Voting in peril without paper trail of ballots

Bill Knight column for Oct. 8, 9 or 10, 2018

As this column reported two weeks ago, the real danger in U.S. voting rights may be coming less from Russian hackers or people casting ballots illegally than “all-American” extremists tampering with access to polls and jeopardizing the electronic apparatus used in most states.

Shown in a couple of recent incidents, the question for voters demanding legitimate elections may be: “Do we want results fast or accurate?

In the last month, the Democratic National Committee reported an attempt to hack into its data base, and U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) both said that their campaigns had been penetrated or compromised by computerized interference.

However, in Texas, Laura Pressley – a former Independent candidate for the Austin City Council who lost her race and afterward said the results were tainted – successfully supported the platform committee of the Republican Party of Texas during its recent state convention to retain a pro-paper ballot plank originally adopted in 2016.

Pressley – who also sued, alleging that Texas’ election practices are unaccountable and illegal and violate the state’s election code and its constitution – said, “There were no legal ballots for a recount, and no results tapes to document and verify what the results were.”

The Texas GOP plank could mean disaster for makers of electronic voting machine whose machines are used in about 90 percent of U.S. voting precincts. One example is costly equipment manufactured by Hart InterCivic, models of which lack paper backup unless government entities invest millions of dollars more for a model with a backup option.

More than 90 percent of the state Republican convention delegates reaffirmed “the strongest election-security platform plank in the country,” Pressley said. Their plank has five points:

* ensure ballot integrity,

* require printing of results tapes for electronic voting for early voting and Election Day at polling locations after the polls close for all counties,

* increase scrutiny and security in balloting by mail,

* prohibit internet voting and any electronic voting lacking a verifiable paper trail, and

* prosecute election fraud with jail sentences.

“We support all means of protecting the integrity of our elections, including the optional use of paper ballots,” the platform states.

Meanwhile, a troubling activity at the 26th Def Con convention of hackers in Las Vegas in August demonstrated how vulnerable electronic voting machines are. During Def Con conventions – of ‘white hat” hackers who break into protected systems to show how security should be improved (as opposed to “black hat” hackers who break into systems for malicious reasons) – “Voting Village” workshops are held to demonstrate weakness in systems.

“By the end of the [2017] conference, every piece of equipment in the Voting Village was effectively breached in some manner,” reported Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Fla., and a Fellow at the Brennam Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

“Participants with little prior knowledge and only limited tools and resources were quite capable of undermining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of these systems.”

At this year’s conference, the Voting Village exhibition was even more distressing.

“It took one 11-year-old all of 10 minutes to hack into a web site akin to a Secretary of State’s that would report official election results,” Torres-Spelliscy said. “The actual vote totals weren’t changed, but the reported results were. If this isn’t a wake-up call, I don’t know what is. As another hacker — who won’t be eligible to vote until 2025 — remarked, “We should have [these systems] way secure because the Russians [are] out there, people.”

In Washington, Congress this spring appropriated $380 million to assist states in updating voting technology, and $344 million has been distributed. However, the money wasn’t targeted to states that need it most, she said – those that use only electronic voting machines that don’t print a paper record of votes. The consequence is that there’s no paper trail of votes and therefore no way to check whether machines recorded votes accurately.

“What is remarkable is that even in the face of overwhelming evidence of the vulnerability of the nation’s election infrastructure, Congress is dead-set against doing any more,” Torres-Spelliscy said. “Less than a week after [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller’s exquisitely detailed indictment, the House refused to spend more money on election security.”

Trump’s truth AND consequences for workers

Bill Knight column for Oct. 4, 5 or 6, 2018

Two new reports on issues vital to working Americans detail the attacks on U.S. workers that have accelerated since President Trump and the GOP assumed control of Congress and all three branches of the federal government – and the potential consequences ahead.

The nonpartisan Public Citizen group issued the 23-page “Workers Left Behind Under Trump’s OSHA,” and the labor-supported Economic Policy Institute released its 20-page analysis, “First Day Fairness: An agenda to build worker power and ensure job quality.”

“Trump has betrayed America’s workforce, sacrificing lives at the altar of industry profits,” said Shanna Devine, author of Public Citizen’s report and the worker health and safety advocate in Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division.

“In June 2016, candidate Trump promised, ‘The American worker will finally have a president who will protect them and fight for them.’ But since becoming president, Trump has followed the dictates of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, rolling back fundamental protections at the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), the report says.

Indeed, shortly before Labor Day, Trump cancelled a scheduled pay raise for about 2 million public employees and approved an Executive Order instructing the Treasury Department to investigate rules on distributing funds from retirement accounts to prevent withdrawals “to see if investors can keep more money for a longer time in 401(k)s, Individual Retirement Accounts, and other tax-sheltered  savings plans,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Also, Trump is gutting OSHA and cutting requirements to keep relevant records public and accessible, said Devine, who commented, “The Trump administration has systematically dismantled fundamental health and safety protections, and undermined the very agency tasked with safeguarding America’s workforce.”

Celine McNicholas, EPI’s director of labor law and policy, added, “This has been a terrible 18 months-plus for working people in this country, It’s an unprecedented attack on workers.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to hide behind accurate but misleading headlines about the U.S. economy, stressing that the stock market is up – both the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 on Sept. 21 set all-time highs, with the Dow finishing that day at 26,656.98 and the S&P at 2,930.75 – but neglecting to note that profitable corporate performance hasn’t meant improved wages for workers. Also, apart from media spin and public relations, real hourly wages between July of last year and this summer are, in reality, down, since a 2.7 percent increase over that 12-month period was eliminated by inflation – even as the $1.5 trillion tax cut enriched the wealthy and corporations.

