Consent of the governed is the foundation of good, healthy democracy. So are accountability and transparency of process. So the ongoing refusal of Lt. Gov. Loren Leman and his Division of Elections to address massive vote-tallying irregularities is more than a little troubling.

In the 2004 election, the state used voting machines developed by Diebold, a firm which gained notoriety and fanned a controversy when its pro-Republican CEO announced prior to the election that he would deliver a Bush victory. It would be easy to pass off the comment as idle bravado except for the ease with which the Diebold machines can be “hacked” and manipulated without so much as a paper trail or any kind of backup system to verify results.

When district-by-district totals came up with some 101,000 votes more than official state totals showed for George W. Bush, eyebrows rightfully were raised. Sadly, the Division of Elections, which could have shut down any speculation about wrongdoing simply by releasing the database and database backup file, has refused to do so. Despite the company's willingness to comply, the Division of Elections says making this information public might compromise the integrity and confidentiality of Diebold's information. So what about the integrity of the electoral process?

What kind of twisted logic is the division applying when it says not releasing the information is simply an extension of its mission to protect the election process? Why should the public's confidence in the system take a back seat to protecting a private company - especially when that protection could be viewed as covering up an irregularity in the system?

Given the division's inability in recent years to avoid partisanship through active advocacy for one side of an issue over another, this kind of thinking is especially worrisome. Leman got the division in a bit of hot water in 2004 by employing less-than-neutral wording in one draft of a proposal to change how U.S. Senate vacancies are filled. That fiasco led to reprinting ballots and contributed to nearly $1 million in cost overruns hung on taxpayers by the division during the 2004 election cycle.

The involvement of a staffer in ghostwriting a summary of the last marijuana ballot initiative, along with current questionable involvement in a bill designed to make it more difficult for a legislator to be recalled, only fuel suspicions further that partisanship, not fairness or good public policy, is at the heart of the division's modus operandi.

There is no place for this kind of behavior in a free society that values fundamental notions of democracy. Likewise, there is no reason for the Diebold information to be suppressed.

By releasing the information and eliminating lingering questions about the Diebold machines, Lt. Gov. Leman and the Division of Elections can show they value accountability, fairness and transparency as much as regular Alaskans do.