Fraud or False Alarm? Group Upset about Voting Equipment

Fraud or False Alarm? Group Upset about Voting Equipment

A voting equipment integrity group is challenging the Story County election system being used in Saturday's Straw Poll, but the Republican Party of Iowa (RPI) is dismissing concerns.

"The Ruling Elite runs a votefraud syndicate in the USA," charges votefraud.org on a website with a garish, mid-1990s look.  "We, the people, can stop this criminal syndicate from votefrauding Ron Paul in 2008."

Votefraud.org specifically challenges the use of Story County's Diebold voting equipment and the lack of a hand-count of ballots.  The website states (punctuation and capitalization verbatim):

Soooooooooooooooo! The candidates are allowed to watch the ballots be fed by the voter into the black box Diebold computers. --- But THERE WILL BE NO HAND COUNT OF EVEN ONE BALLOT. The ballots will never be seen again. They might even be destroyed shortly after the event so that no one can ever again check the announced computer result !!

The Paul presidential campaign has not embraced the website's concerns. "We respect the Republican Party of Iowa and the auditors," said Paul spokesman Joe Seehusen. "We understand that there have been a wide variety of statements but they are not part of our campaign's position." However, he added, "if they're using the Diebold machines, those are controversial. We have asked the RPI to have a backup system to have that assurance."

"Some of the folks questioning the process are presuming malfeasance," Sean Flaherty of Iowans for Voting Integrity told Iowa Independent. (This group is not affiliated with votefraud.org.)  Nevertheless, he expressed concern about the Diebold equipment. "The system has really been taken to town by computer scientists. This is a good chance to champion audits."

Flaherty said the state Republican Party had initially planned to use only paper ballots, but added touch-screen to meet the requirements of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Under HAVA, visually disabled voters must be able to use audio prompts to cast a secret ballot. This can be achieved with either a directly recorded electronic (DRE) ballot or through a ballot-marking device.

Party spokeswoman Mary Tiffany said all campaigns, including Paul's, had been included in planning for the straw poll voting process. In a press release, Iowa Republicans focused more on photo ID issues than the equipment question. "Officials with the Republican Party of Iowa believe all official elections in Iowa should require every voter to show a photo ID to vote," said the release. "Only liberals oppose requiring showing a photo ID before voting."

The press release also includes Story County's voting security policy.

The Iowa GOP emphasized the Iraqi-style touch added to this year's straw poll: as in the first post-Saddam election, voters at the Straw Poll will dip their thumbs in purple ink to indicate they have cast their ballot. "Iowans will be just as proud to display their inked thumb as the newly liberated Iraqi people were," said Executive Director Chuck Laudner in the release.