Watchdogs demand vote accountability

By NEIL MODIE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER   13 November 2004

Phone Bev Harris in Renton, and you might conclude that America is at the brink of an electoral Apocalypse.

"This is Bev Harris from BlackBoxVoting.org," begins the recorded voice. "First, let me say that we share your intense feelings of shock and disappointment at this betrayal of democracy, and, like you, we are determined to get it back."

No, this isn't a bitter Democrat, appalled at the outcome of the presidential election. Rather, it's the national icon of the fast-growing, multifaceted, election-integrity movement, appalled at the process that was used to count the votes.

"Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines," BlackBoxVoting.org declares on its Web site.

Harris, 53, and her organization were among the first wave of a spreading flood of election-activist groups nationwide that fear for the security of the voting process with the advent of computerized voting.

Ellen Theisen, a software technical writer who works out of her home in Port Ludlow, co-founded VotersUnite!, another national watchdog group, in April. She did so after learning about direct recording electronic, or DRE, voting machines, which lack a voter-verified paper trail.

In Washington, DREs are used only in Snohomish and Yakima counties. King and most other counties use optical-scan ballots.

"With my background in software, it struck me as an absurd idea to trust computers with democracy," Theisen said.

"Unfortunately, to people who don't have a technical background, it makes perfect sense. ... Software is a lot less reliable than most people realize, and it requires an enormous amount of testing." Theisen and Harris are also concerned that some voting equipment used in Washington hasn't been federally certified.  
Election officials here and elsewhere, however, profess relief that the 2004 election went so well, given the flood of new voter registrations, massive turnout and high number of provisional ballots.

"In any major election, you run into situations where a machine doesn't work like it's supposed to or something got programmed wrong," said John Pearson, the deputy state elections supervisor.

"The process is set up so that during the (vote) canvassing period, if a problem occurs, you find it. I've been surprised, actually, by the lack of these kinds of problems not only in this state but nationally."

While election officials say citizen scrutiny of the election process is good for democracy, they say Harris goes overboard with her dire conspiracy-theory views and largely unsubstantiated charges about election-equipment problems.

Nick Handy, Washington's election supervisor, said watchdog groups benefit the election process by "advocating diligence and good election practices," and activists like Harris "provide that kind of stimulus to election administrators."

But Harris and her group, he added, "have made a lot of claims that have not been well substantiated over time, and to the extent that those have undermined confidence in the elections system, the public policy benefits are mixed, I think."

Harris, Theisen, and like-minded others have had a busy two weeks, scouring election returns from across the nation for signs of fraud, miscounting or breakdowns.

Harris, who didn't reply yesterday to requests for comment, is the heroine of the movement, the result of her book, "Black Box Voting: Ballot-Tampering in the 21st Century."

It exposed what she termed egregious security breaches in election software manufactured by some of the nation's biggest election-equipment makers. It got Harris a flood of TV appearances, speech engagements and a big spread in Vanity Fair magazine in April.

If any state has been the movement's general-election poster child it is probably Ohio, where there have been reports of spoiled ballots, software glitches resulting in excessive vote tallies, too few voting machines and other problems. In Washington, however, the hassles have mainly involved the invalidation of a number of provisional ballots.

One of Harris' big issues has been the lack of a voter-verified paper trail for DRE machines. Under rules issued by Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed, paper trails will be required in this state by Jan. 1, 2006.

Many people don't trust ballots on a computer screen instead of a piece of paper, acknowledged Pam Floyd, the secretary of state's voter registration services manager.

"The conspiracy theorists are pretty sure that somebody a programmer for one of the (voting equipment) vendors or for one of the elections offices is going to program (the voting machine) so that someone touches (the screen) for one candidate and it tabulates for another," Floyd said. But she said enough safeguards, including multiple vote-monitoring processes, have been built into the system.

Harris' group last week launched what she called "the largest Freedom of Information action in history," sending out public records requests for internal computer logs and other election equipment to 3,000 counties and townships across the country.

Harris accused King County of "profound problems with security" in the Sept. 14 primary election, in which election officials statewide had to adjust to a new primary system, although she hasn't publicly found fault with the county's administration of the general election.

"We simply disagree" with Harris' allegations about the primary, said Dean Logan, King County's director of records, elections and licensing services. "The observations and linkages she makes don't add up, ... and we feel very confident that the outcome of the primary was proper, ... and the data we have backs up the results for that election."

The secretary of state's Floyd said computerized elections might be inevitable, "but I do not believe it is going to happen quickly, and it should not. We need to take a measured approach," first adopting national standards developed independently.

"We're moving in the direction of having all of the checks and balances in place to assure folks that all the software can be trusted," she said. "Are we there yet? No."