Don't Be Stupid David Orr

Well, it may not be a conspiracy, as alderman Ed Burke has charged in a Sun Times story, but it's irresponsible not to take this seriously, especially as Pennsylvania recently discovered its machines could be manipulated. See Cook County Machines II. And it may indeed be too late to change machines before the November election, but it sounds like Cook County had better ramp up the training and responsibility for its Election Board before the election, if they are standing around watching someone else count the votes:

Chicago Election Board chairman Langdon Neal said he sees nothing wrong with 15 Venezuelans helping to count Chicago ballots because they provided "only technical support," and 100 election board employees were "sitting right next to them watching every move they made."

Rather than dismissing this concern as an hysterical product of a "right-wing blog", David Orr should invite independent, knowledgable observers to monitor the count at the Election Board to put these questions to rest. And as we all know, it is practically impossible to find enough Republican election judges to work in Chicago precincts. (Read Deroy Murdock, NRO, about other general concerns here)

There are charges the owners of this company have manipulated elections in Venezuela on Chavez' behalf, and critics are from across the political spectrum. Chavez also has been tossing cut-rate oil around to buy influence in Chicago and elsewhere. See Banana Republics. Dennis Byrne:

Then again, some people simply might not want to take money from a bully like Chavez. The unlikely mixed chorus of his critics includes the Bush administration, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Election fraud, persecution of political opponents, corruption of the judiciary and the suppression of free expression, dissent and the press are among his human-rights violations.

Here is Michael Barone on the Venezuelan election:

In contrast, it would be far easier, given the touch-screen voting method and central tabulation used in Venezuela, for the central counting center to falsify the results. All you would have to do is program the computer to count every sixth "yes" vote as a "no." That would transform a 59-41 vote to 42-58. And the results would still show pro-Chavez areas voting for him and anti-Chavez areas going the other way—just by different margins.....

Schoen has little doubt what happened. "I think it was a massive fraud," he told me. "Our internal sourcing tells us that there was fraud in the central commission." This was not the first time he has encountered such things. "The same thing happened in Serbia in 1992, by [President Slobodan] Milosevic. He did it again in the local elections in 1996. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people died. Had he been caught [in this fraud] in 1992, this would not have happened."

As in the Venezuelan election, both Cook County voting methods have a paper trail. But in spite of this, most observers agreed there was election fraud in Venezuela. In most precincts in Chicago the election tabulation went smoothly, though it took a long time for the results to be transmitted. Some precincts also ran out of paper on the touch screen machines, but voters could then switch to the optical scan machine, which is a paper ballot. But questions are legitimately raised about a firm that would apparently look the other way when results were tabulated in Venezuela.

David Orr has worked hard to establish his credibility as Cook County's election czar. It is in his interest to maintain that credibility and not go around making irresponsible accusations of his own.

UPDATE: As an election judge, I think photo IDs should be mandated and the voter rolls carefully audited on a regular basis. Here's some more interesting information. John Fund:

Ironically, Mexico and many other countries have election systems that are far more secure than ours. To obtain voter credentials, the citizen must present a photo, write a signature and give a thumbprint. The voter card includes a picture with a hologram covering it, a magnetic strip and a serial number to guard against tampering. To cast a ballot, voters must present the card and be certified by a thumbprint scanner. This system was instrumental in allowing the 2000 election of Vicente Fox, the first opposition party candidate to be elected president in seventy years.

UPDATE !!: As many of you know, we still have not received official results, now due this Tuesday, April 11th. The election was March 21st. Via electiononline.org , the Barrington Courier-Review:

Kelley Quinn, a spokeswoman for Cook County Clerk David Orr, said it's possible for campaign poll-watchers to obtain the tapes after the polls close using the new machines, but that didn't happen at many precincts on March 21.

At the close of the polls, election judges were required to pull cartridges that contained ballot information from both the new touch-screen and optical scanner machines and insert them into a transmitter which was supposed to send the information to a central location in the city. When the transmitter failed, judges were instructed to pack up all the equipment and haul it to the city.

And that's why vote tapes were unavailable at hundreds of precincts, Quinn said. County officials the general election will be better.

"It can be done. If everything runs smoothly in November -- and we expect that it will -- poll watchers will get a copy of the tape," Quinn said. "The primary was just such a new process for everyone and things didn't go exactly as they should have." She said the source of the current delay is not the voting machines, but by the counting of roughly 1,000 provisional and late-arriving absentee ballots. Provisional ballots are given to voters who arrive at the polls without proper identification or to those whose names aren't listed.

And where do they decide on the legitimacy of Cook county provisional ballots? Why downtown of course.