10 Plus-plus with George Gilbert
At least one blogger gave us a little flack over Sunday's 10 Plus, a Q&A with George Gilbert, director of Guilford County elections.
So here are a couple questions that didn't make it into the paper. And if you have any more for us or Gilbert, post 'em below.
Also, you can see his testimony before the United States Senate in 2007.
Q. In 2006 Guilford County had an error with the printers connected to the electronic voting machines. What are you doing to help avoid that in the future?
A. That was first time that they had the printers with the machines, and sometimes printers jam. The fact of the matter is that if you lose a printed record to a printer jam, you haven't lost the electronic vote. We do have the electronic technology and we're glad we've got it.
Q. In some developing nations, you see people surrounding a ballot box with slips of paper. In photos from the Iraqi elections, we see voters with purple fingers. Why don't we have those kinds of practices here?
A. We've pretty much determined that they aren't necessary to maintain the accuracy of the elections. I don’t know a lot of the details about (those) elections. The people line up and they get their hand stamped. They don't have the identification and the rolls and the checks that precede those elections like we do. Here, everybody registers and they're sent a registration notice. We flag registrations for those where you may not know where the people live. In other nations, they may be nomads.
There are a lot of factors that go into determining elections, and we are a relatively mature society of law and we know what the rules are and we follow them. You don't have to worry about fraud because most people won't do it.
You try to target your concerns and that's the way our systems operate. And they (developing democratic nations) have less technology and stability than we have.
Comments (1)
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Do we have to do the job for you?
We are NOT concerned with how elections are carried out in foreign lands, we are concerned with how they are carried out in Guilford Co.
Here are the questions that a actual reporter would have asked.
1) Despite the overwhelming desire of both NC voters and the NCGA for paper ballots, you continue to work toward overturning the law. Why?
2) You yourself documented before the Joint Select Committee on e-Voting in 2005 that using hybrid machines (touch screen with a printer) would be a logistical nightmare and prone to error. Having predicted these problems, why did you then go and buy this very system, rather than the much less expensive, and more reliable optical scan system used by 75% of the countries in NC?
3) Shouldn't the voters of Guilford County be concerned about an election director bent on thwarting a law that ensures a fair and accurate election process? Why should your expertise on matters of computer security, and software reliability (expertise you admitted lacking in the past) be substituted for that of people are true experts in such matters?
4) Who is responsible for reviewing the hardware/software used with our voting machines. What are their credentials for the job?
Yes, the questions are pointed, but you are a reporter. Your job is too ASK pointed questions, not kiss up to public officials so they'll like you.
Posted on April 9, 2008 2:25 PM