NYTs tries to reframe vote suppression: X post from LBN

[EFerrari]

Voters Find Some Machines Harder to Use
By SEWELL CHAN
Published: August 28, 2006

With New York State facing a looming deadline to modernize its election technology, a new report offers evidence that one of the two major types of voting machines being considered has a higher rate of unrecorded votes, suggesting that it is too confusing for many people.

The report, which the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law intends to release today, examined election records from thousands of counties across the nation since 2000....For the overwhelming majority of the state’s 11.6 million registered voters, the changes will mean the end of the creaky lever machines that have been used for decades.

One of the two types of machines under consideration is the direct-recording electronic or D.R.E. systems, in which voters push a button or touch a screen to choose a candidate, and the ballot is automatically recorded and counted.

snip

The choice, however, is further complicated because the State Board of Elections has ruled that state law requires the use of a “full face” ballot — a ballot that displays all candidates for all races on a single page or screen....The direct-recording electronic system is not inherently flawed, the report found, but when it is combined with full-face ballots, there seems to be more difficulty, particularly in areas with more black, Hispanic and low-income voters....


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2479095

[Awsi Dooger]

1. All races, all candidates on a single screen?

That's preposterous. I think I posted a thread here about a month ago after voting on Diebold in Nevada in which I mentioned the one positive aspect was they didn't cram the screen, so that it was confusing or unreadable. There are generally 3 or 4 races per screen then you switch to the next block on the following page. There were more than 20 races and 80 choices on our primary ballot. I can't imagine that mess on one screen.

Well, perhaps this will play a part in a switch to optical scan and not DREs.

[EFerrari]

2. They are trying to create a context where black, hispanic and

low income votes are acceptably lost.

Yeah, right.

[Wilms]

3. Actually, these machines are huge.

Sequoia's "AVC Advantage"

[Awsi Dooger]

7. OK, that is dramatically different

Than anything I've voted on.

But it still looks like an inferior concept to me. When I've voted on the small screen DREs it's a bit of a welcome breather to change the screen and await the next block of races. It gives me a chance to check my sample ballot where I've already filled out the choices. I could definitely see the potential to get disoriented or confused or simply overlook a race if everything was lumped onto one massive screen.

Besides, I'm 6-4. How low is that damn screen above the ground at bottom level, maybe 3 feet? Looks like a headache or a mistake waiting to happen.

[Wilms]

4. Maybe the Times is merely reporting.

It's the Brennan Report saying this, not the NYT. Presumably, the Brennan Center bases their assertion on election data.

What is not clear is:

1. If the BC report factored in the age of the machines they compared (ie: the Full-Face Ballot machines have been around for sometime and could possibly been worn units, even possibly sent to specific precincts to disenfranchise through poor Reliability).

2. If this will lead to advocacy to change NYS law to allow a non-Full-Face machine, ie: a Plain Ol' DRE. If that happens the DRE (much cheaper than the Full Face Ballot machine) would be more price competitive against PBOS.

[EFerrari]

5. In what context do you think that Black, Hispanic and low income

voters all will have trouble on these machines?

[Wilms]

6. As I indicated above...

Perhaps the machines being old, worn and broken.

And you?

[EFerrari]

8. Why would DREs be more "confusing" to black, hispanic and

low income voters?

Maybe those votes weren't stolen, they were just confused.

lol

[OnTheOtherHand]

9. what can I say?

If you're going to argue it that way, how do the machines know to steal black, Hispanic, and low-income votes? Do they perform some sort of retinal scan linked to census and credit records? Of course, we can't really be sure whose votes aren't being counted, because we only have aggregate data. But if votes are being stolen on DREs, goosing residual rates in precincts with lots of blacks is not a very efficient way to do it.

This topic is not as straightforward as you seem to think. No researcher is going to rule out digital-divide issues as contributing to the pattern. Also, I've seen some harrowing footage of folks with limited tech experience fumbling their way around DREs.

Finally, the report indicates that the residual rates are higher for full-face DREs than scrolling DREs (but generally lower for precinct-based optical scan than for either). Given no obvious reason why it would be easier to steal votes on full-face DREs than scrolling DREs, the finding lends itself to the conclusion of the headline: "Voters Find Some Machines Harder to Use."

(EDIT TO ADD: Wilms' hypothesis about worn machines also makes some sense, although I doubt it is the biggest part of the story.)

[EFerrari]

10. LOL

Looks like we can just shut up shop, then.

Poor people just can't work the machnes!

It wasn't fraud, it was stupidity.

[OnTheOtherHand]

11. do you actually have a point?

You can look at evidence and attempt to account for it, or you can Just Know. If Just Knowing is your thing, then I won't waste your time with evidence. You certainly didn't waste time engaging anything I actually wrote.

The highest marginal residual rate for DREs in the report is 2.8% for full-face DREs in counties with median income under $25,000. So no one could plausibly argue, "Poor people just can't work the machines!" But they may be at a comparative disadvantage, yes. Think of how often DREs are compared to ATMs, and then ask yourself: who is most likely not to have a bank account, never mind a bank card?

It's not analytically helpful to set this up as a choice between "fraud" and "stupidity." The ability to use a DRE is not inborn. One might as well argue that the only way standardized tests could discriminate against (say) blacks is if blacks' tests are actually misscored.

[readmoreoften]

12. Or if they plan to manipulate the system in areas

that are largely black and latino, and blame the discrepancies on voters "inability to work the machines." I think that was the point.

[OnTheOtherHand]

16. well, they aren't mutually exclusive

If you look at the arithmetic of election theft, this particular mechanism isn't going to do the job much of the time, although it might do part of the job. That said, simply using the full-face DREs will tend to benefit the Republicans to some extent (although as far as residual rates go, punch cards were much worse). And some demographic groups will be disproportionately susceptible to visible vote-clearing or -shifting -- fraudulent or otherwise.

