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Scary stuff

by Mark Gisleson

Not a lot new in this Salon story just posted about electronic voting machines, but if you didn't click on all those links I posted the other day (Diebold, Diebold, Diebold, etc.), this Robert Tanner article provides a solid overview of the issues.

"I'm deeply concerned about this whole idea of election integrity," said Warren Slocum, chief election officer in California's San Mateo County. His doubts were so grave that he delayed purchasing new voting machines and is sticking with the old ones for now.

He's not alone. While the Florida recount created momentum for revamping the way Americans vote, slow progress on funding and federal oversight means few people will see changes when they cast ballots next week. And new doubts could further slow things.

In Florida's Broward County -- scene of a Bush-Gore recount of punch-card ballots -- officials spent $17.2 million on new touchscreen equipment. Lately, they've expressed doubts about the machines' accuracy, and have discussed purchasing an older technology for 1,000 more machines they need....

"The computer science community has pretty much rallied against electronic voting," said Stephen Ansolabahere, a voting expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "A disproportionate number of computer scientists who have weighed in on this issue are opposed to it."

.... This week, a federal appeals court in California threw out a lawsuit that challenged computerized voting without paper trails, finding that no voting system can eliminate all electoral fraud.
That didn't satisfy doubters.

John Rodstrom Jr., a Broward County (Fla.) commissioner said local officials there wanted to upgrade to optical scan machines, but were pressured into buying more than 5,000 touchscreens.

"We were forced by the Legislature to be a trailblazer," he said. "The vendors ... they're going to tell you it's perfect and wonderful. (But) there are a lot of issues out there that haven't been answered. It's a scary thing."

As partial atonement for lifting so much of Tanner's article, I'd like to take a moment to pitch Salon membership. Since going online in 1994, I have seen just about every "big thing" to come along, Internetwise. Over the years no website has been as valuable to me, or as consistently entertaining as Salon's. Click here if you're ready to part with a few dollars in exchange for complete access to the number one left-leaning political/cultural publication online today.

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As long as we're doing some following up on earlier stories (and isn't that pretty much what 98% of political reporting is about?), Salon also has a nice story from Tim Grieve about that Romenesko letter from Charlie Reina.

Reina is out of journalism for the moment -- he's running his own woodworking business in suburban New York -- and he realizes that going public about his experience at Fox won't improve his career prospects. He says he doesn't care.

Fox did not respond to calls or a faxed letter from Salon seeking comment on Reina's tenure at the network or his comments about news values there. But Reina has plainly hit a nerve. Late Thursday, Romenesko posted a response to Reina's note that appeared to be from Sharri Berg, a vice president for news operations at Fox. The response called Reina a "disgruntled employee" with "an ax to grind." And Berg included comments she attributed to an unnamed Fox staffer who described Reina as one "any number of clueless feature producers" who made inane calls to the news desk, "the kind of calls where after you hung up you say to the phone, 'go f?k yourself.'" Berg quoted the newsroom employee as saying, "[I]t's not editorial policy that pisses off newsroom grunts -- it's people like Charlie."

If you care to watch the commercial (or if you decide to subscribe), you can read Grieve's interview with Reina, which includes background on Fox's decision to turn against Trent Lott. PressThink also has quite a bit more on this story, as well as some interesting comments from readers.

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Atrios and some other serious political bloggers have convinced me to bookmark Juan Cole's weblog. A bit depressing (he tends to focus on body counts), but interesting. Unsurprisingly, Coles linked to Mark Clayton's story about Cole's insights into the 9/11 terrorists in the Christian Science Monitor ("Reading into the mind of a terrorist"). A good serious read.

While I was at the CSM, I noticed this intriguing article: "Secret 9/11 case before high court." OK, I'm a sucker for words like "secret," especially when they're right next to "9/11." I think I may have heard about this case, but for the most part, this is one of those really important stories that no one's covering — but in this case, not for the usual reasons:

This is among the first of the post-Sept. 11 terrorism cases to wend its way to the nation's highest tribunal. There was no public record of its existence, however, until the appeal was filed with the clerk of the US Supreme Court.

A federal judge and a three-judge federal appeals-court panel have conducted hearings and issued rulings. Yet lawyers and court personnel have been ordered to remain silent.

"The entire dockets for this case and appeal, every entry on them, are maintained privately, under seal, unavailable to the public," says a partially censored 27-page petition asking the high court to hear the case. "In the court of appeals, not just the filed documents and docket sheet are sealed from public view, but also hidden is the essential fact that a legal proceeding exists."

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If you're absolutely determined not to do any more work this afternoon, or if you're settled in for a long night in front of your monitor, here's three more good reads:

Michael Tomasky on Wesley Clark in The American Prospect

Daniel Gross on why the new economic numbers aren't that important, in Slate

and an AP article, "Report Links Iraq Deals to Bush Donations," in the New York Times

And, if you're still looking for more reading, you can always check out my daily (7/52) blog on Babelogue's front page.

Posted by at October 31, 2003 1:23 PM

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