Hightower Lowdown

Voting is sacrosanct, right? Except that over the past decade, state and local election authorities have allowed something to come between the casting and the counting of our votes--privatization.

So, balloting, which has historically and properly been a purely public function, now relies on electronic machines that are made and controlled by a handful of corporations. These corporate computers are easily hacked, they break down on election day, they divert votes from one candidate to another, they drop votes, they mysteriously add votes--and they're expensive.

But the greatest problem is with the privatization concept itself. Voting is not a commodity or industry, it's a democratic right. To allow private interests to control the balloting mechanism--including allowing them to refuse to reveal their software codes --is a sacrilege that's destroying public trust in electoral integrity. Yet this privatization is about to be made geometrically worse by monopolization.

The largest purveyor of voting machines, ES&S, intends to buy out the second largest, now owned by the Diebold Corporation, a company that's notorious for unreliable equipment and publicly cheering on Republican candidates. This sale would give ES&S monopoly control of the voting systems in the vast majority of our cities and states.

Antitrust officials must stop this monopolization of America's most basic democratic process--and restore full public ownership and management of our voting systems. For more info, contact the reform group, Fair Vote at (301) 270-4616 or info@fairvote.org.