Do You Believe Our Elections Are Honest ?

I asked whether you believe our elections are honest, because many people around the world don't believe their own elections are honestly held or counted. The Gallup Poll conducted a survey in 2011 (where they surveyed at least 1000 people in 125 different countries), and they found that worldwide only about 47% of people (46% of women and 48% of men) believe in the honesty of their elections.

In the countries classified as "full democracies" (Western-style democracies), that percentage went way up and most of those countries had a pretty good majority believing in the honesty of their own elections. Except for three of those "full democracies" -- and wouldn't you know it, the United States is one of those three countries (followed closely by South Korea and the Czech Republic).

In the United States, only about 48% of the population believes our elections are honest (44% of women and 52% of men). It would have been interesting to see how this broke down between the political parties, but the poll didn't examine that (being more interested in the gender gap on this question). I suspect a large part of both parties believe we have an honesty problem in elections.

I must admit that I am one of those people who has some serious doubts about the honesty of a lot of the elections in this country -- at all levels. First, we don't treat all our political parties equally. Some get no media coverage and are shut out of political events like debates (which means most people aren't exposed to their candidates or their ideas). This violates the very idea of fair elections.

Second, in most communities the election process is controlled by the dominant party in that area. This does not necessarily mean they are all dishonest, but it does let them do little things like not putting enough polling places, polling booths, or ballots in ares that they believe will not give them many votes -- all things that can easily be dismissed as honest errors.

But the most important reason I don't trust our elections, is the use of electronic voting machines -- especially those that do not generate a paper trail. Here is Amarillo, electronic voting machines without any paper trail are used. This means no voter can be 100% sure the machine counted the votes correctly as they were cast, no recount can be done in questionable races (as could be done with paper ballots or paper voting receipts), and it is very unlikely that any machine mistakes would be discovered (even if suspected).

The Republicans are in charge of the electronic machines here, but they would be just as untrustworthy if the Democrats were in charge of them. The simple facts are that machines do make mistakes, and these electronic voting machines are too easily corruptible -- at all levels. They can be tampered with while they are being built, while they are being prepared for an election, and even at the election site. Many computer experts have repeatedly shown this is an easy task to accomplish, and because of that, all electronic machines should print two receipts showing how the votes were cast -- one for the voter, and another to be placed in a ballot box in case a recount must be done.

And just to give you Democrats out there something to worry about, it seems that the voting machines used in some states are controlled by former executives of BAIN CAPITAL, who are supporters of Willard. Here is how the blog The Daily Dolt puts it:

Hart InterCivic is a national provider of election voting systems that are used in swing-states Ohio and Colorado, as well as in states we don’t really care about so much because we already know how they’ll turn out (e.g., Texas, Oklahoma, and Hawaii). Private equity firm H.I.G. Capital, LLC bought out a “significant” portion of Hart in July of 2011, and now the majority of Hart’s board directors are employees of H.I.G. (It’s not entirely clear how much of the voting machine company H.I.G. owns, but the financial advisors responsible for the transaction state that “Hart Intercivic was acquired by HIG Capital.”)

H.I.G., in turn, has ties to Bain & Co. and Mitt Romney directly:

• H.I.G. was founded by Tony Tamer, a former Bain employee and bundler for Mitt Romney’s campaign.
• Of H.I.G.’s 22 American directors, 21 donated to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. One person made no political donations at all;  one person donated to both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama; the remaining 20 directors donated exclusively to Mitt Romney in 2012. (See below for links to donations.)
• Of these 22 American directors, seven of them (nearly one-third) are former Bain employees. Now, we should note (as a reader helpfully pointed out), this is Bain & Co., where Mitt Romney used to work way back when and then left in order to start the affiliated Bain Capital. The connection is therefore a little more tenuous, but we still find H.I.G.’s overwhelming allegiance and financial support of the Romney campaign surprising (not that it’s surprising that a private equity company would lean Republican, but this level of support is pretty unusual).

• Four of H.I.G.’s directors, Tony Tamer, John Bolduc, Douglas Berman, and Brian D. Schwartz,  are Romney bundlers along with former Bain and H.I.G. manager Brian Shortsleeve.

• Two of H.I.G.’s managing directors, Douglas F. Berman and Brian D. Schwartz, were present at the $50,000 per plate fundraiser where Mitt Romney made his notorious ”47%” comments.

• H.I.G. employees currently make up the majority of the Hart InterCivic’s five-member board of directors. Two of these three directors of the voting machine company, Neil Tuch and Jeff Bohl,  have donated directly to Mitt Romney’s campaign.

• H.I.G. is the 11th largest donor to Mitt Romney’s campaign. H.I.G. employees have given $338,000 to the Romney campaign, outpacing even Bain Capital itself, which gave  $268,000.

• (Sidenote: Are we the only ones to notice that every single one of H.I.G.’s 22 American directors is white and male? Not related to the Mitt Romney issue, but sheesh.)

Now, to be fair, besides the fact that H.I.G. employees make up the majority of Hart’s board of directors, we don’t know exactly how much control H.I.G. is able to exert over the voting machine company’s day-to-day operations. Plus, it seems like it would be pretty difficult to mess with the software without anyone finding out about it. Moreover, just from a cost-benefit standpoint, it doesn’t really make sense that these H.I.G. directors would commit a felony and risk their super-lucrative careers just to get their Bain bro elected.

But that said, this still makes us a little… uncomfortable. For instance, what if irregularities or honest mistakes are suspected (and this is a real possibility: Hart InterCivic has previously had some pretty major malfunctions in its voting systems)? The documentation will then be in the hands of Hart/H.I.G.

So, what do you think? Do you trust ALL of the election officials in your county or state? Do you believe the electronic voting machines never malfunction or are never tampered with? Do you have an absolute faith that our elections are honest?