We CAN take back our elections and create an informed, mobilized public that is actively involved in determining the course of our country and our future. That will be a bonus, for healthy democracy depends on the vigor of its debates and the degree of involvement of its citizens.

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Well, I knew the day would come. I just didn’t expect it to come so soon. From the get-go, I had doubts about my suitability for this job of Voting Integrity Editor for OpEdNews. I voiced those concerns to my future boss, Rob Kall, but I guess he couldn’t find another obsessed person willing to dedicate molto hours to the endless task of trying to bring the voting news to OpEdNews’ readership. I almost said “thankless”, but that would not be true. Since starting as editor, I have been amazed and uplifted by the words of encouragement coming from all corners of the country, including seasoned activists with lengthy resumes. My sole claim to fame was my “Invisible Ballots” lending library project, which I’m happy to say is still going strong.

But, that brings me back to the feeling that I’ve had all along that I am an imposter. Isn’t an editor supposed to be an expert? That’s certainly not me. It is true that I am dedicated wholeheartedly to the daunting task of trying to secure free, fair and transparent elections for myself, my children and my fellow citizens. But, I am a techno-illiterate, a nouveau activist and a middle-aged, trifocaled, postmenopausal suburban mom. Not exactly a mix to inspire the masses.

And I’m still not even exactly clear about the best way to bring about election reform. That is the simple, unvarnished truth. I know that without an informed electorate, the corporate interests will overrun the system and make our democracy a shadow of its former self, struggling along on life-support. It’s already happened. State by state, communities have rushed to take advantage of too many tax dollars and not enough time (surely this is no coincidence) and are making unwise decisions they will regret sooner or later.

Let’s look at a sampling of recent revelations. In December, Ion Sancho, Supervisor of Elections in Leon County, Florida, invited Finnish security expert Harri Hursti to hack into the Diebold optical scanner used by Leon County voters. The shockwaves caused by Hursti’s quick success spread to California, which uses the same machines and software. Instead of being feted for his dedication to his voters, Sancho was maligned and tag-teamed by the Big 3 electronic voting machine corporations contending for contracts. They teamed up with Gov. Bush and his Secretary of State to try to oust Mr. Sancho from his position of many years. Only the loyalty of his county commissioners with their unanimous vote of confidence and some media attention (finally!) stopped Sancho from being tossed out on his ear. And California? Various groups have now sued their Secretary of State McPherson to halt the use/purchase of Diebold machines.

Emery County, Utah. Republican County Clerk Bruce Funk has been running elections there for the past 23 years. He invited Bev Harris of Black Box Voting and Harri Hursti to examine the viability of his Diebold machines’ paper trail. This week, BradBlog posted the photographic essay of the results of that examination. If voters felt confident about the paper trail ‘back up’, they need to think again. In echoes of Leon County, Mr. Funk is also under attack because of his concern for voting integrity. He was actually locked out of the storeroom where the voting machines are kept. How symbolic!

Cook County, Illinois. This is where I live. What were dismissed as minor ‘glitches’ during our recent primaries have led to Chicago and Cook County withholding the balance of $30 million until the problems are addressed. It was reported that 414 memory cards went missing from their respective voting machines. Days later, many votes remained uncounted. I guess those ‘glitches’ weren’t so minor after all. Incidentally, Illinois is Sequoia’s largest customer and the company is doing everything it can to preserve those contracts and their credibility.

In California, Sec. Of State Bruce McPherson has puzzled and enraged his voters by flip flopping on Diebold certification. Yes, no, order a study, certify before the study is done, announce the certification on the Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend.

And what of the report that McPherson commissioned? Susan Pynchon, of Florida Fair Elections Coalition, was present at the Harri Hursti hack in Leon County, Florida on December 13th and has just written “The Truth about Diebold” and the California security review. Her article is alarming. It can be found at VoteTrustUSA and OpEdNews. She writes: Any legislator or elections official who recommends the purchase of the Diebold Tsx without reading the entire California report should be considered grossly negligent. It’s hard to imagine that anyone who read this report would even consider buying anything other than the optical scan voting machines. The report warns, “Successful attacks can only be detected by examining the paper ballots. There would be no way to know that any of these attacks occurred; the canvass procedure would not detect any anomalies, and would just produce incorrect results. The only way to detect and correct the problem would be by recount of the original paper ballots.” (The report goes on to say that it is conceivable that the software could be modified to affect subsequent elections as well as the current one. That is beyond unnerving.)

Then, there’s faraway Alaska. Major discrepancies were discovered between the number of voters and the number of votes. Voters were told that the state’s agreements with Diebold superceded the public’s right to know or see the 2004 votes. The voters were then told that releasing the information that they were entitled to through the Freedom of Information Act would be a threat to national security. What the heck does that mean?

The problems cited above are not limited to Diebold. In fact, a whistle-blower who worked for another electronic voting machine company warned Texas election officials in 2004 of the problems with the machines. Their primary, held a few weeks ago, was a nightmare. The Republican candidate for Supreme Court Justice is contesting the results. In one Texas county, the vote count was off by 100,000 votes.

