Maryland Election Official Tries To Shut Down U of Iowa Webpage

According to an email obtained by Blog for Iowa, Dr. Douglas W. Jones, Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Iowa and nationally-renowned expert on electronic, paperless voting and computer security, was informed yesterday that the U of I Director of University Relations, Steven Parrott, had received a request to remove a U of I webpage created by Professor Jones.

The request came from a staff member of the Maryland State Board of Elections, State Administrator Linda Lamone.

Lamone asked Parrott to remove a webpage that specifically addressed a brochure issued by the Maryland State Board of Elections, called “Maryland’s Better Way to Vote – Electronic Voting: Myth vs. Fact.”

According to Jones’ webpage, the Maryland State Board of Elections brochure “was intended to counter widespread public criticism of the voting system in use in Maryland.”  Maryland has purchased and used the allegedly notoriously-inaccurate Diebold DREs, or touch-screen voting machines, and according to Ellen Theisen in Myth Breakers for Election Officials, Maryland appears to be moving toward an election system that consists entirely of fully paperless DREs (Version 4.0, page 35).

Maryland’s “Myth vs. Fact” brochure was first brought to Jones’ attention by Van Smith of the Baltimore City Paper on July 9, 2004.  Jones describes the problems with the brochure on his U of I webpage: “Maryland's Myth versus Fact defense contains a sufficient number of misleading assertions, straw-man arguments and outright errors that it may well do more to fuel public distrust than it does to assure the trustworthiness of the system it defends. In sum, many of the statements in this brochure would be more nearly accurate if the labels myth and fact were exchanged. A more appropriate defense might have involved squarely admitting the defects in the current system and clearly documenting, for each, the actions taken by the Board of Elections to deal with the problem.”

Jones outlines on his webpage, point by point, the flaws and glaring inaccuracies in the Maryland brochure.  This is the page that Lamone requested the U of I take down.  

Jones adds that before he put the webpage up for public consumption, he had actually invited comments and corrections from the Maryland Board of Elections.

According to Jones, Parrott, the Director of University Relations, refused to remove the page, holding “that the webpage fell within the bounds of [Professor Jones’] academic freedom.”

On a related note, on Monday, eight Maryland voters filed motions asking the Court of Appeals of Maryland to force the State Board of Elections to fix alleged problems with the Diebold system.

Linda Thieman