Better late than never....ummm...

November 16, 2004 7:00 AM

Yale Law School Dean : "I might have been an unwitting accessory to fraud" Ian H. Solomon's belated realization : "Could we have been so naive?....by my presence, along with other Democratic lawyers, I lent an air of legitimacy to the voting process....We should have had trained observers - computer scientists, not lawyers! - verifying the integrity of polling data from machine upload through the tabulation of countywide and statewide results. Somehow we neglected the most vulnerable step....I realized that I might have been an unwitting accessory to fraud....The time is now for voters from all states that used electronic voting machines to request an audit of results and a manual recount of ballots if possible."
posted by troutfishing (41 comments total)

There can be only one reason why the ballot manufacturers do not want a paper trail.
posted by four panels at 7:26 AM on November 16, 2004

I'm happier that Solomon put this into print - probably at some career risk - than I am annoyed at his belated recognition of the problem :

"Could we take the accurate counting of computer votes for granted, since the CEO of the leading voting machine manufacturer promised to "deliver" Ohio's electoral votes for Bush?" : Prodigal Dean returns from idealistic dream land to Realpolitik world, and is welcomed home.

Somehow, I was under the false impression that lawyers tended to have hardboiled, jaundiced views of human nature like, say, cops ; or, maybe, that impression holds for working lawyers but not academic ones.
posted by troutfishing at 7:26 AM on November 16, 2004

well, now we are discussing the difference between reality and academia...regarldess of subject, academics tend to operate in a 'pure , hypothetical' state...

anyway yeah. Thanks so fucking much for the two-weeks-too-late mea culpa there, dean Soloman. Thanks a fucking TON.
posted by das_2099 at 7:55 AM on November 16, 2004

s/regarldess/regardless
posted by das_2099 at 8:02 AM on November 16, 2004

There can be only one reason why the ballot manufacturers do not want a paper trail.

Well, its also a waste of paper, costs more, requires moving parts and is therefore much more prone to malfunction, is more difficult to operate (requiring trained personel to install/replace ink cartridges, paper feed, etc), makes the machines bigger and thus more costly to store, and are much less portable than paper-free designs. Oh yeah, and because of all those conspiracy theory reasons, too.

Incidentally, paper-trail-leaving machines do exist; its election officials that don't want them, not the companies that manufature the machines.

Also, the election is over. I don't like the results as much as the next guy, but all this "demanding recount" stuff just comes off as sour grapes and merely fulfills the "liberal crybaby" stereotype.

maybe, that impression holds for working lawyers but not academic ones.

I think the distinction is more apt between criminal lawyers and other flavors. While the criminal attorneys I know tend to be pretty jaded, the civil, corporate, constitutional, mergers and acquisitions, arbitration, academic, and all the other types I'm forgetting tend to be pretty normal. Now judges, on the other hand, are a truly deranged bunch...
posted by ChasFile at 8:06 AM on November 16, 2004

Isn't Black Box Voting doing something along these lines? I thought they submitted FOIA requests for log files and other sundry data from every machine in the country.
posted by lowlife at 8:08 AM on November 16, 2004

We should have had trained observers - computer scientists, not lawyers!

Uh, DUH!?

Without touching on the political implications, here, why is it that lawyers immediately considered themselves "qualified" to deal with this issue, over the judgment of a group of scientists who have been raising concerns about electronic voting machines for years? Where did anyone get the idea that as long as there are a sufficient number of lawyers around, as opposed to, say, experts, everything would be fine?
posted by deanc at 8:11 AM on November 16, 2004

The geeks have been saying this for close to a year.

Programmers know how easily things can screw up in a program, and how easy it would be to do something that no one would be able to detect (in closed source). If the people who make comparable things are saying this is a really bad idea....
posted by dig_duggler at 8:22 AM on November 16, 2004

I agree. Ian Solomon just realized all this on Nov 11 (date of his mea culpa)? But these known issues with electronic voting made the machines and their results suspect all along. Long before Diebold promised to deliver the votes, even before 2000, lots of computer people, politicians, pundits and yes even lawyers talked about the risks of future electronic elections being hacked.

Still, I agree it's a gutsy piece to write (Ian Solomon is, by the way, just an associate dean of Yale Law, one of about a half dozen. Harold Koh is the Dean.)

