Warrant

 

Hi folks. It’s me as a voter, not a moderator. With one election behind us, let’s revisit the warrant article getting all the attention. I hesitated to post this, because I’m wary of any association with some of the characters involved here. But the petitioners are my neighbors (some literally) and they deserve our respect and consideration.

One thing I’ve learned is that the best way to understand a divisive political issue is to be able to articulate the position of each side as well as (or better than) its proponents. This requires earnest reading and listening. After doing that, if I can think about the issue in a way that p!sses off both sides, that’s a good indication I’m headed in the right direction. And there’s no better way to sharpen one’s thinking than by writing; and then and seeking feedback from a variety of people. So here goes.

The Hand Count argument (simplified and narrowed)

The computer program that instructs our voting machines how to read and tally the ballots is a black box (we don’t know what it’s doing under the hood at the time of voting). The physical device (chip) which holds the program is outside of the Town’s safe possession except for the week or so before the election, and chain of custody compliance has been sloppy. Are we sure we know where it’s been? With the current machines, a single company (LHS) and a handful of employees possessing arcane knowledge are responsible for all programming. Could they become compromised? The machines are tested in public, but the testing only verifies the basic functioning of the election program in a test mode with a handful of ballots. It tells us if the optical scanner is working and that it can accurately count, but little about its behavior in tallying votes over thousands of ballots. Could the machines be programmed to give a good test, but then count votes on election day in a way that subtly places a thumb on the scale of vote totals? The code for each ballot is now shared with the state (law), but how do we know that’s the same code that’s loaded on election day unless it’s inspected again on site or tested with thousands of ballots? Since hacking is theoretically possible, we must abandon voting machines to maintain trust in the system.

The Keep-the-Machines counter-argument

One needs to look past the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) spread by the hand count proponents. It’s reasonable to assume that LHS employs robust physical and digital security measures, so how exactly would an election program be altered? One way is for the entire company to be compromised, which would risk their reputations, livelihoods, and prison time. What about an external bad actor? It would take some serious Tom Cruise Mission Impossible style sh!t to steal, re-program, and replace the cards without anyone knowing. And this would have to occur across dozens of cards and towns, all at once, to reliably impact a state-wide election – with no one ever detecting a problem. These scenarios are highly implausible, bordering on conspiratorial. We can’t design our lives around irrational fears. Hand counting, while transparent, is error prone and slow. We would be trading one theoretical source of distrust for another very real one. Keep the machines.

My takeaway

Our elections currently depend upon a 1980’s machine with 1980’s software. The process has many safeguards, but still requires a level of trust that is perhaps no longer appropriate. Does that mean our elections are being hacked? Not at all. But nor does it mean we should be complacent. We trust the system (and most complex things) because we don’t know what we don’t know. Fortunately, counting votes isn’t like running a nuclear reactor or brain surgery where we have no choice but to trust the experts. We can have both technology and transparency with the right voting machines and the right legislation. This is an ongoing issue at the state level, and one of pressing concern due to the age of the machines we use (but out of scope at the moment).

So what do we do here? The petitioners - despite their garbled message, conspiratorial thinking, and unsavory connections – have good intentions, and may even raise some valid concerns. We shouldn’t let our distaste for the company they keep make us plug our ears shouting “Nah nah nah I can’t hear you.” It’s possible that the promoters of this warrant know it’s likely to fail, but that by shining light on the process are reducing the likelihood of voting manipulation. That may seem underhanded, but many warrant articles are introduced which have no chance of passing – it’s part of the process. It’s tempting to accuse them of simply trying to sow distrust in elections, but assuming bad intentions of your political adversaries (or anyone) is neither healthy nor productive.

Ultimately, handcuffing our town’s decision making around how we conduct elections is the wrong approach. (It would take another warrant article to someday return to electronic vote counting). Shortcomings of the current system will hopefully be fixed legislatively and rolled out alongside new machines. Despite one screwed up election in Windham, there is no evidence that any NH election has been inaccurate or compromised. Never mistake incompetence for malice.

There you go. May both sides hate me with equal passion. 😉 I’m voting No.