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An Open Letter
To the House Administration Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives:
Robert W. Ney, Vernon J. Ehlers, John L. Mica,
John Linder, John T. Doolittle, Thomas M. Reynolds,
John B. Larson, Juanita Millender-McDonald, Robert Brady
Nothing is more central to the success and survival of democracy than the integrity of our elections and the American people's trust in the process.
 During the deliberations on the "Help America Vote Act" (HAVA, H.R. 3295 - signed into law on October 29, 2002), the moving remarks of members of Congress tell us that their primary goal was to ensure election integrity and restore the people's trust. But as states implement their HAVA plans, voter confidence is being severely eroded rather than restored. As members of the Committee, you have the power and the obligation to reverse the current trend and put our election processes back on the track so clearly intended by Congress.
Two years ago, Representative Robert Ney introduced HAVA into the House of Representatives. Shortly after the bill's introduction, when speaking about it to the House of Representatives, he said:
Everybody in the United States has the right to vote and has to feel secure that their vote counts... It is obvious that we need to get rid of these antiquated technologies [punch card systems] and replace them with machines voters have confidence in.1
Representative Steny Hoyer, who introduced HAVA with Representative Ney, stated its purpose in this way:
...it will significantly improve the integrity of our election process, encourage voter participation and restore public confidence in our system.2
Unfortunately, this is not happening. Far from restoring public confidence in our voting system, the electronic voting machines flooding into our precincts are eroding the public's trust in our elections.
Ask the voters in Fairfax County, Virginia whose voting machines subtracted one in every hundred votes for the candidate who lost her seat on the School Board in November 2003.3 Ask the many Broward County, Florida voters who said in a 2003 poll they were ''not confident at all'' that the electronic system would accurately tally their votes.4 Ask the 436 citizens of Wake County, North Carolina whose votes were lost by flawed firmware in the November 2002 election.5
Ask the countless concerned and frightened citizens who have written, emailed, faxed, and phoned their U.S. Representatives, asking them to support a bill that would allow them to inspect and approve a paper record of their vote before the vote was cast.
They are simply requesting what Senator Christopher Dodd claimed was already provided in the Senate version of HAVA, which he introduced:
...giving people the right to see how they voted – you can go to a gasoline station and you know how much gas you put in your car because you get a receipt to look at. Can't we do the same for a voting machine, so that when you vote, and you come out of the booth, you can take a look and make sure your vote was recorded as you intended it to be recorded in the 21st century?
Those are the kinds of requirements I am talking about. I do not think that is overly aggressive, overly excessive. And I believe that if the National Government requires it, that we ought to also pay for it. My bill does both.6
The final version of HAVA, passed by Congress, incorporated Senator Dodd's requirements for electronic voting systems:
(i) The voting system shall produce a permanent paper record with a manual audit capacity for such system.
(ii) The voting system shall provide the voter with an opportunity to change the ballot or correct any error before the permanent paper record is produced.
(iii) The paper record produced under subparagraph (A) shall be available as an official record for any recount conducted with respect to any election in which the system is used.7
On first reading, this requirement seems to ensure that every voter can verify a paper record of his or her vote and that the verified records will be available for a manual recount. However, state officials across the nation are not interpreting it this way. They are claiming that an end-of-day print-out, unverified by voters, satisfies the audit requirement.
They are asking us to believe that the software used in voting computers, unlike all other software ever produced, is error free. They are asking us to take it on faith that our votes will be recorded accurately by secret programs we are not allowed to inspect. They are requiring us to trust our precious democracy to the competence and integrity of a handful of programmers whose names we will never know. By doing so, they are disregarding the warnings of hundreds of computer specialists that computers can be manipulated without detection.
The movement toward these kinds of machines is not consistent with what Representative Vernon Ehlers claimed was necessary:
...we know that all voting equipment should be based on the strongest possible standards for usability, accuracy, security, accessibility, and integrity.8
Nor does this movement fulfill Representative Benjamin Cardin's demand:
There must never be a question as to whether every vote was counted. We are the strongest democracy in the world and every American must be secure in knowing that his or her vote counts.9
The increasing use of electronic voting machines is seriously eroding voter confidence, a situation which threatens our very democracy. As Senator Daschle poignantly warned:
If people are denied their right to vote on issues that affect them directly, or if they fear their votes are not counted, democracy itself is threatened.10
In May of 2003, Representative Rush Holt introduced a bill designed to rectify this dangerous situation by truly restoring public confidence in the election system. H.R. 2239, "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act," provides each voter an opportunity to verify a paper record of the vote before the vote is cast. It also ensures that the software we entrust with our votes will be open to our scrutiny, and it mandates random recounts to spot-check the accuracy of the machines.
