Property Co-Owned by Jada Pinkett-Smith Tied to Alleged Baltimore Drug Conspiracy
Web Exclusive: A Feb. 2 indictment of 13 men that federal prosecutors say are involved in a violent Baltimore drug conspiracy called the Rice Organization seeks forfeiture of co-conspirators’ assets—including an East Baltimore property that state records show is co-owned by movie actress Jada Pinkett-Smith. [read full article by Van Smith]
Friday, February 11, 2005
Monday, January 17, 2005
On Bush, inaugural 2
dispatch from Er Uh Cliffie ...
W-Post published its "The Red Sea" Sunday in a magazine story by David Von Drehle. In it, the author drove through the center of the country, interviewing random Americans to get an impression of Bush’s America, the better to inform us urban, Blue-State losers. The results are in: Bush voters are, indeed, deluded morons. The first subject Von Drehle spoke to was Allen Stuhr, a water official in Waco, Nebraska who says he’d rather drink arsenic than spend money to take it out of the water. "For more than 100 years, we've lived with arsenic in our water. It is a naturally occurring element. It isn't contamination -- it's natural."
Soon, Von Drehle was talking to Elaine Bowers, a Kansas used car saleswoman. Or more than a saleswoman, actually—Elain and her husband, Charlie, own the dealership. Elain was moved by a post 9/11 photo of Bush shaking hands with his father. She was disgusted by Clinton’s sex scandal. Bush is so much more "moral." About the war she says, "I’m sad we had to go."
The Owens in Abelene Texas are fighting a sex video store that took over an abandoned Stuckey’s behind their house. They aren’t hicks, they insist. Their son runs a multi-million dollar farm.
"George Bush is straightforward. He's honest, and he's moral," says Bruce Owen.
"A common, ordinary person," says his wife, Donna Owen.
Think about that for just a moment. The idea that George W. Bush, son of a President, grandson of a senator and political giant, scion of a multimillionaire family, prep-school grad, Yale legacy student, Harvard grad, a millionaire in his own right, is a "common, ordinary person."
What kind of person would suggest such a thing? Would it be an informed person?
The ignorance of the Bush voters depicted in this story is deep and wide and consistent. "When Kerry said he was for abortion and one-sex marriages," Oklahoma City resident Joyce Smith says, "I just couldn't see our country being led by someone like that."
The writer kindly corrected Smith’s impression in print (Kerry said neither thing) but, apparently, did not disabuse Smith of her mistaken impression.
Is everyone an idiot who voted for Bush? Von Drehle explored that possibility, citing Thomas Frank’s What’s Wrong With Kansas, testing his thesis with unemployed gunsmith Mark Pack in Reagan, Oklahoma.
"Don't get me wrong," Pack, missing a leg from a motorcycle crash, says. "I don't think George Bush is the greatest guy in the world. Both of them scared the hell out of me. But at least Bush tells you what he thinks."
That, I think, is most of the problem. Kerry never gave a straight answer to any question. Fearing, apparently, the Rove attack machine, John Kerry ran from his own record. The Republicans, of course, attacked anyway—and added the sobriequet "flip-flopper" to the list. Kerry said nothing. He did not defend his Vietnam service or, really, reveal much about it. When Republicans charged that Kerry had no accomplishments as a senator, Kerry did not even mention his successful investigations into Iran-Contra, the drug dealing condoned and abetted by the CIA, or the BCCI bank scandal. All of these showed Kerry to be a man of principle, morals, and courage. They are a real record that might have resonated with many of the people who voted for Bush (and helped better mobilize Kerry's base). But Kerry and his people decided that they were not "on message," and so nothing was said of them, leaving the impression that Kerry really didn’t have much of a senate record—or that he would "say anything to get elected."
Bush, of course, also said little of substance. Much of what he did say was inane or demonstrably false.
But that was no handicap to convincing his voters.
Bush’s people keep him in the same state of cold ignorance many of his voters inhabit. That, indeed, is why no one could attend a Bush rally or public appearance unless they demonstrated suitable ardor for the President. This rule contimues during his inauguration ceremony, during which some $30 million have been spent to erect bleachers along Pennsylvania Avenue. Seats in the stands are reserved for the faithful; the stands themselves will helpfully screen out the signs of protest carried by any naysayers.
And Bush seems not to know that any such naysayers exist. Or, if he knows they exist, he has been made comfortable dismissing them. "We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post published Sunday on the front page. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."
