Victor Landa: Elections deserve respect and accuracy

Web Posted: 07/03/2005 12:00 AM CDT

San Antonio Express-News

It turns out I wasn't exactly right. It turns out I got some of it wrong.

I'll get to the wrong stuff first, for the sake of expediency, contrition and truth. Last Monday, I wrote a column about electronic voting and how the central issue in the ongoing debate over paper trails and computerized voting machines was trust. I still believe that. That hasn't changed. But there were two or three things in the piece that were slightly askew.

First, I stated hearings had begun in Washington concerning the issue of electronic voting machines, paper trails and such. In reality, it was a one-time deal. Only one hearing was held by the U.S. Senate. Apparently, one hearing is all there will be.

I stated as well that two of the three witnesses scheduled to testify at the hearing were anti-paper trail partisans. It turns out all three witnesses were opponents of voter verification technology.

I also wrote that voting procedures were supposed to incorporate computer technology and that this move was mandated by federal decree. It turns out that wasn't exactly right, either. The fact is that the Help America Vote Act, known in voting industry circles as HAVA, calls for voting administration entities to keep their punch-card systems, if they so choose, but only if they make the machines accessible to disabled voters and voters who speak languages other than English. Also, counties that choose to keep their old systems must refuse federal monies in the Title 1 kitty.

Now, I'm sure these last two provisions will stir the ire of some readers, and I'll be more than happy to entertain any comments about ballots in languages other than English. We can enter into a civil dialogue about the merits of this provision; we can discuss the merits of accommodating disabled persons and their right to vote. But that will have to be another time, in another column. This one is about setting the record straight. I hope I've done that.

I'm concerned that this issue of voter verification and trust in the voting process will be with us for a long time. I worry that given the history of fumbled national elections in the recent past, as well as allegations of blatant disenfranchisement of minority voters, our dialogue will be contaminated or diverted by faulty facts. It's important that we get it right.

The truth is that as long as there have been elections there have been doubts about their legitimacy and transparency. Wasn't Saddam Hussein re-elected by 100 percent of Iraqi voters the last time he ran for office?

The cleanest and most honest election I've heard about was the one in which my grandfather became mayor of his hometown. In those days, in that place, elections were held during community meetings. Agualeguas, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, was a small village in the foothills of the sierra when a meeting was held to the next mayor. Those gathered were asked to raise their hands if they hadn't been mayor yet, and my grandfather was chosen from among the few with raised hands because it was his turn.

I read recently where the elections industry in the United States ? meaning political campaigns with all of their attached costs ? had reached the billion-dollar mark for one typical year. That's a lot of money, with a lot of vested interests. There are careers and destinies to be protected, and this makes the electoral process all the more suspect. Until you realize that Americans spend the same amount of money on political campaigns per year as they do on bubble gum. Chew on that for a while.

I think that even in my grandfather's day they spent as much on elections as they did on bubble gum. We're no different. Even so, we shouldn't treat the subject lightly. It's bad enough voter participation across our country is unacceptably low. We don't need to make matters worse by fudging the facts.

All those in favor of getting it right raise your hand and say aye.