Easter Eggs and Trojan Horses in the Democrats’ Flagship Bill, H.R. 1 (“For the People Act of 2019”)

HR1 (text here) was, symbolically, the first bill introduced in this session of the House, and it rapidly aqquired 227 co-sponsors — of whom not one was a Republican. The bill garnered a lot of positive coverage. From the Brennan Center for Justice:

The Brennan Center has long advocated for, and in many cases helped innovate, many of the reforms outlined in H.R. 1. “Perhaps more than ever, Americans understand the problems facing our democracy,” said Weiser. “They are hungry for bold and effective solutions to those problems — like those in H.R. 1 — and real action on those solutions.” Weiser submitted written testimony in support of the Act in advance of Thursday’s hearing. In her comments on Thursday, she highlighted three of the reforms outlined in H.R. 1: Restoring the Voting Rights Act, a landmark civil rights law that was hobbled by the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County decision;

a landmark civil rights law that was hobbled by the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County decision; Automatic voter registration (AVR), which would streamline how Americans register to vote — and could add up to 50 million new voters to the rolls; and

which would streamline how Americans register to vote — and could add up to 50 million new voters to the rolls; and Small-donor public financing, which would amplify the voices of ordinary voters by providing public funds to match small donors. Thursday marked the latest in a series of hearings on H.R. 1, which have focused on elements of the bill ranging from presidential ethics to election security. The bill marks the first time in decades that either major political party has made comprehensive reform of the systems of democracy a central priority.

(Let me pause to compliment the Brennan Center for not using the noxious phrase “our democracy.” As the old joke goes, “What do you mean, ‘we’?”) Democrat House organ The New Yorker:

[Last week,] a hearing on H.R. 1, the For the People Act, took place in the House of Representatives. Elijah Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, the new chair of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, referred to the bill, in his opening remarks, as “one of the boldest reform packages to be considered in the history of this body.” He added, “This sweeping legislation will clean up corruption in government, fight secret money in politics, and make it easier for American citizens across this great country to vote.” That statement was not partisan hyperbole. The bill is a broad, imaginative, and ambitious set of responses to the most pressing challenges facing American democracy, many of which preceded the 2016 election, but almost all of which were brought into sharper focus by it. Implicit in the choice to take up an electoral-reform bill as the first act of the new Democratic majority in the House was the decision to confront not only these injustices but, more fundamentally, the forces that have allowed them to come into existence. The bill contains provisions to insure access to paper ballots, in order to verify the accuracy of voting results; to establish early voting in all states for federal elections; and to launch independent redistricting commissions, to address the problem of partisan gerrymandering.

(“Access” to paper ballots. Oh.) Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a scathing WaPo Op-Ed, dubbed it “the Democrat Politician Protection Act,” and given what we know about how the liberal Democrat establishment operates, it would be strange indeed if the bill did work in their favor, institutionally. Now, I have no doubt that there are good things in the bill; but it’s 600 pages long, and I don’t have time to go through it all to find them. I do think, however, that the bill presents four major problems: Two Easter Eggs, little hidden surprises, and two Trojan Horses, something seemingly benign that is in fact destructive (in this case, of democracy, ironically enough in a bill titled “For the People”). The two Easter Eggs are raised barriers to small parties and digital voting; the two Trojan Horses are a role for the intelligence community, and the nature of campaign contribututions.

Easter Egg: Barriers to Small Parties

Bruce Dixon comments:

HR 1 is surgically aimed to eliminate federal matching funds for Green Party candidates by raising the qualifying amount from its current level of $5,000 in each of 20 states to $25,000 in 20 states. HR 1 would cut funding for a Green presidential candidate in half, and by making ballot access for a Green presidential candidate impossible in several states it would also guarantee loss of the party’s ability to run for local offices.