W-Post published its "The Red Sea" Sunday in a magazine story by David Von Drehle. In it, the author drove through the center of the country, interviewing random Americans to get an impression of Bush’s America, the better to inform us urban, Blue-State losers. The results are in: Bush voters are, indeed, deluded morons. The first subject Von Drehle spoke to was Allen Stuhr, a water official in Waco, Nebraska who says he’d rather drink arsenic than spend money to take it out of the water. "For more than 100 years, we've lived with arsenic in our water. It is a naturally occurring element. It isn't contamination -- it's natural."
Soon, Von Drehle was talking to Elaine Bowers, a Kansas used car saleswoman. Or more than a saleswoman, actually—Elain and her husband, Charlie, own the dealership. Elain was moved by a post 9/11 photo of Bush shaking hands with his father. She was disgusted by Clinton’s sex scandal. Bush is so much more "moral." About the war she says, "I’m sad we had to go."
The Owens in Abelene Texas are fighting a sex video store that took over an abandoned Stuckey’s behind their house. They aren’t hicks, they insist. Their son runs a multi-million dollar farm.
"George Bush is straightforward. He's honest, and he's moral," says Bruce Owen.
"A common, ordinary person," says his wife, Donna Owen.
Think about that for just a moment. The idea that George W. Bush, son of a President, grandson of a senator and political giant, scion of a multimillionaire family, prep-school grad, Yale legacy student, Harvard grad, a millionaire in his own right, is a "common, ordinary person."
What kind of person would suggest such a thing? Would it be an informed person?
The ignorance of the Bush voters depicted in this story is deep and wide and consistent. "When Kerry said he was for abortion and one-sex marriages," Oklahoma City resident Joyce Smith says, "I just couldn't see our country being led by someone like that."
The writer kindly corrected Smith’s impression in print (Kerry said neither thing) but, apparently, did not disabuse Smith of her mistaken impression.
Is everyone an idiot who voted for Bush? Von Drehle explored that possibility, citing Thomas Frank’s What’s Wrong With Kansas, testing his thesis with unemployed gunsmith Mark Pack in Reagan, Oklahoma.
"Don't get me wrong," Pack, missing a leg from a motorcycle crash, says. "I don't think George Bush is the greatest guy in the world. Both of them scared the hell out of me. But at least Bush tells you what he thinks."
That, I think, is most of the problem. Kerry never gave a straight answer to any question. Fearing, apparently, the Rove attack machine, John Kerry ran from his own record. The Republicans, of course, attacked anyway—and added the sobriequet "flip-flopper" to the list. Kerry said nothing. He did not defend his Vietnam service or, really, reveal much about it. When Republicans charged that Kerry had no accomplishments as a senator, Kerry did not even mention his successful investigations into Iran-Contra, the drug dealing condoned and abetted by the CIA, or the BCCI bank scandal. All of these showed Kerry to be a man of principle, morals, and courage. They are a real record that might have resonated with many of the people who voted for Bush (and helped better mobilize Kerry's base). But Kerry and his people decided that they were not "on message," and so nothing was said of them, leaving the impression that Kerry really didn’t have much of a senate record—or that he would "say anything to get elected."
Bush, of course, also said little of substance. Much of what he did say was inane or demonstrably false.
But that was no handicap to convincing his voters.
Bush’s people keep him in the same state of cold ignorance many of his voters inhabit. That, indeed, is why no one could attend a Bush rally or public appearance unless they demonstrated suitable ardor for the President. This rule contimues during his inauguration ceremony, during which some $30 million have been spent to erect bleachers along Pennsylvania Avenue. Seats in the stands are reserved for the faithful; the stands themselves will helpfully screen out the signs of protest carried by any naysayers.
And Bush seems not to know that any such naysayers exist. Or, if he knows they exist, he has been made comfortable dismissing them. "We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post published Sunday on the front page. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."
Friday, January 07, 2005
What Conspiracy?
Dispatch from Er Uh Cliffie ...
Er ah, dat Barbara Boxer, she's a hero I think. Goin' out on a limb, dare, forcing the Republicans to say "conspiracy theory" again in public. That's the worst thing they can do, there, Normie, since every thinking person in this country knows that there really WAS a conspiracy and the Republicans really DID steal this election, as well as the one in 2000.
