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Post Number: 267
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - 6:01 am: | 
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Report from Washington D.C.
Bev Harris, Executive Director of Black Box Voting, was in D.C. today, together with representatives from auditthevote.org and Help America Recount. After meetings in John Conyers' office and meeting with other staffers, we can offer the following "heads up" for tomorrow:
Whether or not senators stand with Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich) to challenge electoral college votes, do not expect the action to flip the presidency. This is a dose of truth which may be unwelcome to some, but comes directly from the mouths of key congressional staffers. Indeed, Rep. Conyers himself does not expect his bold action to flip the presidency. The votes just aren't there.
Challenging the electoral college will serve instead to create public awareness of current problems with election integrity. If joined by at least one senator -- and more than one senator ARE likely to join -- the challenges will serve to open a 2-hour debate, likely split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, and this will produce awareness of problems that can enhance the chances of getting corrective legislation passed.
There is, indeed, precedent for challenging electoral college votes. In 1969, a lone North Carolina elector decided to cast his vote for George Wallace instead of Richard Nixon, and his choice was challenged, very much as the Ohio electors will be challenged on Jan. 6.
Will more states be involved, or just Ohio? It will only be Ohio, despite outstanding work done by Lowell Finley and his team on New Mexico, and issues in several Florida counties. It has been deemed too complex, by congressional representatives, to tackle more than Ohio.
One concern: The challenge will likely seek to frame the problem largely in terms of vote suppression and punch card systems which will soon be obsolete. Though we were assured that a mention would be made of problems in Lucas County, Ohio -- which uses Diebold optical scans -- and we also received assurance that vulnerabilities with remote access to central tabulators would be addressed, it seems likely that there will be an attempt to corral the discussion so that it does not tackle issues with modern voting machines. If public awareness is concentrated on suppression and punch cards, very thorny and dismally real problems with integrity of touch-screen and opti-scan systems will remain.
Harris discussed the need for enforced transparency with congressional staffers, a legislative topic, either mandating production of reports like those requested in the Black Box Voting Nov. 2. Freedom of Information Act requests, or beefing up FOIA and state law equivalents to enable citizens to promptly examine substantiation of the vote.
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