In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Florida as the Next Florida
As Floridians went to the polls last Tuesday, Glenda Hood, Katherine Harris's successor as secretary of state, assured the nation that Florida's voting system would not break down this year the way it did in 2000. Florida now has "the very best" technology available, she declared on CNN. "And I do feel that it's a great disservice to create the feeling that there's a problem when there is not." Hours later, results in Bay County showed that with more than 60 percent of precincts reporting, Richard Gephardt, who long before had pulled out of the presidential race, was beating John Kerry by two to one. "I'm devastated," the county's top election official said, promising a recount of his county's 19,000 votes.
Four years after Florida made a mockery of American elections, there is every reason to believe it could happen again. This time, the problems will most likely be with the electronic voting that has replaced chad-producing punch cards. Some counties, including Bay County, use paper ballots that are fed into an optical scanner, so a recount is possible if there are questions. But 15 Florida counties, including Palm Beach, home of the infamous "butterfly ballot," have adopted touch-screen machines that do not produce a paper record. If anything goes wrong in these counties in November, we will be in bad shape.
...
The biggest danger of electronic voting, however, cannot be seen from the outside. Computer scientists warn that votes, and whole elections, can be stolen by rigging the code that runs the machines. The only defense is a paper record of every vote cast, a "voter-verified paper trail," which can be counted if the machines' tallies are suspect. Given its history, Florida should be a leader in requiring paper trails. But election officials, including Theresa LePore, the Palm Beach County elections supervisor who was responsible for the butterfly ballot, have refused to put them in place.
Last week, Representative Robert Wexler, a Florida Democrat, filed a federal lawsuit to require paper trails. He relies on the Supreme Court's holding in Bush v. Gore that equal protection requires states to use comparable recount methods from county to county. Florida law currently requires a hand recount in close races. That is possible in most counties, but the 15 that use electronic voting machines do not produce paper records that can be recounted. Under the logic of Bush v. Gore, Representative Wexler is right.
After the 2000 mess, Americans were assured they would not have to live through such a flawed election again. But Florida has put in place a system, electronic voting without a paper trail, that threatens once more to produce an outcome that cannot be trusted. There is still time before the November vote to put printers in place in the 15 Florida counties that use touch screens. As we learned four years ago, once the election has been held on bad equipment, it is too late to make it right.
Thanks sis for the article. The legacy of Florida has left America's standing as a standard barer for democracy greatly weakened, and Bush has done nothing to help it. For an example:
Putin brushes off U.S. criticism of one-sided campaign, claims victory for second four-year term
In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States "was concerned about a level of authoritarianism creeping back in the society."
"We don't hesitate to point out to President Putin that he should use the popularity that he has to broaden the political dialogue and not use his popularity to throttle political dialogue and openness in the society," Powell told ABC TV.
That set off an angry rebuke from the Cabinet chief of staff and a calmer retort from Putin, who said the 2000 Florida election fiasco in the United States showed the weaknesses of the world's oldest democracy.
Some "see the splinter in another's eye and ignore the log in his own," Putin said.
Powell does seem confused there, because he represents the party that in our own nation has been allowing authoritarianism to creep into our society, and which for the two years following 9/11 has used their popularity to throttle political dialogue and openness in our society.
- rob 12:06 PM - [PermaLink] -
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