Iowa's Voting Machines: Making Sausage and Counting Votes
This just in from the Great Northwest – Iowa, that is. Lots of
wind, not too many people. However, there is one fine fellow over
here, Jerry Depew of Laurens, who has decided to make his voice
heard in a bigger way. Jerry is a long-time paper-ballot and open-elections
advocate who seems to think that when we vote, our votes should
actually be counted accurately. A novel idea these days.
Jerry recently set up his own non-partisan blog, Iowa Voters for Open
and Transparent Elections, where he posts updates on the Iowa
scene. Not only can't you get this kind of information in one place anywhere
else in Iowa, but in addition to that, Jerry has graciously agreed to allow Blog for Iowa to
reprint some of his posts.
First
up, Jerry reports on Monday's meeting of the Iowa Board of Examiners
for Voting Machines in Des Moines, which he attended as a concerned
member of the voting public.
Making Sausage and Counting Votes
by Jerry Depew, Laurens, Iowa
The room was too small and the table was too crowded. The ballot marking machine
locked up once and had to be rebooted. The ballot scanner got tripped
up by a test ballot and had to be reprogrammed. The voting machine
managers from ES&S were unable to answer some questions about their
equipment. They spent a fair amount of time on the phone to HQ getting
things worked out.
That was the scene Monday in the office of the Iowa Secretary of State.
Election Systems and Software of Omaha had come to town to get state
certification of a new piece of voting equipment. It is intended to
make it easier for blind voters and others to cast private ballots.
More ballots were cast in Pocahontas, Iowa, in 2004 than were used to
test the equipment Monday. There was NO testing of security, even
though security concerns were raised.
The three official examiners were underpaid for their time and woefully
underpaid (Iowa Code 52.6) for the responsibility they shouldered. They
had already announced their plans to purchase the equipment they were
about to review. They had an obvious interest in running trouble free
elections, but not much curiosity about implications of the errors they
uncovered. They could have benefitted from outside expertise (Iowa Code
52.5), but the Secretary of State had not provided them with any.
Nevertheless, at the end of the six hour session, the equipment was
approved. No surprise here. Just another step in the implementation of
the Help America Vote Act, a disaster as bad as the 2000 Florida
recount that it was supposed to address.
They say you should never watch the making of sausage or the crafting
of legislation. Add the certifying of voting machines to the list. And
the next time someone tells you that voting machines are “tested and
tested and tested,” send that person to me.
Blog For Iowa 
