In my recent report on Peter B. Collins' live Eureka broadcast, I mentioned that Humboldt Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich had phoned in unexpectedly during the final few minutes of the show. I didn't go into any detail about her comments but they are worthy of note. First, to hear the full show, click here. To hear just the excerpt with the Registrar, click here. The entire third hour features Brad Friedman from BradBlog.com, as well as Aryay Kalaki and me. You can drag your media player's slider 2/3 of the way if you want to queue that up.
Now, here are the Registrar's words that I think didn't sit right with people. Peter B. asked Carolyn to comment on the Voter Confidence Committee proposal for hand-counting paper ballots:
CC: "Frankly, having 800 people handle our live ballots is not an appealing idea to me."
PBC: "Because..."
CC: "Do you not think that opens a door to fraud, too? 800 people handing live paper ballots? I'm not saying its the wrong thing to do. I'm saying I think it is an excellent audit tool for the way we count ballots now or, or in the future on some other equipment perhaps but..."
PBC: "I would argue that in a group situation, the group would basically police itself. So you're not putting individuals in a room with ballots that they could tamper with, you're putting a group to count them"
CC: "Yes, and I don't know that group and you don't either, and, and, do you see my concern?"
The process of hand counting has checks and double checks built into it. Four people have to agree on everything and additional citizens may be observing. There is less trust required with hand-counting than with trade-secret proprietary software.
That's just for starters. Notice how she says "opens a door to fraud, too?" She is acknowledging the manifest weaknesses in the security of electronic vote tabulation and attempting to say hand-counting would be at least as bad. I'll have to go looking around, but I know there are studies comparing "attack vectors," points within a vote counting system that may be vulnerable to tampering (perhaps my best researcher friend Rady Ananda will post a link in the WDNC comments?). It would be embarrassing to think anyone believes hand-counting has more security holes than any existing electronic vote counting system.
Now think of how community members likely feel, being told by a public official in a small rural community where people actually know each other, that counters would somehow be untrustworthy strangers as opposed to respected neighbors. This is bordering on incitement. In fact, it did move VCC members Ruth Hoke and George Hurlburt to submit the following letter published in Wednesday's Eureka Reporter, online as of two hours ago.
County has the human power to hand-count ballots 12/4/2007
Dear Editor,
Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich astonished the audience of Peter B. Collins' live radio broadcast from the Eureka Theater Friday evening by stating on the air that she would not trust 800 (registered voters) to count live ballots. This was during a conversation with Mr. Collins, well-known election integrity journalist Brad Friedman and Dave Berman of the local group Voter Confidence Committee. VCC members are gathering signatures to show there is enough human power to hand-count all ballots during Humboldt County elections.
Having met with Ms. Crnich on several occasions, our impression is that she is honorable and dedicated in her profession; therefore, we'd like to assume she made an off-the-cuff comment without forethought. But if the statement does reflect her real view, we must respond.
First, why would the ballots be more valuable or important than the voters who created them? Keep in mind that hand-counters must be registered voters. When we were hand-counters after the 2006 election, we both thought the security measures were reassuring and counters were competent and diligent.
Consider our judicial system, which uses ordinary citizens as jurors. They are expected to possess and exercise good judgment, not just an ability to count. The system has served us well for more than 200 years. Why is Ms. Crnich so resistant to counting by citizens? Does she think there aren't enough people in the county who can count or follow directions? Or does she hold the belief that more technology is always better?
We hope she will call Peter B. Collins' show on Dec. 14, as she promised, and address these issues in depth.
Dave, I’ve just listened to the show and the Registrar’s comments.
My take on the comments are that her appearance on the show was to suit her agenda. She deliberately rang in late so that she wouldn’t have to address your arguments.
I also think you put her in a corner so her announcement came out as a defence rather than the way she wanted to make it. This I deduce from her attempt to dominate the topic with a bad close questions and when asked why not blurted out her ‘announcement’ but was amazingly unprepared for a ‘professional’.
Her refusal to name a date for a repeat visit further emphasises her discomfort. She came across as somebody told to defend something by a superior. If there is a next time (which I doubt) it will be to spruik her decision and then have to go. You may even be excluded.
At that stage she’ll have a text with political double speak and a briefing from the Prof.
I suggest get the Prof. on air but have someone there who can challenge his methodology etc. and the Assumptions. Ask him what he sees wrong with paper checking.
I live in Australia and our voting process is somewhat more complex than yours.The House of Representative (House of Government) is elected on a preferential voting. This necessitates the extra counting and distribution of preferences.(1-8 isn’t uncommon). The Senate (state house of review) has both Preferential and Proportional voting. The voter can vote above the line with a solitary 1 in the party of choice and preferences will be distributed in accordance with that party’s directions.Or the voter can number each candidate in accordance to the individual’s preference (in this house there can be as many as 80 candidates in 20 groupings for 12 seats.
The difference lies in the overall system all Australian Rolls and elections are handled by a federally created Semi autonomous Australian Electoral Commission which is independent from the executive and has no government representation. It is staffed by its self and subject to the provisions of the public service act. It alone decides on seat boundaries based on a high and low enrolment criterion. Political interference is possible but would need the agreement of both houses In the last 30 year only one 3year term did the govt have majority in both houses, the last parliament the PM john Howard got carried away on ideological and arrogance and not only comprehensively lost government but also his own seat (only the 2nd PM in history to do so.) Interference in the AEC is virtually unheard of.
Now to the Registrar’s load of cow dung. All the votes for Australia Wide are paper based submitted and counted by hand with party volunteer scrutinizers present. Given the afore mentioned complexity I can tell you that on average 85% of the House of reps are counted on the night and usually enough seats are decided to call the government (13,000,000 votes. And that’s a few more than in Humboldt I would wager).
All votes are collected and taken to a central secure counting site for each seat. The Senate may take up to another week and so too do close seats. Wins by 5% automatically are recounted.We have no cases of fraud emanating from tally room corruption ever.
Those cases of electoral fraud come from false identity and Research can't find one instance of counting room fraud in 106 years we're lucky I guess.
One other difference we have mandatory voting.
Some older conservative want first past the post simply because they can’t see how it discriminates against often the majority. I would be prepared to wager the sticking point is higher than her. Either that or she's fearful her system might be found wanting.
by
Andris (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 532 comments)
on Wednesday, December 5, 2007 at 11:21:04 PM
