With Help America Vote Act deadlines approaching Chicago is about to make a decision on voting machines. This is a serious issue and I have to say very few of the decisions I’ve seen made to date have to do with accuracy and design checks to ensure fraud can be detected.
Earnest of Deadly Earnest hits the right notes and fills us in on what seems to be the primary choices and the advantages and disadvantages of the systems as well as develops a useful criteria for evaluating which should be chosen.
Then he links to a study by David Kimball, a Professor at UM-Saint Louis-and a friend of mine. The work David has done on the issue is first rate and I’ll invite him to make any comments if he wishes.
The assumption by many is that a Democratic city is likely to want to have the most reliable system possible. But that is a horrible assumption. The Machine, that what is left of it, wants to undercount poor votes–which are black and Latino usually. Encouraging and counting more votes is a bad thing to those in power generally and so public pressure for a reliable system is vital.
Don’t believe me–do you think that Daley and his people aren’t thinking about a challenge from Jackson right now and how voting machines and turnout might affect such an election? I’m not a fan of Jackson myself, but that’s not the point. Election integrity is the point and a bad system will not
The Machine can work with a Republican Governor or President, but it doesn’t want contested city and local elections.
Any reporters who want to talk to David, I’m happy to put you in contact with him. For the activists–send this out on the DFA and Obama listservs and anyothers.
I knew we were going to get new ballots to vote on, but I didn’t know how it happens. I just thought we’d vote on touchscreens like at the bank.
I never thought Democrats might want to keep Democrats from voting. I’m too innocent.
Who decides it anyway? The mayor?
Based on the election results in ’03, and all the coverage of corruption in the Daley administration since, are you sure you’re right about the machine wanting to suppress the poor / minority vote? Those blocks have been tremendously reliable for the mayor, and are reasonably easy to co-opt.
Certainly that would change if there were a minority candidate for mayor, but even someone with the stature of Jackson or Gutierrez might have trouble attracting city-wide support.
The major anti-machine successes in ’03 came in progressive, gentrifying areas (35th, 1st) and a couple of machine-disorganized black and latino wards. Perhaps the growing – though still small – power of the independents is a bigger threat? They would certainly be among the first to ally with an attractive alternative to Daley, much as they rallied around Obama in the primary before Hull dropped out.
Jackson running against Daley would have to win a significant majority of the black vote and a majority of the Latino vote even with the goo goo vote (which I’m not sure he’s an improvement over Daley). The weakness for Daley is the Washington coalition. It’d be hard to assemble, but that is the danger to him.