From the Bill:

SEC. 5202. ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR MATCHING PAYMENTS. (a) Amount Of Aggregate Contributions Per State; Disregarding Of Amounts Contributed In Excess Of $200.—Section 9033(b)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended— (1) by striking “$5,000” and inserting “$25,000”; and (2) by striking “20 States” and inserting the following: “20 States (disregarding any amount of contributions from any such resident to the extent that the total of the amounts contributed by such resident for the election exceeds $200)”.

Easter Egg: Digital Voting

Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!–Edsger W. Dijkstra

In other words, digital must be removed everywhere in the voting and tabulating process, because otherwise the vote is vulnerable to hacking and election fraud. That’s why hand-marked paper ballots, hand-counted in public, are the world standard. To quote another programming proverb: “The cheapest, fastest, and most reliable components are those that aren’t there” (Gordon Bell).

From the Bill; I’ve helpfully underlined and noted in square brackets the problematic portions of the text:

SEC. 1502. PAPER BALLOT AND MANUAL COUNTING REQUIREMENTS. (a) In General.—Section 301(a)(2) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (52 U.S.C. 21081(a)(2)) is amended to read as follows: “(2) PAPER BALLOT REQUIREMENT.— “(A) VOTER-VERIFIED PAPER BALLOTS.— “(i) PAPER BALLOT REQUIREMENT.— (I) The voting system shall require the use of an individual, durable, voter-verified, paper ballot of the voter’s vote that shall [A] be marked and made available for inspection and verification by the voter before the voter’s vote is cast and counted, and which shall be counted by hand [B] or read by an optical character recognition device or other counting device . For purposes of this subclause, the term ‘individual, durable, voter-verified, paper ballot’ means a paper ballot marked by the voter by hand [C] or a paper ballot marked through the use of a nontabulating ballot marking device or system , [D] so long as the voter shall have the option to mark his or her ballot by hand . “(II) The voting system shall provide the voter with an opportunity to correct any error on the paper ballot before the permanent voter-verified paper ballot is preserved in accordance with clause (ii). “(III) The voting system shall not preserve the voter-verified paper ballots in any manner that makes it possible, at any time after the ballot has been cast, to associate a voter with the record of the voter’s vote without the voter’s consent. “(ii) PRESERVATION AS OFFICIAL RECORD.—The individual, durable, voter-verified, paper ballot used in accordance with clause (i) shall constitute the official ballot and shall be preserved and [E] used as the official ballot for purposes of any recount or audit conducted with respect to any election for Federal office in which the voting system is used. “(iii) MANUAL COUNTING REQUIREMENTS FOR RECOUNTS AND AUDITS.— (I) Each paper ballot used pursuant to clause (i) shall be suitable for a manual audit, and shall be counted by hand in any recount or audit conducted with respect to any election for Federal office.

[A] “be marked” leaves the agent doing the marking unspecified (see notes [C] and [D).

[B] “or read by an optical character recognition device or other counting device” means that the count need not be by hand, and need not be public.

[C] “marked through the use of a nontabulating ballot marking device or system,” for example, hackable touch screens.

[D] “shall have the option to mark his or her ballot by hand” means that voting machine vendors can use UI/UX “dark patterns” to discourage hand-marking.

[E] “used as the official ballot for purposes of any recount” means that the paper ballot is not the official ballot (!!) until a recount is performed. But how do we know to perform a recount if an election has been successfully hacked? Why not just make the paper ballot the official ballot to begin with[1], and get rid of all the digital cruft, as they do in Canada, Germany, and the UK?[2]

Collectively, the notes show that the section title — “Subtitle F—Promoting Accuracy, Integrity, And Security Through Voter-Verified Permanent Paper Ballot” — is at best deceptive and at worse a bait-and-switch. This entire section is so sloppy and bad it might as well have been written by an e-voting lobbyist. For me, it calls the good faith of the entire bill into question. Anybody who thinks this bill advances the cause of paper ballots in any way is a fool gravely mistaken.

Trojan Horse: Intelligence Community

From the Bill; I’ve helpfully underlined and noted in square brackets the problematic portions of the text: