Preserving Election Integrity Through Federalism

In March of this year, I became chairman of the Electoral Board for the City of Charlottesville. The appointment to the Board came by way of nomination by the chairman of the Charlottesville Republican Committee, Bob Hodous, with confirmation and formal appointment by the Circuit Court.

Electoral Boards serve in each jurisdiction of Virginia. The Boards consist of three members, two who belong to the current Governor's party (now Democrat Mark Warner), and one from the party whose candidate for Governor placed second in the last election. The Chairman and the Secretary of the Board must come from different political parties. So at the first meeting of the new Board in March, I was elected Chairman by my colleagues.

The Electoral Board oversees the office of the General Registrar and supervises elections. Virginia has frequent elections, with federal elections in even-numbered years and state elections in odd-numbered years. In 2004, Charlottesville had a Democratic presidential primary in February, a City Council election in May, and the general election in November.

In the weeks leading up to the November 2 election, a small number of Charlottesville voters (along with others around the country) began raising questions about the security and integrity of electronic voting systems. In an effort to address those questions, I prepared the article below. It appeared in The Hook, a Charlottesville weekly, on October 28 and in The Metro Herald in Alexandria on October 29. An abbreviated version of the article appeared in the online edition of The Free Liberal, a libertarian publication based in Fairfax, Virginia, on October 22.


(Charlottesville, Virginia) --- There is no such thing as a national election in the United States.

This may come as a surprise to many people, who believe that Americans will vote for president on November 2 in a national election.

Instead, there will be over 3,100 simultaneous elections taking place that day. When we aggregate the votes, the nation as a whole will elect a president and vice president.

This fact is important because this diffusion of elections is the best protection we have against voter fraud through corruption, intimidation, or -- the most recent worry -- computer hacking.

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), federal elections are conducted locally by 3,140 counties and independent cities. (Only Delaware runs its elections at the state level.) In all of these thousands of jurisdictions, election rules are made and administered locally, in accord with comprehensive state laws and a few federal laws designed to guarantee that elections are free, fair, honest, and transparent.

The levels of protection are so numerous that even the most vociferous attempt to change the results of an election against the will of those who cast votes has an infinitesimal chance of success.

The most basic level of protection is that each jurisdiction -- each county or city or town with responsibility for conducting elections -- chooses and maintains its own voting equipment. In 1998, for instance, according to CRS, 410 counties used paper ballots; 480 used lever machines; 635 used punchcards; 1,217 used optical scan ballots; 257 used electronic machines; and 141 had mixed systems.

A new federal law requires that by January 1, 2006, each state and locality must meet certain standards that effectively prohibit punchcard technologies. Consequently, many jurisdictions have already purchased new equipment to replace those machines that made the terms "butterfly ballot" and "hanging chad" so infamous four years ago.

Most jurisdictions are moving toward electronic voting systems, using direct recording electronic devices, or DREs. These machines operate in a number of fashions, but the easiest comparison is to automatic teller machines (ATMs). Some of them use touchscreen technology, some use buttons, some use mouse-like wheels to move a cursor on a screen.

For all these technologies, there are numerous companies that build and sell them. Among these companies are Advanced Voting Solutions, Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software, Hart InterCivic, Sequoia Voting Systems, and Unilect Corporation.

The use of machines made by these various companies is distributed randomly across the United States. Neighboring jurisdictions are unlikely to buy machines and software services from the same vendor. In Virginia alone, 22 different types of equipment will be used in the 2004 general election.

Are these machines trustworthy? The Wall Street Journal's John Fund, who is highly critical of election security procedures, notes in his new book, Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy (Encounter Books), that “in the twenty-plus years that these machines have been used, in many counties all across the country, there has never been a verified case of tampering.”

Even the most determined election-stealer would have to know what kind of equipment is in use by dozens, if not hundreds, of jurisdictions, in order to alter their hardware or software in an attempt to change the results of an election.

Supposing that a determined fraudster were able to get that information and figure out a way to hack into the systems; he also would have to obtain the assistance of those charged with maintaining the integrity of elections.

The number of election officials varies from place to place, of course, but to give one example:

In Charlottesville, Virginia, this flim-flammer would need the cooperation of the Electoral Board (currently made up of two Democrats and one Republican), the General Registrar (who is non-partisan), the technicians who service the voting equipment, the Chief Election Official and Assistant Chief in all eight precincts (each from a different political party), and the other Election Officials (who also represent the Republican and Democratic parties).

