question yet. Wanna now?

[Internut]

47. Sure - VVPB+MRMR

is way better than the current system. If it can be shown to the BOEs to cost as much or less than the current ways, it can be sold to them fairly easily I presume. But it is not "paper ballots, hand counted", is it?

And yes, it is only one ballot in the general elections in Canada, where the voter selects only one candidate.

http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/prbpubs/bp437-e.htm#electiondaytxt

[Fly by night]

53. You are misreading the Canadian manual and don't understand VVPB and MRMR.

The Canadian manual to which your link refers says that Canadians do indeed vote for only one candidate per race, but that is further explained as a procedure that is followed as opposed to proportional representation or instant run-off elections where voters would vote for more than one candidate per race (while rank-ordering them.) You need to re-read your own link to understand what is being said there.

Furthermore, VVPB and MRMR are precisely "paper ballots, hand-counted." The PB stands for paper ballots, and the second MR stands for "manual recounts". If the initial random hand-recount of a portion of the ballots reveals that the machine counts (however derived) are in error, then all "paper ballots" are "manually recounted". So while the MRMR does not start with a 100% hand count of the ballots, it can certainly end up there if the election thieves who have stolen our recent elections try to maintain their same old ways.

Once again, I can be pragmatic and agree that as long as we institute VVPB and MRMR as safeguards for any electronic vote counting systems, we could continue to use some electronic vote counting procedures. However, my heart (and my pocketbook) can certainly see the appeal of the "paper ballots, all hand-cast and all hand-counted" approach. It would not be a difficult procedure to implement in Tennessee.

By the way, I am still waiting on your example of individual ballots in the US where voters have faced 300 separate contests/referenda. The examples you cited were much smaller than that. In my 35+ years of voting, I have never faced a ballot with more than a baker's dozen separate contests and referenda on it, and that's after living and voting in ten separate states.

[Internut]

54. I see you're learning from the other poster to assign things to me

that I never said.

I never once stated that there are ballots in US where voters have faced 300 separate contests/referenda. You're welcome to find a post of mine where I say that.

About Canadian elections - look, I KNOW that there is one ballot ONLY that the voter marks up in federal parliamentary elections in Canada. I am not talking about local elections where there may be 2 or 3 ballots. I am talking about federal parliamentary elections. I went to the trouble of asking a Canadian who voted. Did you? The reason for that is simple - the elections are not held on any set date, like in the US, but whenever they are needed. Thus, they do not coincide with any local terms of office.

[Fly by night]

58. Thanks for your notes to the Tennessean editor -- they have run ...

... two more election-related articles since Sunday. Hopefully, we can get them to editorialize for VVPB and MRMR soon.

For those of you who might still want to write, Sandra Roberts' email address (she's the Editorial Page Editor) is [e-mail] .

[tommcintyre]

59. I talked about this with a French friend...

I described what is in this article, down to the: paper ballots, independent observers, and the public counting.

She said "But of course! Why would anyone vote any differently!"

Then, I explained how WE vote, often with no hard copy record, and counts in private...

She was speechless. :(