Here's the San Diego Union-Tribune's editorial that concerns about the Busby-Bilbray race are "unfounded" and the product of "internet conspiratorialists", demanding in conclusion "Give us electronic voting and its safeguards any day." Possibly, this my be the dumbest e-voting newspaper editorial ever written. But I wouldn't bet on it.
Below is my proposed response. It's still in draft form in case anyone wants to suggest changes or alterations. It was interesting to see the article that appeared also in Monday's paper (linked within text below) The title is tentative....
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Are Elections Needed for Position of Lead Editorial Writer on the Union-Tribune?
by Paul Lehto
It’s interesting to read the editorial concerning the “sleepovers” of voting machines and other irregularities in the computerized voting in the Busby/Bilbray. As an election law and consumer fraud attorney just hired on to investigate and contest this election, I’ve not yet finished drafting the election contest complaint, and the Union-Tribune editor certainly hasn’t read it, yet already the Union-Tribune editor (presumably neither a computer expert nor an election lawyer) has pronounced the case against invisible and secret computerized vote counting to be “unfounded.”
The same day’s paper contains a remarkably parallel story regarding the exact same 50th District Congressional seat and the subject of government secrecy. An independent investigation found that imprisoned former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham took advantage of the secrecy surrounding House Intelligence Committee bills to slip in items that would benefit him and his associates.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060724/news_1n24duke.html The article goes on: “Cunningham's case has put a spotlight on the lack of oversight” and lack of “public scrutiny” of the budgeting process, says the Union-Tribune. In fact, this very lack of scrutiny and oversight by the public allowed $2.4 million in bribes over a time span of years. But during almost all of this time the Union-Tribune editorial writer was likely dismissing as “Internet conspiracy theorists” anyone walking around claiming the Congressman was on the take to the tune of millions of dollars primarily because of an unaccountable secret Intelligence budgeting process.
Public scrutiny and oversight has been largely eliminated in elections, yet elections officials now look forward to the total elimination of any possible public oversight when the county changes over to 100% touch screen electronic voting this fall. With electronic, computerized voting systems in its touch screen form, ballots are rendered into invisible electrons the voter can never see, then counted invisibly, secretly, and unaccountably on corporate hard drives using processes claimed as trade secrets. The magic numbers simply pop out of these computerized governmental vote processors that determine the government’s own power and tax money because they are used in elections, and we are supposed to exclaim in unison with the Union-Tribune: “Give us electronic voting and its safeguards any day.” That is a disappointing devolution from Patrick Henry’s more inspiring “Give me liberty, or give me death.”
This attitude or notion that there are any safeguards whatsoever when computers process our votes would be laughable were not the integrity of elections such a serious matter. Given that Intelligence matters must remain in some secrecy, the Republican Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Peter Hoekstra noted that “even if you put in additional safeguards, it doesn't necessarily mean that someone who wants to enrich themselves is not going to be able to.”
The situation is much more dire with elections, where the secrecy is provided by computers. A computer is something that simply does what it is told to do (so long as one can speak its languages) and will do simply anything it’s told without any regard for law, morality or ethics. Because computers simply follow the commands of anyone (whether given on election day or stored with a command not to execute until election day) the fact that the government claims to test the machines by casting one or two votes on a few machines before and a few after the election is laughably insufficient not so much because of the low numbers tested, but because the only thing that matters with a computer is knowing for sure exactly what the computer was asked to do on the day of election itself. But, we can’t know that. A person that knows computers can place undetectable “easter egg” code that executes only on a later date, Election Day.
Moreover, the incentive to cheat in elections is huge. In online polls most people like to stuff the ballot box and distort the poll result by notifying only their like-minded friends to vote. Given this rather universal incentive to see the “right side” win, is it perhaps conceivable that when the stakes are upped just a little bit to (say) control of the world’s richest country and sole military superpower, along with billions in government contracts and hundreds of political careers on the line, that there might be someone, somewhere, who might want to stuff a real electronic ballot box? What if the real ballot box only consisted of invisible electrons that could be moved around without leaving evidence, and the entire election's ballots carried in one’s pocket?
I submit that anyone who doubts a strong incentive for many to cheat in real elections doubts the attractiveness of controlling America and is therefore deficient in true love of country. Being a Pollyanna about election fraud is a form of enforced naiveté that is totally inconsistent with a commitment to truly defend democracy, where there is constant temptation to cheat in elections because so much is at stake.
Favoring blind trust in the secret vote counts of the government ain’t “conservative” in my book, especially trusting the government when it gets its paycheck and power from elections. The public needs to oversee elections, because the government can not oversee itself. On the other hand, eliminating the public's rights ain't "liberal" either. So what in the world is going on?
Does anyone in San Diego REALLY think that with “safeguards” we can dispense with public oversight and public accountability in elections by switching to secret vote counting via computers, when Hoekstra admits additional safeguards probably wouldn't stop every Cunningham?” The only election protection is keeping things in plain sight with public observers. No person who is a true defender of democracy will allow that oversight and accountability to slip away.
Elections are the only way the public has to change the direction of the government and therefore the only way to stop government from staying stuck on Stupid. Unfortunately, there are no public elections for editor of the Union-Tribune, so we can only hope and pray that in the future the editors will understand more clearly the public’s need for oversight and accountability in vote counting, and not get stuck in its present attitude.
We believe San Diego should not let real democratic elections go down without a fight. Therefore, my clients and I will begin our own defense of democracy by filing suit Thursday in the Superior Court. We’d love your support or your own efforts to defend democracy. After all, if there has ever been a person or soldier who sacrificed or died to defend democracy, under what claim of right or principle may we, today, fail to do our part to preserve and pass an honest and real democracy on to future generations?
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