I had the pleasure of meeting Donna Edwards back at Take Back America, even doing an interview with her.  I never got a transcript down because of background noise in the room, which made the tape inaudible, but her passion and courage never left my mind.  Her command of the issues was (and is) impressive.  She would make a great Democratic representative.

I agree, go Donna.

Matt, thank you - that is perfect.  The votes are not "money" but at best rubles or monopoly money.

To bake an old-fashioned pound cake, you need a pound each of sugar, flour, eggs and butter.  If you take away the flour and try to bake it, you have "something," but you don't have a cake.

If on "Election" [sic] Day, you have precincts failing to open, opening late, giving out gross misinformation, not having back-up balloting mechanisms, not having ballots, not having a secret ballot, blatantly and contemptuously ignoring court orders to stay open, not communicating at all with the Boards of Elections in the midst of a major election crisis and outright losing all ballots in two precincts, you have "something" but you don't have an election.  Not in the United States, notwithstanding Bush v. Gore.

I urge cooperation with Donna Edwards, her staff amd her attorneys.

Well said.

What we do know so far is that the memory cards to program the machines weren't at the polls in time.

This could have been fraud.

This could have been purposeful gamesmanship.

This could have been incompetence.

This could have been simple human error.

Regardless, the result was the same. People were unable to vote in a smooth and orderly fashion that resulted in some people from being inhibited or stopped from voting.

This is a serious problem that puts the validity of the entire vote in question.

No computer system is completely secure.

No voting system is completely secure.

Where power and money are concerned unscrupulous people will do unscrupulous things.

Luckily, most people are not unscrupulous.

Sadly, where power and money are involved so to will unscrupulous people be attracted to getting involved.

The result is the absolute requirement for an open and transparent voting system with checks and balances, the highest degree of reliability and testing we can manage, verifiability, and auditability.

Our democrat process is too valuable to do otherwise.

And... it is public domain, not privat enterprise.

It is imperative that people get involved in ensuring that their local elections processes and procedures are transparent, auditable, and verifiable.

This is not tin foil. It is sensible.

We would require no less of our banking and other financial institutions.

I'd love to see one of these inspiring, call to arms, rallying the troops sort of posts and NOT see a backhanded slap at all of the "tin foil hattery".

Does it even need to be said?
All of the blogosphere big names have established themselves as "skeptics who think the system should be fixed... etc."

By mentioning it in every post, even as an aside you draw attention to the most extreme aspects of the electoral reform/black box voting crowd. Why not just take a clear stand, keep things totally inspiring and not work so hard to repudiate those misguided souls who are concentrating on the wrong part of the problem?

-C.

PS: nice post, and I agree.

Right on Matt.

I think you hit the nail on the head regarding the Right Wingers "going to the mat" every time. I think if progressives show that type of determination, some of the progressive leaning non voters may see a reason to actually go to the polls. If the activists are not excited enough to fight, we certainly can't expect others to.

Matt, I would like more proof of this: "downright shady behavior by a Republican-controlled Board of Elections which is heavily tied in with Al Wynn"

I am more inclined to believe: that by computerizing elections we have over complicated an event that takes place only twice every two years.  This has needlessly resulted in a voting system that is too complex and too prone to human error.

I didn't make that up, I paraphrased Avi Rubin, a Maryland election judge and electronic voting expert.

http://avi-rubin.blogspot.com/

These are not good numbers, and we should not consider them real.

Here we are, as usual, gathered around the ballot box decrying the actual poll results as "not real".

Here's what's real. In MD Tuesday, state and county pols were up for re-election. We have slates and preferred candidates arranged on sample ballots for voters, which the 'low-information' voters take with them to the polls. I received at least four by mail.

I worked the polls and watched as people approached, clutching their sample ballots. I saw how state and county pols friendly to Wynn had his smiling face on their ballots. He was locally-recommended in key areas, which carries a lot of weight and runs up vote totals. Vote padding can take place legally, you know.

What's "not real" about this? What is "not good" about the numbers?

dblhelix, that isn't vote padding, that's voting.

She shouldn't give up. This issue is more important than her, the Democratic Party or this election. Voting is about whether we have a functioning democracy or a third world banana republic. It's really that simple.

There is no excuse for the polling issues that took place in Maryland this past week.  While the focus here is Montgomery County, there were also polling issues in Prince George's County (where the bigger chuck of the 4th Congressional District is) as well as Baltimore City.