He also would have to involve the technician from Hart InterCivic who helps the Registrar set up the machines before the election, and the company's consultant who helps in the vote count after the election -- different individuals whose assignments vary from election to election and from client to client.

Moreover, he would have to gain access to sealed voting machines kept in a locked room inside the locked Registrar's office inside a locked City Hall Annex building, with 24-hour surveillance cameras monitoring him.

This means that to steal an election even in a small city like Charlottesville (with about 22,000 registered voters), effective election fraud would depend on a conspiracy involving no fewer than 25 people -- or more than 100 (when all the precinct-level election officials are included).

Multiply this by 3,139 other counties and cities across the United States, and you can see what a sisyphean task massive voter fraud would be.

Is every American election fraud-free? Of course not. Scattered reports of fraud occur after every election. While this fact requires vigilance, it does not undermine the substantial integrity of the electoral system across the nation. Reports of fraud are notable because they are so rare.

The integrity of elections in the United States is protected primarily by the most fundamental aspect of our republic: its federal character, defined by a dispersal of authority and choices made in a diffuse system of state and local governments.

We should remember this on Election Day when we vote, not in a national election, but in one of 3,140 elections for President of the United States.

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White House "Strategery" Chief

I was surprised while reading the Washington Post earlier this month to find an article about my old colleague from the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Pete Wehner. Pete and I were co-editors, along with Zbigniew Brzezinski and Marin Strmecki, of Promise or Peril: The Strategic Defense Initiative, which was published in the fall of 1986, just before I headed off to graduate school in London. Pete later left EPPC to join the staff of William Bennett, and he stayed with Bennett for a good many years after that.

Although we haven't been in touch with each other for more than a decade, I knew that Pete worked at the White House from a reference to him in Peggy Noonan's book, When Character Was King (about Ronald Reagan). What I didn't know was what a dream job he has in the Bush Administration.

According to the Post ("Resident Thinker Given Free Rein In White House," December 13), Pete heads up the "White House Office of Strategic Initiatives (or the Office of Strategery, as it is known inside the building after a "Saturday Night Live" skit spoofing the president's mangling of the English language). The OSI was [Karl]Rove's idea, created shortly after President Bush was elected in 2000. It is the smallest unit in the Rove empire, with six employees, and represents the closest thing the White House has to an in-house think tank."

Imagine -- being paid to work at the White House and all you have to do is read books and articles and think about what they mean and how they might influence public policy.

The only question remaining: Does the Bush Administration pay attention to anything Pete Wehner (or anyone else in the Strategery division) thinks about?

One Red Flower Blossoms in Arlington

(This review of a new musical produced by Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, appeared in The Metro Herald in October. Its late appearance on this blog is due simply to my procrastination in creating "Rick Sincere News and Thoughts")

"Will they want to hear about it, or just forget the whole thing ever happened?" asks one of the soldiers in One Red Flower, a new musical about the Vietnam War, now playing at the Signature Theatre in Arlington.

The answer, of course, is yes. Yes, Americans want to hear about it and yes, Americans want to forget the whole thing ever happened. Psychic dissonance, perhaps, but necessary for the health of the nation.

For 25 years or more, it seemed that Americans wanted to forget about Vietnam -- the longest war, the only war America lost, the war that divided the nation as none had since the Civil War a century earlier.

Vietnam became irrelevant, a historical footnote, not even a historical curiosity -- except for those who were there and those who knew them intimately.

One Red Flower tells these people's stories.

Viewed through the prism of the present, the Vietnam War seems more contemporary than ever.

While it is possible the creators aimed to see it staged in time for next year's commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Communist conquest of South Vietnam and the fall of Saigon, it is even more striking that One Red Flower had its world premiere amid headlines that make us feel as if the war -- at least its domestic components -- is being fought all over again.

Two presidential candidates, differing tales of honor and heroism, recriminations as inescapable as they are irrelevant: Could playwright Paris Barclay or director Eric Schaeffer have known in advance how timely their new play would be?

A history lesson as well as an entertaining musical drama, as emotionally moving as it is intellectually stimulating, One Red Flower is, at base, an anti-war play. But it treats divergent points of view with respect and affection even as it maintains its own.

