Day 341: Let’s Put Our Heads Together And Start A New Country Up

New Orleans … Unified New Orleans Process … voting … Diebold … Ohio …

What do all of these terms have in common? Me. Over the last week, I’ve

– taken part in the latest Orleans Parish plan for federal recovery funds,

– read about the worst ever security flaw in the Diebold voting machine,

– flown to Ohio (home of Diebold and my parents), and

– voted for my top choices of New Orleans Planning District 2 planner using the puzzling UNOP online voting system.

Becky Houtman explains the meaning of this vote (“just in case it matters”) with a sound grasp of the history of planning in New New Orleans. Think New Orleans rightly questions the validity of a voting tool in which “suffrage is determined by the possession of an email address.” Three points from the latter post garner my elaboration:

1. Thus, my regular readers in Michigan, California, Australia, England, India and Germany now have all they need to vote for neighborhood or district planners in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

On reading this statement, the first thing that came to mind was “As if these people have nothing better to do with their time than vote for New Orleans neighborhood or district planners. Yeah, they care.” Then it hit me – there is nothing to stop anyone with an email address from monkeying with the system for fun OR a colleague, family member or friend of any of these out-of-state planners from stuffing the ballot.

Who knows? Australians and Germans may have a better idea of what’s good for us than our elected government.

2. Obscurity is not a means of preventing fraud. Any reasonably resourceful computer user will discover that they can vote from multiple email accounts. Any reasonably resourceful computer user will discover that they can vote regardless of their residence.

Take the example of me, who just voted for my preferred planners from my mom’s laptop in Ohio. If I were one of the large Katrina diaspora or simply couldn’t be in town to cast a physical vote, this is a great way to take part in the process after watching the presentations online.

Yet, the system has no inherent fraud prevention system. I possess nine active email addresses and, just in case the votes are IP-logged (they’re not), also have access to three computers at home and as many as I want at my workplace and the homes of friends and family. There is no system in place to deter me from voting more than once for my favorite planner.

As for my UNOP-profferred member (2-019) that I was to hang onto in order to vote, it’s useless now. So, what did we stand in that long line for?

You ask, “Who would want to take the trouble to rig this system? And, why don’t we give New Orleanians the benefit of the honor system?” Hahahahaha. You’re so funny.

3. I ask that neighborhoods be allowed to conduct a poll using the decision making processes of the neighborhood groups. Where there is no neighborhood group in place, I ask that an experienced third party conduct the poll.

You may argue that the UNOP eVote is a simple vote collecting system that should not be held up to the scrutiny of a presidential election (as if that is held up to anything resembling accountability in this nation any longer). Why not? Even the employees of UNOP agree that this is a “democratic process” to come up with a plan for “one of the most important rebuilding efforts this nation has witnessed.” [Both verbatim phrases of two different UNOP board members] Why shouldn’t we make it meaningful?

A meaningful voting tool would be one that

• informs everyone of the plan,
• recognizes that not all people, much less neighborhood organizations, can get their act together in less than a week, and
• gives the members of each neighborhood association the time to hold a useful meeting and select the best planner for their area and its specific needs, whether it is architectural/cultural preservation, small business growth, affordable housing or just plain start-from-scratch rebuilding. While they were telling us what to do, how hard was it for the people in charge of the micrphones to give us the guidance that the heads of all neighborhood associations be involved and allot them two weeks to hold a meeting to come up with a real unified plan?

Is the object here to vote to meet an arbitrary deadline and thus hapahazardly spew money into New Orleans? Or is it to take the extra time to keep it a “neighborhood-driven process” wherein, given 15 pre-chosen planners, neighborhoods as a self-governing entity truly research, discuss and select the closest approximation of what is right for them? (If the basis of selection is the set of presentations, the whole city wants Goody Clancy or Frederick Schwartz.) Our parish has molded three times over for more than eleven months, what is the rush now?

As a friend constantly reminds his clients, “You guys always want me to do the job fast, cheap and well. Please pick two out of three and call me back.” Something’s got to give and will in this case; it’s a law of sociophysics.

With that I end this transmission from the state that’s almost a palindrome. If anyone wants me to leave a flaming poo at Diebold’s front doorstep, vote early and vote often.

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P.S. A red dot to the one who can tell me the origin of this post’s title.