My word processor won’t process; my browser won’t browse and my email will neither send nor receive. I borrowed a computer to post this message.
Post your own stories as comments here if I dont’ get back to cover the election. This is known as an Open Thread. So take it away . . . . .
Between now and the June primary your county must publicly test its voting machines. You can participate–and not just by watching.
You can call the county auditor for the schedule or ask your political party chair who should have been notified as well. Contact the Rs or the Ds where you live.
Iowa code chapter 52 provides for a test using “a pre-audited group of ballots” including a provision that “Any observer may submit an additional test group of ballots which, if so submitted, shall also be tested.”
Your test group is limited to ten ballots, but they may be the only independently created ballots in the test. It is common for officials to run canned tests provided for them by the same company that sold them the machine and then set up the ballot definition for the next election. In that case it is only the programmer testing himself.
“As near as I can tell election departments use no formal or written test procedures anywhere in the country,” according to Wisconsin software quality engineer John Washburn.
Independent tests are in order. See this post for some ideas on how to mark ballots that will reveal much about the calibration of ballot scanners (and what can happen when you don’t do a good job).
This pdf file contains 50 pages of explanation by Washburn on creating your own test deck of ballots. If that is too much to digest, try the one page Executive Summary.
The full document tells how to test touchscreens as well as how to fill in paper ballots that scanners read.
There are stories after every election of uncounted ballots and touchscreens that didn’t behave. Much of this could be prevented with good independent testing of the machinery before the election, according to Washburn.
Believe it or not there really is a good, rocking tune about voting machines:
They lost my vote I made my choice
Does anybody care to hear my voice
They lost my vote was that the plan
Nobody, nobody nobody nobody knows that I took a stand
You can see artist Ellen Bukstel here and even get a free Mp3 of the song.
Let’s dedicate it to Diebold and all those election supervisors who don’t really know how Diebold’s equipment works but want to use it anyway.
Democrats in the second, third and fifth districts all did better than my own fourth district platform committee on the question of unaudited and paperless voting. All of them at least mention “paper,” although the weak wording in the third district barely even manages that:
We support using paper ballots for recounts.
The fifth distirct has some familiar wording–I think I wrote it! I circulated a draft resolution to several counties and it included the phrase “human eyes.” Here is what survived in the fifth district’s platform:
We support: All computer systems used for voting in Iowa elections must produce a paper copy of the ballot that is verifiable by the voter before it is cast and that will be countable by human eyes.
The most ambitious wording comes from the second district. It calls for three improvements in voting:
We Support:
Voter-verified paper audit trail, mandatory random audits of at least two percent of precincts, and public disclosure of software used on voting equipment;
The committee working on the state platform has good planks and weak planks to work from. The main value of this debate is probably what takes place in the committee itself. Here’s hoping the people from the second and fifth districts understand their own platforms and can convince the other districts to adopt the stronger wording.
Thanks to Lynda Waddington for tracking down these platforms.
I’m going on spring break, but I’ll leave a reading list for you.
To keep up with the news visit votetrustusa or blackboxvoting.
To learn some good ideas on how voting machines can be tested, see the pdf on test ballots I recommended before.
To play with a fraudulent voting machine go here.
So see a video on the sensibility of using paper to record votes, go here.
During break you have time to read the rather short federal bill HR 550 that addresses paper trails, audits, and secret source codes.
You can look at the Iowa Code regarding voting machines at this page, and send me your ideas on how to modernize it for the digital age.
Once your reading is complete, you can prepare to meet your Congressman or Senator when they are around the state over the next two weeks. And plan to attend your political party district convention later this month to lobby auditors and legislators for trustworthy elections in Iowa.
The next post will be after Easter when we will report on how some ambitious Iowans talked Rep Jim Leach into co-sponsoring HR 550 last week when they met in Washington.
Ballot box guardians often allege that nonexistent people are signing up to vote and may be stealing elections. They cite cases of voter drives that register Ronald McDonald, Donald Duck, Donald Trump, and maybe a pet or two. They are correct that this actually happens. However, they get the analysis wrong.
These shenanigans could be curtailed by same day registration, but that is a post for another season. Let’s just consider whether we must card every voter in order to catch phony registrations.
To register in Iowa you must reveal your driver’s license number or the last four digits of your social security number. That is enough to prevent duplicate attempts to register and enough to establish your identity. So the cartoon characters and the pets and the con artists would all get weeded out at the registration desk. No phantoms will even advance to the polls.
There is a subset of phantoms that arose after the 1993 Motor Voter Act. That law halted the practice of purging the registration rolls. Prior to 1993 many states demanded voters actually vote every once in a while or be removed from the roles. Unfortunately they never notified people that they were being dropped.
Now they can’t be dropped–even if they move away. So some election guardians fear the imposters will show up pretending to be these long departed folks and will cast ballots for them. These imposters will be foiled.
While few people tell the auditor that they are moving, nearly everyone tells the Postmaster. Iowa voters who leave a forwarding address cannot be dropped from the voting rolls, but they get put on a list of inactive voters. If they (or their imposters) show up at the polls, Iowa law requires them to produce an ID.
So this is already covered, hopefully to Jacobs’s satisfaction. There is no need to require ID cards from everyone on the pretext of defending election integrity. Meanwhile there is a serious need to require paper ballots from every voting system. And a few other things, too, like open source software and random audits of the process.
If you know a way to impersonate a voter, tell me about it in the comment section.
