Voting Machines' Big Week: Where Does Iowa Fit In?

by Jerry Depew, Laurens, Iowa

Iowa Voters for Open and Transparent Elections

While
Americans everywhere wondered if Dick Cheney was drunk when he shot his
hunting partner, the voting machine debate had its biggest week ever.
All of the following happened in the last 7 days. None of it was in
Iowa, but much of it should affect how Iowan’s see their own election
system.

A Pennsylvania court ruled Monday that counties cannot buy new voting machines
without a public referendum. The state constitution requires it and the
Help America Vote Act does not overrule the constitution.

Maryland’s Governor Robert Ehrlich Wednesday said he has lost confidence in his state’s election department and said the state was not prepared to run good elections in 2006.
Maryland uses paperless voting machines from Diebold Election Systems.
Ehrlich wants paper trails. Does Governor Vilsack have confidence in
our election equipment? Most of Iowa’s counties have equipment just
like Maryland’s.

New Mexico’s legislature voted Thursday to dump the nearly new magic voting machines that use no paper
and replace them statewide with paper ballots before the next
Presidential election. New Mexico already had a requirement that paper
trails be added to the voting machines, but Governor Richardson wanted
the touchscreen computers out of the system altogether.  Iowa has many
magical voting machines that lack paper trails.

California’s state legislature held hearings Thursday
into the way voting machines are tested and certified. Many critics of
the process testified. The people who actually do the testing (the
“independent” labs that are paid by the vendors) again declined to
attend the hearing, thus missing a chance to reassure us about the
nature of their work.

California’s Secretary of State Friday allowed counties to buy Diebold voting machines despite confirming that they are insecure
and contain illegal computer code. But he warned counties to buy only
legal equipment and warned Diebold they are responsible for providing
only legal equipment. The SOS said the security problem could be
temporarily addressed with new rules for counties and poll workers on
how to handle the memory cards that count the votes.

Does Secretary Culver care that these same machines will run Iowa
elections? Will he order new rules for handling the memory cards in
Mills, Madison, Monona and the 68 other counties using Diebold’s flawed
equipment?

It’s enough to take your mind off Dick Cheney’s alibi. Is it enough
to get the recalcitrant Iowa House of Representatives to take up the
rather tame legislation that would merely require a paper trail for
Iowa voting?

Thanks to John Gideon of VotetrustUSA for rounding up this news, as he has been doing daily for the last 15 months.