Barclay, best known as a television director (notably for NBC-TV's The West Wing), is a triple threat: he wrote the book, music, and lyrics for One Red Flower, adapting the words from the anthology Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam, edited by Bernard Edelman for the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission.

Musically, the score can best be described as pastiche. What Stephen Sondheim did for George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Sigmund Romberg in Follies, Barclay does for Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Crosby Stills Nash & (especially) Young in One Red Flower. He evokes the Sixties without stealing from it (save a few stray musical quotations here and there).

Even a song about the holidays, "(There Will Still Be) Christmas" is written uncannily in the mode of so many "I'll-be-missing-you-but-the-tree's-still-lit" ballads -- some memorable, some forgettable -- that made their way onto the annual holiday TV specials hosted by Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Bob Hope, or Andy Williams.

The score is not musically challenging. For that, we will have to wait for Signature Theatre's next offering, The Highest Yellow, by Michael John LaChiusa. Barclay is no Sondheim, no Guettel. But he has produced a tuneful, emotionally balanced score in which there is not a wasted or inappropriate note.

Schaeffer has selected a cast that fulfills all of Barclay's promise, both musically and dramatically. Out of the six men and one woman (Florence Lacey), only Lacey is old enough to remember the Vietnam era. She shimmers in the part of a mother who is also meant to represent all the loved ones left behind on the "home front." Her burden is heavy but she carries it effortlessly.

Of her six male castmates, there is not a harsh word to say about any of them.

Kurt Boehm, a Catholic University student in one of his first professional roles, has star quality written all over him. In the early scenes, he is playful and energetic along with the other soldiers, but for most of the play his is separated and confined to a small platform as a POW. As such, he can observe the rest of the action but must remain oblivious to it. (Boehm's role might be compared to the title role in Floyd Collins, which requires the actor playing it to be physically constrained, nearly motionless, through almost the entire play.) His character first exhibits the nervous energy of a caged tiger but, over time, wearies with the boredom and deprivation of prison life. Boehm shows us this almost exclusively through body language and increasingly blank facial expressions. While the rest of the soldiers are singing in amusement about the wonders of Asian B-girls and barhopping (in "Saigon Tea"), Boehm's darting eyes convey a vacant disengagement precisely and ironically in silent counterpoint to a witty and raucous song.

The other cast members, all young, show talents far beyond their years:

Joshua Davis plays a Southern boy who feels strongly that the War is right and he is doing his proper duty to defend his nation. Despite the anti-war context of One Red Flower, Davis does this without condescension or caricature, both options available to him because of the way we so easily accept negative stereotypes.

Clifton Alphonzo Duncan displays pride in his men as the only officer among these recruits. A strong voice and confidence propel him into their, and our, hearts.

Charles Hagerty, as a helicopter pilot, has an unusual burden as an actor -- he is part of an ensemble but must remain off stage for more than half the play. Like a good soldier, however, he does his duty, making us wish we could see more of him.

Josh Lefkowitz, who plays a medic, is able to bounce his character's thoughts and emotions off of Davis's, because he is a soldier who becomes totally disenchanted with the war, questioning not only the war but his country's aims and values.

As the play's closest thing to a narrator or central character, Helen Hayes Award-winner Stephen Gregory Smith has the hardest job to do. He does it. Outstandingly. It helps that he is the putative son of Florence Lacey's mom, but that is not the only reason he deserves notice; those reasons are both multiple and unlistable.

While all of this acting and singing is going on, it might be possible to overlook the production's design elements. Possible, but unlikely. Actually, impossible: Schaeffer's design team has integrated sets, lights, props, sound, special technical effects, and visual projection into a stunningly effective whole. Set designer Eric Grims, lighting designer Chris Lee, sound designer Tony Angelini, properties mistress Elsie Jones, and particularly projection designer Michael Clark are owed any accolades they receive for One Red Flower.

If there is any flaw in this production -- and every show has at least one -- it is that sometimes the rock music from the hidden band overpowers the singers, who must wear body microphones despite Signature's intimate stage. I am not a big fan of amplification in any case -- even in the Kennedy Center Opera House, if it can be avoided -- so to see mics here was a disappointment.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Paris Barclay's political views as expressed in One Red Flower, one cannot deny that he expresses them well and beautifully. I hope that One Red Flower advances to a stage at which a cast recording is made, because Barclay's music and lyrics should be preserved and heard by far more people than those who can squeeze into Signature Theatre to see this world premiere production.