Professor Jones said lots of provocative things about voting machines when he spoke to legislators March 8. He surely made a case for modernizing Iowa’s voting machine processes. But it was not the big news of the day.
As I indicated Friday, the paper trail bill is held up for other reasons. The key road blocker wants to add an irrelevant rider to the bill. This is so maddening and so clearly unneeded that I intend to dwell on it a bit. It will take some time and some space, but what is space on the internet?
Representative Jacobs of Des Moines wants to require that all voters take their government issued id card to the polls. No card–no vote. She says that this protects the integrity of elections. I ask, “Protect elections from what?”
There are four possible answers. She will protect us from scoundrels who might impersonate dead voters. She will protect us from aliens who vote, from felons who vote or from phantom voters. Today we consider the threat from beyond the grave.
Suppose Schemer the Scoundrel wants to vote in this fateful election. He fears some bond issue will pass and that will mean higher property taxes. But he knows what to do! Schemer will vote as himself and as two other people.
Schemer has calculated that only about 200 votes will be cast in this race and it could be a close race. So by committing this crime two times in one day, he can add two more votes (1%) to the vote total and MAYBE tip the balance. It is worth the risk, he thinks. His property taxes are damn high already.
Schemer has been reading the newspaper and has kept his ear to the ground. He knows about Civic Virtue who was killed in a car wreck Sunday morning while traveling out of state. And he knows about Senior Citizen who died Sunday evening. He will vote for both of them. He is lucky that the recently dead voters lived in two precincts different from his own, because his own voting place has been run by the same poll workers for years and they know Schemer on sight.
Schemer is a true politico. He cares deeply about all elections and always votes. He always thought it was unfair that his vote was cancelled by people who could barely recite the Bill of Rights. Only someone this passionate about elections is likely to risk arrest to make sure he gets the result he wants.
What are the risks for our Schemer? Both the dead voters were about the same age as Schemer, so that risk is small. But, still . . .
What if the a poll worker personally knew the dead voters? When the first poll worker calls out “Civic Virtue is here to vote,” maybe the others will know he is not really Civic Virtue. Or maybe someone who is poll watching will know. Nah. There aren’t poll watchers in these local elections. But what about the other people in line to vote? Nah. There won’t be lines.
Of course that is another risk. If the polls are quiet, Schemer will be the focus of attention. So either way–busy polls or empty polls– the risk of being recognized as an imposter is still present.
There is a second risk. Schemer must sign in. Can he make his signature look like the signature of someone else? How can he get access to one of Civic Virtue’s signatures so he can practice forging it?
There is a third risk. What if the dead traveler voted absentee before he left on his trip? What if Senior Citizen has voted absentee for years and years? Perhaps Schemer can just pretend to be forgetful and say “Oh yeah, I guess I did already vote. Sorry to bother you.” He may be able to escape without being identified later. Come to think of it, Schemer had better wear sunglasses. Maybe a distracting hat would help, too.
But not too distracting. That might trigger the fourth risk. The election worker might ask to see identification! Iowa Code 49.77 (3) states:
“A precinct election official may require of the voter unknown to the official, identification upon which the voter’s signature or mark appears.”
Oh oh. Now our scoundrel is in over his head. No–think faster—he can say he “forgot” his id at home and RUN out the door to go get it. Whew! That was a close one.
You see Iowa law does not require voters to present identification, but election workers can request it if they deem it wise.
So how likely is it that our scoundrel will actually vote in place of dead voters? He must know who to impersonate and be about the same age as they were. He must forge their signatures. He must not be recognized by anyone or accidentally arouse suspicion by voting for someone who has already voted an absentee ballot. He must have a persuasive but fake id card or hope he is not asked for his card.
This scheme is preposterous. Those old familiar stories about dead Chicagoans casting votes required corrupt election workers in addition to scheming impersonators. ID cards won’t protect against corrupt election officials. Besides, we don’t have any of them in Iowa. Jacobs is insulting our poll workers if she thinks dead people are voting in this state.
We should not allow this nonsense to stop good legislation like the paper trail bill.
There’s a white flag on the play. Deputy Secretary of State Charlie Krogmeier has been called for “piling on.” There will be a 15 yard penalty.
No doubt taking courage from my own effort to point out the errors in an editorial in the Clinton Herald, Krogmeier makes the same points I made last week. The newspaper had mistakenly blamed the Secretary of State for requiring Clinton county’s change of voting machines. Since I had already tackled the topic, Krogmeier could have merely referred the Herald to this blog. There is no penalty for that.
Actually there should be two penalties on Krogmeier. The additional penalty is for the mistake he made in his letter, wherein he claimed the new voting machines are “more accurately tested” than the old ones. He should have been present to see the so-called test that Iowa applied to some new gadgetry on January 30. It took me three days to tell the tale of sausage making that is Iowa’s certification of voting machines.
Another 15 yards.
One of the Iowa websites that links to this Iowa Voters blog thinks I ought to do this. I have had this Declaration of Independence on my “about” page, but that makes it a pretty timid declaration, since few people see it. So in case it matters to anyone, here it is:
Declaration of Independence
This website and this blog are not funded by any think tank, foundation or secret donors. It is not affiliated with nor does it receive money from any government agency, political party, candidate, PAC, or voting machine company. That is more than you can say for the Election Center.
To quote Spencer Tracy in that 1948 movie, “I paid for this microphone.”
So did I. I paid for this blog. It costs less than I expected.