Filed under: Author - ACG, Politics | Tags: Bill Owens, Doug Hoffman, Election law, New York, NY-23
Conspiracy theories: a good reason not to put Glenn Beck's candidates in the national spotlight.
With 3,072 ballots left uncounted, Owens still leads — by 3,105 votes. Odds for Hoffman’s victory have moved from 1% down to 0%.
However, Hoffman looks to be gearing up to challenge the election results, linking from his website to an article in the Gouverneur Times, which suggests that voting machines were either infected with a virus or, due to the presence of USB ports, capable of hijacking on-site. Although the Watertown Daily Times has already partially debunked these rumors, they deserve a second treatment, for clarity’s sake.
Counties in New York currently use one of four voting machines — either Shoup or AVM “Lever” machines (collectively, “levers”), or one of two optical scanners, the Sequoia ImageCast, and the ES&S DS200. The latter are required by federal law — when, in 2005, New York accepted money pursuant to the Help America Vote Act, it committed to abandoning its lever machines, but the state substantially failed to implement HAVA until recently (read more here). This year, as part of a “pilot program,” 46 New York counties deployed optical scanners for their primary and general elections, including all counties in the 23rd Congressional district except Clinton, Essex, and part of Oneida. All NY-23 counties participating in the pilot program use the Sequoia ImageCast.
It’s true that many of the counties experienced, at some point in time, problems with their Sequoia machines. But no problems persisted through election day. Here’s how we know. Because their deployment is at this time experimental, electronic voting machines are governed by strict proposed regulations, treated as effective for the purposes of the pilot program. These procedures require that commissioners confirm the accuracy of all of their machines’ logic with a “test deck” of ballots FOUR TIMES (before and after their deployment, and before and after canvassing) (§ 6209). Any “virus” would be caught instantly, and any that slipped through the cracks would be caught by another regulation that escalates the statutory 3% audit requirement (N.Y. Elec. Law § 9-211) to a much higher level, and provides for further escalation if problems are encountered (§ 6210). So much for viruses.
Concerns about electronic “hacking” or ballot tampering are similarly misplaced, because both would have to happen to defeat audit/test deck procedures, and neither can happen. Even if Sequoia machines do have a USB port (I’ve never seen one), the machines go from locked facilities at the County Board, where they’re under bipartisan lock & key, to a polling site where they’re in public view, and then back to the bipartisan County Board. Tampering would have to be sanctioned by both Republican and Democratic election commissioners, and then overlooked by campaign observers, who are permitted and encouraged to be present at canvassing. Chain of custody procedures for paper ballots, if separated from their machines, are even more rigorous (§ 6210.11).
Further, much like a Battlestar, voting machines are NEVER NETWORKED. EVER. Voting cards are programmed by an Election Management System subject to the same lock & key procedures, and bereft of any internet connectivity software or hardware.
All of this is to say Hoffman enters any prospective recount with the burden of proof stacked against him. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you see an election commissioner worry, then worry. But even the conspiratorial Gouverneur Times notes that the commissioners aren’t on their side — though they mask their lack of evidence with weasel words (“Republican Commissioner Judith Peck refused to speculate…”). For shame, Gouverneur Times — the press shouldn’t be in the business of spreading paranoia, or feeding the rumors of a madman.
Filed under: Author - ACG, Politics | Tags: Alliteration, Andrew Jackson, Democracy, Elitism, George Washington, Political rhetoric, Political symbols, Populism, Sarah Palin, William Jennings Bryan
A sequel to the praiseworthy primer, “Palin the Post-Partisan Populist Pals around with Pundits.”
It’s always entertaining to watch Ivy-educated well-connected authors pontificate on the need for common people to tear down Ivy-educated well-connected authors, but Matthew Continetti’s defense of a “new populism” strains even the relaxed standard of credibility applied to such antics. Setting aside factual problems — most Americans still favor healthcare reform, especially with a public option, and stripping power from insurance companies is a profoundly anti-elitist move — the central conceit of the argument, that Sarah Palin stands in unbroken succession with populist luminaries like Andrew Jackson and William Jennings Bryan, is simply a bridge too far.
The first, the last, the best, the Cincinnatus of the West.
The analysis goes awry at the outset. Jackson and Bryan were not just populists, but masters of the art, heirs to a tradition begun in Rome and perfected in America. Classicists will recall Cincinnatus — the farmer-turned-dictator who saved the Republic and, upon completion of his duties, promptly returned to his farm to till his land, spurning the lifetime of fame and fortune that could’ve been his. Like Washington, Jackson and Bryan both drew substantially (if unknowingly) from the Cincinnatus myth. They were brilliant men who could skillfully navigate the halls of power, but chose not to. Visitors to Jackson’s Hermitage (Continetti and I agree, it’s well worth the trip) are treated to a full picture of a deeply intellectual man who, despite partially embracing his opponents’ portrayal of him as an illiterate backwoodsman, maintained a vast library, read and re-read Plutarch, and decorated his home with maps of the growing American Republic. This was a complex man — not a “commoner,” not an “elite,” but something uniquely American. Despite his unfortunate embrace of creationism (and… uh… racism), Bryan was much the same: he maintained the sensibilities of the common man, but advocated for them by taking up the weapons and vestments of the elites.
