Calls for Vote Reform are not a partisan issue:

It's not just the Democrats being pissed off that they lost

For some time now, the opposition has been trying to overthrow Chavez in Venezuela. The populace had a chance to speak on the matter in a recent referendum. This was the first widespread use of electronic voting in that country. I would like to use it to illustrate a point about the calls for American electronic voting to be more closely examined, changed, or dropped.

The Venezuelan voting process used thumbprints for verification of voter identity, had heavy international monitors including the Carter Group, used open source voting machines whose code was open and reviewed by thousands of programmers months before the election, and had no less than THREE paper trails (one which was given to the Carter group, one given to the election board, the other kept by the voter for verification purposes).

The process of the electronic voting machines was highly scrutinized and available on the web for months for review by anyone who might have been interested.

Diebold did none of this. The process was highly unknown and obscure. There were no paper trails. The source code was not presented for review. When parts of the source code were leaked, they were found to be very badly written and full of security holes and bugs.

Chavez won by 18 percentage points.
This was verified by both the voting comission as well as by the Carter center.
The process was standardized and each ballot looked the same and each voter was given the same experience.
Exit polls were excellent indicators of the actual results.
The opposition were forced, reluctantly, to conclude that they had lost. The people had spoken. There was no foul play.

Bush, on the other hand, won by 2 percentage points. TWO percentage points. There were no paper trails. The voting process was NOT standardized. The exit polls matched the final results in most states, but in the swing states (the key ones) they did NOT match the final results. In those states, the exit polls were all off by anywhere from 5 to 10 per cent, and always in Bush's favour. Then all these other problems arise, slowly being recognised by the mainstream meadia.

If there had been even HALF the problems in Venezuela that the US has seen, the opposition in Venezeula would NEVER have accepted the results. They would have demanded another referendum. If 4000 votes were put for Chavez that didnt really exist, the opposition would go apeshit. If some voting machines were found to discard all the votes cast that morning, there would be cries of condemnation of the Chavez regime. As it is, the international monitors were still called upon to verify the results and that was with an EIGHTEEN PERCENTAGE POINT win.

Now why are we so sure that Chavez won? Because the system was near-perfect.
Why was it near perfect? Because the Venezuelan opposition puts enormous pressure on Chavez, and would have refused to accept the results ANY OTHER WAY. It also helped that Chavez genuinely believes he has the support of the masses, so did not resist all attempts at transparancy and security. In the end, both sides wanted the system secure, and accurate.

So yes, there are some people who say Kerry got more votes, or should have won, or whatever. At this point, it doesn't matter if they're right or not. Bush ain't leaving the White House no matter how much they might want otherwise. But the calls for proper voter reform should not be dismissed as the partisan whining of the losing side. Americas voting system is flawed. Diebold is a fucking joke. And if the mid-west is in favour of brutally exporting democracy to other nations, they might just want to consider getting on board with what a fair election actually looks like.
posted by Manchild at 10:30 AM