[IP] Denying the Troops a Secret Ballot
...... Forwarded Message .......
From: Lillie Coney <coney@xxxxxxxx>
To: Voting Issues:;
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 11:47:13 -0400
Subj: Denying the Troops a Secret Ballot
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/03/opinion/03fri2.html
NY Times Editorial
September 3, 2004
Denying the Troops a Secret Ballot
Members of the military will be allowed to vote this year by faxing
or e-mailing their ballots - after waiving their right to a secret
ballot. Beyond this fundamentally undemocratic requirement, the
Electronic Transmission Service, as it's known, has far too many
problems to make it reliable, starting with the political
partisanship of the contractor running it. The Defense Department is
making matters worse by withholding basic information about the
service, and should suspend it immediately.
The Defense Department is encouraging soldiers to use absentee
ballots or fax votes directly to local officials, when possible. But
it also provides an alternative: Omega Technologies, a private
contractor, will accept soldiers' faxed and e-mailed ballots on a
toll-free line, and then send them to the appropriate local elections
office. Handling ballots is always sensitive, but especially so when,
as in this program, they are not secret. An obvious concern is that
votes for a particular candidate could be reported lost in transit,
or altered.
Omega Technologies is not an acceptable choice to run the program.
Its chief executive, Patricia Williams, has donated $6,600 in this
election cycle to the National Republican Congressional Committee,
and serves on the committee's Business Advisory Council. And while
everything about the conduct of elections should be open to public
scrutiny, Omega is far too secretive. In an interview, Ms. Williams
refused to say who would handle military votes, and whether they
could engage in partisan politics. "I will not allow the public to
invade the privacy of the employees of Omega," she said.
The secrecy of ballots could be breached at several points: when they
are faxed or e-mailed from the field, when they go through the
contractor and when they are received by local officials. The
Pentagon has not explained why it is acceptable, or legal, to ask
soldiers to waive their right to secret ballots. Laughlin McDonald,
director of the Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties
Union, says he cannot recall another group of voters being asked to
give up such secrecy. It is particularly inappropriate, he says, for
soldiers, who are under the direct control of the Defense Department.
Nor is it clear that voting by nonsecret ballots is legal. In
Missouri, one of two states that will allow votes to be e-mailed
through the Pentagon this year, the Missouri Supreme Court held as
early as 1895 that its State Constitution requires that voting be by
secret ballot. North Dakota has also approved the use of the e-mail
voting system for military personnel; about 20 states will allow them
to vote by fax.
The Electronic Transmission Service operates with a lack of
transparency that is unacceptable in elections management. The
Pentagon is allowing Omega to keep its staffing secret. There are no
provisions for parties or candidates to inspect Omega's operations or
monitor the transmittal of votes. The Pentagon says the procedures
for doing so are an "internal working document," which it refuses to
make public, and it does not routinely make public how many ballots
pass through the system each year. The Electronic Transmission
Service operated in 2000 and 2002, and in earlier elections, but Ms.
Williams says Omega did not handle ballots in those years. The
Pentagon is refusing to say who did.
The Defense Department has taken a "trust us" attitude. Soldiers have
to trust that military higher-ups will not try to learn their
political choices and hold it against them, and that local elections
officials at home will not reveal those choices. The voters have to
trust that no one at the contractor or the Pentagon will make errors,
or intentionally alter ballots. In a democracy, matters like these
should not have to be taken on faith.
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