William Jennings Bryan.
Continetti is right to praise these men, as exemplars of a substantially forgotten American political tradition — the expert statesman who does it because he has to, and never forgets the roots of democracy. However, Continetti misses the mark by putting Palin in their company. Palin, he argues, is their natural successor, misunderstood and maligned by the elites as an uneducated backwater hick. Fine. But there the similarities end. Jackson and Bryan were successful for their ability to walk both worlds — like Cincinattus, they could deploy the knowledge, expertise, and rigorous methodology of the educated elites, but through the perspective of, and to the exclusive service of, the common man. Palin, however, lacks the intellect that transformed Jackson and Bryan into paragons, and Continetti’s “intuitive faith in builders and traders, in hockey moms and plumbers,” is inadequate to supply the deficit, because it is meaningless. What could it possibly mean?
The Palin myth breaks down here, because ultimately, the stereotypes of the contemptible elite and the virtuous but “simple” small town dweller must be unsatisfying. Few elites are actually evil and subversive; and, more importantly, few small-towners are “simple.” The vast majority of Americans, regardless of domicile, are intelligent, profoundly interested men and women, committed to themselves and their country. Only aspirant demagogues like Sarah Palin actually (and gleefully) live the stereotype of the willfully ignorant backwoodsmen. Accordingly, when Palin claims to speak for and embody small town America, we should be offended by the implied insult. The average American, whether she lives in the city or the suburbs, is closer to a Jackson than a Palin, and thank God for that.
Somewhere along the line we decided to sever the parts of the Cincinnatus myth that lies at the heart of American populism: today we call someone a populist for simply identifying with the common man, and to hell with the vigorous competence and record of service that marked the populist movement’s first and finest avatars. To equate a lack of achievements and an utter disinterest in ever attaining distinction with the notion of the American “common man” demeans us all, and dupes us into selecting leaders based on their ability to act, rather than their ability to lead. We deserve better, we are better, and that, ultimately, is why Sarah Palin must fail.
Filed under: Author - ACG, Politics | Tags: Bill Owens, Dede Scozzafava, Doug Hoffman, Election law, NY-23
Except, no.
Wonkette and The Hill are reporting he’ll “unconcede” — as he promised Glenn Beck — but apparently a promise to Glenn Beck means about as much as an election-night concession. Local sources, closer to the story and the players, report that Hoffman is not contesting the count of absentee ballots, meaning he’s also likely not deploying observers to watch the canvass returns, a right that candidates enjoy (and uniformly exercise) pursuant to New York election law.
As a reminder, the Palladium Times, the only newspaper that’s managed to get the story right, explained that phone problems delayed returns in Oswego County, causing nine election districts (out of 125) to fail to report until the next day, by which time Hoffman had already conceded. Similarly, human error caused Hoffman to under-perform in Jefferson County by about 1,000 votes. The error wasn’t discovered until the next day.
Critically, at least in Oswego County, what’s become the epicenter of the controversy, at all times after 10:30 PM on election night, 1.5 hours after close of polls, all public data on the returns were accurate: had Hoffman called the Oswego Board of Elections, he would’ve been informed of the exact state of the count, that nine election districts weren’t yet in, and that the vote totals would rise by 2,000+ votes once they were. The notion that outside forces somehow conspired to trick Hoffman into conceding has no basis in the facts. He simply wasn’t a responsible candidate.
The Hill gets one thing right, though — Hoffman would have to win 65-70% of the absentee ballots to carry the election and displace Owens. Since the race was a three-way contest until three days before the election, and Hoffman’s surge didn’t happen until four days before, it’s highly unlikely that he’ll win anything close to that.
UDPATE: by the way, for those curious, a “concession” has no legal effect in New York, nor does a “suspension of one’s campaign” (what Assemblywoman Scozzafava did). The only authorities on who “won” a race are the County Board(s) of Elections responsible for the race, working in conjunction with the N.Y. State Board of Elections. A despondent, “resigned” candidate can still be dragged kicking and screaming into office if they won the vote.
Critically, no election results have been certified, nor has any New York authority represented its results as certified. The State Board delivered an unofficial certification to the Clerk of the House in advance of Owen’s swearing in, carefully noting the result was not yet official. The Gouverneur Times gets that right, but dishonestly suggests Owens is occupying his office illegally. He’s not. At the time of his swearing-in, the race was uncontested: an impound order on voting machines is NOT an official, Article 16 challenge to election results. I haven’t been able to get a copy of the complaint ordering the impound of voting machines, but the judge’s order to that effect does not style itself as an Article 16 order. Cf. N.Y. Elec. Law, § 16-112 (McKinney 2008).
Two weeks out, official certification is still pending. Because New York is testing out new voting machines for the first time this year, the official canvass has just begun, following a thorough audit of the new machines that lasted until, likely, today. We’ll be keeping our eyes on the situation, but only to dispel rumors about the way the law works up here. There’s literally a 0% chance Hoffman will win this thing.
