Mockery as validation

Was this some sort of mea culpa? Or some attempt to indicate the independence of the news division from the editorial page? Or, as I suspect, just a bit of corporate-inspired PR? Maybe, maybe not; I'm not privy to the private goings-on in the New York Times news and boardrooms. But the fact remains that while the Times has in editorials repeatedly warned about the dangers of electronic touchscreen voting, in the Week in Review section last Sunday, an item appeared which took, let's say, a somewhat different tack.

It was a bit of gorilla theater.

At an event meant to highlight the dangers of electronic voting, a smattering of reporters and voting-rights advocates at the National Press Club last Wednesday watched a film of Baxter, a chimpanzee, poking the "Delete" and "Enter" keys on a computer keyboard. This was presented as evidence that even a chimp could tweak an election.

Breathless accounts of "secret back doors" and "hidden triggers" embedded in election-tabulating software were cited as indications that democracy was endangered. A man protesting computerized voting marked the 15th day of his hunger strike.

This event, presented as if it was a typical example of opposition to touchscreen voting, was called "burlesque and passion." The piece went on to pretty much dismiss those who question the machines as conspiracy-minded Luddites who don't trust them simply because they're new. And as is typical in such efforts, it was marked by innuendo, exaggeration, and untruth. For example:

[W]hile most experts appear to agree that electronic voting has real problems, few argue that they ... are products of a dark conspiracy.

Suggesting that those who question e-voting do so argue. But I know of no one who has said the machines are the products of a conspiracy. What people have argued is that because of their flaws and shortcomings they could be used in a conspiracy to rig an election, which is obviously quite a different thing.

But the 2000 election also occurred just as the dot-com bubble was bursting, and as words like "hacker," "virus," "worm" and "pirate" were becoming commonplace. If everyone needed anti-virus protection, spam filters, 128-bit encryption and firewalls, even the most ardent technophiles had to wonder, could electronic voting machines be hacked? Infected? Hijacked?

You see? It's so simple to understand. A little Psych 101 and all the concerns become a measure of Chicken Little panic.

Many voting-rights advocates are now demanding a return to paper ballots....

Who? I know of none of these "many." What is usually called for is voter-verified ballots on touchscreen machines. That is, once a voter casts their votes, the computer prints out a form showing the votes cast. The voter uses it to confirm the machine actually recorded what they intended and then deposits that form in a secure box. (The forms of course have no information about the voters themselves.) If a recount becomes necessary, those paper ballots can be used to double-check the machines.

Others insist that the major manufacturers of electronic voting systems ... release their source code to the world for inspection.

The fear that electronic voting represents a corporate conspiracy is probably overblown, experts say.

The implied connection between the first (accurate) sentence and the next is greatly misleading. Demanding release of the source code is not to search for some hidden plot but to demonstrate the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the code, including possibilities for manipulation. (If memory serves, there was a Diebold model where it was discovered that engineers had installed a back door in the source code - which is common practice while software is being debugged - but never took it out when they were done.)

Too many people would have to cooperate [in a conspiracy] on too many levels - from the programming labs at each company to the warehouses where machines are stored to precinct floors on election night.

Another argument by exaggeration, claiming opponents of touchscreen voting are envisioning a massive corporate conspiracy to control the entire national election. Again, I know of no one who actually claims that.

Interestingly, though, if you were to propose such a conspiracy, controlling the entire election apparatus would be quite unnecessary. For president, affecting a few swing states would be sufficient. A handful of precincts could determine the outcome of any close Congressional election. And what about state government? An even smaller number of changes would be needed to influence an outcome. Suppose it was just some local elections, each of which would involve at most a handful of machines, that could be manipulated. Would that make it okay?

And you don't even need to go down to the precinct level - as I mentioned a month ago, a serious security flaw in one Diebold machine would allow a county-level tabulator, able to deal with up to two million votes at a time, to be easily compromised.

The issue, as has been said many times before, is not electronic voting per se. It is that there is a lack of security in the software, a lack of application of security measures to cover those holes, a lack of voter verification, and ultimately in the light of those, a lack of any good way to do recounts or double-check the machines' results. And no amount of mockery or innuendo will change those simple facts.

The article ends this way:

"Even in places that don't have new technology, the voters are different now," Mr. Chapin of Electionline said. "They've been exposed to the process. They're thinking about it more. Even in those places where the only upgraded moving part is the voter, there's still change."

That, I would say, is all to the good.

Oh, the title of this post? It's because I was reminded of Gandhi's saying that "First they ignore you, then they fight you, then you win." Taking time to mock concerns about e-voting is an indication that they are getting much-deserved attention.