This amendment to HAVA would accomplish what Congress clearly intended with HAVA. We wonder: Why is it still in the House Administration Committee? We ask: Why does the Committee not support this bill and release it to the floor for a vote before the states' purchasing decisions sink them even deeper into confidence-eroding commitments that will be difficult and costly to escape?
Certainly there are many pressing issues that Congress must address, just as there were when HAVA was under consideration. But what Senator Tom Daschle said at that time is equally true now:
I know we have a lot of important bills we deal with. We have the energy bill we are considering. We have appropriations bills. And we are dealing with homeland security and terrorism issues.
I do not minimize at all the importance of that. But this bill goes beyond any specific current issue – it goes to the heart of who and what we are as Americans. Aside from the obvious results of the 2000 elections which provoked, I suppose, this discussion and this bill – this effort is not about addressing a single issue or event. We are dealing with the underlying structure of our very Government.11
Given the gravity and urgency of the situation, isn't it essential to make it clear, now, that voting systems must provide a true audit capacity – a voter-verifiable paper record – rather than the mockery of an audit provided by an end-of-day printout of ballots that were neither seen nor approved by voters?
As well-intentioned as HAVA is, so far it has failed to fulfill Representative Ney's goal of providing "machines voters have confidence in." Enacting H.R. 2239 would be a significant movement toward that goal.
If the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), mandated by HAVA and currently more than eight months overdue, had been available to provide assistance and guidelines, each state could have relied on federal standards instead of having to conduct its own technical research and establish its own equipment standards. Is it reasonable to allow the citizens of the United States to suffer an erosion of their confidence in elections due, in part, to governmental delays that are in violation of HAVA deadlines?
H.R. 2239 provides standards that the federal government has failed to provide through the EAC. With counties and states now in the midst of signing contracts with vendors, H.R. 2239 must be passed immediately.
Listen, again, to just a few of the many similar comments spoken in Congress about the HAVA legislation, and remember the goals and admirable intentions of the legislators.
Representative John Lewis:
The right to vote is precious. It is almost sacred. People died for the right to vote, and we must do whatever we can to protect that right.12
Representative Michael Castle:
The sanctity of the vote to people is of extraordinary importance. Americans have the right across the United States of America to feel that their vote is going to be counted... That is at the heart of democracy.13
Senator Christopher Dodd:
It [HAVA] does establish minimum Federal requirements for the conduct of Federal elections to ensure that the most fundamental of rights in a democracy the right to vote and have that vote counted – is secure.14
Senator John McCain:
I would like to congratulate my colleagues on passing this legislation. ... We owe it to the American people to ensure that they have fair, open, and accurate elections.15
Representative James Sensenbrenner:
It is time we get serious about insuring the integrity of the election process, and protecting the public trust in the election system of the United States. ... we need to make certain that legislation does in fact provide improvement and not just rhetoric.16
Compare these expectations with the reality that is now taking place as we move increasingly toward paperless, unaccountable, confidence-destroying electronic voting machines. If these words are to be more than "just rhetoric," the House Administration Committee must support H.R. 2239 to protect our votes and our democracy.
In the words of President George W. Bush, in his October 2003 speech at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy:
...those with power should ask themselves: Will they be remembered for resisting reform, or for leading it?17
Respectfully,
Special H.R. 2239 Committee of VerifiedVoting.org
Madeleine Hervey, Texas
Robert Kibrick, California
Gray and Susan Multer, New York
Dianna Smith, Illinois
Ellen Theisen, Washington
1 Congressional Record of the House of Representatives, December 12, 2001. [Page: H9287]
2 Congressional Record of the House of Representatives, December 12, 2001. [Page: H9289]
3 Washington Post: Fairfax Judge Orders Logs Of Voting Machines Inspected
4 Miami Herald: Touch screens worry voters
5 Electronic Miscounts and Malfunctions In Recent Elections
6 Congressional Record of the Senate, August 03, 2001. [Page: S8877]
7 HAVA § 301(a)(2)(B)
8 Congressional Record of the House of Representatives, December 12, 2001. [Page: H9290]
9 Congressional Record of the House of Representatives, December 12, 2001. [Page: H9293]
10 Congressional Record of the Senate, April 11, 2002. [Page S2528]
11 Congressional Record of the Senate, April 11, 2002. [Page S2528]
12 Congressional Record of the House of Representatives, December 12, 2001. [Page: H9289]
13 Congressional Record of the House of Representatives, December 12, 2001. [Page: H9292]
14 Congressional Record of the Senate, April 11, 2002 [Page S2528, S2529]
15 Congressional Record of the Senate, April 11, 2002 [Page S2527]
16 Congressional Record of the House of Representatives, December 12, 2001 [Page H9301, H9302]
17 Remarks by the President at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy
November 19, 2003 |