But until whistleblowers from Walden O'Dell's corrupt little company step forward -- and even then, I'm certain -- this election is over and done.
posted by jellybuzz at 8:31 AM on November 16, 2004

deanc: after working with lawyers (albeit in an academic setting) for three and half years all I can say is that no matter the subject, lawyers seem to think themselves eminently more qualified no matter the field of discourse. Hence a web site design and architecture that went from clean and usable (designed by me, a trained IA and usability guru) to a jumbled mess of kludgy hackware.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

So, yeah, your questions are as valid as it is age-old.

As for the FPP, again . . . duh! Looking for positives though, maybe with enough support from all quaters we can get it together before the mid-term elections. Then again, maybe befezzed monkeys will fly out of my butt too.
posted by Fezboy! at 8:35 AM on November 16, 2004

spell/grammar much?
' . . . as valid as they are . . .'
' . . . from all quarters . . . '
posted by Fezboy! at 8:37 AM on November 16, 2004

ChasFile: So . . . you're saying these computers are the greatest ever made, that you don't need a paper trail (as you would for, say, even the most rudimentary scientific research) because they work so well, gosh, it would be expensive or something? I guess that is what you're saying. Why is your argument unconvincing? We live in a democratic republic here. The vote counting process is essential to what our system is about, what we as a people claim to stand for and want to promote worldwide? You should be budget conscious, but not cheap or stupid here. For gosh sakes, I would think that almost any libertarian would agree with me here. It's a basic, required governmental function we're talking about here.
posted by raysmj at 9:06 AM on November 16, 2004

The more I hear of people like this, the more I suspect their "sudden realization of a problem" is really just code for "my guy lost and I won't accept that".

Look, it was a close election. Everybody knew that (or should have known that) going in. And when it's a close election, either side can win. Liberals may have twice the revulsion for Bush in 2004 over Bush in 2000, but they still only get one vote each. It's like the Democrats were so blinded by their hatred for Bush that they thought a Kerry landslide was not only possible but practically guaranteed.

Diebold machines may be suspect, but I'm willing to bet that people like this would still be complaining even had there been a fully manual system in place.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 9:13 AM on November 16, 2004

Like every other Democrat, I had prepared to avoid the problems of 2000 only to be blindsided by new problems in 2004.

Blindsided. Yep, blind... sided. Never saw that comin' boy. Gosh, who'da thunk it? This sounds like those nitwits on NPR who, months after the Iraq invasion, trotted out this blatant falsehood that not finding weapons stockpiled to the rafters blindsided all of America.

In fact, this doe-eyed mea culpa is so idiotic that it makes me suspicious. Was he knowingly culpable? Did he occupy a position that many more qualified people could have used to actually follow the warnings that the scientific community were sending us by mail, by fax, by smoke signal and by courier fucking pigeon?

I'm not sure that Solomon isn't one of the bad guys publishing this piece just to cover his ass, because history is bound to ask who was watching over, and fingers will point at him.

Thanks a lot, fucker.

On preview, I am revolted by people who want to wave this away as just sour grapes. We're talking about the integrity of our electoral system here, and people like GhostintheMachine would rather not look into it because the results of a possibly rigged election pleases them. They don't see electoral fraud, per se, as a problem, as long as they agree with the outcome. Y'all just wait a while; these chickens will come home to roost in your house some day soon.
posted by squirrel at 9:24 AM on November 16, 2004

The thing is, would computer experts do any better? Without knowledge of how the machines work and the source code to the software, once the votes have been registered in the machine, how would anyone know that any sort of verification would be accurate? The best thing to do, IMHO, is for the various states to require that the design, schematics, source code, and any other relevant information for the voting machines to be turned over to the respective states before those voting machines could be used in elections.
posted by gyc at 9:27 AM on November 16, 2004

demanding recount" stuff

requesting an audit is by no means the same as a recount, by my understanding.

an audit means: let's make sure that if a person voted for candidate a, their vote went to candidate a.

a recount means: i think the votes registered okay, but the vote counters messed up. let's see if candidate b really did get more votes than candidate a.

