Sanity In The Election Process by Lauren Weinstein

Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility

Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.

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The continuing controversies over the results of the recent U.S. Presidential election, particularly concerning the vote in Florida, have now apparently begun to hinge on technical issues relating to voting systems and ballots, especially in terms of machine vs. manual recounts, voting irregularities, voter confusion and complaints, and other related issues.

We feel that several critical points are being misunderstood or misrepresented by some parties to these controversies, particularly in light of Governor George W. Bush's campaign having taken federal court actions attempting to block manual recounts of the vote in several Florida counties. Regardless of the outcome of those particular court actions, the following points are crucial to consider.

1. As is well known to election officials and voting system vendors, but historically not advertised to the public at large, all voting systems are subject to some degree of error — electronic and mechanical systems alike. Punchcard-based systems are no exception, for which a variety of known problems can occur. These include poor ballot layout (currently a major issue regarding the "butterfly" Palm Beach County ballot), machine reading errors (often relating to incompletely punched ballot selections, usually in the form of "hanging chad"), paper fatigue, and other problems.

In general, so long as the interested parties both have observers participating in manual recounts to assure a consensus on the interpretation and tabulation of the cards, manual recounts provide the most reliable mechanism for counting these cards accurately, particularly due to the common hanging chad problem which often reads as "closed" (no vote) when processed through automatic reading machines. Indeed, manual counting is still prevalent today in England and Germany.

It is true that manual recounts tend to boost the number of votes counted, again due to hanging chad and other problems noted above. This suggests that if concerns are present regarding the fairness of a manual recount only in particular counties, the obvious solution is to manually recount in all Florida counties, and to manually count all votes (not just a sampling). Yes, this will be slow, and potentially expensive. But if the will of voters is not to be subjugated to technical flaws over which they have no control, this would be the only fair course.

2. While all voting systems have "normal" error rates, these errors typically are not of great significance so long as the margin of victory is significantly larger than the error rate, which is usually the case. However, this does not suggest that systemic errors in the voting process are of insignificance and can simply be discarded in close elections where the error rate does matter.

In particular, the Palm Beach situation from the very start of election day showed all the earmarks of systemic problems. Voters complained of ballot confusion in great numbers, harried precinct workers provided conflicting and apparently often inaccurate information to voters about the ability or inability to correct spoiled ballots or other ballot errors, and warnings regarding the confusing ballot situation failed to even reach all affected precincts, among other obvious problems. These problems occurred all through election day in Palm Beach County. The statistically anomalous results of the voting in that area regarding votes received by the Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan would appear to further validate this analysis — the dramatic vote skew observed clearly does not result from "normal" voting errors that can be reasonably discounted or ignored.

Unlike the typical error rate expected in most elections where significant quantities of voter complaints are not received, the Palm Beach situation, with its extremely atypical and alarming set of complaints and problems throughout election day, would appear to put those votes in a category that cannot be simply swept under the rug, and that appear to be deserving of immediate redress, adjustment, and/or revoting. These widespread voting problems in Palm Beach County were clearly not the fault of "inept" or "moronic" elderly voters, as some persons have arrogantly suggested.

3. Attempts to short-circuit the process of correcting the injustices and technical problems discussed above, through calls for rapid "closure" or the simple accepting of inaccurate and unjust results (particularly in Palm Beach County) "for the sake of the country" should be rejected.

We should not attempt to resolve this situation through quick "solutions" or calls for concessions. These same issues would be present even if the candidates' current positions were reversed. The critical questions shouldn't even be focused on the candidates at all, but rather on the voters themselves, who appear to have been shortchanged by technical issues, procedural problems not under their control, and now by attempts by politicians to hurriedly dispose of this mess through vague references to the public good — a route that would leave the affected voters effectively disenfranchised.

There are two efforts that need to take place.

First, the problems of this particular election, as discussed above, need to be dealt with in a deliberate and fair fashion. If that involves courts, manual recounts, and revoting, both inside and perhaps outside Florida, so be it — they're all part of the procedures that we have in place. Let's get it right — we should not be treating voters as disposable peons. If we do not take a proper course, whoever ends up in the White House will be viewed by at least half of the U.S. population, and probably much of the world, as not wholly legitimate.

Secondly, we need to look long and hard at the election process around this country, taking note that calls for radical departures from current widely-used systems must be viewed with extreme care and skepticism. In particular, Internet voting must be considered to be extremely problematic (please see the PFIR Statement on Internet Voting, and Hacking the Vote ). One major reason to look skeptically upon these hi-tech systems is that their potential reduction in voter privacy and lack of rigorous audit trails fail to allow true recounts to occur when the integrity of the voting process is called into question, and such questions can arise in electronic as well as mechanical voting environments.

We stand at a crossroads where the existence of fundamental flaws in our election system have finally been exposed to the public. It is no longer tenable for the powers that be, with a gentleman's agreement or a nod and a wink, to steam roll over these flaws — and the will of voters — for the sake of convenience and expediency. We can start down the path toward ensuring genuine fairness and integrity in the voting process by making sure that the election of last Tuesday is resolved in a manner that not only serves the candidates, but more importantly the will of the voters themselves.

Lauren Weinstein

Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility

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Last modified 6/14/09