With Mole333 and the estimable Marjorie Gersten away on vacation, it's a perfect moment to commit some heresy. Here goes: I think the voting machine people really need to gain some perspective.
I say this having had to endure yet another 'the republicans stole the election by hacking, and if we don't get PB/OS, we'll never win an election in this state again' rant the other day.
That seems to be the central fear of some, not all, PB/OS advocates. The problem is this: the empirical evidence that would support that hypothesis is a bit sketchy, even if this statement will probably provoke long comments alerting me to same. That's not my point, however.
Rather, what I'm missing from the conspiracy crowd - note that I don't count either Mole or Marjorie in their number - is any understanding of how elections are influenced in the real world. For example, in the polling place I was at in Columbus, Ohio, in November 2004, there were three voting machines, as opposed to five for the primary; one of which broke down within minutes, resulting in a wait time, at 7 AM, of four hours. There was also a republican 'challenger', who seemed to specialize in questioning the credentials of little old black ladies who had already waited in line to vote for a few hours.
And let's not even go near the practices in certain Brooklyn Assembly districts.
A significant concern arising from the semi-paranoid activism of, again, certain elements within the voting machines advocacy movement, is this: by questioning the integrity of the process, they undermine trust in the system and de-incent people from being active in campaigns, voting, and so on. After all, if you're told loudly that the system is rigged, why bother? If you're looking for a guaranteed way to lose elections, congratulations, you've found it.
Conversely, claiming that every election we lose was stolen ignores that, well, sometimes we lose elections. For example, Francine Busby would probably be in Congress right now had she not had the unutterable stupidity of saying, on camera, that illegal immigrants should help her campaign. Blaming the machines inhibits the learning process from a loss, in short.
What the voting machine people should be calling for, in my mind, is comprehensive election reform, complete with paper trails, non-partisan redistricting, ballot access reform, same-day voter registration, campaign finance reform, with the entire process of holding elections overseen by a non-partisan state agency. The problem with our elections isn't just the possibility that machines could be hacked, though that is something to be guarded against; the wider problem is what can be done in a perfectly legal, above-board fashion. There may very well have been shenanigans with hacked machines in Ohio 2004; problem is, focusing on one (possible) factor in that debacle ignores all the others, which from my experience were significant enough to swing a close election. My little polling place lost, through waiting times of four hours or more, challenges, and malfunctioning mechanical machines, at least 200 votes; multiply that by a thousand precincts, and you don't need any hackers.
So by all means, advocate for PB/OS; it should be a simple maxim of good government that any public process needs to be transparent, verifiable and cost-effective. But keep the bigger picture in mind, and don't suck the oxygen out of real campaigns, please.