Social Security and the Income Gap
So you saw the Washington Post's story two days ago revealing that Bush's plan for Social Secuirity will just about halve benefits available to retirees 20 years from today? If I wasn't a postal worker I'd be really worried--or maybe not. See, the way Bush plans to do this is to stop increasing SS payouts according to wage increases--which is how it's been done since 1977--and instead use the overall rate of inflation.
Historically, American wages have increased faster than inflation generally. That's why this is seen as a cut.
The Dems have gone nuts. My inbox at City Paper has got something like 60 emails over the past two days, from people screaming about this. The Republicans claim it'll save money and since the SS program is "in crisis," this is the fairest way.
The Dems say--factually--that SS isn't really in crisis and now Bush is about to destroy it in order to hew to a ridiculous idealogical fantasy and hand over a bunch of money to Wall Street managers. This is true and obvious, but they're bashing Bush now for a cut that might be no such thing, because neither side in the debate wants to acknowledge the central, mean fact of life in working America that's remained in effect since the Carter Administration.
Put plainly, wages DIDN'T keep up with inflation.
But wages ALWAYS surpass inflation rates, right Normie?
Actually it's (or it should be) a well-known fact that, for at least the bottom 40 pecent of income-earners, wages have been flat or have fallen over the past 30 years or so. Here's a report examining income inequality using census data, published in 2002.
Here's an updated one examining income, wages and hours worked--showing that income would have fallen much more if not for increases in working hours. Not surprisingly it's still happening now, according to government figures compiled by the Economic Policy Institute.
Boiled down, the real deal is this: Wages on average have increased relative to inflation since the 1970s, but the story is very different for different classes of wage earners. For the highest-earning 20 percent, inflation-adjusted wages have increased dramatically. For the lowest 20 percent, they've gone down quite a bit. The middle three quintiles have been comparably stable, but the poor have gotten poorer while the (relatively) rich have gotten richer.
In hard times incomes fall broadly, when measured against inflation. Between 2000 and the end of 2003, the inflation-adjusted median household income in the US fell about $1,500. In good times the top four quintiles gain--with the best off doing the best and the fourth gaining very little. During booms the poorest quintile stays still, relative to inflation, according to long-term data trends examined by the EPI and others; during recessions the poor lose ground, which they do not make back during good times.
Don't like the EPI because they're too associated with unions? Sorry, bunkie, the data is the data. Here are conclusions from another study, this one by Harvard University examining housing trends: "While home prices and rents have continued to outpace general price inflation, inflation-adjusted incomes of households in the bottom two quintiles have been nearly flat since 1975."
Don't like Harvard because it's in Massachusetts, which is part of France? Here's a Red State approach (the Wyoming Department of Employment and Planning, 1998): "Over the last five years, the bottom quintile increased by only $40 (0.4%). This is below the inflation rate. Looking at Table 1 and Figure 1, wages in the years 1995 and 1996 actually decreased. On the other hand, the top quintile increased by $5,668 (10.7%) over the last five years (see Table 2 and Figure 2). There was never a decrease in wages in the top quintile over the five-year period." (And this is data from 1993-1998--the alleged "boom years" of the new economy).
So the data is the same in Laramie and Lawrence, KS, from Miami to Maine and San Diego to Seattle. And most economists--though they don't emphasize their feelings on the matter (being firmly ensconced, as a class, in the top two quintiles), believe that this trend will continue well into the future. That's part of the wonder of "globalization." Cheaper goods manufactured overseas by poverty workers keeps inflation low while removing high-paying factory jobs from (formerly) industrialized nations like the U.S.A. That depresses wages at the low end, since all those workers must find new jobs in a job market that isn't creating so many low skilled jobs. Supply and demand, classic.
In fact, this lowering of the standard of living (for at least the poorest 40 percent of Americans) has been deliberate policy since at least 1979. That was the year Presient Carter's new Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volker, infamously said: "The standard of living of the average American has to decline...I don't think you can escape that."
Now, no Fed Chairman since Volker's time has repeated this policy prescription explicitly, but Alan Greenspan's cheerleading for outsourcing and his manic effort to keep "inflation" low is well-understood to be a "low wage" policy.
Greenspan (with many others) often claims the U.S. has "the highest standard of living in the world." But this is demonstrably false by almost every measure--and Greenspan knows it, as evidenced by this rare exchange between the Fed Chairman and Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders. (Sanders calls Greenspan on his "highest standard of living" nonsense; Greenspan backpedals smoothly, saying that "For a major industrial country, we have created the most advanced technologies, the highest standard of living for a country of our size." --As if being a very large country somehow hinders the development and maintenance of a high standard of living?)