However, suspicions are beginning to register with everyday workers.

“For the first time in a long time, you have lots of different folks here in DC and out in the states talking about the need for some sort of labor and employment law reform,” said Celine McNicholas, director of labor law and policy at EPI. “There hasn’t been much worker-favored activity in that area in quite some time.”

The EPI report makes four key recommendations: Americans need the right to unionize; more to ensure a basic level of job quality, whether or not they’re in a union; freedom from employers’ demand that applicants surrender their rights as a condition of employment; and enforcement of labor rights.

Nevertheless, challenges remain ahead.

“The little power that workers have, this administration seems to be bound and determined to diminish even more,” said Sharon Block of Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program and a former national Labor Relations Board member and adviser to President Obama. “The time for tinkering around the edges has past. What we really need is fundamental change.”

'Reel'-life politics sometimes trumps real life

Bill Knight column for Oct. 1, 2 or 3, 2018

            In a few weeks, the midterm elections will end campaigns that too often have “stooped to conquer,” but movies can offer an escape to familiar political contests and characters, from heroes to cads, candidates showing idealism or seeking graft.

            For decades Hollywood has given moviegoers a pleasant and familiar, inspiring and amusing mix of hope and corruption, demagogues and Everymen. Films about politics can be about federal offices ("The Senator Was Indiscreet") or local elections ("The Glass Key"). Movies about politics are varied, too. There are crime dramas ("Bullets or Ballots"), comedies ("Beau James"), biographies ("Abe Lincoln in Illinois," "The Missiles of October"), suspense yarns ("Suddenly," with Frank Sinatra), and dramas "Nixon" and "JFK," both directed by filmmaker Oliver Stone).

            Here are 10 of the best:

            "Advise and Consent" (1962). Henry Fonda stars in this gripping film version of Allen Drury's bestseller about inside-the-Beltway politics in Washington. Charles Laughton is outstanding as a Southern politician, but Otto Preminger directed a solid cast also including Burgess Meredith, Walter Pidgeon, Peter Lawford, Don Murray, Franchot Tone and Gene Tierney.

            "All The King's Men" (1949). The rise and fall of a country lawyer who becomes a rural fascist (based on Huey P. Long) is showcased in this entry written, produced and directed by Robert Rossen (who a few years later would be targeted during the McCarthy Red Scare). Broderick Crawford stars in the story, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren. The film won a Best Picture Oscar, but Crawford stands out as a shrewd, ambitious, brutal politico.

            "The Best Man" (1964). Backroom politics in Washington is the subject of this drama by Gore Vidal, who adapted his play. Cliff Robertson and Henry Fonda star as political rivals competing for their party's nomination for President.       Ann Sothern, Edie Adams, Shelly Berman and Lee Tracy co-star.

            "Bob Roberts" (1992). Tim Robbins' directorial debut is a hilarious mock-umentary of a Right-wing folk singer's campaign for the Senate.            Featuring finny song parodies like "Wall Street Rap" and "This Land (Was Made for Me)," it co-stars Alan Rickman, David Strathairn, Susan Sarandon and James Spader.

            "Bulworth" (1998). Warren Beatty wrote, directed and stars in this quirky comedy/tragedy about race, class, media and politics. He's an incumbent Senator on the verge of emotional collapse when he sets up an assassination -- of himself -- then reconsiders. The cast is terrific: Halle Berry, Paul Sorvino and Don Cheadle

            "The Candidate" (1972). An apolitical attorney (Robert Redford) becomes a politician, competing against an incumbent, and it doesn't take long for him to realize he's sacrificed his values and more. Peter Boyle and Melvyn Douglas co-star

            "Election" (1999). Matthew Broderick is almost a grown-up Ferris Bueller in this dark comedy about a too-good-to-be-true high schooler running for class president. Mudslinging ensues, and charges of a rigged election. Reese Witherspoon co-stars in the best glimpse of high schools since "Heathers.

            "The Last Hurrah" (1958). John Ford directed Spencer Tracy as a political boss in this look at a party's lust for power and an individual's conscience. As a cynical newspaperman and the boss's nephew, Jeffrey Hunter is terrific as he comes to respect the old man's grit and heart. A classic, it co-stars Pat O'Brien, John Carradine, Jane Darwell and Basil Rathbone

            "Meet John Doe" (1941). Frank Capra directed this tribute to populist America – and warning of red-white-and-blue fascism – with Gary Cooper in the title role. A Right-wing tycoon (Edward Arnold) takes over a big newspaper; manipulating stories, the unscrupulous media magnate is revealed as a paramilitary fascist willing to use Doe to "crash national politics." The social commentary, which co-stars Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Brennan, was shaped in part to fight Nazi sympathizers then in the United States

            "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939). Jimmy Stewart stars in one of Hollywood's best movies, about a reluctant, idealistic Senator who runs afoul of a Congress built on favoritism and graft. Stewart's performance personifies liberty, democracy and morality, and Claude Rains is great as a fallen Senator. Also starring are Jean Arthur and Thomas Mitchell.