AEI scholar Ornstein comes out for election transparency

[eridani]

I think he and RFK Jr. would make a beautiful couple, don't you?

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1354&Itemid=26

In his column for Roll Call this morning, "Forget Flag Burning. Tackle the Real Issues, Like Voting Machines", resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Norman Ornstein called on members of Congress to address the growing crisis of unverifiable, insecure electronic voting and the threat that it poses to our democracy.

Describing election procedure and reform as an issue that is crying out for Congressional focus, Ornstein notes that in spite of the belated efforts of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), "huge problems remain in the election system, and new ones have emerged in the aftermath of HAVA. And none of the people who wrote HAVA have shown the slightest interest in addressing them."

Focussing on what he calls "the biggest flashpoint" - voting machines, Ornstein describes a process that has "backfired because of the unintended consequences of the (well-intentioned) move to expensive modern electronic machines, mostly of the touch-screen variety." He observes, "The more experts have focused on the machines, the more vulnerabilities they have found. The more they have pointed out the problems, the more the companies that make the machines have brushed aside complaints or stonewalled about the problems."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943 whose stated mission is to support the "foundations of freedom - limited government, private enterprise, vital cultural and political institutions, and a strong foreign policy and national defense." The Institute is an independent, nonprofit organization supported primarily by grants and contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals.
Like most think tanks that maintain non-profit status under the federal tax code, AEI is strictly nonpartisan and takes no institutional positions on pending legislation or other policy questions.

However, it has emerged as one of the leading architects of the Bush administration's public policy; more than two dozen AEI alumni have served either in a Bush administration policy post or on one of the government's many panels and commissions. AEI, along with the more conservative Heritage Foundation, is often cited as a center-right counterpart to the center-left Brookings Institution, although AEI and Heritage place much more emphasis on advocacy than does Brookings <1>. In 1998, AEI and Brookings established the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. He is on Al Franken's show all the time.

[Jim Sagle]

2. Ornstein was on Franken's show today talking about this same topic.

Clearly AEI wants one foot in the Democrats' camp.

[Wilms]

3. .

:scared:

[Stevepol]

4. K&R. This needs to be further K'ed and R'ed! n/t

[Kip Humphrey]

5. Are Republicans worried about 2006 & losing control of some machines?

[Kolesar]

6. Now that the Dems are going to take Ohio's governor & Secy of State

offices, the pukes are scared.