The solution is state-mandated standards for conducting an election.  This would mean having the polling place certified as "ready" twelve hours before the polls open.  Missing cards and power cords is simply ridiculous mistakes that should no longer be tolerated without consequences.  Of course, this raises the issue of machine security, but if that means human security - then deal with it.  It's part of the cost of doing business.

No voter should be turned away - no matter what.  Using Provisional Ballots is not the remedy for lack of preparation.  There is no excuse for lack of preparation.

Here is where Congress must come in - there is no guaranteed right to vote in America.  There must be explicit legislation to equate the right to vote to be a basic, unalienable right for those qualified voters.  With this, voters can seek civil redress from being denied their right to vote.

As for Donna Edwards, I believe she has realized the fire within to work for the people.  Her message of inclusion and moral integrity obviously rang true with voters she was able to reach.  The clock simply ran out before we could reach all the voters we needed to.

Based on the unofficial tally from both counties, Donna trails by 2,991 votes.  That would take many of provisional and absentee ballots to change.  According to Maryland law, the vote must be certified complete by Friday, September 22nd.  Any petition for recount can not be made until Monday, September 25th.  The State Board of Elections must certify the November General Election Ballot by Saturday, September 30th.

Of course, courts may intervene at any point in the process.

 ,

Good comment with the exception of one point.

"Gore didn't say this.  Kerry didn't say this."

This at least appeared to me to be a gratuitous slam on Gore and Kerry for not commenting on the vote in Maryland.  Elsewhere you send a message of unity among Democrats.

Are you claiming that neither Kerry nor Gore have ever said anything remotely like this more generally?

What are the estimated total number of outstanding provisional and absentee ballots?  If I were Donna Edwards I'd sit tight and demand a complete count.  It just ain't that difficult to count ballots, provisional or otherwise.  What is gained by conceding at this point?  My understanding is that the seat is fairly safe for the Dems, regardless.  If Winn is corrupt(ible), we really don't need him in office.  If we win, the margin is going to be slim and any bad apples will put the majority in jeopardy.

I say, hang in there, Donna.

Put Karl Rove in charge of the Democratic Party, and we would still lose badly.

Gore fought it all the way to the US Supreme Court. What more could he do? After all Daschle, Kerry, et al were just waiting for him to fold so they could run for President. If Gore had called us into the streets would we have responded? Consider that four years later we couldn't even get it together to stop shopping for Not One Dime Day.

Kerry did not contest Ohio strongly enough, hell, without the Greens of all people there wouldn't even have been a recount.

I want to thank everyone who responded last year when I wrote diaries about Creigh Deeds and the Virginia recount. I want to thank everyone who sent Donna Edwards money and everyone volunteering for her on the ground. Everytime we stand with a Democrat who is prepared to fight one of these things we get stronger.

Oh yeah, one more thing, volunteer to be an election officer. As an election officer you can stop a lot of this trash before it gets started.

I agree with the gist of what Matt said, and think its very important.  My questions relate to exactly what steps need to be taken, by whom, and what backing (financial and otherwise) is needed by them.  

Its great to see Donna speaking out and it does seem important to back her up in whatever ways we can be helpful.

As to the "tin-foily at best" comment, I don't know enough about this stuff to have an opinion and, as someone who does research for a living, I'm not inclined to accept or reject any claims without reviewing the facts and state of the research.  But, bottom line, it seems clear that the Repubs do some things in this area that we want to stop, that there are plenty of voting-related areas in need of reform, and that further investigating of the facts is useful.  And, if Donna's willing to stand up and fight for "answers" as to what happened, we should support her in whatever ways we can.

I say again:  what happened in Montgomery was incompetence on a grand scale (actually on a small scale, as mistakes by only a couple of people caused this but with grand results), but to assert that this was caused by a Wynn-induced attempt by the state board of elections to influence the result is completely and totally insane.  

There was an article in the Post today (which appears to be inaccessible at the moment online) identifying by name who was responsible.  The head of the County board of elections and the employee who supervised packing the bags are probably going to lose their jobs over this.  These jobs pay $72K and $113K.  The idea that these people would kiss off their careers over something that could be so easily traced is ludicrous.  Or are you asserting, Matt, that Ehrlich and Wynn and the state board used orbital mind control lasers to induce them to do this?  Come now.