there are some similarities between the two, but i don't really see why people would be against either. a national election is pretty fucking godddamned important, so why on earth anyone would be against making sure we do it 100% right in the world's greatest democracy (tm), as we bill ourselves loudly and repeatedly, is beyond me.
posted by lord_wolf at 9:36 AM on November 16, 2004

Oh, btw, the UK says: "Thanks for being Guinea pigs! We're, um, not gonna gonna bother with that new gizmo, cheers."
posted by dash_slot- at 9:39 AM on November 16, 2004

GITM,

Bite me, asshole. The conversation regards the right to vote and that could turn EITHER WAY and I'm certain each poster in this thread still considers this an important issue regardless of the winner. Go pass wind elsewhere please.
posted by nofundy at 9:46 AM on November 16, 2004

"Where did anyone get the idea that as long as there are a sufficient number of lawyers around, as opposed to, say, experts, everything would be fine?" - Quick! Let's bomb the problem with lawyers! That'll fix it.....

"....The thing is, would computer experts do any better? Without knowledge of how the machines work and the source code to the software, once the votes have been registered in the machine, how would anyone know that any sort of verification would be accurate?" - gyc, exactly. Diebold and Sinclair need to be booted. Proprietary voting systems, and software, and Democracy will never mix. If computer voting is used, well.... there are lots of good schemes for ACCOUNTABLE computer voting systems. I'm sure David Dill has some good ones over at his site.

I think part of the point - maybe the main point, even - for a recount would be to reinforce the case that e-voting systems should be changed before the 2006 election : and, that would include Diebold's central tabulating computers, the ones with the special side panel - per Bev Harris - that allows quick substitution of an altered vote count.
posted by troutfishing at 9:52 AM on November 16, 2004

In fact, this doe-eyed mea culpa is so idiotic that it makes me suspicious.

Precisely. The scales have suddenly fallen from thine eyes? Well, whoop-de-doo.
posted by rushmc at 9:53 AM on November 16, 2004

Yeah, you'll be saying cheers when Blair sends your shepherds pies all the way to Iran next fall, dash_slot. Poodle-boy knows how to toe the line, and you're going to re-elect him without fraud. Of this you should be proud?
posted by squirrel at 9:55 AM on November 16, 2004

Recount, hell! I demand a re-vote.
Let's do it all again! Only this time Ohio only gets 1 electoral vote. That'll teach 'em.
posted by Outlawyr at 10:00 AM on November 16, 2004

squirrel, you might want to turn your Revolt-O-Meter back a notch or two. Y'see, I'm Canadian, I'm a liberal, and I was hoping for Kerry to win. So the results of the election certainly DON'T please me.

But I am saying that some people, and apparently you're included in that list, see electoral fraud as a problem only because they disagree with the outcome. Had Kerry won, I doubt there would have been any calls to investigate the Diebold machines at all, since they had produced the "correct" result.

You know, it is conceivable that more Americans voted for Bush than for Kerry. You might not like that idea (and I'll be clear again, neither do I), but it is possible. In the past 50 years, look at the Democratic presidents - other than Clinton, every other Dem was a single-termer. Now look at the Republicans - other than Bush Sr, every other Repub was re-elected. Where were the Diebold machines in those elections?

(on preview: nofundy, what the hell's up with the invective?)
posted by GhostintheMachine at 10:19 AM on November 16, 2004

At first, the question didn't matter, because I, like most others, thought Kerry would win

And here is the failure point, being under impression of being able to foretell future accurately.

In fact, I was shocked when the official election results started coming in so different from historically reliable exit poll results and my own gut sense of the results in Florida

And here is where it shows he can't tell the past from the future and relies on past results as guarantee for future results : bzzz wrong.

We should have had trained observers - computer scientists, not lawyers!

A number of "computer scientists" were posting on slashdot and other well-known and not well know boards about electronic voting problems, long before the election started. Maybe if he stopped reading only about the differences betweem common law and positive law, and countless thin-air-splitting lawyeresque points he may have learned that, gosh, law isn't the only topic worth study and work on. I guess I'll pardon him on the reasonable presumption he's looking after an education in law topics and got caught in the "specialization obsession" in which , lawyers aren't supposed to know about how a computer work and tech people aren't supposed to know how law works , therefore one or the other knowledge are useless.