The deepening crisis among America's ordinary wage earners could not be plainer. Yet the facts don't stick--and don't even fully register among EPI's lefty economists. I called one up today to ask about falling wages and their likely effect on future SS income for low wage workers. My theory is that, given the long-term trend at the bottom 40 percent of American wage earners, an index to real inflation may actually benefit the lowest earners.
William Spriggs, a senior fellow at EPI and its point-man on the SS debate, says no way.
The reason for that, Spriggs explains, is that most people do not remain stuck in the bottom 20 percent for their entire career. "The bulk of folks over their lifetime at least move up one quintile," he says, "So people at the bottom would still get a cut" in benefits under Bush's plan.
Then too, Social Security has always skewed its benefits upward slightly for the lowest earners. "So the fact that people at the bottom have not tended to have much lifetime gain does not change the reality that you're cutting benefits dramatically by just going to price index," Spriggs says.
Maybe Spriggs is right. (Here's his SS view in detail) Then again, maybe it's time to broaden the debate over Social Security (and Medicaid and Medicare, which are in much more dire financial straits than SS) to reflect the basic reality of falling wages among a substantial fraction of the American population. Given the trends of the past three decades, the America of 2050 may be a much harsher place than that envisioned by even the most pessimistic of Social Security's would be "reformers."
Er ah, dat Barbara Boxer, she's a hero I think. Goin' out on a limb, dare, forcing the Republicans to say "conspiracy theory" again in public. That's the worst thing they can do, there, Normie, since every thinking person in this country knows that there really WAS a conspiracy and the Republicans really DID steal this election, as well as the one in 2000.
Social Security and the Income Gap
So you saw the Washington Post's story two days ago revealing that Bush's plan for Social Secuirity will just about halve benefits available to retirees 20 years from today? If I wasn't a postal worker I'd be really worried--or maybe not. See, the way Bush plans to do this is to stop increasing SS payouts according to wage increases--which is how it's been done since 1977--and instead use the overall rate of inflation.
Historically, American wages have increased faster than inflation generally. That's why this is seen as a cut.
The Dems have gone nuts. My inbox at City Paper has got something like 60 emails over the past two days, from people screaming about this. The Republicans claim it'll save money and since the SS program is "in crisis," this is the fairest way.
The Dems say--factually--that SS isn't really in crisis and now Bush is about to destroy it in order to hew to a ridiculous idealogical fantasy and hand over a bunch of money to Wall Street managers. This is true and obvious, but they're bashing Bush now for a cut that might be no such thing, because neither side in the debate wants to acknowledge the central, mean fact of life in working America that's remained in effect since the Carter Administration.
Put plainly, wages DIDN'T keep up with inflation.
But wages ALWAYS surpass inflation rates, right Normie?
Actually it's (or it should be) a well-known fact that, for at least the bottom 40 pecent of income-earners, wages have been flat or have fallen over the past 30 years or so. Here's a report examining income inequality using census data, published in 2002.
Here's an updated one examining income, wages and hours worked--showing that income would have fallen much more if not for increases in working hours. Not surprisingly it's still happening now, according to government figures compiled by the Economic Policy Institute.
Boiled down, the real deal is this: Wages on average have increased relative to inflation since the 1970s, but the story is very different for different classes of wage earners. For the highest-earning 20 percent, inflation-adjusted wages have increased dramatically. For the lowest 20 percent, they've gone down quite a bit. The middle three quintiles have been comparably stable, but the poor have gotten poorer while the (relatively) rich have gotten richer.
In hard times incomes fall broadly, when measured against inflation. Between 2000 and the end of 2003, the inflation-adjusted median household income in the US fell about $1,500. In good times the top four quintiles gain--with the best off doing the best and the fourth gaining very little. During booms the poorest quintile stays still, relative to inflation, according to long-term data trends examined by the EPI and others; during recessions the poor lose ground, which they do not make back during good times.
Don't like the EPI because they're too associated with unions? Sorry, bunkie, the data is the data. Here are conclusions from another study, this one by Harvard University examining housing trends: "While home prices and rents have continued to outpace general price inflation, inflation-adjusted incomes of households in the bottom two quintiles have been nearly flat since 1975."
