by John Behrman
The PPC has long championed the addition of a voter-verified paper audit-trail (VVPAT) to the deployment of direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines. This is not unique to us. It is not even a matter that distinguishes the GOP from the Democratic platform.
On the left, the issue has gone further and further: to insistence on paper-ballots and, ultimately, to the “Oregon System” of elections conducted entirely with mail ballots. This is by no means a universal or fool-proof system, but, it is demonstrably practical and probably better than what Texas now has. The Oregon System needs to be considered: I would oppose it, but the proposal is responsible and should not be dismissed as “Luddite”. Yes, it is technology re-action, but that is a reasonable position to take, tactically, especially when a party is as weak as ours certainly is.
In the middle, I would be happy with the addition of VVPAT or voter verifiable paper ballot (VVPB) to an array of digital technologies for enhanced political participation. I believe it would be popular and progressive, in every sense of the word, to attack the fundamental problems of a Jim Crow Election Code and of very low political participation very generally associated with a broad array of advanced technology, not just alternatives to “blackbox” voting. Advanced technology can manifest the original principles of republican democracy. Technology can be used to restore and strengthen those principles.
On the right, well, the “black helicopter” crowd have an issue here and, maybe, a champion in the GOP. It is still a free country, barely, and I do hope the Secretary of State now has an enemy on his right flank. But, that would not be me.
What I think we have to watch for is the fact that this is an insider/outsider matter, far more than a matter of right or left: Our problem, as Democrats, remains the “Vichy Democrats” who hold office but who use it to cultivate their own incumbency and nothing else. They are tearing this party down and retreating into majority-minority ghettos where they figure they can, in effect, retire comfortably leaving the rest of us “out there flapping” -- like our soldiers stranded, now, in Iraq and, effectively, held hostage by Iran. Too many Democratic office-squatters are ineffectual in opposition and offer voters no practical alternatives on any matter, even when it is within their power and actually their duty to do so.
My term as party representative to the Central Counting Station Authority of Harris County is almost up. I am proud that our County Executive Committee did not adopt the “Official Canvass” of a mockery of our own Democratic Primary Election conducted in an incompetent and oppressive manner by the GOP County Clerk. That unprecedented inaction was not much, but all that can be done in this GOP-dominated jurisdiction. I am more hopeful that information gained through intrusive and close inspection of election technology used in Harris and Travis Counties (Hart InterCivics) can be used to contest some results in other jurisdictions where there is a chance of getting a fair trial of forensic evidence.
But, “blackbox voting” is a 2002 issue, in fact, a hole the Democratic establishment in this state jumped into gullibly or corruptly and is far from digging itself out of. The GOP has a plan and we do not.
Their plan now includes radical centralization and privatization of election logistics (2004) and, now, a system of police-state surveillance – the TEAM/TIA project – that, again, the Democratic establishment in this state is complicit in or oblivious to. In 2008, the Jim Crow Texas Election Code that we preserved after 1974 will be replaced, very likely, by an East German code that could be much worse. There is a hint of what is yet to come in the Texas Secretary of State’s 51 page manual on “voter (dis)qualification”.
I believe that “fighting back” should entail a cunning plan/strategy not just complaints, contests, lawsuits, and so on, after the fact. I know my pacifistic colleagues in this caucus cringe, but we need to “think like warriors”, “to get inside the other party’s loop”, and “to gain the initiative”. Yes, we need a rigorous critique of the other side and a large passion over seemingly small but actually critical matters – something the verified-voting movement has certainly given us.
We need to be forward-looking, to have a plan, not just another case or deal. This is why I am looking forward to our session with David SIROTA. His outfit PLAN is thinking way outside the “lawyer-box” of those Democrats who can imagine nothing but a case or a deal. Myopic “process liberals” and “single-issue” Democrats are necessary. But, they are not sufficient. Soon I will be out of the legally-constrained post I have held since August and back to what I love: Technology Action. If you can stand a cocktail of archaic language from our constitutions and parliamentary law, along with some “geek-speak”, “shaken and stirred”, well, I will have some more to say, later.