Diebold? Da Beautiful!
ShareIt's slipped off the Beltway radar screen, but election reform is alive and kicking, especially in the states. Advocates for more efficient, effective and accurate voting systems have reason to cheer.
Consider:
--two years ago, election officials were skeptical of voter-verified paper trails (VVPaT) for electronic machines. Today, according to the invaluable Electionline.org, 25 of them have written a VVPAT requirement into law. (And the big debate now is whether to count paper prints as official ballots during recounts.) In '04, paper trails were not required in Ohio, in '05, 41 of the state's counties mandated them, and by '06, all counties will have them.
--four Midwestern states agreed to cooperate to improve election administration and registration [MARC AMBINDER]
--MD's state board of elections is working with the University of Baltimore to research voter verification technology
--states are more proactive about testing machines; with heavy public scrutiny, CA election officials are weighing whether to recertify Diebold machines
--And the Diebold company -- a liberal activist bugbear -- seems to be crumbling. Its infamous CEO, Wally O'Dell, resigned. Shareholders filed suit for allegedly deceptive practices. One FL county decided to forever ban Diebold machines after a hacker demonstrated to officials how he could switch election results.
Doug Chapin, a widely respected lawyer who heads the Election Reform Information Project, notes that when O'Dell resigned, Diebold's stock price rose, suggesting that even Wall Street was paying attention to complaints against the company.
Chapin sees several signs that momentum is on the side of reformers.
One is: states facing an impending HAVA deadline to certify new electronic voting equipment and put online a statewide voter databases are being candid with federal officials. Several states have told the Department of Justice that they won't be ready. In the past, says Chapin, the states might have fudged the deadlines or simply ignored them.
"States have finally realized that the federal money is limited and the prospects of federal enforcement are good," says Chapin. "They can't wait for the government."
Liberal activists like Brad Friedman, who blogs here, have kept up the pressure on companies like Diebold. Friedman endorses conspiracy theories about the company and about GOP vote rigging -- Chapin and most academics do not -- but he has clearly helped to tilt the debate in the direction of more transparency. If Diebold sells its election machine unit and if election officials more closely scrutinize electronic machines for security flaws, Friedman can take some credit.
"The activists have done a terrific job, an impressive job in setting the agenda," says Chapin.
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