To Count Every Vote is American

This week the venerable New York Times was the latest of many organisations and institutions to declare that America's democratic system is simply starting to fail. Not in terms of its democratic ideals, or some takeover by a Neocon cabal, but by a simple collapse in its ability to count everyone's votes accurately and fairly. The Times is editorialising on a shocking government report into electoral rules in Ohio's biggest county, Cuyahoga, which contains the city of Cleveland. It details a litany of errors and a large discrepancy between the paper record of a ballot and the result recorded by the new Diebold electronic voting machines the county has just installed. It also worried that 31 per cent of black people were asked for identification as they voted compared to 18 per cent of other voters. '[The] report should be a wake-up call to states and counties nationwide,' the paper thundered.

But Ohio is far from isolated. The problem is simply that America has no national standard for tallying the votes in its elections. Apart from a few federal mandates to safeguard broad constitutional rights, it is left up to local officials to sort out the details on the ground. This means in one state a machine might be used. In others a simple paper ballot and a pen. Or it varies from county to county. In one small town a touch screen machine might be on hand, a few miles away other voters might use a punch ballot and in the next county after that you might use a pen. Or pull a lever. Or countless other complex ways to do what should be so, so simple. It also means in one place there is a solid (paper) record of a vote that can be recounted, while in others, it is all down to famously fallible machines and their electronic memories.

In some places you can't vote if you have a prison record. In others, you can. In some states you need identification to vote. In others you don't. In some a drivers' licence will be enough, in others it won't. All this is fundamentally a violation of the basic genius of democracy: it should be simple and uniform. In America that is simply not true.

[excerpt from Paul Harris, "The myth of fair elections in America", Guardian Unlimited, 7 September 2006.]

Posted on September 30, 2006 at 23.55 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Current Events

2 Responses

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  1. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Sunday, 1 October 2006 at 16.20
    Permalink

    Reform of state and local prerogatives doesn't come quickly or easily, as we've seen throughout our history. For starters, I'd just like to see e-voting machines outlawed unless and until they can be put to the test by hackers and tamperers, and pass their tests with flying colors, no exceptions.

  2. Written by rightsaidfred
    on Saturday, 7 October 2006 at 07.48
    Permalink

    I would say our voting accuracy is as good or better now than it ever was. There is more scrutiny now.

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