Don't like Harvard because it's in Massachusetts, which is part of France? Here's a Red State approach (the Wyoming Department of Employment and Planning, 1998): "Over the last five years, the bottom quintile increased by only $40 (0.4%). This is below the inflation rate. Looking at Table 1 and Figure 1, wages in the years 1995 and 1996 actually decreased. On the other hand, the top quintile increased by $5,668 (10.7%) over the last five years (see Table 2 and Figure 2). There was never a decrease in wages in the top quintile over the five-year period." (And this is data from 1993-1998--the alleged "boom years" of the new economy).
So the data is the same in Laramie and Lawrence, KS, from Miami to Maine and San Diego to Seattle. And most economists--though they don't emphasize their feelings on the matter (being firmly ensconced, as a class, in the top two quintiles), believe that this trend will continue well into the future. That's part of the wonder of "globalization." Cheaper goods manufactured overseas by poverty workers keeps inflation low while removing high-paying factory jobs from (formerly) industrialized nations like the U.S.A. That depresses wages at the low end, since all those workers must find new jobs in a job market that isn't creating so many low skilled jobs. Supply and demand, classic.
In fact, this lowering of the standard of living (for at least the poorest 40 percent of Americans) has been deliberate policy since at least 1979. That was the year Presient Carter's new Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volker, infamously said: "The standard of living of the average American has to decline...I don't think you can escape that."
Now, no Fed Chairman since Volker's time has repeated this policy prescription explicitly, but Alan Greenspan's cheerleading for outsourcing and his manic effort to keep "inflation" low is well-understood to be a "low wage" policy.
Greenspan (with many others) often claims the U.S. has "the highest standard of living in the world." But this is demonstrably false by almost every measure--and Greenspan knows it, as evidenced by this rare exchange between the Fed Chairman and Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders. (Sanders calls Greenspan on his "highest standard of living" nonsense; Greenspan backpedals smoothly, saying that "For a major industrial country, we have created the most advanced technologies, the highest standard of living for a country of our size." --As if being a very large country somehow hinders the development and maintenance of a high standard of living?)
The deepening crisis among America's ordinary wage earners could not be plainer. Yet the facts don't stick--and don't even fully register among EPI's lefty economists. I called one up today to ask about falling wages and their likely effect on future SS income for low wage workers. My theory is that, given the long-term trend at the bottom 40 percent of American wage earners, an index to real inflation may actually benefit the lowest earners.
William Spriggs, a senior fellow at EPI and its point-man on the SS debate, says no way.
The reason for that, Spriggs explains, is that most people do not remain stuck in the bottom 20 percent for their entire career. "The bulk of folks over their lifetime at least move up one quintile," he says, "So people at the bottom would still get a cut" in benefits under Bush's plan.
Then too, Social Security has always skewed its benefits upward slightly for the lowest earners. "So the fact that people at the bottom have not tended to have much lifetime gain does not change the reality that you're cutting benefits dramatically by just going to price index," Spriggs says.
Maybe Spriggs is right. (Here's his SS view in detail) Then again, maybe it's time to broaden the debate over Social Security (and Medicaid and Medicare, which are in much more dire financial straits than SS) to reflect the basic reality of falling wages among a substantial fraction of the American population. Given the trends of the past three decades, the America of 2050 may be a much harsher place than that envisioned by even the most pessimistic of Social Security's would be "reformers."
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Follow the Paper Trail
As noted below, we've been covering the flaws of electronic voting for almost two years. The bottom line: There has to be a paper audit, a verifiable way to check votes against the voters. Without a paper trail, so much speculation about a candidate winning on falsified ballots or hacked machines is just that--raw speculation. And speculation is rampant in the left blogosphere, with Voteproject.org's Election Incident Reporting System tabulating nearly 30,000 examples of voting problems around the country. Salon.com's Farhad Manjoo has a good piece today (you'll need to sit through the ad) that, while challenging Democrats who believe fraudulent votes put Bush back in the White House, provides this important caveat by David Dill, a leading critic of the paperless systems we've reported on:
We agree. We keep our bank statements in a file cabinet if we ever need to dispute our bank; we should have the same protection for our votes.
"Given my current state of knowledge, it seems unlikely there will be enough bogus votes found to reverse the election," says David Dill, the Stanford computer scientist who's been leading the charge against paperless electronic voting machines for the past two years. At the same time, though, Dill adds that he's making "a highly qualified statement," and that he does not want to "declare the election over and done with." Odd things did occur last Tuesday, and even if the results aren't overturned, "it's extremely important that we seize this opportunity to review everything we can about this election," Dill says. "Having people comb through these results will give us more confidence in the legitimacy of this election. We shouldn't gain that confidence by resorting to the head-in-the-sand method we usually employ in the United States."
