HAVA specifically provides for accessible verification before the ballot is cast. Now accessible verification at the time of casting - proposed in HR811 (the Holt Bill) and many other bills (Ehlers, Clinton, Tubbs-Jones) - introduces an entirely new step in the voting process. And, not surprisingly, it is a step that mandates technology.
Not all activists seem to grasp the significance of this change.
The spin from Holt's office on this entirely new step, so unceremoniously slipped into our elections, has been "no problem, the Automark, an available product can do this."
Wrong! Problem! The Automark can't actually do this, and even if it could, that’s not the issue. This new step, is a federally mandated complex, expensive, and opaque technology, eminently hostile to paper ballots, for every jurisdiction in the nation.
The implications of this paradigm shift - this redefinition of our elections – is profound. To fight back properly we need the right ammunition: the U.S. Constitution.
US CONSTITUTION: Section 4 - Republican government
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
Republic: n 1 : a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and is usually a president; also : a nation or other political unit having such a government 2 : a government in which supreme power is held by the citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives governing according to law; also : a nation or other political unit having such a form of government.
By expanding HAVA’s definition of “accessible voting system” the paradigm shift by Holt, the Commission, Holt's corporate constituent Avante, and others misdirects our elections to "fully accessible voting systems".
It is a stated goal in the Commission's voting system design requirements. Another goal to achieve full accessibility is to create a completely paperless voting system. That’s right, no accountability beyond what the Commission-designed computerized voting machine is programmed to tell you.
EAC language permeates the Holt Bill and others like it on the Hill. Congress and the White House agency seem to be colluding in the hijacking of our elections by introducing seemingly benign goals that any good left wing liberal can love: "fully accessible voting systems. Top to bottom. End to end."
What does this redefinition of our elections mean?
It means we will have highly complex, computerized equipment run by experts, not ordinary citizens,, the inner workings of which no voter will be able to understand, at a cost of at minimum $20-30K per voting machine.
This is a complete transformation of our citizen run, publicly observable elections, into NASA-style missions.
This is not hyperbole. Read the EAC's documents. Ask the Commission's Technical Guidelines Advisory Committee if they've given any thought to the cost of their marvelous and magnificent designs, or if their wonderful machines resemble democratic elections in any sense of the word. Or maybe they're just having a whole lotta fun dreaming up technoelection wizardy because, well, because they can. It's so much fun to sit there at the NIST office building in Gaithersburg feeling so important and "expert-like".
If we, the people, the advocacy community, can get our arms around the full implications of this paradigm shift, then maybe we can stop it.
