I'm no fan of Maryland's Gov. Ehrlich, but he's got the right idea when it comes to avoiding a repeat in November of the disaster that was the Maryland primary:
A week after the primary election was plagued by human error and technical glitches, Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) called yesterday for the state to scrap its $106 million electronic voting apparatus and revert to a paper ballot system for the November election.
"When in doubt, go paper, go low-tech," he said.
Can I get an amen?
Linda H. Lamone, the administrator of the Maryland State Board of Elections, quickly denounced the plan to swap voting systems just seven weeks before the general election as "crazy." And Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) said it "cannot happen. It will not happen."
Ehrlich said that, if necessary, he would call a special session of the Maryland General Assembly to change the law to allow paper ballots. But Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) dismissed the idea of a special session, saying elections officials should focus instead on fixing the current system.
"We paid millions. These are state-of-the-art machines," said Miller, who called Ehrlich's announcement a political ploy to energize his Republican supporters.
"But we paid millions for our crappy machines that are unsecure and prone to breakdown!" In a just world, everyone responsible for the purchase of those machines would get their walking papers, if not today, then definitely on Election Day. And as for "state-of-the-art" ... I guess that's an appropriate term, if the art you're talking about is election fraud.
I'm with Ehrlich. We should listen to him in Pennsylvania, where our governor and general assembly are completely absent on this issue. Call a special session. Work around the clock. Earn all that money you make working as a state legislator. Get the paper ballots printed and, at the very least, give voters the option to vote with them. Because remember: even if we have a spotless election without a single reported problem, unless you voted with a voter-verified paper ballot and the results were subject to a proper audit, you do not know if your vote was recorded and counted accurately. The machine meltdowns make for good press, but they are not the biggest problem with unsecure, unverifiable electronic voting. The biggest problems are the ones you don't see.
PA legislators are hoping to ignore our own alternate paper ballot bills currently pending in Harrisburg. If you don't want them to get away with that, call your state reps today.
Elsewhere in voting news, Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick voted to support an awful bit of legislation that, if made law, will probably be struck down as unconstitutional. (h/t Rox, who agrees that it would definitely be struck, but looking at the Supreme Court these days, it's clear that Voting Rights are no longer safe.)
The bill is H.R. 4844, which will require everyone who votes in a federal election to present a government-issued photo ID in order to vote. It's being sold as an anti-immigrant bill, but the the requirement is especially onerous for low income Americans and the elderly, who often don't have the need for or the ability to get that kind of ID. People can buy a special photo ID for the purpose of voting but it will cost a fee and require a bunch of paper work that, again, the poor and elderly do not have access to. Of course keeping low-income voters away from the polls is a time-honored and beloved election strategy for the Republican party so it's no surprise that it passed.
What may come as a bigger surprise is the fact that this push for photo voter ID is tied directly to the push for the national identity card commonly referred to as Real ID. Real ID, you may remember, is the bill that the GOP tacked on to a military spending bill in May 2005, guaranteeing its debate-free passage. Now it's the law of the land, which is convenient for fans of voter ID and H.R. 4844. Real ID was also sold as an anti-immigration measure, but in reality, natural born American citizens will suffer privacy infringements and restrictions under Real ID nearly as much as the dreaded illegal immigrants on whose back all these Big Brother laws are passed. File that neat trick under Divide and Conquer.
These are some good sources to read up on what's coming down the pike to a wallet near you:
From CNet: How Real ID Will Affect You:
You said the ID card will be electronically readable. What does that mean?
The Real ID Act says federally accepted ID cards must be "machine readable," and lets Homeland Security determine the details. That could end up being a magnetic strip, enhanced bar code, or radio frequency identification (RFID) chips.
In the past, Homeland Security has indicated it likes the concept of RFID chips. The State Department is already going to be embedding RFID devices in passports, and Homeland Security wants to issue RFID-outfitted IDs to foreign visitors who enter the country at the Mexican and Canadian borders. The agency plans to start a yearlong test of the technology in July at checkpoints in Arizona, New York and Washington state.
And, if that's not creepy enough:
Is this a national ID card?
It depends on whom you ask. Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program, says: "It's going to result in everyone, from the 7-Eleven store to the bank and airlines, demanding to see the ID card. They're going to scan it in. They're going to have all the data on it from the front of the card...It's going to be not just a national ID card but a national database."
At the moment, state driver's licenses aren't easy for bars, banks, airlines and so on to swipe through
card readers because they're not uniform; some may have barcodes but no magnetic stripes, for instance, and some may lack both. Steinhardt predicts the federalized IDs will be a gold mine for government agencies and marketers. Also, he notes that the Supreme Court ruled last year that police can demand to see ID from law-abiding U.S. citizens.
Not that we have to worry about the government and its corporate owners misusing any data they have collected about us.
This article talks about the projected $11B in costs that Real ID will mean for that states expected to toe the line without federal funding.
Real ID Sucks is a "A clearinghouse of stories about how the states will be required to spend $250 million to create standardized, machine-readable driver's licenses, to make it easier for hackers, thieves and credit bureaus to track your every move."
This is the NYT editorial, An Unrealistic 'Real ID,' written when the bill was snuck through Congress.
In a more rational world, Congress would have started thinking hard about identity cards right after Sept. 11. By now, the nation's lawmakers could have had a long and serious discussion about how to create a sensible national ID that would provide identification and security while protecting privacy. This is, after all, a critical issue in terms of both safety and civil liberties.
Too bad. What Congress is doing instead is to ram through a bill that turns state-issued driver's licenses into a kind of phony national identity card through the mislabeled "Real ID" provision. And in order to make absolutely sure there's no genuine debate, the sponsors have tied it to a crucial bill providing funds for American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That's our GOP Congressional leadership for you!
Talk Left on how Real ID means the suspension of habeas corpus, which is under attack on every front in this country.
Recent Comments