We agree. We keep our bank statements in a file cabinet if we ever need to dispute our bank; we should have the same protection for our votes.
Monday, November 08, 2004
Electronic Voting, The Basics
Among the election fallout stories, a few of us in the newsroom have been speculating about the pratfalls of electronic voting, or "direct recording electronic" (DRE) voting machines. Irregularities about the national election have been trickling though through news reports and the blogosphere. These irregularities and problems, which have been detailed elsewhere in the press and on the web, will be detailed in this space in the coming weeks.
But since we've published some good coverage on the issue by reporter Van Smith, we're bumping that info here.
On Dec. 26, 2003, Smith wrote that "a year ago--indeed, 10 or 15 years ago--the only people making a hue and cry about the inherent frailties of computer voting were a handful of geeky academics obsessed with computer security. Something happened in the aftermath of the November 2002 elections, though, when computer terminals recorded more votes than ever before. The public suddenly began to understand what these experts had been saying all along: that without an independent paper record of each voter's choices, computer-voting systems are shockingly vulnerable to undetected insider manipulation of election results."
On Oct. 30, 2002, Smith reported on the burgeoning anti-electronic voting critics, including Bryn Mawr College professor Rebecca Mercuri and Blackboxvoting.org's Bev Harris in The Vote Counters: Computerized Ballot-Counting Systems Under Fire. The skinny: "Unlike punch-card or optical-scan systems, in which ballots can be traced to the voters who cast them, DRE systems do not provide a full paper trail as a way to determine that the votes counted are the same as the votes intended." If you voted in Baltimore City, you probably used a voting machine made by Sequoia Pacific Systems, which figured in a 1999 bribery scheme in Louisiana.
Future Vote: Computerized Balloting is Taking Over Elections In Maryland--But Can We Trust the Results?, 12/11/2002, emphasizes the point, raised in the previous story, that electronic voting machines' weakness is that they leave no paper trail. Smith explores the possibility of tampering with election outcomes, recalling the way a Baltimore computer programmer employed by a electronic-wagering company tampered with horse-racing stakes.
In that article, Maryland Secretary of State John Willis defended the state's increasing reliance on electronic voting:
A few more articles:
Ballot Check: Computerized Voting Comes Under Fire in Georgia and California, 2/19/2003. "Reputable computer-security experts have joined forces in California to insist that the systems have inherent, though simply solved, security flaws. And allegations have surfaced in Georgia, where computers were used by all voters for the first time last November, that sensitive election-software files were on a publicly accessible Internet file server--a situation, computer experts say, that would present an opportunity for code tampering to manipulate election outcomes."
On July 30, 2003, Smith wrote about a group of Hopkins researchers who determined that the Diebold systems were full of security holes. They wrote: "Voters can trivially cast multiple ballots with no built-in traceability, administrative functions can be performed by regular voters, and the threats posed by insiders such as poll workers, software developers, and even janitors, is even greater." See Tamper Proof.
One Dollar, One Vote, published Sept. 3, 2003, reports on the push by lobbying group Information Technology Association of America to convince municipalities around the country to switch to electronic voting.
Maryland's nascent voting technology protest groups are featured in Nov. 26, 2003's Protest Vote. The article notes a 1994 New Hampshire law requiring computerized voting machines have a "printed audit."
Attempts to impose similar safeguards in Maryland were derailed. See April 4, 2004's Paper Chase: Bill Mandating Reform for the State's Computer Voting System Stalls in Annapolis.
And finally, the Nose debunks "myths and facts" about electronic voting the Maryland State Board of Elections provided Maryland residents in Fact-Flouting Mission July 14, 2004.
But since we've published some good coverage on the issue by reporter Van Smith, we're bumping that info here.
On Dec. 26, 2003, Smith wrote that "a year ago--indeed, 10 or 15 years ago--the only people making a hue and cry about the inherent frailties of computer voting were a handful of geeky academics obsessed with computer security. Something happened in the aftermath of the November 2002 elections, though, when computer terminals recorded more votes than ever before. The public suddenly began to understand what these experts had been saying all along: that without an independent paper record of each voter's choices, computer-voting systems are shockingly vulnerable to undetected insider manipulation of election results."
On Oct. 30, 2002, Smith reported on the burgeoning anti-electronic voting critics, including Bryn Mawr College professor Rebecca Mercuri and Blackboxvoting.org's Bev Harris in The Vote Counters: Computerized Ballot-Counting Systems Under Fire. The skinny: "Unlike punch-card or optical-scan systems, in which ballots can be traced to the voters who cast them, DRE systems do not provide a full paper trail as a way to determine that the votes counted are the same as the votes intended." If you voted in Baltimore City, you probably used a voting machine made by Sequoia Pacific Systems, which figured in a 1999 bribery scheme in Louisiana.
Future Vote: Computerized Balloting is Taking Over Elections In Maryland--But Can We Trust the Results?, 12/11/2002, emphasizes the point, raised in the previous story, that electronic voting machines' weakness is that they leave no paper trail. Smith explores the possibility of tampering with election outcomes, recalling the way a Baltimore computer programmer employed by a electronic-wagering company tampered with horse-racing stakes.
In that article, Maryland Secretary of State John Willis defended the state's increasing reliance on electronic voting:
"It was the intent of the commission and of the governor and state legislature to capture as much voter intent as possible as efficiently as possible. And with Diebold's system, we are capturing more voter intent--assuming we believe the codes are right and nobody's manipulating them."Detailing something "odd in the outcome," the story describes the discrepancies between primary and general elections in Georgia counties, resulting in Max Cleland's unseating in the 2002 midterm elections:
How does Willis know that's not happening? "Well, one, you have to have confidence in the vendor," he says. "And then you have testing before, during, and after the election, and the source codes are kept in escrow so they can't be changed. And then if something looks odd in the outcome, there are experienced people around who are going to notice aberrations from historical voting patterns at the precinct level. And if it could be empirically demonstrated that something there does not make sense, then a court could order a look at the code and the outcome would be challenged with technical expertise.
"So if somebody tried to rig a computer election here, it would require a good deal of sophistication. I think we'd be able to detect it," Willis continues. "But if they can beat all of that, how would we detect it and what would be do about it? Well, the academics are right--some of those questions are still unaddressed. We were aware of the risks, and I have no objection to raising theoretical concerns, and I can't say that those risks aren't there, but they were outweighed by the advantages of capturing as much voter intent as possible."
60 percent of Georgia's electorate live in counties which dramatically shifted partisan loyalties between the primary and general elections. Yet the final tally didn't follow those shifts. In addition to his stable power base, Cleland won those anomalous Southern counties that shifted toward the GOP in the primary by an 18 percent margin. Unfortunately for him, Chambliss won the Northern counties that veered towards the Dems in the primary by a whopping 29 percent of the vote.So are the huge discrepancies between exit polls in the 2004 election and the final tallies indication of fraud, faulty polling techniques or complicated shifts in voters' opinions and loyalties? We'll survey the developing story as the weeks go by.
A few more articles:
Ballot Check: Computerized Voting Comes Under Fire in Georgia and California, 2/19/2003. "Reputable computer-security experts have joined forces in California to insist that the systems have inherent, though simply solved, security flaws. And allegations have surfaced in Georgia, where computers were used by all voters for the first time last November, that sensitive election-software files were on a publicly accessible Internet file server--a situation, computer experts say, that would present an opportunity for code tampering to manipulate election outcomes."
On July 30, 2003, Smith wrote about a group of Hopkins researchers who determined that the Diebold systems were full of security holes. They wrote: "Voters can trivially cast multiple ballots with no built-in traceability, administrative functions can be performed by regular voters, and the threats posed by insiders such as poll workers, software developers, and even janitors, is even greater." See Tamper Proof.
One Dollar, One Vote, published Sept. 3, 2003, reports on the push by lobbying group Information Technology Association of America to convince municipalities around the country to switch to electronic voting.
Maryland's nascent voting technology protest groups are featured in Nov. 26, 2003's Protest Vote. The article notes a 1994 New Hampshire law requiring computerized voting machines have a "printed audit."
Attempts to impose similar safeguards in Maryland were derailed. See April 4, 2004's Paper Chase: Bill Mandating Reform for the State's Computer Voting System Stalls in Annapolis.
And finally, the Nose debunks "myths and facts" about electronic voting the Maryland State Board of Elections provided Maryland residents in Fact-Flouting Mission July 14, 2004.
Friday, March 12, 2004
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)