Let's skip back to California for a moment. This week, it was reported that in the last three months, the computerized voting registration database rejected new voters at a rate of 43% in Los Angeles and 26% statewide! The vendor in charge is the very same one (Diebold) that is the target of the lawsuit against the Secretary of State to keep its machines out of the state. In Florida prior to the 2000 election, tens of thousands of voters were illegally purged from the lists (don't forget that 537 vote margin of victory). By 2004, that winning stratagem 'disappeared' tens of thousands of Ohio voters, as documented in the Conyers Report "What Went Wrong in Ohio" and was used elsewhere as well. Do you need any more evidence that the wholesale surrender of our elections to privately owned companies in a "soup to nuts" approach might not be good for democracy?

There is a very real and urgent need for election reform. The question is: what form should it take? Unfortunately for many Americans with short attention spans and limited knowledge of the machinery involved, there is no simple answer. There are varied opinions on this, held by activists known for their integrity and dedication to fair elections.

Many proponents favor HR 550, introduced by Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey and having over 150 sponsors from both sides of the aisle. Often called the “gold standard” of election reform, it would seem a likely choice to support. And yet, many activists oppose it, not for its intent but for its implementation. They want it rewritten and fixed. Nancy Tobi, of Democracy for New Hampshire Fair Election Committee, has written several articles on this very topic.

Although HR 550 speaks about paper trails, it should specify “real paper ballots as opposed to allowing for error-prone computer printouts as the vote of record.” (see the BradBlog story on Utah’s Bruce Funk and his Diebold machines cited above.) Further, Tobi points out the danger of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) encroaching on state and local elections. She spins out several possible scenarios with the EAC intervening to affect the outcome of elections. I think that concern is legitimate. We have seen recent examples of the federal government encroaching on states’ rights and it is a troubling development. She points out that Bob Ney, the Ohio congressman largely responsible for Help America Vote Act (HAVA), was ‘assisted’ at writing the legislation by the electronic voting machine corporation lobbyists. That fact alone should give one pause.

There is a third contingent that holds fast for paper ballots counted by hand. While they are often scoffed at as being unrealistic and retro, the mounting evidence about the voting machines has lent credence to such an approach. There have been numerous articles about how Las Vegas gaming machines have much better security than our voting machines and they’re only dealing with money. Our voting machines are the heart of our democracy. Democratic elections are where each vote counts and every vote is counted. There are arguments about how people need to know the results quickly, that hand counting would take too long. But, what happened in 2000? How long did it take to get an official result and how accurate was it? What about that 16,000 votes in Volusia County that mysteriously disappeared while the tabulating was going on, only to reappear once it was over? When you take into consideration the 500+ vote margin, the importance of that ‘glitch’ cannot be minimized. Other democracies throughout the world have not rushed headlong to use electronic voting and their votes get counted and in the end, someone wins and someone loses. The difference is that their electorate feels confident in the process and, thus, accepting of the results.

Which brings me to the point of this necessarily long and involved piece. Remember Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof? One scene finds him arbitrating a dispute between two of his neighbors. After the first one presents his case, Tevye is convinced he is right. Then, the second pleads his case and Tevye changes his mind. When one of the townfolk sagely points out that they can’t both be right, Tevye agrees that he is also right.

I am Tevye. Tevye is me. Someone sent me an article on pushing HR 550 and I posted it. Yet I really favor paper ballots hand counted. Is HR 550 better than what we have now or is it actually worse because it allows an expanded role for the EAC? I don’t know. It is crucial that we determine that.

What we have here is an issue which directly and indirectly affects each and every one of us both in the polling booth and beyond. We must familiarize ourselves with the issues and figure out how our democracy is best served. This will not be easy. A lively debate is called for. Instead, we have gone about this exactly backwards. We have rushed to comply first, and ask questions later. HAVA is, at the very least, a problematic piece of legislation which makes voting more complicated and less accessible rather the opposite. That is surely not why HAVA was enacted. Hanging chads seem absolutely benign compared to the electronic messes that pop up at each and every use of the electronic voting machines.

I say, let the debate begin. Let us examine election reform in all of its forms. Let us turn each proposal inside out. I invite activists, legislators, computer scientists and concerned citizens to use OpEdNews as a forum. I will print articles from all sides. The important part is to give this discussion the time and attention it deserves. Unfortunately, it will not be in time to save us from this election, perhaps not even the next one. We will pay a heavy price for that. But, ultimately, if done properly, we can take back our elections and create an informed, mobilized public that is actively involved in determining the course of our country and our future. That will be a bonus, for healthy democracy depends on the vigor of its debates and the degree of involvement of its citizens.

It’s late and I must get my beauty sleep. I look forward to hearing from you.

Primer on vote fraud and Voting Integrity

"The Best Democracy Money Can Buy", Greg Palast, Plume Book (Penguin), 2004. Expanded Election Edition (make sure it has Chapter 9: Oil-Slick Jim, the Third Ring and One Million Missing Ballots)

"What Went Wrong in Ohio: The Conyers Report on the 2004 Presidential Election", Academy Chicago Publishers, 2005

"Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election? Essential Documents." Edited by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman, CICJ Books, 2005

"How the GOP Stole America's 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008", Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman, CICJ, 2005

"Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them)", Mark Crispin Miller, Basic Books, 2005

Government-issued GAO Report, issued end September, 2005, on electronic voting machines and 2004 election (available online)

"Invisible Ballots" documentary dvd, produced by William Gazecki, America Media, 2004. www.InvisibleBallots.com

Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.