Voting Machines Get More Than Reasonable Doubt

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The ongoing investigation into the disappearance of 18,000 votes in Sarasota, Florida–more than the 369 votes needed to give the November election to Democrat Christine Jennings rather than Republican Vern Buchanan who has been declared winner–is a preview of future debates about electronic voting. And it’s not especially reassuring.

The background: Christine Jennings filed suit shortly after the election claiming that an electronic malfunction occurred in Sarasota, where a full 15 percent of voters did not vote in her hotly contested congressional race, compared to 2.5 percent in other Florida districts. Thousands of Sarasota voters have claimed that the race was not on the electronic ballot they were provided. Some have also suggested that their votes simply disappeared.

The state has responded by staging a mock election this Tuesday, in which state employees were the only voters. The employees easily found the Jennings-Buchanan race on the ballot. They admitted, though, it was on the same screen with the gubernatorial race, which featured a larger banner.

Now, even if the only issue was the larger banner, why is it so hard to design a ballot in which voters proceed systematically through all of the races? What’s more, anyone who’s ever called the office IT guy over to fix their computer only to watch the computer perform perfectly for him knows that computers don’t give uniform results to the same prompt. That would be especially true if the voting machines had been programmed to alter the vote tally, as some opponents of electronic voting fear.

Florida’s handling of the problem assumes that voting machines are innocent until proven guilty. But machines aren’t citizens. The citizens are saying they were unable to vote in the race. What will it take to make people get serious about these problems?

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate