Hightower Lowdown

Very soon now, you'll be hearing and reading red-white-and-blue editorials about your responsibility to go vote this fall. "Every vote counts," they'll cry!

Unless, of course, it doesn't.

Many of our votes this year will be cast and tallied on corporate-controlled, electronic voting machines that keep no trackable record of our ballots. These computers can easily malfunction or be manipulated.

Shouldn't your vote be at least as secure as a 25 cent bet you might place in a Las Vegas slot machine?

Of course!

Yet, a New York Times investigation finds that gamblers are more protected than voters. For example, the software to all gambling machines is on file with the state and the machines are regularly spot-checked by public officials. But corporate purveyors of electronic voting machines consider their software a trade secret, off-limits to public inspection. Also, if a company wants to sell a gambling device, it must submit to a criminal background check and register its employees. To sell computerized voting devices however, a corporation only has to convince a local election official to buy its stuff—no checks required.

Then there's the conflict-of-interest issue. The technical labs that certify gambling devices—duh! —must be independent of the makers of those machines. For voting machines however, the certifying labs are chosen and paid for by the manufacturers! And what if you think you've been cheated? With a slot machine, you have a right to an immediate inspection, and investigators are on call at all hours, empowered to check the machines. But with electronic voting machines, there are no inspectors on call, and even if there is a post-election inspection, no non-company personnel can check the software. The League of Women Voters has now joined the rebellion against virtual voting. At its recent biennial convention, some 800 delegates from its local chapters voted overwhelmingly to rescind their leaders' earlier endorsement of paperles voting machines. It's a testament to the integrity of grassroots groups like the League that they can inform themselves and correct their course, Now, if only our corporate and political leaders would do the same.

For more info, go to www.verifiedvoting.org