Why I Worry about PA This Election…

[Junkdrawer]

This is a long story, but I’ll try to keep it short.

After the 2002 midterms, I was one of the original DU Election Reform posters. I read everything I could get my hands on and soon realized that the key was that elections (and voting machines) needed to be auditable and audited.

Now, it just so happens that my best friend (who now lives across the state from me) was an active advocate for the disabled. Because of this, he was asked to be a member of the Governor’s HAVA advisory committee. (I’m certain they thought he was a sure thing to support the new machines. At the time, handicapped advocates were almost all in favor of touchscreen voting.) I emailed him a lot of what I was reading and soon he got the committee to agree that voter verified paper ballots were necessary. However, once it was clear that the committee wouldn’t rubberstamp unauditable machines, the PA Secretary of State refused to meet with them in person and, instead, sent a secretary to one of their meetings to get their findings. None of the committee's recommendations made it into the rules governing the purchase of new voting equipment.

Forward to 2005. The Pittsburgh City Paper ran a long article about voting machines. I nearly choked when I read this:

…

"The voter gets to keep this?" one of the Beaver poll workers asks.

Nope. The paper stays at the poll. If there were ever need for a recount to verify whether the election, or even just one machine, were accurate, the VVPATs can be compared to the machine tallies.

That sounds great.

Except, as Schulte never explains to the ladies, Pennsylvania won't approve any electronic voting machine that also records the vote on paper. The Accupoll 1000 got certified on Aug. 4 with the proviso that their VVPAT will be disabled.
…

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A29155

Yes, you read that right. In order to get approval in Pennsylvania, voting machines have to be unauditable. An effort by Democrat Dan Frankel was made to change this by legislation, but the Governor didn’t help and the Republican-controlled legislature bottled up the bill.

There was one remaining ray of hope. The PA constitution states that the electorate must approve by referendum any change of voting equipment. A judge in Westmorland County agreed and Voting machine purchases were put on hold. That’s when Governor Rendell swung into action. An emergency appeal was made to the State Supreme court and the justices ruled that HAVA trumps the state constitution. Seems to me that a referendum could have been made, but "shut the public out of this decision" seems to be the motto in PA.

Why was Rendell so pro-touchscreen? Well, one reason was that the Feds were threatening to pull the HAVA money, and leave behind the HAVA requirement, for all states that didn’t make the change in 2006. Another reason was that Pennsylvania (and Texas) has long used the services of part-time CMU prof (and infamous pro-touchscreen advocate) Mike Shamos as their computerized voting consultant. Yet a third was hinted at when, during the Allegheny County voting machine hearings, one of Rendell's main campaign advisers showed up to argue in favor of Diebold over all other vendors.

So, here we are. Here’s a map of the current situation:



If you want to believe elections in PA will still be on the up-and-up, be my guest. I don’t.