Believe it not, elections in the U.S. are outsourced to for-profit companies. That’s a statement I made when I spoke about election technology and election integrity at a DHS conference on technology and homeland security. I was asked what exactly I meant, and could give a specific example. I did, and explained the varying degrees of outsourcing. But I found an example in the recent election that is such a good example  that I can’t resist sharing it.

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In a previous post, I noted two things we’ve learned from this election. The first (and subject of that post) is to what extent the Internet has changed the way elections are conducted. The second, and the focus here, is to what extent the election taught us anything about the need to re-invent HOW America votes.

In the past two days, I’ve been asked several times whether the election, as it turned out, reduces the importance of our Project or not. Seriously.

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In the aftermath of this historic election a couple of observations are worth making.

First, the need for election reform and how America votes persists. Had the election not gone down in the manner it did, and had Senator McCain not conceded when he did, make no mistake challenges would have ensued. But I’ll leave that for another post. For this one, let me turn attention to the second. So,

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Greetings Friends & Supporters of the OSDV Project-

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As you might imagine, it is hard to choose from the many
events of Election Day 2008 to report and reflect on! But I thought that I’d
pick a handful of events that show just how vitally important it is the
election equipment be designed carefully – and the consequences of products
that aren’t, and vendors that don’t seem to care. I have to say, it’s
potentially dire, which is why I’ve picked as many as 3 events to support my
claims.

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From the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch: http://tinyurl.com/5hptsr

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On this Election Day I am back in the blog saddle here (more or less), and have been very busy in recent months working on development issues for the Foundation and relocating to our new Portland, OR offices from San Francisco, although I am down in the Silicon Valley twice monthly.

While I tweet myself to carpel tunnel death, monitoring several channels of streaming news data on voting, I want to pass along this interesting item on a proposed voter bill of rights.

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The state of Virginia
looks like a state-full of Election Day trouble spots, to many elections
experts and activists. I agree with one of the main concerns (long lines at the
polls) but I also wanted to share the beneficial flip side of the VA scene,
recalled to me by the eloquent words of colleague Doug Jones of University of Iowa.

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With early voting continuing apace (often a slow pace with
long lines), so does the stream of news on election dysfunction, usually with
an e-voting system as a culprit. But today’s news from Knox County
TN shows how a seemingly
simple question can create some serious – but wholly unnecessary – confusion.

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The 2009 U.S.
Presidential election is now underway, with early voting having started in many
states. And pretty much right off the bat, we’re seeing problems with
reliability and reluctance. The story in New Jersey
is a familiar one writ large, but the contrast with Texas
and Florida
shows that often the same concerns– reliability and trust — lead to similar
reluctance about both using e-voting technology, and about avoiding it. The
kicker is the reluctance to avoid it, in Florida
– read on.

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