Guess there's often punishment and rarely reward in blisful ingnorance.
posted by elpapacito at 10:26 AM on November 16, 2004

(on preview: nofundy, what the hell's up with the invective?)

Yeah, tone it down, stop getting personal and, for what it's worth, ignore your stalker when he takes his obligatory shot at you, please.

I thought they submitted FOIA requests for log files and other sundry data from every machine in the country.

I hope they did and I hope they get them.
posted by y2karl at 10:31 AM on November 16, 2004

GITM - You're arguing a hypothetical point. Stick to the facts. So, you're a Canadian liberal ? - I guess that, based on the proven track record of Diebold and ES&S voting technology, you'll be advocating that the Canadian government adopt these systems, eh ?

Meanwhile......

1) Diebold's software is proprietary and it's vote counts are utterly nonverifiable.

2) Diebold systems have been shown to be unreliable. They simply screw up an awful lot.

3) The State of California decertified Diebold voting systems for the '04 election for that reason.

4) The CEO of Diebold is a Bush "Pioneer" (major Bush fundraiser and partisan) who promised to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush in '04.

5) Diebold and ES&S voting machines have an unusual track record - their use tends to correlate with "surprising" upset victories for Republicans - the first of which, to my recollection, was the stunning upset which put Chuck Hagel ( who held a considerable financial interest in Diebold at the time and still does, I believe ) into the US Senate.

6) It's been demonstrated that Diebold voting machines and tabulators are easy to hack and - further - their hackability seems to be built in, quite intentionally.

I could go on in this vein. But, why bother ?

_________________


Poodle-boy. Heh.

"The scales have suddenly fallen from thine eyes?" - It seems a bit much to me, but I actually talked to a lawyer in Ohio, prior to the election, who was working on the election there, to keep it clean. He seemed to feel that the armies of lawyers had things all under control.

Not.

"Tales of waiting more than five hours to vote, voter intimidation, under-trained polling-station workers and too few or broken voting machines largely in urban or heavily minority areas were retold Saturday at a public hearing organized by voter-rights groups.

    For three hours, burdened voters, one after another, offered sworn testimony about Election Day voter suppression and irregularities that they believe are threatening democracy. " - From the Cleveland Plain Dealer (reprinted at Truthout), scroll down for the story.

I wouldn't discount the power of human denial but - whatever the case really is, I'm glad Solomon stuck his neck out (if rather LATE). In any case - whether he was suspicious of e-voting before the election or whether the scales just dropped from his eyes, it's a welcome political statement either way :

And it might help to puncture, a little, mainstream media's pooh-poohing of this story - which is really pitiful for it's almost total abdication of responsibility, for the integrity of American Democracy.

Power yanks the chain, big media presents and swallows. Public Radio too. Y'hear, Public Radio ?
posted by troutfishing at 10:36 AM on November 16, 2004

Discussed on MeFi before, the Bombay ballot, India's electronic voting system that works in an election with 380 million voters, avoids many of the problems inherent in US systems.
posted by beagle at 10:50 AM on November 16, 2004

Well, squirrel, I'm not putting bets on Tony winning, and if he does - I admit it looks likely - it won't be with my assistance. owever, it takes smallish swings to have big effects in Parliament...sadly, there's no decent challenger in sight.

And if he does - you're right, it'll be an unwelcome result to me, but it will be accepted. There are about 650 individual seats in our parliament, and fiddling that number is nigh on impossible in a paper based system.

Even with a large majority, I'll be struck dumb if Tony sends us into another war: his eyes are on having a historic 3rd victory and a positive assessment from historians (he has a huge ego). Labour will be doomed if another conflict ensues - we're as overstretched militarily as you guys are.

Sorry about the near gloating upthread - but it's better than the other reactions I sometimes have (you know, 'America is finished', that sort of thing...)
posted by dash_slot- at 11:00 AM on November 16, 2004

So, you're a Canadian liberal ? - I guess that, based on the proven track record of Diebold and ES&S voting technology, you'll be advocating that the Canadian government adopt these systems, eh ?

BZZZZT! Wrong, sorry. Being a liberal doesn't mean being a Liberal, and disagreeing with some of the comments here doesn't mean I'm pro-election-hijacking. It is possible to be against electronic voting machines and still think that Bush won the election fairly.