Whitwell Middle School Holocaust Memorial

The Holocaust Memorial at Whitwell Middle School in Whitwell, Tennessee.
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Paper Clips: Movie and Book

Now, for some substance:

I prepared this book review for The Metro Herald. It was meant to accompany a review of the new documentary film, Paper Clips, written by my colleague, Tim Hulsey. As the twin reviews have not yet appeared in the newspaper, I thought it might be appropriate to post my own review here:

Six Million Paper Clips: The Making of a Children’s Holocaust Memorial, by Peter W. Schroeder and Dagmar Schroeder-Hildebrand. Minneapolis: Kar-Ben Publishing, 64 pages; $17.95 hardcover, $7.95 paperback. Publication date: November 2004.

(Charlottesville) — When I arrived at the Virginia Film Festival on the last weekend of October, with an array of literally dozens of events and movie screenings available to me, one of the lowest priorities was to see Paper Clips.

To tell the truth, the description of the film in the festival program struck me as a bit sappy: “Premiering at the Virginia Film Festival ahead of its national release by Miramax, Paper Clips tells the inspiring story of a group of middle school children in Whitwell, Tennessee, who in 1998 embarked on a project to collect one paper clip for every soul lost in the Holocaust. This school project has since opened the mind of the students, their teachers, their families, and thousands of people around the world.”

My reluctance was set aside, however, after I heard an enthusiastic report about Paper Clips from my colleague, Tim Hulsey. Fortunately, a second screening was scheduled, which included remarks by producer Bob Johnson of Arlington and co-director Elliot Berlin. I am glad I took advantage of that opportunity to see Paper Clips: It is an excellent film, at once entertaining, instructive, and moving.

One seldom attends a film of any type, much less a documentary, in which members of the audience can be heard sobbing. Moreover, there are few documentaries that can truly be said to be meant for the whole family. Paper Clips can be enjoyed and appreciated by anyone, from children of eight years old to their grandparents and great-grandparents.

Thus it was serendipitous that a book arrived at The Metro Herald offices just about a week ago, a companion volume to the movie, Paper Clips, with an intended readership of those ages 8 and up (or grade 3 and up), written by two German journalists who feature prominently in the film, Peter W. Schroeder and his wife, Dagmar Schroeder-Hildebrand.

Published just in time for Hanukkah and Christmas, this book will make a good holiday present from any parent who wants to teach a child not just about tolerance, but about how children themselves can achieve something of note by having a vision, applying themselves, and working hard.

Six Million Paper Clips, the book, tells basically the same story as Paper Clips, the movie, but it has some additional information and insights that the filmmakers, as they say, had to leave on the cutting-room floor. The book and the movie complement each other without being redundant and the book, in fact, would be useful for children who have seen the film but who have questions about what happened and how. It would be a good launching-pad for an extended discussion between parents and children of what transpired in the movie, and a reminder and reference on the bookshelf long after the film is just a memory.

To be sure, this is not a book that most adults would enjoy on their own. It is, after all, written at a third-grade level. It also has an irritating conceit of referring to the Schroeders (the authors) in the third person. None of this should matter, however, to a grade-school student.

I hope that Six Million Paper Clips lands on the shelves of school libraries throughout the country, and that it inspires many American students to embark on projects of their own, whether to study the Holocaust or other historical and current events, so that they can learn what it is like to make a difference in their communities and in their own lives.

Introduction

Rick Sincere, c. 1984

It took a while, but I've been sucked into the world of bloggers.

I have two primary purposes in publishing this blog: (1) to comment on current affairs and cultural events, including theatre, music, movies, and books and (2) to archive some of my old writings on what-were-then-current affairs and cultural events (you know the rest).

Some of you may be familiar with my writing from other sources, including The Metro Herald, a weekly African-American newspaper in Alexandria, Virginia, which has published my articles on public policy issues since 1993 and my theatre criticism since 1995 or at the Independent Gay Forum, a collective of non-leftist writers on issues of concern to gay and lesbian Americans. Finally, a good number of my past articles can be found at my business web site for the Arlington Research Group, which is badly in need of updating but provides a snapshot of my life and interest in the later 1990s. (Both the Independent Gay Forum and the Arlington Research Group include biographical sketches that contain more comprehensive information than the profile you see here.)

Feel free to come back and visit frequently.