I do not know where this "tin-foil" meme came from and how it was turned into a tar brush against those of us who are in the trenches working against the certification of Diebold, or to get the Democratic Party to PLEASE sit up and take notice that no matter how much money they pour into advertising, if the machines go down, or don't go up in two counties, and someone says that it is "human error" every time (Machines are supposed to be designed by engineers for people to USE)   and the Dem Party shuts up and concedes BEFORE the votes are counted, you can forget about it.
I don't know why it isn't the Democratic Party's business to make sure that the precincts are set up properly and the right number of voting machines are going to be there.  That is one of my best hopes for Howard Dean building up the local Party infrastructure-- that there will be people on the ground in each precinct and each county to have an oversight effect -- before, rather than after the fact.  Maybe this is the most important thing we lost when the Democratic Party switched their resources to "national" donors and media and candidates.  We lost the organization on the ground that policed the electin set-up.  And they have taken us to the cleaners ever since.
When they use the "tin foil" meme against us, and we are working, testifying at hearings, filing lawsuits, writing studies, disseminating them, working for honest sec'y of state candidates, trying to hold local boards of elections to task for cheap solutions and selling out to the manufacturers (as they are everywhere).  For some damn reason there seems to be NO good viable alternative for these Bd of Elections people that satisfies the HAVA.  Which I undertand was the handiwork of Ney and others from Ohio.
We desperately need some real honest solutions for voting systems so that the Bds of Elections have something to turn to when the Diebolds fail.
Thanks for your work here.  We need you,  We need the Democratic Party is who we really need.
Sandra

PS.  I think the whole "tin foil" thing, and this whole stupid debate, in fact, is a red herring to keep us disengaged from looking at what is truly going on, and taking the action to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.  How is it that a candidate -- Kerry say, or a local candidate, will not challenge an election, or even wait til the votes are counted before conceding because he/she does not want to be called a name -"tin foil".  What?
Look at the facts and work for reform and forget the "red herring" debate.  It has distracted all of you and so many of you otherwise very smart and sophisticated people DO NOT know what is going on here-- all of the manufacturers are equally incompetent. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent by taxpayers on this worthless crappy equipment that no one is able to run, let alone octogenarians in drafty old schools and churches tha don't have any proper electrical hook ups.
There's a huge learning curve here.  There is a lot to learn.  You are all tech savvy -- Learn it.  Get over this debate about who is in charge of the debacle and learn what's on the ground.
HAVA mandates ! the Bds of Elections to buy this faulty equipment and threatens to actually put them in jail if they don't buy it.  I'm serious.
Get over deciding wh's to blame until you see the dimensions of the problem-- then you can start to debate about it.
I said yesterday that for a year I have been reading about this subject every day and asking  myself "Who benefits from the chaos?" and in one post, Matt Stoller went right to it.  I was amazed actually-- 'that would be a great way to steal an election -- forget the cards'.  Well it's true, and no one can deny it -- it would be a great way to steal an election, whether it happened that way or not is almost irrelevant.
These enormous gaffes have been happening in elections everywhere in counties throughout the country.  WHY is beside the point if it keeps us from taking action to fix it.--sandra

Matt, can you clarify what you mean when you say that the numbers out there aren't real? For what reason(s), in particular, do you say that?

I agree that there a lot of reasons to be suspicious of what went on in this election in general. I'd like to know your specific reason for doubting the numbers that are out (I'm not questioning that you have a reason, I'd just like to know what it is).

Obviously those numbers don't take into account absentee and provisional ballots. We also know that some voters were disenfranchised (for various reasons, mostly that the machines were not set up or working, and they had to leave), and their votes obviously won't be included in those numbers. Other than that, are these numbers wrong, and in what way (what, specifically, would have to change to make them "right")?

To put it another way, is there any way these numbers will change (other than with the addition of absentee and provisional ballots)? Are there ballots missing somewhere? It would be impossible to recount the electronic votes, no?

If there's no way those numbers will change, then there "real" in terms of the effect they'll have on the outcome of this election. If questioning their validity is simply based on speculation about fraud (which is valid, don't get me wrong) that we don't actually have any evidence for, then saying "these numbers aren't real" seems kind of strong (saying that they are "suspect" or that "we'll never know if they're right" seems more accurate).

That's my thinking, too, Aiko. Donna Edwards should absolutely be supported, but it should also be made clear that this degree of chaos is flat-out intolerable.  It's not democracy once voting is a right given only to those people have an hour to spare on a workday.