I just don't get how Democrats can look at the voting record of Americans (who have been heavily and increasingly favouring Republican candidates for decades) and utterly reject the possibility that Bush really did win.

Solomon is an example of that. Here's a guy who really, truly assumed Kerry would win in a landslide, and only after that doesn't happen does he pull his head out of, uhhh, the sand and look for problems. And of course it couldn't possibly be that the majority of Americans actually preferred the candidate from the party that won 8 of the last 13 elections, not to mention the results in the House and Senate.

I'm not suggesting there aren't problems with the Diebold (or other electronic voting) machines, or that they shouldn't be investigated. Instead, it's a matter of investigating them for the reasons troutfishing listed, rather than for the simple fact that Bush got more votes.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 11:11 AM on November 16, 2004

regarding the FFP, the title says it all ... "Better late than never." i'll take anybody who will stand with me in saying this thing was rigged, whenever they're ready to do it.

meanwhile, somebody forgot to pay the cleaning lady to dispose of the pesky paper-trail problem absentee ballot present.
posted by danOstuporStar at 11:35 AM on November 16, 2004

"...disagreeing with some of the comments here doesn't mean I'm pro-election-hijacking" GITM - hey, I didn't say you were.

You're right to make the point that it's important for the left not to merely wave it's hands in the air and shout "they stole the election!" - because even if it is true, the Republican extremist far right has made major gains in the US South, heartland, west in the last three decades. That's a fact.

But - once again - we actually have no real benchmark for a lot of the '04 vote counts : in cases where e-voting machines were used and where central vote tabulation was done by Diebold computers, the software is proprietary and there's no paper trail.

There remains this mystery : in a number of battleground states, the early voting exit polls showed Kerry ahead and then, suddenly - around one or two AM, the exit poll numbers changed.

What happened ?

As far as I understand, the exit polls were "adjusted" to sync up with numbers that were coming (at least in Ohio and Florida) from Diebold tabulating computers.

But in "non battleground" states, the early exit polls proved relatively accurate.

I find that fishy, and what's worse - there is almost no way of determining the truth of the matter. All we know is that exit polling - which is used by UN elections observers worldwide and is considered highly accurate ( to within 1/10 of a percent, I've heard) - proved somehow wildly inaccurate in the '04 US Presidential Election.....but mostly in key "battleground" states and especially in Ohio and Florida.

I'm not buying it.
posted by troutfishing at 12:05 PM on November 16, 2004

I just don't get how Democrats can look at the voting record of Americans (who have been heavily and increasingly favouring Republican candidates for decades) and utterly reject the possibility that Bush really did win.

I think your mistake is in assuming that very many people are doing that. I think the vast majority are simply unsatisfied with being forced to accept "the possibility that Bush really did win" as a certain outcome. Elections are not supposed to result in mere possibilities. (Btw, it's not just "Democrats" that are concerned...many of us independents are as well.)
posted by rushmc at 12:21 PM on November 16, 2004

(on preview: nofundy, what the hell's up with the invective?)

Pardon me if I misread your post but it looks an awfully lot like you think this issue is a partisan whinefest.

This issue goes to the heart of democracy and has zip, zilch, nada to do with partisan rancor. As in, one person, one vote. As in, every vote must count. As in, why the hell vote if Stalin does the counting?

I saw no one injecting partisanship into the conversation until you in effect said "just stop your whining, sore losers" and to that I would repeat my previous invective.

Hope that clears things up for you.

And y2karl, when did you get to be the great wise one? I love your posts but you are sadly out of place acting as moderator for the blue and placing labels on others.
posted by nofundy at 12:46 PM on November 16, 2004

It only hurts more if you struggle.
posted by FormlessOne at 1:38 PM on November 16, 2004

There was a great need for lawyers and other general observers: Notes on Ohio Voter Supression Hearings...
posted by amberglow at 5:25 PM on November 16, 2004

and--Sandusky County elections officials discovered some ballots in the Nov. 2 election were counted twice.

The finding further emphasizes the fact that the 49-vote lead Republican challenger Irma Celestino has over Democratic incumbent Anna Senior isn't the final word. That race will be decided when provisional, military or remade ballots are counted and the official count is taken Thursday. It is not known how much of an impact it might have had on any other unofficial count.

