"There
is probably a Chernobyl or Three Mile Island waiting to happen in some election,
just as a Richter 8 earthquake is waiting to happen in California." —
Willis Ware, Rand Corporation computer expert, The
New Yorker, Nov. 7, 19881
Longtime
subscribers to the Tribune can ask for their money back for this edition on
grounds that this column is a re-run of a recount of a tragedy.
In November and December of
1988, I printed a series called "The Sting." I have been quoting myself
ever since.
The publisher of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal thought enough of the material that he personally brought it
to his editors, who printed part of it.
Over the years, some credible
voices joined my lonely howl. When he chaired Common Cause Nevada, my late Sparks
Tribune colleague in columny, Orland
T. Outland took the issue to the Nevada Legislature. When he presented his
concerns to one committee, the scope of the hearing was immediately narrowed.
An interim study resulted, but not much changed. Punchcard voting remains prone
to error, manipulation and outright fraud.
My experience with the punchcard
system began in a worst case scenario. More than two decades ago, a couple of
candidates and local officials wanted me to investigate the Washoe County (Reno-Sparks)
Nev., computer count system because a lot of things didn't add up.
One candidate had his election
recounted. A few chads fell out, but the close election stood.
However, the computer consultants
I hired sensitized me to everything you see happening in south Florida right
now.
I became so frustrated after
that election, I took Dear Abby's advice and began to put my feelings in writing.
More than 500 pages later, I finished the book and moved on, leaving the second
draft for some future time.
For more than two decades,
I have collected horror stories and watched easily avoidable errors repeat themselves.
Fortunately, most counties
in Nevada and nationwide have moved away from punchcards, a technology which
has its roots in the earliest days of computers and actually goes back to cloth-weaving
looms!
Joseph P. Harris conceived
of punchcard voting back in the 1920s as a cure for the legendary fixed elections
of Chicago and New York City.2
The cure may finally have proven worse than the disease.
Registrars of voters are understandably
defensive about the security of their systems, especially with an inquisitor
like me.
During that long-ago punchcard
recount, one of my consultants found my behavior quite amusing.
"You've been swatting
at gnats and swallowing camels," he chuckled. Later, he proceeded to show
me many of the system's vulnerabilities to intrusion.
But could a handcount have
caught vote-switching done by software intrusion?
Yes. However, in Washoe County's
case, the actual election ballots were stored in a poorly secured area in a
room with plenty of blank, leftover punchcards. Anyone could have entered the
storage room by forcing the lock with a credit card. Two guys with a thermos
of coffee and some push pins could have changed enough ballots over a weekend
to conform the cards with the election night computer count. There would have
been plenty of time. Legally, a recount couldn't take place until several weeks
after the election.
Back then, a lot of wiseguys
made big macho bets on elections. One Gomorrah South character told me that
a deal had actually been shopped on the street in Las Vegas: up to 8,000 votes
for just $3,000. Untraceable, changed on the computer count.
In this column of Nov. 25,
1988, I published a checklist of computer-counted elections which had gone wrong
resulting in huge numbers of voters becoming "electronically disenfranchised."
For instance, in Orange County,
Calif., in 1980, computers moved about 15,000 primary votes intended for either
Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter to Lyndon LaRouche or Jerry
Brown.
In Missoula, Mont., in 1968,
voters who thought they were voting for Hubert Humphrey voted for Richard
Nixon, and vice-versa. Sound familiar?
How hard is computer count
fraud to trace? In 1988, the New Yorker magazine reported on a study done by
experts at Notre Dame University.
They "calculated that
the number of possible programming pathways for a program (to change the count)
executed through a standard punchcard ballot would be two to the nine-hundred-and-sixtieth
power — a one followed by 228 zeros."
One Illinois election official
estimated that testing all possible ballot punch configurations would occupy
20 staff members full time for 477 years,
I noted in my 1988 series.3
I have always believed that
a computer punchcard election was stolen right here in River City more than
20 years ago. Backchannels even identified the name of the good soul who wrote
the program.
He had been asked by his bosses
to solve a challenging theoretical problem and never knew to what nefarious
use it would be put.
Because of the lack of security
for the physical punchcards, all evidence could have been destroyed weeks before
the recount.
Do I think there's been criminality
in Florida?
No.
But there exists such a damning
case against punchcard voting that handcounting original ballots is the only
fair thing to do with the presidency on the line.
"Election officials
and lawmakers need to take a long, hard look at computerized election procedures
and the laws governing them," I wrote a dozen years ago.
The Barbwire Sting Files
will never be closed as long as camels can still get through the eye of this
particular needle.
Take it from me, camels leave
an awful aftertaste which never really goes away.
ELECTION POST-MORTEMS FOR A SUNDAY
MORNING. If you're not
doing anything of great social, religious or athletic significance this morning
at 11:30, join me on KOLO TV-8's Nevada Newsmakers. Sam Shad
and the usual suspects will dissect the Y2K political wars and the media which
further mangled them.
Sam's guests will include
Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons, R-Reno,
and veteran Newschannel 8 reporters Dennis Myers (also a columnist
for this newspaper and the Las Vegas Business Press) and Andrea Engleman,
producer of the station's campaign adwatch and former executive director of
the Nevada Press Association.
COMSTOCK HOTEL EMPLOYEES
— The stories linked in the sidebar at left tell how Riverboat employees,
with a little help from the Barbwire and the Sparks Tribune, were able to
organize and win more than $70,000 in compensation after the Riverboat closed
in 1997 under circumstances very similar to the Comstock. Both properties
are owned by members of the wealthy Douglass family, old guard Reno
gamblers who treat workers the old fashioned way, like cattle. Alas, some
Riverboat employees went to work at their sister hotel and are now suffering
deja vu all over again.
The Federal WARN Act mandates
that such businesses give workers 60 days notice of termination. As with the
Riverboat, the Comstock has attempted to take advantage of the law's business
emergency loophole. Like the Riverboat, the Comstock blames competition from
tribal casinos in California as a way around the law.
Take heart. No less than
the state of Nevada is on your side. Nevada's top budget official recently
said that tribal operations have not yet made a dent in gambling revenues
on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada.
Nevada state budget director
Perry Comeaux recently told the media that "there (has been) no
real impact and, because tribal casinos still aren't up and running along
the major highways leading to Nevada, he doesn't expect much impact in the
next two years," the Carson
City Nevada Appeal reported on Oct. 31.
"'I think the Indian
gaming thing will creep up on us,' he said. 'I don't foresee any impact for
the next couple of years because they've got to get the buildings up first.'"
Mr. Comeaux apparently isn't
alone in those sentiments. Veteran reporter Geoff Dornan added that
"gaming revenue forecasts by Gaming Control, the budget office, LCB and
outside consultants" all forecast healthy growth in Nevada gambling revenues.
Have a happy Thanksgiving.
Find a lawyer and bust their
chops.
Be well. Raise hell.
Copyright © 1988-2004
Andrew Barbano
Andrew Barbano
is a member of Communications Workers
of America Local 9413 and editor of NevadaLabor.com.
Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune
since 1988.
1
Ronnie Dugger, "Annals
of Democracy — Counting Votes" The New Yorker, 11-7-88,
p. 44.
2 Ibid. at 45.
3 Ibid. at 100,
102.
