Voting Machines' Big Week: Where Does Iowa Fit In?

by Jerry Depew, Laurens, Iowa
Iowa Voters for Open and Transparent Elections


While Americans everywhere wondered if Dick Cheney was drunk when he shot his hunting partner, the voting machine debate had its biggest week ever. All of the following happened in the last 7 days. None of it was in Iowa, but much of it should affect how Iowan’s see their own election system.

A Pennsylvania court ruled Monday that counties cannot buy new voting machines without a public referendum. The state constitution requires it and the Help America Vote Act does not overrule the constitution.

Maryland’s Governor Robert Ehrlich Wednesday said he has lost confidence in his state’s election department and said the state was not prepared to run good elections in 2006. Maryland uses paperless voting machines from Diebold Election Systems. Ehrlich wants paper trails. Does Governor Vilsack have confidence in our election equipment? Most of Iowa’s counties have equipment just like Maryland’s.

New Mexico’s legislature voted Thursday to dump the nearly new magic voting machines that use no paper and replace them statewide with paper ballots before the next Presidential election. New Mexico already had a requirement that paper trails be added to the voting machines, but Governor Richardson wanted the touchscreen computers out of the system altogether.  Iowa has many magical voting machines that lack paper trails.

California’s state legislature held hearings Thursday into the way voting machines are tested and certified. Many critics of the process testified. The people who actually do the testing (the “independent” labs that are paid by the vendors) again declined to attend the hearing, thus missing a chance to reassure us about the nature of their work.

California’s Secretary of State Friday allowed counties to buy Diebold voting machines despite confirming that they are insecure and contain illegal computer code. But he warned counties to buy only legal equipment and warned Diebold they are responsible for providing only legal equipment. The SOS said the security problem could be temporarily addressed with new rules for counties and poll workers on how to handle the memory cards that count the votes.

Does Secretary Culver care that these same machines will run Iowa elections? Will he order new rules for handling the memory cards in Mills, Madison, Monona and the 68 other counties using Diebold’s flawed equipment?

It’s enough to take your mind off Dick Cheney’s alibi. Is it enough to get the recalcitrant Iowa House of Representatives to take up the rather tame legislation that would merely require a paper trail for Iowa voting?

Thanks to John Gideon of VotetrustUSA for rounding up this news, as he has been doing daily for the last 15 months.