Barb Tuckerman, director of the Sandusky County Board of Elections, said when she reviewed election information Nov. 8 she discovered the mistake.

"Clyde had 131 percent voting," Tuckerman said. "That's not possible. I knew there was something amiss."

After reviewing the computer discs used to store precinct tallies, officials came to the conclusion that some ballots in nine precincts were counted twice.


posted by amberglow at 5:36 PM on November 16, 2004

Pardon me if I misread your post but it looks an awfully lot like you think this issue is a partisan whinefest.

This issue or this FPP? There's a distinction. This issue is vitally important, no question. But this FPP? A load of blue crapola.

This FPP isn't about Diebold. There's no new information on election tampering here, no revelation, no further evidence of fraud, zip, zilch, nada, nichs, abso-freakin'-lutely NOTHING new to even suggest the idea that the election might not have been completely on the level.

It's just one lawyer belatedly realizing what virtually all of us here have known for months about the electronic machines. Way too little, far too late.

I saw no one injecting partisanship into the conversation until you in effect said "just stop your whining, sore losers" and to that I would repeat my previous invective.

Well, other than the author of the piece in question in the first line of his second paragraph ("I am a Kerry supporter and a Bush critic" isn't exactly a neutral position), and ChasFile in the fifth comment ("all this "demanding recount" stuff just comes off as sour grapes and merely fulfills the "liberal crybaby" stereotype"), all well before my comments. So if you're going to repeat calling me an asshole, I'll stoop to your level and politely tell you to go fuck yourself, jerkoff, because you're the one talking out of your ass.

But I do think you need to just stop your whining, AND DO SOMETHING BESIDES TALKING ABOUT IT. Frig, we've been screaming this crap back and forth here for-what-seems-like-ever. What did it change? How many inquiries or investigations into the security of these machines were actually launched? Stop bitchin' amongst yourselves about another stolen election, and talk to people who can actually do something about it. And you should probably also ask yourselves how it's possible that, even accepting a small level of tampering, Bush managed to attract so much support. Does he actually have to eat a baby on live television before his supporters see the real man?
posted by GhostintheMachine at 4:28 AM on November 17, 2004

Does he actually have to eat a baby on live television before his supporters see the real man?

:-) That was good.

What makes you think I'm NOT doing something about it? And, no, I'm not being a partisan whiner or crybaby, Chasfile was referring to a "steroetype" and the author was diong due diligence in self-disclosure. I saw no whining or name calling in that (due to the careful construction, I admit) but I did in your statements.

go fuck yourself
Anatomically impossible. Can I just masturbate instead?

There's lots of stuff out there indicating voter fraud if you care to look. Again, this is about the usurpation of democracy.
posted by nofundy at 6:06 AM on November 17, 2004

I saw no whining or name calling in that... but I did in your statements.

Where? Please quote an example from my statement, because I'm really lost here.

There's lots of stuff out there indicating voter fraud if you care to look.

As I've already (repeatedly) said, I KNOW THAT. I've read many of the stories and reports that have been made, and I'm aware of many of the allegations. I've already looked, and I'm convinced there is enough evidence to justify an investigation. But I'm also intelligent enough to know that indication of potential guilt does not equal actual guilt.

Again, this is about the usurpation of democracy.

No, it's not. This FPP is about one guy finally getting a clue. It does nothing to further the discourse. It does not advance anything. Somebody who knew better (but who doesn't have any more clout than any of us) finally saw the smoke we've all been watching for months. So what? One more suspicious Democrat means sweet dick all. You can't throw a rock without hitting a suspicious Democrat. What we need is proof, actual evidence.

The Dems lost the election in part because they were too busy passing these sorts of messages back and forth among themselves, and not spending enough time communicating this stuff to voters.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 6:37 AM on November 17, 2004

You two mind lifting your feet while I run the floor buffer in here? Thread closed a a few hours ago. ;~)
posted by squirrel at 9:15 AM on November 17, 2004

I had a patient yesterday who has, in her words, "A temp gig at the Board of Elections."

She said, "I have never seen so many stone-stupid people in one place - especially not for something this important, that is going to affect every man, woman, and child on this planet."

Disheartening, isn't it.
posted by ikkyu2 at 12:15 PM on November 17, 2004