There's been an increasing effort among some to make being a jerk online some sort of criminal activity, even though that almost certainly violates the First Amendment. The latest is an effort in West Virginia to create a new misdemeanor for posting false information about someone online, which could result in fines and jailtime. Now, as you probably already know, we already have laws against defamation -- though that's a civil issue, where the defamed party can take the defamer to court. In this case, the law would do two things: (1) make it a criminal issue, getting the government involved in determining who to prosecute and (2) lower the standard for what breaks the law. Specifically, defamation has required not just the spreading of false information, but that it be done with malicious intent, if you wanted any kind of punitive damages. Yet, this law in West Virginia has no such requirement, meaning that simply spreading false information, even if not for malicious intent, could get you brought up on criminal charges. That seems to go against the First Amendment, but since when has that ever stopped lawmakers from pushing bills?
If someone pitched a movie based on e-voting machines that work as bad as the ones being used in the current election, the story would be dumped as being unrealistic. But truth is, indeed, often stranger than fiction. You may recall on Friday that we had a post about problems with e-voting machines in West Virginia selecting the wrong candidate when voters touched the screen. Various officials rushed to insist that there was absolutely nothing wrong. One, the local county clerk, Jeff Waybright insisted that the problems were "the result of voter error."
Well, it appears that a group called Video The Vote went and visited with Mr. Waybright as he showed them how the e-voting machines work, and perhaps the "human error" is on Mr. Waybright's part. The beginning of the video is troubling enough, as he brushes aside concerns while he shows a miscalibrated machine. He demonstrates how he clicks on one candidate and another is highlighted, in a tone of voice that suggests why would anyone possibly be upset or annoyed if that happened? He then oddly thinks the fact that his wildly miscalibrated machine enhances his point because when he clicks on Barack Obama's name, the actual name highlighted isn't McCain (of course, it's not Obama either, but he doesn't seem troubled by this). Waybright seems to think that the only complaint people are making is the fact that some tried to vote for the Democratic ticket and saw the Republican ticket show up -- when the real concern is simply the fact that when you touch one name, someone else's name is highlighted. Democrat or Republican really isn't the issue here.
However, then things get worse. After mocking the idea that anyone clicking on a Democratic ticket vote would get the Republican ticket vote, he shows how to correctly calibrate the machine, showing how easy it is to fix the "problems" of the miscalibrated machine. When he's done, to prove it works, he touches the box to vote for a straight Republican ticket ticket... and, wouldn't you know it, Ralph Nader's name is highlighted as the voter's choice. His response? "Oh, that's out of calibration!" as if it was no big deal, apparently missing the fact that he had just calibrated the machine. He then seems to think none of this is a big deal, because voters will see the misvote before they submit it, apparently unaware of the idea that many people are already quite distrustful of these machines, and seeing them highlight the wrong name over and over again will make them seriously question the legitimacy of the election.
The GAO had warned that there would be some pretty massive e-voting problems this year, as election officials were not properly trained on the already problematic machines, so it should come as little surprise that over in West Virginia, the "early voting" procedures have resulted in numerous complaints that the e-voting machines selected the wrong candidate. The scenario is depressingly similar to the one that The Simpsonspredicted, where the voter selects one name, and the other one shows up as highlighted. Poll workers told them to just keep clicking until the right one was chosen, and noted that the machines have "just been doing that."
What's more depressing is how everyone involved seems to brush this off as no big deal. Officials claimed that these "were isolated cases and that poll workers fixed the problems so the correct vote was cast." That may be true of the two people that CNN spoke too, but who knows if others got the machines to work properly. And then there's West Virginia's Secretary of State, Betty Ireland , who basically pulled a page from Sequoia's playbook, of covering her eyes and ears and screaming loudly that everything is fine:
"There are no problems with the machines as recalibrated. Touch-screen voting in West Virginia is accurate and secure."
Because you say so? As opposed to those who are actually voting and finding it's not? That's comforting.
In this case, the machines are supplied by ES&S whose machines (like both Sequoia and Diebold) have a relatively long history of screwing up at election time. ES&S is also the company where an employee of the company showed up here to berate us and insist that no independent experts should be allowed to look at the machines and that they were safe and reliable because those working at these firms knew better than the rest of us. It's as if the e-voting companies and the politicians think that if they just keep repeating it, maybe it will become true.
Paul Alan Levy writes in with a followup to the story about the West Virginia Tax Assessor who was trying to prevent a website from posting public tax maps, complaining that it would take away a source of revenue. Apparently, the tax assessor is rethinking this plan. While she hasn't yet dropped the lawsuit, she has withdrawn the request for an immediate injunction and the case has been put on hold while the tax assessor and her lawyers "study" the matter.
Paul Alan Levy writes "The county tax assessor in Charleston, West Virginia, has sued a local tech company that had the audacity to post public tax maps from the entire state of West Virginia on its web site. The company obtained the maps under the West Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for a total charge of $20 for 28000 maps (the actual cost of copying electronic files to CDs). The tax assessor complains that she stands to lose the profit she makes by selling paper tax maps at $8 per sheet. Why should you care? If the county tax assesor wins her case, it could affect other Web sites and bloggers that make public government records available on the Internet." Apparently, what some people have a different idea of what "public" information means than others... especially when the government stands to profit from that information. While government documents cannot be covered by copyright, apparently some gov't officials feel that preventing their ability to profit off of that public data is illegal.
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