I know I've been writing about this a lot, but I just can't get over it, and most of the media is totally ignoring it.
Today's WSJ Opinion section (Yes, the opinion section) has a piece about the military killing non-violent protestors of the Chavez election in Venezuela.
CARACAS, Venezuela--On Monday afternoon, dozens of people assembled in the Altamira Plaza, a public square in a residential neighborhood here that has come to symbolize nonviolent dissent in Venezuela. The crowd was there to question the accuracy of the results that announced a triumph for President Hugo Chávez in Sunday's recall referendum.
Within one hour of the gathering, just over 100 of Lt. Col. Chávez's supporters, many of them brandishing his trademark army parachutist beret, began moving down the main avenue towards the crowd in the square. Encouraged by their leader's victory, this bully-boy group had been marching through opposition neighborhoods all day. They were led by men on motorcycles with two-way radios. From afar they began to taunt the crowd in the square, chanting, "We own this country now," and ordering the people in the opposition crowd to return to their homes. All of this was transmitted live by the local news station. The Chávez group threw bottles and rocks at the crowd. Moments later a young woman in the square screamed for the crowd to get down as three of the men with walkie-talkies, wearing red T-shirts with the insignia of the government-funded "Bolivarian Circle," revealed their firearms. They began shooting indiscriminately into the multitude.
A 61-year-old grandmother was shot in the back as she ran for cover. The bullet ripped through her aorta, kidney and stomach. She later bled to death in the emergency room. An opposition congressman was shot in the shoulder and remains in critical care. Eight others suffered severe gunshot wounds. Hilda Mendoza Denham, a British subject visiting Caracas for her mother's 80th birthday, was shot at close range with hollow-point bullets from a high-caliber pistol.
I know this is an incredibly long quote, but it's just unbelievable to me that this isn't all over the television. Non-violent protesters were *shot* for demonstrating about possible election fraud. Venezuela is supposed to be a civilized place. It's a rich country. It's the world's fifth largest oil exporter, and it's come to this.
You have not heard the last of this, and things are not hunky dory down there. It's not just Iraq causing the ever-escalating oil prices. I think the traders and oil companies are looking at Venezuela too. I just wish people in this country would wake up to the idea that it's quite possible to steal an election with unauditable electronic voting machines.
If this doesn't show them, what will?
Posted by nicole at August 19, 2004 09:53 PMElectronic voting scares the crap outta me.
It’s kinda funny that y2k scared the crap out of everyone, we had a heck of an election, and a heck of a recount.
People keep telling me about the popular vote being for Gore (It wasn’t, it was too close to call. Absentee ballets in many states were never counted, because they weren’t numerous enough to effect the normal vote, and let’s not forget how they called Florida for Gore before the polls had closed in the panhandle.)(Who cares anyway, we all knew the rules.)
The talking heads talked about electronic voting machines; about butterfly ballots and hanging chads. A coworker regurgitated a line about how in other countries they have “electronic voting machines”, which make it easy for people to vote correctly, because there was a picture displayed of the candidate. I said nothing, we have Jim Crow to live down, but come on, really, do we need to make it any easier for illiterate people to vote?
In the USA there is no set way for people to vote. Who can vote and how it’s tallied are pretty much left up to the states (It’s called “states’ rights”). You can get different methods even in different counties.
There is the paper and “x” method. This works fine in really small districts, but it’s slow to count.
There are those curtain and lever machines. I’ve never really trusted them because I have no idea what’s going on inside those boxes. I think they fell out of favor because people were moving the lever, and then moving them back before opening the curtain, thereby casting a blank vote.
There are those punch cards. The ones in Montgomery county were pretty good, if you can remember to clean out the chads once a year or so. They have the unique advantage of being able to cast a null vote. For instance, let’s say I can’t vote for Bush because he’s failed to throw a bone towards his RKBA supporters. Plus all that torture stuff. I can’t vote for Kerry (let’s leave it at that), and none of those other people float my boat either. I can actually punch out every candidate’s chad, and cast a null vote. I’ve participated in the election process, and I’ve made in hard for someone to cast my vote for me. No one can take my ballot and later punch in, let’s say, Ralph nadir. Democracy is safe.
As an aside, isn’t it crazy that you can’t buy a fishing license, or board a plane without a (de facto national ID card) government issued ID, yet you can still vote? I’ve always voted, and I’ve never, ever, shown an ID card.
Anyway, then you get them new-fangled electronic voting machines. I’m not going to explain what’s wrong besides telling you that you vote is now a file in a flash memory card with no paper trail and no recount. Go to Google and type in “Diebold site:Slashdot.org”. Follow the links to the mainstream press. Freak out.
Some people have suggested that the electronic voting machines should be retrofitted with a printer, so you can keep a copy of you vote. This is very bad. This makes it trivially easy to sell you vote. “After you vote on November 5, bring in you receipt for a free lunch!”
If we are that concerned about a quick tally, we should go back to the punchcards. After you vote, you slip you card in a machine that displays who you voted for in living color, on a screen. It asks “Tally vote? Yes/No”. If you say Yes, the computer counts, and you then drop your card in a slot for a possible recount. If you press No, you take your card back, punch out every hole (so no one knows who you voted for) and exchange it for a new, blank card. Wash, rinse, repeat.
One more thing, ever notice that November 5 is almost six months either way from April 15?
Believe me, I know all about Diebold. Since they are generally thought to be much more open to stealing elections for Republicans (Saxby Chambliss anyone?), I'm particularly confused about why the Democrats aren't making more noise about Venezuela. Probably because Jimmy Carter says their guy won. I know that's very cynical, and I'm not sure I believe that Diebold can really be bought, but I am aware of the conspiracy theory. Of course, they could just be incompetent. There is that old saw about not attributing to stupidity to malice, or something like that.
In the primary, I voted on a lever machine. It's not the curtain/lever thing. In Chicago, they use punch card ballots, or did when I lived there. I *think* DC uses OCR ballots. I'm sure someone here can tell me if that's right. Fairfax County uses fancy pants electronic machines and have since at least 1998.
There's no real reason not to use sharpie and paper except impatience. Each precinct has relatively few votes to count. You have at least eight judges, have half from each party, you could have the votes counted by midnight, no problem. They call it in or even email it in, but somewhere public so they can verify their totals. Put them on the web and print them in the paper (I think the Post already does this anyway), and then you have to turn all the judges on a precinct by precinct basis, which is very unlikely to happen.
This is not a problem that requires a high-tech solution and a lot of money. I'm baffled why more people don't seem to care. But I've already said that several times.
Posted by Nicole at August 21, 2004 09:29 AMFor the benefit of Astrogirl's world wide audience, I decided to get off my lazy duff and post some links about "black box" voting machines
--Mainstream press (more or less)
http://nytimes.com/2003/07/24/technology/24VOTE.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/30/elec04.election.worries/index.html
This is /. with links about Diebold using M$ XP in ATM bank machines. Isn't this just like painting a bullseye on your forehead?
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/11/25/1611227.shtml?tid=126&tid=172&tid=98&tid=99
Google News is no help because they only index news maybe 30 days or so
--Really Really Dark Green Helicopter links (not black)
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00064.htm
http://www.google.com/search?q=Comal+County%2C+Texas+18181+ahaha&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8
from "blackbox"
At issue: The word "cancel" and the "terrorism" theme
One wonders why we would need to "cancel" an election. Cancelling democracy hardly seems an appropriate solution to anything. Even postponing democracy is not an option that we have chosen, except in cases where it was physically impossible to hold an election, as it was in New York City in a mayoral primary on Sept. 11, 2001. However — if we are going to set up guidelines for disaster, why limit this to terrorism? Why just for "terrorism" and not for ice storms, tornadoes or hurricanes?
In a country that never postponed elections during the trauma of the Civil War, WWII, or Viet Nam, Setting guidelines for "cancelling (or rescheduling) in case of terrorism seems to encourage the suspension of democracy due to fear.
A "Plan B" sounds like a good idea. Here's one: Last we checked they still sell pencils. Kinkos still prints rush jobs. Nothing prevents the U.S. from setting a national day off of work so that people can all go count ballots.
Pencils. Copy shop. Day off. Plan B.
That's the all-American can-do spirit.
--keep your powder dry
Posted by steel at August 22, 2004 12:27 AMI know it's wrong of me, but I haven't actually followed up and read any of those articles. I tend to think all they'd do is angry up my blood, since I already believe the potential for fraud and/or error to be very great. I don't need anybody to prove it and make me feel even worse.
I do have to say I like the Kinkos, pencils, and counting idea though. Hey kids, let's put on an election!
Posted by fedward at August 22, 2004 07:47 PMMy world audience? I don't have anywhere near as many readers as Tino.
Ed, I know what you mean. The news sucks so much that I'm doing a lot of my web browsing on wack-job conspiracy sites again. Even they aren't talking about Venezuela very much, but they do talk about totally random things. They link to real stories that contain actual facts, it's just how they interpret them and link them altogether that's wacky.
It gives me far better coverage than the TV news, over all, on economics and world affairs.
Posted by Nicole at August 22, 2004 10:26 PMMy world audience? I don't have anywhere near as many readers as Tino.
When I post here, I’m more or less “borrowing” your soapbox. The general rules, I’m assuming, are that have to stay more or less on topic. If I’m not trying to address you and your audience, I’ll just email you direct.
BTW, the Green Helicopter statement is a discreet hint that I’ve read your email ;-)
If you haven’t clicked on any links, at least try the last link, the google one. It’s ahahah funny.
Don’t make the same mistake Washingtonienne claims to have, assuming that only a few people that she knows will ever see her blog. After all, *I* found your blog.