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NY Rejects E-Voting, DOJ Trying to Force the Issue
CompaniaHill writes "Hastily passed in the wake of the 2000 election mess, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) supposedly offered funding to help states update their voting systems. In reality, the short deadlines have been used to push the sale of untested and uncertified new e-voting systems. Many states continue to demonstrate that the new e-voting machines are not reliable. The New York State Board of Elections (NYSBOE) took the time to pass their own voting legislation with additional testing and certification standards which far exceed the HAVA standards. As a result, they missed the HAVA deadlines. In March 2006, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued New York to comply with HAVA. Now, the DOJ is serving a motion to try to take away New York's right to select and acquire their own voting machine systems — in effect, to force e-voting machines on New York anyway. At the moment it's too soon to say how the NYSBOE will respond."
Well, even as a liberal, the Florida decision wasn't quite so clear cut as that. They ruled that a partial recount was illegal- just recounting certain key democratic counties. They didn't rule on the legality of a full recount. I happen to agree with them on that- you can't cherry pick what to count. Recount them all or recount none.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
The issue isn't one of Congressional authority, it's of civil rights, which of course the DoJ DOES have the authority to enforce, since they are guaranteed by the Constitution. No state has the ability to pass voting legislation that contradicts the US Constitution by, for example, making it more difficult for black voters to register or vote. That's why the DoJ has been monitoring elections in much of the South for so long.
Of course, the whole point of this legal showdown is that HAVA falls far short of guaranteeing anyone's voting rights, so the DoJ would have to show in court that this particular half-measure they're trying to force is superior to NY state's particular half-measure in guaranteeing voting rights. That is far from a sure thing, since the flaws in electronic voting machines are so easily demonstrable and explainable to even the least technical jurist.
So yes, the DoJ certainly has both the right (and responsibility) to be involved in the voting process, but that doesn't mean they're in control. The courts are the only authority that can say any state's voting equipment is unconstitutional, and I doubt they're going to mandate demonstrably insecure electronic voting if NY state can show them some other means of upholding voter rights.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Disclaimer: I'm a Election Inspector in New York State. All of what I'm about to say is based on my experience running a polling place and what I've read of the New York State Election Law.
as long as there is some type of backup system (perhaps an absentee ballot to use in place of the machine if there isn't a second machine available on-site), it isn't an issue.
We have a backup system. It's called emergency paper ballots. If the machine breaks down we start using them. They are the same paper ballots that are used for affidavit voters (people who claim to be registered but whom aren't in the poll book) but they go into separate envelopes and can't be disputed or challenged. The end result is the same as if you had voted on the machine.
As for the latter, the machine keeps running totals on vote per candidate and total voters. You can't go add a vote for someone without adding to the running total, which is supposed to match up with the election roll count (ie, we have 357 people who voted at this station today but the machine count shows a total of 413 voters). How do you know which of the 56 votes shouldn't count without invalidating all 357 legitimate votes?
You don't. This is going to be a problem with any voting system. You have to trust the Election Inspectors to ensure that people have properly signed the poll book and meet the requirements to vote. I don't see how you can design any voting system (electronic or otherwise) that preserves the anonymous ballot while providing a way to delete votes that were improperly cast.
Not just that, but the machines are also prone to the poll workers, especially if there isn't someone from each party, deciding to vote on behalf of people who never chose to vote
The New York State Election Law mandates that there be at least one poll worker from each major party present at the polling place. Typically there's two Republicans and two Democrats. We schedule our breaks around this -- both Republicans don't go to lunch at the same time for example. Furthermore, if a voter requires assistance and we have to go into the machine with them, at least TWO inspectors have to go into the machine, one from each party. The Election Law defines the two major parties as the parties that had the highest and second highest vote counts in the last Governor's election. So in theory it need not even be the Democrats and Republicans.
The biggest problem we face is the fact that nobody young bothers to volunteer to work as an Election Inspector. The overwhelming majority of us are old retirees. I'm the exception at 26. The political parties and various county board of elections are constantly fighting to retain enough Inspectors. In some poll places we have had to resort to swearing in registered voters (the Election Law allows this) to serve as Inspectors because something happened (in one district both Republican inspectors had heart attacks within an hour of each other, shit you not...) and the County Board wasn't able to get anybody over to our polling place in a timely manner.
There's also a huge difference between somebody who is 26 years old and somebody who is 80. I could take two random people off the street in their 20s or 30s, spend 20 minutes training them and run the busiest polling place in the state without any issues. It's a different animal when you are working with people in their 80s and 90s. I've seen districts fall apart during primary elections with depressingly low turnout.
The solution to any perceived problems with voting in New York State is to encourage younger people to work as Inspectors. By in large our machines work just fine. Our procedures are just fine. We just need better people. I would encourage anybody who lives in New York State to contact your local board of elections and get put on the list. It's not that much time out of your life -- you have to attend one training class (they
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.