American Politics Journal FLASH Certify THIS, Cruella DeHarris! Vote Machine Inventor Says Florida Misused His Baby by Tamara Baker Nov. 16, 2000 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (AmpolNS) -- As one can imagine, I have a very interesting e-mail in-box. It's helped me write my column many, many times. And I just received the following today:
MIAMI (AP) _ William Rouverol watches the Florida ballot debacle with more than just a passing interest. After all, he designed the voting system at the center of the whole mess. "It"s sort of a matter of pride," the 82-year-old retired mechanical engineering professor said in a telephone interview from his home in Berkeley, Calif. "We tried to consider all aspects of things to try to get the thing to be as foolproof and as tamperproof as possible." Rouverol designed the Votomatic Voting System in the early 1960s with Joseph Harris, a colleague at the University of California at Berkeley. The conflict is most intense in Palm Beach County, where a specially designed "butterfly ballot" has been blamed for confusing some into voting for Reform Party nominee Patrick Buchanan instead of Democrat Al Gore. Rouverol and Harris, who died in 1985, had discussed the two-page format when they invented their machine. "We were very set on not using both sides of the page, because things that might confuse people, we felt, should have been avoided," he said. "The butterfly ballot? No way."
Got it? The machine's inventor is AGAINST using the butterfly ballot. But there's more:
Rouverol said a programming error in the machines that read the ballots might have caused the mix-up in Palm Beach County. He noted that the county was heavily Democratic and would have been expected to go for Gore in a big way. "I can see why there's a pretty good reason why the Republicans are so concerned about the hand recount," he said. "It sounds to me that the glitch is in the programming, not the butterfly ballot. Whether it"s purposeful or accidental, I"m not prepared to say."
For the full story, go to the ABC News website. Remember, boys and girls, Bush's whole argument hinges on whether or not he can convince the American public that hand counts are inferior to machine counts. He knows he's cooked legally -- he's lost every single legal battle he's fought so far, and the 11th Circuit will be no different -- but he's hoping to fool the public with his lies, so that he can frighten Gore into backing down. Don't let him do this. Spread the word. Let everyone know that machine counts have an inherent error rate of between 4 and 8 percent. Let everyone know that the laws of virtually every state in the nation, including the states of Texas and Florida, recognize hand counts as being not only legal, but far more accurate than machine counts. And let everyone know about the story I cited here right now. Our futures depend on it.
Hail to the Chief!
Al Gore Stands Tall and Puts It On the Line, Knowing That the Bush Team Will be Petty
by Tamara Baker
Nov. 16, 2000 -- Saint Paul, MN (AmpolNS)
Dear Mr. Vice President:
All through this campaign, I have watched as you ran an honest, noble race, even as your opponent used the same sort of dirty tricks on you that he used to besmirch the honor of John McCain.
I noted your attempts to work with the press. I noted, with dismay, how the media repaid your good-faith efforts with snarls and smears. I could tell that this was hard for you to take: you, after all, have a background in journalism yourself. You simply could not believe that things had changed so much, and drastically for the worse, in the media world since your days at Stars and Stripes and the Tennessean back in the 1970s. You thought that perhaps the press was just mad at you for being the veep of Bill Clinton, the Man They Couldn't Hang, and that they would get over it once they got to know you in your own right.
There was an important lesson you had to learn, sir: you had to learn the lesson that Bill Clinton learned early on, but which was obscured from your understanding because of your apparent and understandable distaste for President Clinton's foolish behavior with Monica Lewinsky.
But you have now learned that lesson, sir. Your press conference tonight, done on your own initiative, shows that.
The lesson, sir, is twofold:
1) No Democrat, even one whose personal life is, as is yours, totally above reproach, can afford to let the media run one's campaign, just as one does not let one's opponent run one's campaign. The media is not friendly, or even neutral, towards Democrats. They will put Democrats under the electron microscope looking for flaws, but Republicans are allowed carte blanche.
2) Ignore the press and do what you know is right. The American people will back you to the hilt.
It gratifies me to hear that this press conference tonight was your idea, your baby from farrow to finish, sir. It was especially pleasing to hear you invite to meet, mano a mano, without advisors (either yours or his), with George W. Bush. You did this, knowing perfectly well that there was no way on God's green earth that George W. Bush would dare be without his minders even to go to the bathroom. He would be forced to refuse, and he'd look like the wuss he is in doing so.
And indeed, he did just that, shortly after his henchwoman, Florida Secretary of State (and co-chair of your opponent's Florida election campaign) Katherine Harris, announced to no one's surprise that she wasn't going to allow the recounted ballots to be certified. Also, to no one's surprise, her decision is already being challenged in court, where, as Salon's Jake Tapper notes, most legal experts think she's going to lose, and lose badly. (http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/15/supreme_court/index.html)
I loved it when you took your case to the people, explaining in plain language about the vote 'irregularities' (i.e., the vote fraud) happening in Florida, and why hand counts are widely and commonly considered by experts to be more accurate than machine counts. This threw into high relief the lies Bush was to tell later on in the evening.
You stated that the vote must go forward, and mentioned what the media had not: that there are 6 Republican counties in Florida that had hand recounts, in addition to the Democratic counties of Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dale and Volusia.
Having softened up the chump, you then brought out your one-two punches:
1) "If Bush prefers", you are willing to hand recount all counties in Florida, and;
2) You will not challenge legally or in any other way the results from the hand counts, either of the four counties currently undergoing them or from a full hand recount of the entire state.
Did you know beforehand, sir, what the Bush team was planning tonight? It certainly sounds as if you did.
The speeches given by Harris and Bush had all the hallmarks of having been sweated over for hours. But your press conference, coming as it did right after an extremely favorable ruling by Florida's Supreme Court allowing the manual recounts to proceed, came too late in the day for the Bush team. They couldn't do much besides make some quick alterations to what they were slapping up on the TelePrompTer for their charge to read, and it was obvious that you caught them off guard. They were set to fire their torpedo, and did so: but the target had already shifted, and in the meantime the torpedo started circling back to the Bush team's U-Boat, ready to hit at any moment.
How can Ms. Harris, without so much as giving her reasons for doing so, summarily trash the recounts? Judge Lewis ordered her, in his decision Monday concerning her ability to accept or reject recount results, that in order for her to be able to ignore the recounts, that she had better present a good reason for doing so. She has presented NO reason, good or bad. And legal experts like Gerry Spence are already howling for her head.
In fact, her position is so untenable legally that Ms. Harris is very likely liable for a contempt citation. She was operating under the instructions of the state courts NOT to act in an arbitrary fashion. So far, every court she has been in has rejected her position and this pattern of rejection will continue all the way up the legal ladder. There is a clear conflict in the opinion of the meaning of the law between her and the state attorney general. It is her actions that caused each county to delay their recounts. She failed to disclose the criteria which she would use, thereby giving the counties an opportunity to explain their lateness in terms of those criteria, or to amend their filings to be consistent with that criteria.
Your plan worked excellently well, sir. You helped the Republicans slit their own throats. Now, time is on your side, and as the news regarding the massive vote frauds perpetrated in Florida spreads throughout the nation, the people will insist with even more fervor on a full manual recount.
Now, be strong. Do not let the press buffet you. They will attack you no matter what, so don't bother trying to butter them up. Stand fast for what is right. The end is in sight. The prize is within reach. The barbarians will have been forced back from the gates.
Thanks to you, sir.