The cover story in this week's issue of The Nation made for very interesting -- and very depressing -- reading on the bus today (I've been riding the bus this week as my legs recover from the Hike of Doom last weekend). It positively sent chills down my spine.
How They Could Steal the Election This Time by Ronnie Dugger should be required reading for everybody. In fact, I'm making it such. Read it. Really, I insist. It's a little long, but I promise it's worth it. That is, if you find shaking whatever faith you may have in our democratic process to it's very core to be a worthwhile result.
Okay, maybe I'm overselling it.
Here's an excerpt for the link-averse:
Durazo said that the AVC had first been approved by the federal government (which is not correct) and then certified by the California secretary of state. He said that providing a voter-verified ballot would open the way to "unlimited error," while computer error, in contrast, can be "quantified." As for Trojan horses smuggling in corrupt instructions, he said in a confident tone, "I don't have those fears." Stealing votes in the computers is next to impossible, he insisted, because local ballots are set up at the last minute, there are a large number of races and ballot initiatives in any one election, and the order of the candidates' positions on the ballots is rotated in different precincts.
The three sets of all the votes, kept in the computer, provide the recount, he said. Are those not just copies of each other, automatically made? Durazo exclaimed in high dudgeon: "It's a redundant perfection!... It starts with the premise that the information in the system is correct."
Alfred Gonzales, Durazo's Filipino outreach specialist for voters who speak Tagalog, demonstrated the AVC, a sign on the top of which said Try It Out Today. No More Punchcards! I voted on it and asked Gonzales how I knew for sure that my vote would be counted. "Because it will be registered in the machine, saved in the hard drive, and put on a cartridge," he said. "At the end of the day it will be in the printout of the total." How did he know the machine would do that? "Because it has been federally certified!" he said. "There is fool-proof security." Well, one more thing, I asked. There's no ballot--what if you need a recount? "It's really a matter of trusting the machine," Gonzales said. Patting the AVC gently, he intoned with pride, "It's really a matter of trust."
The nightmare part of this whole thing is that if the election goes forward as is, with millions of votes cast on unauditable machines, and Bush wins in a squeaker, there will be almost nothing we can do about it. Even if widespread irregularities are reported and alleged, since there is no way to recount the votes, there's no way to prove anything. The Supreme Court, or Congress, could, I suppose, call for new elections, but that would be HUGE and I imagine they'd be pretty reluctant to take such a drastic step without proof, which would be impossible to get. In all likelihood laws would be passed to (try to) prevent such a catastrophe from recurring, just as they were in 2000, but those laws would have no effect on who was sitting in the Oval Office. We'd be stuck with him for four more years.
I don't know that this will happen, but the fact that it could happen is enough.
Call your Congresspeople. Call the U.N. Call Jesus. The situation is not good.
