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1
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- Hugh Gallagher
- Managing Director
- Election Systems Acquisition & Management Services
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- US Airline industry has exceptional safety record but accidents do
occur!
- including crashes from human and/or mechanical error.
- Academic experts propose replacing flotation devices on every commercial
jet with individual passenger emergency parachutes!
- experts acknowledge expense but argue deaths can be reduced and that
you can’t put a price on safety.
- Members of the U.S. House and Senate propose legislation
- H.B. 737 – The Personal Passenger Parachute Proposal and S.B. 757 – The
Silk Seats are Safer Solution
- mandates retrofitting of every U.S. jet airliner by Thanksgiving 2004
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3
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- Media has joined rally cry for passenger parachutes citing past aviation
disasters.
- Media has ignored warnings regarding the costs of mandated parachutes
and unanticipated effects of such legislation.
- Media has dismissed warnings from disabled travelers advocacy groups.
- the fact that disabled travelers will be relegated to less accessible
portions of an aircraft in order to minimize disruption to non-disabled
travelers donning and using their parachutes in an emergency is
dismissed
- Media has sympathetically embraced academics and zealots whose militant
irrationality is being translated as a passionate commitment to safety.
- reasonable people are much less entertaining; conspiracy theorists with
apocalyptic visions sell more papers.
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5
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- Aviation professionals agree that more work needs to be done to reduce
airline accidents, and “zero” accidents is a worthy goal – this is never
reported.
- Differences of opinion exist in the aviation community on how to prevent
accidents.
- numerous arguments have been offered against parachutes in addition to
initial capital costs, methods of egress, impact on disabled travelers
and the infeasibility of installing parachutes before Thanksgiving
2004.
- Opponents of proposed parachute legislation have been attacked for
taking money from the industry:
- “ We know that many aviation professionals receive money from the
airline industry. Various fees
and taxes paid by the airlines to federal, state, and local governments
are used to pay the salaries or consultation costs of these naïve and
unreasoned opponents. You know like pilots, airline attendants, Air
Traffic Controllers, the National Transportation Safety Board, Rescue
Workers, and others. Can you
believe airline pilots who oppose the legislation actually get paid by
the various airline carriers?
These people all have financial motives and we must question
this at all cost. They don’t
care about safety, they care about money only.”
- Betty Harry, author of Black Parachutes Falling (on sale for
$19.95)
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- It is a safe assumption that the U.S. passenger air fleet will be
grounded during the holiday season.
- with a large number of commercial airline planes and a limited number
of parachute manufacturers, and the fact that there is only 4 months to
design and manufacture hundreds of thousands of parachutes ensures the
removal of non-compliant aircraft and this mean air travel will be
safer, but automotive travel will increase substantially and so will
road fatalities.
- The proposed federal law if passed would require planes to fly both
lower and slower since at current speeds (550 mph) and altitudes (35,000
feet) preclude the use of parachutes safely.
- flights will take twice as long, the airline industry will require more
planes to serve their current passenger capacity – this will also mean
longer delays of planes waiting to depart and more circling airborne
waiting to land.
- In addition, even with altitude and speed restrictions, there will still
need to be additional equipment (oxygen tanks for those with respiratory
conditions – unless they are relegated to the disabled traveler service
only flights) and airplane retrofitting to install wider aisles for
donning parachutes, more doors for egress, etc.
- Airplane crews will need additional training and will themselves be
required to attend skydiving school – this may cause experienced
personnel to leave the industry.
- More importantly, aviation professionals warn that parachutes are not a
guarantee of safety.
- parachutes can jam or tear, especially in the hands of first time
users.
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- October 30, 1938 – Orson Welles’ radio program “The War of the Worlds”
created hysteria among thousands of people – they actually believed
Martians were attacking.
- Welles’ unintentional facilitation of mass hysteria provided a useful
model for a fictional account demonstrating the absurdity of a very
real scenario now playing out in our nation’s Capitol.
- The Voter Verifiable Paper Trail Proposal is another example of mass
hysteria and does present a real threat to the integrity of the November
2004 Presidential Election – as with the fictional parachute debate, the
functioning of a system vital to the importance of our way of life is
under siege.
- self-anointed/self promoting “experts”, predominantly computer
scientists with no experience running elections have got this ball
rolling – many promoting paper as a solution have grant proposals into
the National Science Foundation to solve the dilemma which they
themselves have created – one “expert” has submitted a grant request
for $10M.
- voting rights activists pushing paper are generally people who believe
the 2000 election was stolen – conspiracy theorists have gotten into
the act as well.
- legislation has been proposed (H.R. 2239) that creates an impossible
deadline with drastic consequences.
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9
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10
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11
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12
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13
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14
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15
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- Primum non nocere
- (Firstly cause no harm)
- “A wise physician would not with a cursory evaluation, diagnose a life
threatening condition casually. A
thorough review of the patient’s history and rigorous diagnostics would
be performed. Tests, evaluations, and consultations at a minimum would
be required. Not to do so would
violate this most important of physician oaths.”
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- Expect problems with new voting machines – mostly because they’re new
and people aren’t used to them yet.
- Any jurisdictions that have made substantial changes to their voting
systems are the places where the most problems are likely to occur.
- But problems would also occur with adding VVPAT technology.
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17
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- The rush to upgrade voting equipment prompted by HAVA has almost ensured
some Election Day complications in November.
- Past or anticipated problems primarily related to one vendor do not
justify sidelining reliable and efficient voting systems and forcing 50
million voters to use paper.
- We can spend the next four months trying to solve the isolated problems
some jurisdictions are having with certain models of electronic voting
systems, or we can pursue the impossible dream of those who have more
suspicion than experience and more enthusiasm than expertise.
- Vendors need to get their respective houses in order – they need to
follow the policies, procedures and processes they have defined and not
deviate even at the request of customers.
- Jurisdictions using or planning to use new electronic voting systems,
must also take responsibility for ensuring the success of their vendor
and the implementation of the systems they purchase – both sides in the
contract have responsibilities.
- We should let the new Election Assistance Commission do their job – but
the commission has to get involved now and stop talking and start doing!
- EAC should ask for forgiveness and not permission from Congress
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Notes
