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Some of you might recall the book, Whats the Matter with Kansas? which explored the rise of conservatism populism. Well, let me add another state: Whats is going on in South Carolina?
Oh my fellow Americans, we have a problem on full display down in South Carolina. I dont know what happened, and no one else seems to know, either.
The problem is not simply that Alvin Greeneprevailed over Vic Rawl in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. The problem is that no one seems to know why Greene, an Army veteran and political novice, who did not campaign or fundraise, won a stunning victory against Rawl, a former Charleston County councilman and judge who, having been elected four times to the South Carolina legislature, ran a smart, well-funded campaign.
The primary result is a mystery to Washington insiders and South Carolinians alike. Therein lies the problem. We dont know what happened. About a decade after Bush v. Gore, our electoral systems continue to lack transparency.
I received so many calls and reports about massive voting irregularities, inexcusably long lines, dysfunctional voting machines, confusing ballots and voters being turned away that I thought I was suffering from flashbacks to the 2000 presidential election.
A decade later, I vividly recall the urgent phone call from my sister, wondering why she needed to present an electricity bill in addition to a photo ID when she was already registered to vote, and the relentless media focus on the veracity of punch-card voting machines, with their hanging, pregnant and dimpled chads.
South Carolinians vote using DRE touch screen machines that do not produce a verifiable paper trail. In addition, irregularities abounded, including complaints by voters who pressed the screen for one candidate only to have the other candidates name appear, and machines that repeatedly failed despite the best efforts of poll workers to fix them.
Greens 59-41 percent win was so against all political odds that, at Rawls request, South Carolina Democratic Party officials recently met to consider overturning the June 8 primary results and ordering a new election. Because the DRE machines have no paper record of votes cast, state party officials have two choices: trust the vote totals of the DRE machines or throw out the entire election.
At the hearing, experts in electronic voting systems and computer forensics called the DRE voting machines unreliable and unverifiable, concluding that the lack of a paper record makes it virtually impossible to prove that the outcome is accurate.
In the 2008 general election, voter protection observers received nearly 2,000 reports of malfunctioning voting equipment. The DRE machines used in South Carolina have proven particularly problematic dating back to at least November 2000, when more than two dozen voters in Arkansas reported that the screen registered the wrong candidate choice.
In 2003, a Florida county sent more than 1,000 DRE machines back to the manufacturer because of calibration problems. Between September 2002 and January 2004, there were numerous reports of errors in Florida and Texas, including machines failing to properly record votes and flipping votes from one partys candidate to the other.
Lots of questions have been asked about the South Carolina primary election. Did Alvin Greene really win? Is he a Republican plant? Did racism play a role?
Heres a few: How can we put men on the moon and export democracy abroad, yet still be incapable of administering elections at home with indisputable integrity as to their outcomes? We can bank online, snap clear photos of license plates from satellites in space, and blow up a cave from thousands of miles away, but we cant trust our voting systems? We still dont know that our votes are safe, tallied and reported as cast. We still face glitches and possibilities of hacking.
Its time to address this threat to our democracy. Some observers have noted the importance of a reliable and verifiable paper trail. Others have advocated removing the corporate interest from voting machines by letting them run on open-source software. Corporations like ES&S, which manufactures the DRE machines, run their machines on proprietary software; its like looking at a black box because the way it works is a closely guarded business secret.
By contrast, open-source technologies make the code they run on available for public scrutiny. Proponents contend that systems using open-source software can be tested, vote-dropping bugs can be identified and fixed, and the machines can be made less vulnerable to attack.
Too little has changed since 2000. As I listen to these debates, I hear a broad call to arms over election integrity. Not having answered the call ten years ago, the wake-up call is again sounding for the system to be fixed. The stakes are getting higher. And this is one of those years where everything is at stake.
Democracy starts at home, and wed best clean up our own kitchen before we presume to share our recipe with others.
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