Count the Vote, and Watch the Vote

By Margie Burns    The Sentinel    18 August 2005

Several grassroots citizens' organizations are working persistently to restore and to protect the integrity of the voting process in the U.S.

One of these groups is US Count Votes, with volunteers and contributors from around the nation (brochure available at http://uscountvotes.net/docs_pdf/info/US/USCVbrochure.pdf). The key project of US Count Votes is their strong effort to build a national election database, the National Election Data Archive:

"The National Election Data Archive is a scientific project whose mission is to investigate the accuracy of elections through the creation and analysis of a database containing precinct-level vote-type election data for the entire United States. By making this detailed election data publicly available and, when warranted, to informing election officials and candidates of possible errors in local vote counts, our goal is to ensure that correctly elected candidates are sworn into office in future elections."

Since the 2004 election, independent researchers have worked tirelessly and/or tiredly to document statistical anomalies, vote suppression and vote fraud in several states. In several states, they have also followed legal cases through a slow and sometimes inconsistent judicial process and in some cases have engaged in legal action themselves.

There is plenty to follow up on.

In Ohio, the state that gave us long lines, hours long waits and overcrowded, shifting voting places in African-American precincts and comfortably speedy and convenient voting in white precincts, the beat goes on. On July 19, the Associated Press reported that Franklin County, Ohio, Elections Director Matthew Damschroder was fined 30 days pay for having accepted a check for $10,000 from a lobbyist for Diebold voting machine company.

The "blogosphere," and particularly "bradblog" by Brad Friedman (www.bradblog.com), has been tenaciously following up on troubled venues like Ohio and Florida. Indeed, Brad has reported on these remarkable sequences with a perseverance and focus that qualify him for a citizenship award, which will probably have to be given informally if at all.

Damschroder, whose annual salary is $97,240, reportedly stated that the Diebold lobbyist, Pasquale "Pat" Gallina, told him that he had also donated to other GOP officials in Ohio. According to the AP, "The encounter and Damschroder's claim that Diebold representative Pasquale "Pat" Gallina later boasted of a $50,000 donation to groups that support Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell was revealed as part of a lawsuit by one of Diebold's competitors, Election Systems and Software.

ES&S charges that Blackwell improperly favored Diebold in ing electronic voting machines for use statewide."

The Franklin County prosecutor is investigating whether Damschroder or Gallina broke any laws, and the lawsuit by ES&S against Diebold is ongoing. Blackwell, Ohio's Secretary of State, also served as Co-Chair of the Bush-Cheney reelection effort in Ohio.

Evidently these transactions, whatever they turned out to be, began with no concessions to subtlety. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on July 16 that Damschroder said, "Pat Gallina came into my office at the Board of Elections and said, 'I'm here to give you $10,000. Who should I direct it to?' . . . I said, 'Certainly not to me. But I'm certain the Franklin County Republican Party would appreciate a voluntary donation.'"

Diebold has also been busy in Florida. In Volusia County, Florida, also in late July a federal court ruled against the National Federation for the Blind (NFB), which went to court to force the county to use paperless electronic voting machines in the next elections. According to the independent paper the New Standard, this effort is opposed by another group of the disabled, the Handicapped Adults of Volusia County: "Accessibility and auditability should not be conflicting values when it comes to voting equipment," HAVC president David Dixon said in a statement accompanying the EFF announcement. "National advocates for the blind do the disabled community of Volusia County a disservice when they presume to speak on our behalf for flawed systems that we do not want."

Diebold had contributed $1 million to the National Federation for the Blind and has a longstanding partnership with the NFB, calling into question the impartiality of the organization in its recent legal proceeding.

The next election in Volusia County is scheduled for October 11. Exciting times lie ahead over the next few months.