Reply #44: McCain Steals Pennsylvania

[UncountedMary]

I'm sure he didn't realize what he was saying. But yesterday morning during a discussion of the McCain campaign strategy ABC News' George Snuffleupagus* said that the McCain campaign would try and "steal Pennsylvania" from Senator Obama. I'm sure he thought he was being hyperbolic by using the word "steal," but with a majority of Pennsylvania counties still using electronic voting machines rather than paper ballots, he is being very literal.

But it's not just Pennsylvania. And it's not just trouble with electronic voting machines.

This week Rick Davis, McCain campaign manager, briefed a few correspondents on the campaign's plans. Thanks to a long-time election integrity activist and a very astute reader of the Uncounted blog, we are going to refer to the campaign's plans as its "footprint." In other words, watch what the campaign says and where the campaign goes and match it with potential for voter suppression and vote manipulation.

According to Davis, McCain’s first general election ads went up in 54 markets in 10 states, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

Pennsylvania
A state that is at "High Risk" for shenanigans this November, according to a report issued jointly by Common Cause and Verified Voting. Voters’ ballots in this state are recorded inside the voting machine on software or hardware with no separate paper ballot that can establish voter intent and become the ballot of record. So votes can be lost forever if the voting computer crashes, if the software or hardware malfunctions, or if the security of the voting machine is breached.

For all these high risk states, because there is no separate independent paper record, there is no hope of recreating voter intent if and when the machine fails. Hey, where'd their basic right to vote go?

It also no coincidence that in May of this year a Republican state legislator introduced a Voter ID bill - which, we all know, "is a solution in search of a problem," and has the potential to disenfranchise millions (including some very old nuns).

There is no doubt that Pennsylvania will be a mess on election day in November. The Election Protection Coalition reported receiving over 1,000 calls to their Voter Protection Hotline during their April 22 primary - including poll workers giving incorrect information, rule violations and poor administration regarding polling locations, equipment malfunction, voter intimidation, and registration issues. Potential caging violations were also reported from voters who have been registered as Democrats for years, but were suddenly listed as unaffiliated and had to vote provisionally.

Wisconsin
Wisconsin is classified as a "medium risk" because the majority of the voting systems use paper ballots but routine audits are non-existent. But in this state it gets much worse. Paper ballots and optical scan tabulators are used by 85% of the counties. From 1982 until 2006, the law required recounts using the paper ballots. That law was changed in early 2008 to mandate that all recounts of optical scan ballots must be done by machine - which would produce the same tally over and over again and do nothing to prove machine error. To create a further barrier, the only way to work around this law is to get a court order. Wisconsin is too cold to be Florida. Or is it?

Missouri
The report lists this state as being at "low risk," - meaning they have two safeguards in place - paper ballots or records and required random post-election audits on the voting machines. Must be why there was such a huge push by Republican state legislators this spring to pass a Voter ID bill, which could have disenfranchised as many as 240,000 voters - enough, surely, to sway the election results in this crucial swing state. What's next for Missouri? Keep your eyes peeled and your ears open...

Ohio
Here we go again. Ohio is still a mess with a Democratic Secretary of State trying to move towards a paper-based solution and a Republican state legislature fighting her every step of the way. Sprinkle in some vote tabulation problems during the primary and we have to wonder, will Ohio's system be in better shape by November? I know a McCampaign who hopes the answer is "No."

Colorado
A state where most of the electronic voting machines - after court-ordered testing in which machines made by three-out-of-four manufacturers failed and numerous studies which indicated that "the technology is unsophisticated, vulnerable to hacking and capable of miscounting without detection" - were decertified by Secretary of State Mike Coffman in December. Then recertified in the spring with a myriad of conditions and restrictions.

New Mexico The Guardian recently characterized New Mexico as "the ultimate battleground state" pointing out that it "chose Al Gore in 2000 by a mere 300 votes. Bush won New Mexico in 2004 by only 6,000 votes." You know who was from this state? David Iglesias, the Attorney General who was fired for his refusal to prosecute bogus cases of voter fraud. Fast forward to the February 2008 and it's now the state where 17,000 Democrats were inexplicably removed from the voter rolls and were required to vote provisionally. That's 11% of all votes up from 4% four years ago when the management of the voter rolls was not ES&S, a private company.

Nevada
Well, this is disturbing. I cannot find any news stories or blog posts about Nevada nor any election integrity groups active in the state. Watch this one very closely.

*Stephanopoulos