http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_2958901
08/20/2005
Former party chairman make the case for voting to
California
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
With a phone call and a retainer, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell
has launched
former Democratic National Committee chairman Joe Andrew on
a 50-state
ambassadorship for electronic voting.
O'Dell said he ``wanted to reframe some of the issues,''
Andrew said.
His first stop: California, the nation's largest market for
voting machines
and the place where Diebold's fortunes as the largest
supplier of
electronic-voting machines in the nation could be made or
broken.
``Even if you have tremendous success every place else,''
said Andrew, ``if
you can't sell technology in California, you're in
trouble.''
The rest of the voting industry is selling technology here.
Millions in
federal dollars sit ready for counties to put at least one
high-tech,
handicapped-accessible voting machine in every polling place
by January.
But in California, Diebold can't sell its touchscreen voting
machine, the
AccuVote TSx, nor can counties that bought thousands of the
machines in 2003
used them in elections.
More than $30 million worth of TSx machines sit in three
counties'
warehouses, unapproved for actual voting. More than $15
million worth of
earlier-generation Diebold touchscreens in Alameda, Los
Angeles and Plumas
counties cannot be used after January.
Andrew said computer scientists and e-voting activists are
standing in the
way of a promising technology, an ATM-like voting computer
with such a low
error rate that more votes count. And that, said Andrew,
should work to the
benefit of Democrats.
The tour pairs Andrew with former Republican congressional
aide Melissa
McKay, now working for the public-relations firm, Ogilvy PR.
But California
and its Democrats were clearly Andrew's show.
Diebold's new charm offensive for Democrats strikes some as
a
public-relations gambit, a segue from mishaps and mistakes
in its voting
business to the uncontroversial notion of making more votes
count for the
elderly, minorities and disabled voters.
``This is a new tactic, a new solution for a company that,
unlike other
electronic-voting companies, has a continuing
public-relations problem,
certainly in California,'' said Dan Seligson, editor of
Electionline.org, a
nonpartisan clearinghouse for voting-reform information.
``It's not based on nothing,'' Seligson said. ``It's based
on the problems
they've had.''
In three years in California, Diebold voting devices have
awarded thousands
of votes to the wrong candidates and broken down in two
large counties
during a presidential primary. Two successive state election
chiefs, a
Democrat and a Republican, both have rejected the TSx.
Former Secretary of State Kevin Shelley suggested criminal
prosecution,
citing misleading statements by Diebold Election Systems
executives and
``reprehensible'' tactics. The state joined a false-claims
suit against the
company and won a $2.5 million settlement.
Last month, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson cited poor
performance in
state testing, with paper jams and software crashes in 28
percent of
machines used in a mock election.
But Andrew isn't traveling the nation to talk about that or
even to talk
much about Diebold. So why is a ranking Democratic operative
who was
convinced Republicans ``stole'' the 2000 election working
for Diebold and
O'Dell, a battlestate fund-raiser for Bush-Cheney 2004?
It is Andrew's message
that paperless electronic voting is good for
Democrats - and his connections in Democratic circles.
``Joseph's a smart guy and has a lot of contacts out
there,'' said Kimball
Brace, president of Election Data Services, a
Washington-based consultant on
elections.
Andrew is tapping reliable Democratic constituents -
civil-rights groups,
minority groups such as the NAACP and the National
Association of Latino
Elected Officials and such disability groups as the Council
for the Blind.
They rallied in 2001 under the umbrella of the Leadership
Conference on
Civil Rights to rid the nation of reviled punchcard voting,
and Andrew
worked pro-bono as their lawyer. He delivered bipartisan
support for the
Help America Vote Act. Behind the act was the presumption
that electronic
voting was salvation from the dimpled and hanging chad and
from having to
resort to the Supreme Court to decide the presidency.
But Congress delayed 16 crucial months in setting up a new
federal agency to
oversee and enforce standards for the new voting equipment.
By 2003, the
debate over voting equipment shifted from civil-rights
groups and their
lawyers to computer scientists who argued that electronic
voting was too
vulnerable to breakdowns, errors and fraud, at least without
any backup
paper record of the vote.
So far, they've been winning. Despite resistance from
Diebold and some other
e-voting suppliers, lawmakers in 25 states have passed laws
requiring a
paper backup, for review by voters and in most cases
recounts by elections
officials. Fourteen other states and the District of
Columbia are debating
such a requirement.
While Ohio, Mississippi and Utah are considering large
purchases of
touchscreens, sales of paper-based optical scanning machines
so far are
outpacing sales of electronic-voting machines since the 2004
election.
In California at least, Andrew sees civil-rights leaders
abdicating from a
worthy cause. ``The great irony is, it's the progressives -
my side of the
aisle - who are against electronic voting but have the most
to benefit from
it.''
The odd couple of Diebold and Andrew have ``their work cut
out for them,''
said Kim Alexander, president of nonprofit California Voter
Foundation.
She acknowledges that electronic voting has plenty going for
it, such larger
type for elderly voters, ballot displays in multiple
languages and an audio
ballot for visually impaired voters.
``But the way it's been implemented has been irresponsible
and reckless,''
Alexander said. ``What we've seen all across the country are
numerous
examples of glitches and problems. I wish that Diebold would
put it's effort
into making better equipment and making its paper trail
work, rather than a
PR campaign.''
Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com.
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