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An investigation into electronic voting in
Indiana has frightening implications for the presidential election in
November
By Elaine Kitchel
![]() It's no secret that the new voting
technology--paperless, electronic voting machines--has increased the
risk of fraud and incorrect totals. You have only to read the daily
newspapers to see story after story of possible tampering and elections
gone wrong.
Take Indiana, for instance. WISH TV, an Indiana television station, did
a recent in-depth investigation of the election woes plaguing some
Indiana counties after some precincts ran out of republican ballots
shortly after the polls opened, and after some counties reported
thousands more votes than registered voters: click here and click here.
What the WISH-TV news team uncovered was something far deeper even than
a lack of ballots. A look beyond the present failings toward the fall
election revealed possibilities for tampering that would scare even the
most complacent of voters.
Top state election officials tend to work closely with the vendors of
voting equipment. Republican Kathy Richardson, an Indiana State
Representative who was Indiana's Hamilton County Clerk, purchased $1.3
million worth of electronic voting equipment from MicroVote, and says
she plans to purchase $700,000 more. She told WISH-TV, “When you work
with a vendor, you develop a relationship.” She works closely indeed.
MicroVote's president, James Ries Jr., has donated to Richardson's
campaign. Apparently, voting equipment companies don't see that as a
conflict.
Wendy Orange, who recently resigned her job as project manager at
ES&S (another voting equipment company), was working with Indiana
election officials, with her office inside the election board's
warehouse. She stated that voting equipment companies say “trust us,”
and they have been trusted for years. But has that trust been earned?
Can voters really “trust” the products and the companies who make them?
When Ries, the MicroVote President, was asked how a citizen could know
if his/her voted counted, he replied, “It's one of those areas of a
leap of faith. You really do have to have a faith in your local
jurisdiction, that they are conducting equitable elections in the best
faith of the voters. The security for the voter, once again, is the
acceptance of good judgment by a local board. Quite frankly, it's very
difficult to convince somebody how do I know my vote counted…. There is
no way to link that individual ballot back to that individual voter.”
Is it any wonder Orange resigned her position after she blew the
whistle on ES&S when the company asked her to cover up a software
problem it had? “I was faced with a moral and ethical dilemma, and I
felt the only thing that I could do was come forward and tell the
Marion County Clerk what had happened,” Orange continued in her
interview with WISH-TV.
Now, Marion County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler, responsible for the largest
voting population in Indiana, is in the unenviable position of
questioning the reliability and veracity of ES&S, with whom the
county has so heavily invested. The company disputes Orange's claims,
of course. But ES&S's corporate certification claim says: “Under a
statute that took effect in July 2003, the State of Indiana now
requires equipment to be certified to the new 2002 federal standards.
While Version 7.4.5 has not been certified to these new standards--as
is the case, we believe, for other vendors’ systems as well--it is very
important to note that Version 7.4.5 has been tested by an independent
testing authority, certified to the federal government’s 1990
standards, certified by numerous states around the country, and used
very effectively in many jurisdictions around the country.”
The glaring omission in this statement is that Nebraska-based ES&S
does not claim that its results are accurate, only that they adhere to
the OLD standards of 1990 and are just as good as anyone else's in the
industry. Further, Nebraska's Senator Chuck Hagel was once president of
the company. And the Senate ethics committee found that Senator Hagel
still has financial ties to ES&S’s parent company, the McCarthy
Group. The senator's campaign treasurer is the chairman of that company.
An investigation by the Palm Beach Post revealed ES&S had a secret
agreement to kick back a percentage of its profits to the Florida
Association of Counties, and that the lobbyist representing both
ES&S and the Florida Association of Counties was Sandra Mortham, a
former Florida secretary of state and former running mate of Governor
Jeb Bush.
So if, as they claim, ES&S and MicroVote are comparable to the
others, let's look at the last big player, Diebold.
The man behind Diebold, an Ohio-based company, is Walden O'Dell. Last
summer O'Dell sent out invitations to fellow Republicans to attend a
fund-raising dinner. In his invitation he stated he was “committed to
helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president.” And O'Dell
means it. In the last election the Republican National Committee
received $100,000 from O'Dell. With Ohio being a pivotal state in the
upcoming election, one doesn't have to go very far to envision how
O'Dell and Diebold will actually “deliver.” Twenty of Ohio's counties
have already adopted Diebold technology for the November election.
In fact, from its own website, Diebold has this to say about its
machines to be used in some California precincts: “[Diebold Election
Systems] anticipates that its TSX system … will be the first
touchscreen voting system to be qualified under the new 2002 federal
standards…. The company is not obligated to report changes to its
outlook.”
Diebold further states, “Readers are cautioned not to place undue
reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of
the date hereof. The company's uncertainties could cause actual results
to differ materially from those anticipated in forward-looking
statements. These include, but are not limited to:
* challenges raised about reliability and security of the company's
election systems products, including the risk that such products will
not be certified for use or will be decertified;
* potential security violations to the company's information technology
systems.”
“Uncertainties?” “Faith?” Are they talking about possible rain at a
church picnic or an election?
Yes, Diebold is comparable to ES&S and MicroVote, all right. And
with the election in such good hands, it's easy to have “faith,” isn't
it?
If “faith” isn't enough for you, you might want to write your Senators
and Congresspeople to support the Voter Confidence and Increased
Accessibility Act (H.R.2239) (S.1980): click
here.
Read Elaine's follow-up article: The Tangled Web of American Voting
Elaine Kitchel lives in Indiana where she is a research scientist.
She closely watches the political scene and writes about it, instead of
jumping from her 4th floor office window in disgust. You can email
Elaine at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Posted Monday, June 7, 2004
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