I have been astonished, amazed, and saddened to see how many activists on electronic voting that I used to respect and believe have lost all credibility with me.

It’s not that they oppose Rush Holt’s bill HR 811. It’s WHY they oppose it. They oppose it based on a lot of past experience and high-flying rhetoric. But what they have also shown, and I mean this in all seriousness, is that they are surprisingly unfamiliar with the explicit language in the bill!

For the last few weeks I’ve been in email discussions with Brad of Brad Blog, Bev Harris, Nancy Tobi, Paul Lehto, Mark Crispin Miller, and others.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand, and bear in mind, I am dramatically oversimplifying their comments. But that said, I do not feel I am misrepresenting them.

  1. They don’t like idea of federal ANYTHING. The thought that someone in DC could reach out and have something to do with the votes in their state worries them.
  2. They want HCPB, i.e., Hand-counted Paper Ballots, or nothing. The fact that there is virtually NO support for that in the halls of congress doesn’t deter them.
  3. They think DREs are the problem and that removing them, even while leaving optical scanning systems in place, would solve something.
  4. They want perfect legislation (meaning, perfectly acceptable to them) or no legislation. And because Holt’s bill is #1 (federal legislation), does not provide soley for #2 (HCPB), and allows DREs to be used, they think this is reason enough to oppose the legislation.

But here’s the real shocking thing I’ve discovered. They don’t back up their argument with actual language from the bill! I really am beginning to believe some — perhaps many — of them have not even read the bill in its current form!

Case in point:
In several exchanges, Brad of BradBlog keeps saying that DREs can never produce a record of the vote that the voter can verify. BY DEFINITION, he says, a DRE cannot do that.

Well then, BY BRAD’S definition, those machines would not be allowed under Holt’s legislation. HR 811 states explicitly that ALL machines MUST produce a durable, verifiable ballot, and that the piece of paper, not the electronic tally, decides the recount and audit. For Brad to continue to say that Holt allows DREs that don’t produce paper ballots is simply, legally, not true.

[UPDATE: Brad says that he has never said this, exactly. I’ll take him at his word on this exact phrasing. But he did, provably, say this, in an email I and many others and many lists received from him, re DREs:

“If you don’t mind a voting system where there is no way to verify the voters intent, either before or after the vote is counted, because you think it’s an improvement over what we have, then that’s fine and up to you.”

That goes to the heart of my objection. Because Holt’s bill does, specifically, provide that ALL machines used in federal elections MUST produce a durable paper record that the voter can verify, and which must be used in any audit or recount. So while my wording is incorrect, the point I’m making is the same. Brad has misrepresented, to the detriment of people’s understanding, what, exactly, is in Holt’s bill.]

And DREs are so not the problem, in isolation. People seem to think a scanned ballot is going to be more accurate than one cast on a DRE. I have to tell you, that’s just nutty. Because the software in a scanner isn’t passive. It’s actively interpreting your votes on that page you feed in. And it can interpret them just as rightly or wrongly as a DRE.

People get why DREs are bad. But they think scanners are better because they marked it up first. But why do you believe what you marked is what the computer program chose to record? It’s really no different than a DRE in that regard.

I have a long list of problems that have occured on optical scan machines if anyone’s interested. See the appendix in Electonic Voting: America’s Vote at Risk and note how many problems happened on optical scanning systems.

I’m no fan of electronic voting. But I’m also a realist. I think electronic voting is here to stay until we can prove beyond the majority of America’s doubt that they don’t work. And what better way to prove that then with the audits of from 3% to 10% of the precincts in each state, depending on the closeness of the victory? That’s what Holt’s bill proposes.

I got a phone call the other day from a major national organization, asking me about something in the bill. They wanted a quick answer, but I said wait, I need to actually go read the text so I don’t misrepresent.

I researched. I read. I called them back in under five minutes with a factual answer. It put their specific concerns raised dramatically to bed. So I was really glad they asked.

But I was really sad they hadn’t read the bill themselves, and much worse, that they might have been satisfied with an answer off the top of my head. Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled to be found credible. But I’m scared if anyone finds anyone THAT credible. None of us should believe anyone else ALL the time. We must learn to double check alleged facts.

Why don’t people read the bill? Is it that it’s so dry and boring? Or is it that people don’t think themselves capable of reading legislation and having a valid opinion on it? I fear it’s the latter, and that’s a tragedy.

I promise, an opinion that’s at least based on the language of the bill is a lot more valid than an opinion from an activist who hasn’t even read the latest text!

HR 811, Holt’s bill, has been through a number of changes. I’ve read several versions now. I don’t know if I’ve read them all, but I’ve definitely read the latest one. And I have to say, this is a REALLY strong, good bill. It lays out the baseline, the minimum standard. It does not limit states from having even higher standards. It does not impose a federal stranglehold on elections, as some have painted it. And the only code that’s allowed to remain secret is commercial off-the-shelf software, something Bev Harris at Black Box Voting has been lobbying for so the vendors wouldn’t fight the bill harder. Yes, there is a non-disclosure agreeement (NDA) those who would examine the code have to sign. But that’s standard business practice, and there’s explicit language in Holt’s bill saying errors and fraud are not protected by the NDA. So you can’t talk about what works and how they did it. But you’re free as hell to talk about anything you saw that didn’t work as expected.

The fact that progressive activists who share the same goal as myself – clean and fair elections – can be so ignorant of the very item they are debating is incredibly frustrating and disheartening. It’s a symbol, in a nutshell, of what’s wrong with our country. Facts have fallen by the wayside, and opinion triumphs — whether informed, or not!

I encourage you all to at least read the first few pages – up to page five, of Holt’s bill. The first page is almost all names and will go fast. The next few pages deal with the specific definition and requirement for a paper record that will be available for an audit and/or recount. Just read that. Surprise yourself. It’s not so boring you could puke. And it’s a primary record – not some second-hand piece of information.

After you get to page five, skip over to page 44 and just read through the next page about the audit procedure. The language is specific and clear. This is so much more than any state has on its books now. This alone is reason to pass it. And after reading the bill through, there is truly nothing in there that does damage. But don’t take my word for it. Read it. See for yourself.

It’s amazing how people can be taught not to trust what they see in front of them. That’s what some of the activists want you to do. They want you to think you’re not capable of making the right decision. That you don’t have all the facts.

I believe anyone on this blog is a heck of a lot smarter than that. You will know the truth when you see it. So I’m begging you to look.

And the next time some anti-Holt activist starts spewing a line about this or that, ask them to quote THE SPECIFIC BILL LANGUAGE so you can read it for yourself. Surprise surprise, whenever I have tried that, they just refuse. BECAUSE THEY CAN’T. THEY DON’T KNOW THE LANGUAGE OR WHERE TO FIND IT. Or it doesn’t exist, and they can’t admit that. Don’t believe anything you can’t verify.

I’ve posted a piece on my own blog re what’s good in the bill and why you should care, and what you should do about it. I provide a link to the full bill text, and have pulled out a few salient quotes so you can see what’s there for yourself.

Stop listening to activists who say trust me, I know better. I’m here to tell you that a lot of them DON’T. You know better, when you inform yourself directly.

Thanks for letting me rant. This lack of respect for factual accuracy is really annoying, and far too pervasive in society today. We should do better. People follow truthtellers. In order to be leaders, we must learn to be truthtellers, and not opinion flingers. There’s a world of difference between the two. Even a very well-informed opinion is no substitute for a nice cold hard fact.

Thank you, all of you, who have spent time here digging for and presenting facts, not just sharing opinions. That’s what has made this place especially valuable, to me. That’s what will keep me coming back for a very long time to come.