We should not feel the need to flatten out this issue and talk about it in only one way. I don't think it is reasonable, fair, or helpful to criticize the Times for trying to "reframe" something. The Times reported that some people find it hard to use DREs, which appears to be true. I would think we could find something more worthy of complaining about.

[EFerrari]

20. If you don't think it's reasonable to criticize the NYTs for their

coverage, then you haven't been paying attention.

And, I wasn't complaining. I was pointing out a pattern of reportage that is becoming more and more clear.

This is nothing unidimensional or reifying in that.

[OnTheOtherHand]

21. shrug

Do you really think your posts in our colloquy "point() out a pattern of reportage"? I can't imagine how.

And your post here just asserts, again, that OBVIOUSLY you are right. That ticks me off, frankly. Why do I seem to be taking the thread more seriously than you are?

Moreover, do I understand from #18 (EDIT: I had "19") that you haven't even read the story that you are critiquing?? And you have the chutzpah to say that obviously I'm not paying attention?

Let's try again some other day when I'm not already spitting bricks. I don't think of myself as a knee-jerk defender of the Times, although I would hazard the guess that I read it more closely than you do -- well, in this case, it is more than a guess.

[EFerrari]

22. Okay! n/t

[EFerrari]

19. Thank you. I'm having trouble speaking plain English today.

Good thing I don't have to cast mi voto today. :silly:

[Febble]

13. Since when did

poverty = stupidity?

But poverty certainly leads to disadvantage in all kinds of ways, including both literacy and familiarity with expensive hi-tech equipment.

Disenfranchisement associated with poverty is a Civil Rights issue. Implying that those who worry about it are suggesting that it is due to stupidity is not a good way to solve the problem.

Read Democracy Spoiled if you haven't already. The interesting conclusion was that ballot design was a crucial factor, which would accord with this finding.

It's cited by Greg Palast BTW.

[intheflow]

14. Thank you!

That's the first thing I thought when I read that - the NYT is saying people of color are too stupid to vote! :grr:

[EFerrari]

15. But that's exactly my point. This article is showing us one way

that the most vulnerable groups of people are ripped off.

And, it's been reframed to obscure that, as usual.

[Febble]

17. Well it looks as though we agree

but I'm not sure quite what you see as "reframing" here.

There is very strong evidence that residual votes tend to be higher in lower income (and therefore, because of the correlation of poverty and race in the US) communities. This could be, as Palast suggests, because poor communities get the crap machines. They certainly didn't get enough machines in Franklin county, so that makes sense. But the Harvard Civil Rights group study suggests that the correlation is not with technology per se but with ballot design, which suggests that confusing ballots, intersecting with educational disadvantage, may also be an issue.

As I read it, the NYT is reporting similar findings by the Brennan Centre. It's important. What is it that you find problematic?

[EFerrari]

18. I'm having an attack of obscurity, sorry.

My beef with the NYTs is always that when they cover this issue, they always manage to miss the big picture, they shift the focus away from what we might consider the "real" problem.

They report that the database in TN (?) was taken out of the hands of the Dem Sec of State and given to the Thug governor --- but they never question the fact that "eligible voter" has now been redifined as "voter in the database".

I thought they did the same in this article, or the parts of it that I can find to read. They report that one of the systems under consideration has an undervote problem and that is seems to be worse for black, Hispanic and poor people -- but they never bother to point out that it is precisely *there* that the worse disenfranchisement occurs, every time.

I need to be able to read the whole thing somehow.

Regardless, this is the Times pattern on election fraud/issues.

[Febble]

23. Well, I think there are lots of

"real" problems!

And the disenfranchisement of poor, black and Hispanic voters not only costs the Democratic a large number of net votes, but is a Civil Rights issue in its own right regardless of who those votes were intended to be cast for, as I'm sure you will agree.

I've worked on four datasets from the 2004 election, and of those, three produced findings that support the case that black or Hispanic voters are more likely to be disenfranchised, so it's something I feel really strongly about. In New Mexico, precincts serving Hispanic communities had larger undervote rates were push-button DREs were used; in Franklin County, Ohio, urban Democratic and largely black communities had far fewer voting machines per voter than the whiter, more Republican suburbs; and in the exit poll data, I found that urban precincts, particularly those serving largely black or Hispanic communities, "redshift" was greater where punchcards or levers were used. So it seems like everywhere I looked, it was a naked eye effect.

[EFerrari]

24. I am so with you, and I think that's why I keyed so to the "black

Hispanic, low income" phrase in the bit of the article that I got to read.

It seems to me that the reality of the suppression of these voters is being twisted into a merely technical matter when in reality, they are preyed upon. They've ALWAYS been preyed upon.

Until autorank called it a race crime, I knew and didn't know. It helped me tremendously to clarify my thinking (and reading) when he just laid it out. Greg's work, Mark's work has also informed my thinking (and reading).

This is ground zero for election fraud. And while there are, really, lots of "real" problems, it seems to me THIS is where we need to be looking first, always.

[Febble]

25. Well, let me

link to my favorite DKos rant by Shanikka

Enjoy!

[EFerrari]

26. Thank you.

:)

[Awsi Dooger]

27. This is what full-face voting looks like in Delaware

The Times article said Delaware was the only state other than New York to mandate full-face ballots. I checked the Delaware website and here's a link to a short video: http://www.state.de.us/doe_ncc/Use_VM/PSA_mpeg1.mpg

The screen is covered left to right but only on top, perhaps a half dozen major races, not the 20+ that I had to decipher here in Las Vegas last month.