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Did My Vote Count?

Tuesday, 14 November 2006

SAN BERNARDINO

By Chris Levister

Long after the polls closed and the winners in Tuesday's election were declared San Bernardino Registrar of Voters Kari Verjil undoubtedly paused more than once and wondered ‘Did it all work'?
While she is powerless to turn losers into instant winners or vise-versa, save a yet unforeseen cliffhanger, Verjil says she can state with certainty, every county resident was given a fair opportunity to vote and every vote will be counted.
Still Verjil's assurance was not enough to calm the fears of thousands of voters to include 66 year-old Eunice Baker of San Bernardino. Days before the election, Baker joined a surging number of voters who distrustful of electronic voting machines voted by mail. Early voting trends show that for the first time in state history more Californians cast absentee ballots than actually voted at the polls on Election Day.

At a SB polling place: Thirteen-year-old Devin sends a strong message.

Two decades ago, only 9 percent of voting in the general election was done by absentee. By last year's special election, absentee voting was up to 40 percent and in the June primary, nearly 47 percent of votes cast were absentee ballots.
"As we all live more and more hectic lives, absentee is a very attractive way to go," said Tim Hodson, executive director of the Center for California Studies at Cal State Sacramento.
But election experts like Candice Hoke, director of the Center for Election Integrity at Cleveland State University warn the rise in absentee voting is driven by more than convenience.
"We're facing a huge problem as a nation. Voters are ‘politely' avoiding electronic voting. We've made the entire election system overly complex and technologically vulnerable, and lowered public confidence in the legitimacy of the results."
After presidential elections that brought attention to Florida's hanging chads in 2000 and Ohio's long lines in 2004, millions of voters are avoiding the prospect of poll workers overwhelmed by new electronic voting machines, equipment shortages, fears of vote tampering, lost memory cards and mangled printouts.
On Election Day across the nation, eight out of every ten voters cast their ballots on electronic voting machines. A 2005 Government Accounting Office report on e-voting confirmed the worst fears of watchdog groups and election officials. That report said, "There is evidence that some of these concerns have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of hundreds maybe thousands of mostly minority votes."
Dozens of poll monitors, politicians, lawyers and watchdog groups have accused the Bush Administration and some Republicans of dismissing Black accusations of voting irregularities as another self-serving ruse by Democrats to tip the vote.
While most election officials nationwide have worked hard to ensure votes were accurately cast and counted during this year's election, Baker an African-American still struggles with the images of her daughter and son-in-law during the 2004 election as they stood in line in driving rain for 4 hours in Columbus, Ohio trying to vote before giving up.
She recalls in the March 2004 election, an error by the San Bernardino registrar's office forced the county to count the electronic ballots over, delaying the release of results by several hours.
And in 2001, the registrar announced erroneous results in 13 local races after it failed to adequately test a machine that tabulated paper trails.
"I don't trust the system. There is simply no way in which election officials and their staffs of volunteers with limited experience and often poor training can possibly carry out reliable recounts," said Baker.
Verjil says the problems occurred before her time and before the county imposed strict new safeguards and procedures.
San Bernardino County was one of the first in the state to implement a voter-verified paper-trail printer on all of their electronic voting machines. That occurred even before a state election overhaul and the new Help America Vote Act took effect.
"Voters should feel confident about casting their ballot in San Bernardino County. We've had more time to work the bugs out of our electronic units." Still she says e-voters can help ensure the security of the systems by carefully checking their ballot."
Baker says while absentee ballots can take days to count and may delay election results, she sees the benefit of personal privacy and security.
"Many Americans sadly find comfort in the rose colored glass effect. It's easy to say ‘It's all good. The absentee trend is just a convenience thing'. That's like saying the war in Iraq is about fighting terrorism," snips Baker.
Paul DeGregorio chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission cautioned voters not to lose faith in the electoral process.
"Our nation's voting equipment and election results can and should be trusted. The integrity of the process is not in the hands of hackers, professors, special interest groups or politicians in Washington."
Still Baker insists Black voters can't and dare not forget America's sordid history of voting betrayal and neglect.
"For people to dismiss as paranoia and derisively wave off fears by Blacks and other minorities worried about the integrity of the election process ignores the terrible history of the South's century-long effort to ‘disenfranchise Black voters'."

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